CN104144521B

CN104144521B - Relay communication method, apparatus and system

Info

Publication number: CN104144521B
Application number: CN201310166761.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王晓娜; 曾昆; 李铕
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2013-05-08
Filing date: 2013-05-08
Publication date: 2018-09-11
Anticipated expiration: 2033-05-08
Also published as: CN104144521A; WO2014180328A1

Abstract

A kind of relay communication method of offer of the embodiment of the present invention, apparatus and system.This method includes：The first relaying, which is sent, to the first equipment for providing service by first base station establishes instruction；The second relaying, which is sent, to the second user equipment for providing service by the second base station establishes instruction；Instruction is established according to the first relaying and establishes instruction with the second relaying, establishes the repeated link that the first equipment carries out communication service by second user equipment and the second base station.The program is realized when the first equipment in the region that first base station is covered can not carry out the communication service for meeting business demand and when can not access other base stations due to too far etc. by first base station, determine relay base station and trunk subscriber equipment, by trunk subscriber equipment and relay base station business service is provided for the first equipment, to improve the availability of frequency spectrum, balanced each cell traffic load.

Description

Relay communication method, device and system

Technical Field

The embodiment of the invention relates to the technical field of communication, in particular to a relay communication method, device and system.

Background

In a wide coverage scene, in order to implement unified Management of base stations in a coverage area, a centralized control entity (controller) is introduced, and the controller uniformly controls and manages the work of each base station in the coverage area, such as Radio Resource Management (RRM) functions of user switching, user interference, load coordination, encryption authentication and the like; in a suburb coverage scene, suburb user data in the initial stage of network deployment and rural users are less, and in order to save the cost for laying a network, a suburb base station is accessed to a common base station by adopting a Relay (hereinafter referred to as Relay), so that communication transmission is realized.

However, for a wide coverage scenario, when a link between a base station of a cell and a user equipment cannot provide a service for the user equipment, for example, an air interface resource is insufficient or the base station fails, the user equipment cannot perform communication; for suburban coverage scenarios, when a link between a suburban base station and a relay cannot provide service, for example, the relay fails or the transmission capability between the relay and the suburban base station cannot meet new service requirements, the suburban base station will not be able to communicate.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments of the present invention provide a relay communication method, apparatus, and system, to solve the problem that a user equipment cannot communicate with a suburban base station when the user equipment cannot obtain a communication service meeting a service requirement through a local cell base station, or when the suburban base station cannot obtain a communication service meeting a service requirement through a relay.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a relay communication method, including:

transmitting a first relay setup instruction to a first device served by a first base station;

sending a second relay establishment instruction to a second user equipment served by a second base station;

and establishing a relay link for the first equipment to perform communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction.

In a first possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the establishing, according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction, a relay link for the first device to perform a communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment, and according to the first relay service parameter and the second relay service parameter, the establishing a relay link between the first device and the relay user equipment and the relay base station includes:

establishing a relay link based on the relay second base station, the second relay user equipment and the first equipment according to the first relay service parameter relay establishing instruction and the second relay service parameter establishing instruction; or,

or, according to the first relay establishment instruction relay service parameter and the second relay establishment instruction relay service parameter, establishing a relay link based on the first base station, the relay second base station, the second relay user equipment, and the first equipment.

With reference to the first aspect or the first possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in a second possible implementation manner of the first aspect, before the sending the first relay establishment instruction to the first device served by the first base station, the method further includes:

determining whether a relay service needs to be provided for the first device under the first base station.

With reference to the second possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in a third possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the determining whether a relay service needs to be provided for the first device under the first base station includes:

if the air interface resource of the first base station is determined to be insufficient, providing inter-cell relay service for first user equipment to be accessed to the first base station; or,

if it is determined that the first base station cannot provide the service meeting the service requirement for the accessed device, the inter-cell relay service needs to be provided for the first user equipment under the first base station; or,

if the link failure between the first base station and the suburban base station is determined, the relay service needs to be provided for the suburban base station.

With reference to the second possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in a fourth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the determining whether a relay service needs to be provided for the first device under the first base station includes:

if receiving an inter-cell relay service request sent by the first base station, providing an inter-cell relay service for first equipment under the first base station; or,

if a service upgrading request containing a service requirement and sent by the first base station is received, relay service needs to be provided for a suburb base station, wherein the service upgrading request is sent by the first base station when a new service request sent by the suburb base station is received.

With reference to the fourth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in a fifth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the inter-cell relay service request includes:

at least one of an identifier of the first base station, an identifier of the first device, location information of the first device, traffic demand information of the first device, a traffic type of the first device, and a relay service demand trigger reason of the first device.

With reference to the first aspect and any one of the first to fifth possible implementation manners of the first aspect, in a sixth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, before the sending the second relay establishment instruction to the second user equipment served by the second base station, the method includes:

and determining a second base station capable of providing the relay service for the first equipment and second user equipment under the second base station.

With reference to the sixth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in a seventh possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the determining a second base station providing a relay service for the first device and a second user equipment under the second base station includes:

collecting and acquiring relay service information of adjacent base stations of the first base station and user equipment under the adjacent base stations;

determining a first adjacent base station capable of providing relay service in adjacent base stations of the first base station and first relay user equipment capable of providing relay service under the first adjacent base station according to the relay service information;

measuring communication between the first user equipment and first relay user equipment under the first adjacent base station to obtain a measurement result;

and determining a second base station and a second user equipment which provide the inter-cell relay service for the first equipment according to the measurement result.

With reference to the seventh possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in an eighth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the collecting and acquiring relay service information of a neighboring base station of the first base station and user equipments under the neighboring base station includes:

collecting and acquiring at least one of cell position information, cell coverage information, cell spectrum resource use condition, cell user access success rate and cell online user number of adjacent base stations of the first base station;

and collecting and acquiring at least one of information of relay capability, position, electric quantity, existing service condition and moving condition of the user equipment under the adjacent base station.

With reference to the seventh or eighth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, in a nine possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the measuring communication between the first user equipment and the first relay user equipment under the first neighboring base station to obtain a measurement result includes:

sending a measurement configuration message to the first user equipment and the first relay user equipment, the measurement configuration message including: at least one information of a measurement frequency point, a measurement gap, a measurement result reporting identifier, a reporting format and a measurement identifier;

receiving measurement results sent by the first user equipment and the first relay user equipment, wherein the measurement results comprise: at least one of the measured signal strengths.

With reference to the first aspect and any one of the first to ninth possible implementation manners of the first aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the first relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the second user equipment, a relay frequency point of the second user equipment, and a relay bandwidth of the second user equipment, and the second relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the first device, a relay frequency point of the first device, and a relay bandwidth of the first device.

With reference to the first aspect and any one of the first to tenth possible implementation manners of the first aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the first aspect, if the second user equipment is at least two second user equipments, the method further includes:

and sending distribution ratio indication information to gateway equipment and/or a base station, so that the gateway equipment and/or the base station distribute the relay traffic of the at least two second user equipment according to the distribution ratio indication information.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a relay communication apparatus, including:

a first sending module, configured to send a first relay establishment instruction to a first device served by a first base station;

a second sending module, configured to send a second relay establishment instruction to a second user equipment served by a second base station;

and the establishing module is used for establishing a relay link for the first equipment to perform communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment according to the first relay establishing instruction and the second relay establishing instruction.

In a first possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the establishing module is specifically configured to:

establishing a relay link based on the second base station, the second user equipment and the first equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction; or,

and establishing a relay link based on the first base station, the second user equipment and the first equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction.

With reference to the second aspect or the first possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in a second possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the apparatus further includes:

the first determining module is used for determining whether a relay service needs to be provided for a first device under a first base station.

With reference to the second possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in a third possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the first determining module is specifically configured to:

and if determining that the link between the first base station and the suburban base station is in failure, providing relay service for the suburban base station.

With reference to the second possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in a fourth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the first determining module is further configured to, if an inter-cell relay service request sent by the first base station is received, need to provide an inter-cell relay service for a first device under the first base station; or,

if a service upgrading request containing a service requirement and sent by the first base station is received, a relay service needs to be provided for the suburb base station, and the service upgrading request is sent by the first base station when a new service request sent by the suburb base station is received.

With reference to the fourth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in a fifth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the inter-cell relay service request includes:

With reference to the second aspect and the first to fifth possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a sixth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the apparatus further includes:

a second determining module, configured to determine a second base station capable of providing a relay service for the first device and a second user equipment under the second base station.

With reference to the sixth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in a seventh possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the second determining module includes:

a collecting unit, configured to collect and acquire relay service information of a neighboring base station of the first base station and user equipment under the neighboring base station;

a first determining unit, configured to determine, according to the relay service information, a first neighboring base station that can provide a relay service among neighboring base stations of the first base station and a first relay user equipment that can provide the relay service under the first neighboring base station;

a measurement unit, configured to measure communication between the first user equipment and a first relay user equipment in the first neighboring base station, and obtain a measurement result;

a second determining unit, configured to determine, according to the measurement result, a relay base station and a relay user equipment that provide an inter-cell relay service for the first device.

With reference to the seventh possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in an eighth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the collecting unit is specifically configured to:

With reference to the seventh or eighth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, in a ninth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the measurement unit is specifically configured to:

With reference to the second aspect and any one of the first to ninth possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the first relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the second user equipment, a relay frequency point of the second user equipment, and a relay bandwidth of the second user equipment, and the second relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the first device, a relay frequency point of the first device, and a relay bandwidth of the first device.

With reference to the second aspect and any one of the first to tenth possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the apparatus further includes:

a third sending module, configured to send, if the relay user equipment is at least two second user equipments, offloading ratio indication information to a gateway device and/or a base station, so that the gateway device and/or the base station offload relay traffic of the at least two second user equipments according to the offloading ratio indication information.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a communication system, including at least two base stations, where at least one base station in the at least two base stations includes a relay communication device according to any one of the sixth to eleventh possible implementation manners of the second aspect, the first aspect, the second aspect, or the second aspect.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a communication system, including a controller and at least two base stations, where the controller includes the relay communication device as described above.

In the relay communication method, the relay communication device and the relay communication system provided by the embodiment of the invention, the base station or the centralized control entity establishes the relay link for the first equipment to communicate with the second base station by taking the second user equipment as the relay user equipment, so that the first equipment can obtain the service from the second base station through the second user equipment, and when the first equipment in the area covered by the first base station cannot obtain the communication service meeting the service requirement through the first base station, the second base station and the second user equipment are determined, and the service is provided for the first equipment through the second user equipment and the second base station, so that the spectrum utilization rate is improved, and the service load of each cell is balanced.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without creative efforts.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a relay communication method according to a first embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2A is a schematic view of a wide coverage scenario according to a second embodiment of the relay communication method of the present invention;

FIG. 2B is a first signaling diagram of the scenario illustrated in FIG. 2A;

FIG. 2C is a second signaling diagram of the scenario shown in FIG. 2A;

fig. 3A is a schematic diagram of an LTE-Hi communication scenario in a third embodiment of the relay communication method according to the present invention;

FIG. 3B is a first signaling diagram of the scenario illustrated in FIG. 3A;

fig. 4A is a schematic diagram of a suburban coverage scenario in a third embodiment of the relay communication method in the present invention;

FIG. 4B is a signaling diagram of the scenario shown in FIG. 4A;

fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a relay communication device according to a first embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a second relay communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of the relay communication device in the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are some, but not all, embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a relay communication method according to a first embodiment of the present invention, where an execution subject of the present embodiment is a base station or a centralized control entity. As shown in fig. 1, the relay communication method of the present embodiment may include:

101. a first relay establishment instruction is sent to a first device served by a first base station.

The first device is a device served by the first base station, which may be a user equipment, for example: the mobile phone, the smart television with internet access function, and the like may also be a suburban base station that performs communication service with the first base station through a relay (relay), and generally, there may be a plurality of user equipments or suburban base stations under the first base station, and for the sake of clarity, the equipment that needs to provide the relay service is referred to as the first equipment. In this step, when the base station or the centralized control entity determines that relay service needs to be provided for the first device under the first base station, a first relay establishment instruction is sent to the first device.

102. And transmitting a second relay establishment instruction to a second user equipment served by the second base station.

The second user equipment refers to a user equipment that can act as a relay, which can act as a relay for the first device to communicate with the second base station. When the first base station cannot provide the communication service for the first device due to some reason, the second device may act as a relay, so that the first device may communicate with the second base station with the second device acting as the relay. In this step, when the base station or the centralized control entity determines a second base station and a second user equipment that can provide a relay service for the first device under the first base station, a second relay setup instruction is sent to the second user equipment.

103. And establishing a relay link for the first user equipment to perform communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction.

After a centralized control entity or a base station sends a first relay establishment instruction to first equipment under a first base station and sends a second relay establishment instruction to second equipment under a second base station, a relay link for communication service between the first user equipment and the second base station through the second user equipment is established. Optionally, a relay link based on the second base station, the second user equipment, and the first device may be established according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction; or establishing a relay link based on the first base station, the second user equipment and the first equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction.

In the relay communication method provided by the embodiment of the present invention, the base station or the centralized control entity establishes the relay link through which the first device communicates with the second base station by using the second user equipment as the relay user equipment, so that the first device can obtain the service from the second base station through the second user equipment, and when the first device in the area covered by the first base station cannot obtain the communication service meeting the service requirement through the first base station, the second base station and the second user equipment are determined, and the service is provided for the first device through the second user equipment and the second base station, thereby improving the spectrum utilization rate and balancing the service load of each cell.

Further, before transmitting the first relay establishment instruction to the first device served by the first base station, it is necessary to determine whether the relay service needs to be provided for the first device under the first base station.

The base station or the centralized control entity determines whether a relay service needs to be provided for a first device under a first base station, that is, determines whether the first device needs to use another device as a relay user equipment, and obtains the service through a base station providing the service for the relay user equipment, that is, a relay base station. The first device may be a user equipment or a suburban base station, for example, in a wide coverage scenario and an LTE-Hi communication scenario, the first device is specifically a user equipment, and the centralized control entity or the base station determines whether a relay service needs to be provided for the first device according to a link condition between the user equipment and the first base station, a service requirement of the user equipment, and the like; in a suburban coverage scenario, the first device is specifically a suburban base station, and the first base station connected to the suburban base station through a Relay (Relay) determines whether a Relay service needs to be provided for the suburban base station according to a current link condition, a service condition, and the like.

Further, before sending the second relay establishment instruction to the second user equipment served by the second base station, it is necessary to determine the second base station capable of providing the relay service for the first equipment and the second user equipment under the second base station.

If it is determined that relay service needs to be provided for the first device under the first base station, for example, when the air interface resource of the first base station is limited, the first device cannot establish a communication link with the first base station, and the first device cannot access another base station for communication due to reasons such as too long distance, the base station or the centralized control entity determines a second base station that provides relay service for the first device, and selects a device that can provide relay service for the first device from user devices in a cell covered by the second base station as a second user device, that is, a relay user device.

After the second base station and the second user equipment are determined, the base station or the centralized control entity establishes a communication link between the first equipment and the second user equipment as well as the second base station, so that the first equipment can obtain service for a relay through the second user equipment and the second base station, and communication service is realized.

In the relay communication method provided by the embodiment of the present invention, when a base station or a centralized control entity determines that a relay service needs to be provided for a first device under a first base station, a second base station and a second user device that provide the relay service for the first device are determined, and a communication link between the first device and the second user device and between the first device and the second base station is established, so that the first device can obtain a service from the second base station through the second user device, and when the first device in an area covered by the first base station cannot obtain a communication service that meets a service requirement through the first base station, the second base station and the second user device are determined, and the service is provided for the first device through the second user device and the second base station, thereby improving a spectrum utilization rate and balancing service loads of cells.

In the first embodiment, the execution subject may be a base station or a centralized control entity. Generally, for a communication network introducing a centralized control entity or a network element in the communication network having a function similar to that of the centralized control entity, such as a macro station (Marco) in an LTE-Hi communication network, since the centralized control entity uniformly manages all base stations in the communication network, the centralized control entity may be responsible for determining relay communication decision operations such as a first device that needs to provide a relay service, a second base station that can provide the relay service, and a second user equipment. For a communication network without introducing a centralized control entity, because each base station can communicate with another base station through an interface between the base stations, each base station can know the current status of other base stations, especially adjacent base stations, and therefore, the base station can also be responsible for determining relay communication decision-making work such as a first device which needs to provide relay service, a second base station which can provide relay service, a second user equipment and the like. In addition, the base station and the centralized control entity may also work in coordination with each other, for example, the base station is responsible for determining whether to provide the relay service, and the centralized control entity is responsible for determining the relay communication decision work such as the second base station and the second user equipment, and the invention is not limited thereto. Specifically, if the centralized control entity or the base station determines that the air interface resource of the first base station is insufficient, it needs to provide an inter-cell relay service for the first user equipment to be accessed to the first base station; or, if the centralized control entity or the base station determines that the first base station cannot provide the service meeting the service requirement for the accessed device, it needs to provide the inter-cell relay service for the first user equipment under the first base station; alternatively, if it is determined that a link failure occurs between the first base station and the suburban base station, for example, a Relay (Relay) is located in a cell covered by the first base station, and the suburban base station is not located within a range of the cell covered by the first base station, when the communication link between the suburban base station and the Relay or the communication link between the Relay and the first base station fails, so that the suburban base station cannot implement a communication service based on the Relay and the first base station, or when the air resource between the Relay and the suburban base station cannot meet the service requirement of the suburban base station, the Relay service needs to be provided for the suburban base station.

In addition, in the first embodiment, for a communication network introduced with a centralized control entity or a network element in the communication network having a function similar to that of the centralized control entity, such as a macro station (Marco) in an LTE-Hi communication network, if the centralized control entity receives an inter-cell relay service request sent by a first base station, it needs to provide an inter-cell relay service for a first device under the first base station; or, if a service upgrade request including a service requirement sent by the first base station is received, the relay service needs to be provided for the suburban base station, and the service upgrade request is sent by the first base station when the new service request sent by the suburban base station is received.

Further, in the first embodiment, the centralized control entity or the base station may determine, according to the relay service information, a first neighboring base station that can provide the relay service among the neighboring base stations of the first base station and a first relay user equipment that can provide the relay service under the first neighboring base station by collecting and acquiring the relay service information of the neighboring base stations of the first base station and the relay service information of the user equipment under the neighboring base stations, measure communication between the first device and the first relay user equipment, acquire a measurement result, and determine, according to the measurement result, the relay user equipment that provides the inter-cell relay service for the first device, thereby determining a second base station that provides the relay service for the first device and a second user equipment under the second base station.

In the following, embodiments of the present invention are described in detail with several specific application scenarios.

Fig. 2A is a schematic view of a wide coverage scenario according to a second embodiment of the relay communication method of the present invention. As shown in fig. 2A, the first device is a User Equipment (UE), the solid black line is a control signaling, and the dashed black line is a communication link, in this embodiment, the centralized control entity controls an enhanced base station (enhanced Node B, eNodeB) in the communication network: eNB1, eNB2, and eNB3, UE1 is in a cell covered by eNB1 and communicates through eNB1, UE2, UE4 is in a cell covered by eNB2 and communicates through eNB2, UE3 is in a cell covered by eNB3 and communicates with eNB3, and x between eNB1 and UE1 represents that UE1 cannot implement communication service through eNB1 due to limited air interface resources of eNB1, failure of a communication link between eNB1 and UE1, failure of eNB1 to meet service requirements of UE1, and so on between eNB1 and UE 1. In this embodiment, the present invention is described in detail mainly by taking eNB1 as a first base station, eNB2 as a neighboring base station, and UE1 as a first user equipment as an example. In the prior art, when the UE1 cannot access the eNB1 or the eNB1 for some reason to provide a service meeting a service requirement for the accessed UE1, the UE1 is far away from the enbs 2 and 3, and cannot communicate with the eNB2 or the eNB3 to acquire a required service. In this embodiment, the eNB1 and the centralized control entity establish a communication link with the UE2 as a relay for the UE1, so that the UE1 uses the UE2 as a relay, thereby utilizing the idle resources of the eNB2 for communication.

It should be noted that, in this embodiment, the present invention is described in detail by taking an example in which only enbs 2 and 3 of eNB1 are neighbor base stations, and only UEs 1 are included in cells covered by enbs 1 and 2, and only UEs 3 are included in cells covered by UEs 2, UEs 4 and enbs 3, however, the present invention is not limited thereto, and in an actual embodiment, the neighbor base stations of eNB1 may be multiple, and the user equipments in the cells covered by enbs 1, 2 and eNB3 may also be multiple.

Fig. 2B is a first signaling diagram of the scenario shown in fig. 2A. Referring to fig. 2A, in this embodiment, the centralized control entity and the base station complete the relay communication decision. Specifically, the present embodiment may include the following steps:

201. the eNB1 determines whether relay service needs to be provided for the UE 1.

In this step, if the UE1 is ready to access the cell in which the UE is located, that is, the cell covered by the eNB1, and the UE1 cannot access the eNB1 or the access success rate is low due to limited air interface resources, the eNB1 determines that the relay service needs to be provided for the UE 1; or, if the UE1 has accessed the eNB1, when the UE1 has a demand for improving the service experience, but the eNB1 cannot provide the UE1 with the demand for meeting the demand for improving the service experience, the eNB1 determines that the relay service needs to be provided for the UE 1.

202. The eNB1 sends an inter-cell relay service request to the centralized control entity.

In this step, eNB1 sends an inter-cell relay service request to the centralized control entity to apply for relay service for UE 1. The inter-cell relay service request carries at least one of an identifier of the eNB1, location information of the UE1, traffic demand information of the UE1, a traffic type of the UE1, a departure reason of the relay service demand of the UE1, and the like.

203. The centralized control entity gathers relay service information and determines a first neighboring base station and a first relay user equipment capable of providing relay service.

In this step, the centralized control entity collects relay service information to the neighboring base station of eNB1, that is, eNB2, and since eNB2 knows the current status of UE2 in its coverage area, the relay service information collected by the centralized control entity includes cell operation information of eNB2 and relay service capability information of UE 2. Specifically, the eNB2 may report, to the centralized control entity, cell operation information such as a location of a cell covered by the eNB2, a coverage area, a spectrum resource usage status of the eNB2, an access success rate of the UE2 in the cell covered by the eNB2, and the number of online users accessing the eNB 2; the user equipment in the cell covered by the eNB2 reports relay service capability information such as whether the relay capability, location, power, current traffic situation, mobility status, etc. are available to the eNB2, the eNB2 reports the relay capability information and cell operation information reported by the user equipment to the centralized control entity, and the centralized control entity collects the relay service information including the cell operation information of the eNB2 and the relay service capability information of the UE 2.

According to the collected relay service information, the centralized control entity determines, according to a preset policy and the like, a base station and a user equipment capable of providing the relay service for the UE1 to be a first neighboring base station and a first relay user equipment. For example, the centralized control entity may use, as the first neighboring base station capable of providing relay service for the UE1, a base station with less on-line user equipment, that is, a base station with low resource utilization, among the neighboring base stations of the eNB 1; the user equipment that is relatively stationary and relay capable in the first neighboring base station is taken as the first relay user equipment that is capable of providing relay service to the UE 1.

204. The centralized control entity selects a second base station and a second user equipment for UE 1.

Generally, since the eNB1 may have a plurality of neighboring base stations, for example, as shown in fig. 2A, the eNB1, the eNB2, and the eNB3 are neighboring base stations to each other, in the step 203, the centralized control entity may determine a plurality of first neighboring base stations capable of providing the relay service for the UE1, and at this time, the centralized control entity may perform screening again from the determined plurality of first neighboring base stations, for example, the base station with the smallest resource utilization rate and the closest to the UE1 is taken as the second base station. In addition, there may be a plurality of user equipments in the cell covered by each base station. Therefore, in step 203, there may be a plurality of first relay user equipments determined by the centralized control entity to be capable of providing the relay service for the UE1, in this case, the centralized control entity may measure the communication between the determined first relay user equipment and the first equipment and obtain a measurement result, and according to the measurement result, select an appropriate relay user equipment from the determined plurality of first relay user equipments as the second user equipment.

Specifically, the centralized control entity may send a measurement configuration message to the first relay user equipment, where the measurement configuration message includes: at least one of information such as a measurement frequency point, a measurement gap, a measurement result reporting identifier, a reporting format, a measurement identifier and the like. For example, if it is determined that the eNB2 is the first neighboring base station and the UE2 is the user equipment with relay capability, the centralized control entity may send a measurement configuration message to the UE2 through the eNB2 to detect whether the UE2 is the most suitable relay user equipment for the UE1, and the UE2 reports a result of the measurement configuration to the centralized control entity, where the reported result at least includes the signal strength of the UE2 as the relay user equipment.

205. The centralized control entity sends a first relay setup instruction to the UE 1.

The centralized control entity issues a first relay establishment instruction to a first device, that is, UE1, where the first relay establishment instruction carries various information of a second user equipment, that is, UE2, such as at least one of information including an identifier of a relay link established, an identifier of UE2 of the second user equipment, a relay frequency point of UE2, a relay bandwidth of UE2, and an identifier of eNB2, so that UE1 knows state information of UE2 providing a relay service and uses UE2 as a relay to perform relay communication.

206. The centralized control entity sends a second relay setup instruction to the UE 2.

The centralized control entity issues a second relay establishment instruction to the second user equipment, that is, UE2, where the second relay establishment instruction carries various information of the first user equipment, that is, UE1, such as at least one of an identifier of UE1, a relay frequency point of UE1, and a relay bandwidth of UE1, so that UE2 knows status information of UE1 needing to be provided with a relay service to provide a relay communication service for UE 1.

207. The centralized control entity establishes a relay link between UE1 and UE 2.

After determining the second base station and the second user equipment, the centralized control entity may establish a communication link between the first user equipment and the second user equipment, that is, establish a communication link between the UE1 and the UE2, so that the UE1 obtains traffic services through the UE2 and the eNB 2. Specifically, the present step may include the following substeps:

2071. the centralized control entity informs the eNB2 to establish a relay link between UE1 and UE 2;

2072. the centralized control entity establishes a relay link between UE1 and UE 2.

Because the base stations can communicate with each other through the base station interface, each base station can be connected with the core network, and the user equipment can obtain service from the core network through any base station. Generally, in order to avoid excessive signaling overhead, a relay link based on a first base station, a second user equipment, and a first device may be established, that is, a communication link of a serving gateway (not shown in the figure) > eNB1- > eNB2- > UE2- > UE1 is established, the first base station eNB1 acquires a service from a core network, and then the eNB1 sends the acquired service to the second base station eNB2 through an interface between the base station and the base station, for example, an X2 interface, so that the UE1 realizes the communication service through the UE2 and the eNB 2; in addition, in order to avoid an excessively long delay, a relay link based on the second base station, the second user equipment, and the first device may be established, that is, a communication link of a serving gateway (not shown in the figure) > eNB2- > UE2- > UE1 is directly established, and the second base station eNB2 obtains a service from the core network, so that the UE1 realizes the service through the UE2 and the direct eNB2, at this time, more signaling needs to be configured, so that the core network directly sends the service to the eNB 2. In a specific application, the user equipment may select to establish a communication link that saves signaling overhead or a communication link that avoids a long delay according to a preset policy or user requirements, and the like.

208. The first device performs relay service data communication with the first base station through the first user equipment.

In this step, the UE1 uses the UE2 as a relay, and based on the relay communication links among the UE1, the UE2, and the eNB2 established in step 205, the UE1 performs communication services such as uplink and downlink data transmission through the UE2 and the eNB 2. Specifically, the communication link may be a signaling overhead saving link shown in 2081 or a delay saving link shown in 2082 in the figure:

2081. serving gateway (not shown in figure) > eNB2- > UE2- > UE 1;

2082. serving gateway (not shown in figure) > eNB1- > eNB2- > UE2- > UE 1.

Optionally, in step 203 of this embodiment, since there may be a plurality of first neighboring base stations that are determined by the centralized control entity and can provide the relay service for the UE1, each first neighboring base station is a first relay user equipment that can provide the relay service for the UE 1. Therefore, according to a preset policy, for example, when the traffic demand of the UE1 is relatively large and the communication with one eNB cannot meet the traffic demand, the centralized control entity may determine a plurality of second base stations for the UE1 from the plurality of first neighboring base stations in step 204, and as shown in fig. 2A, may select both the eNB2 and the eNB3 as the second base station of the UE 1. At this time, the centralized control entity may select a plurality of user equipments from the user equipments in the cell covered by each second base station as the second user equipments. For example, referring back to fig. 2A, after selecting eNB2 and eNB3 as the second base station, UE2 under eNB2 and UE3 under eNB3 may be selected as the second user equipment. At this time, the centralized control entity is also responsible for sending distribution ratio indication information to the gateway device, indicating the uplink and downlink distribution ratio and mode of the service data, so that the gateway device distributes the relay traffic of at least two relay user equipments UE2 and UE3 according to the distribution ratio indication information.

It should be noted that, after the centralized control entity determines at least one second base station from the multiple first neighboring base stations, for example, if the closest first neighboring base station is taken as the second base station, and if the relay capability of the relay user equipment in the cell covered by the second base station cannot meet the communication requirement capability of the first equipment, another first neighboring base station may be selected as the second base station at this time, and the relay user equipment is determined again.

In addition, in this embodiment, the centralized control entity may further select a plurality of user equipments from the determined one second base station as the second user equipment, for example, referring to fig. 2A again, after selecting the eNB2 as the second base station, at least two user equipments UE2 and UE4 under the eNB2 may be selected as the second user equipment. At this time, the centralized control entity is also responsible for sending distribution ratio indication information to the gateway device, indicating the uplink and downlink distribution ratio and mode of the service data, so that the gateway device distributes the relay traffic of at least two second user equipments UE2 and UE4 according to the distribution ratio indication information; alternatively, the centralized control entity may also send the offloading ratio indication information to the base station eNB2, and the base station offloads the relay traffic of at least two second user equipments UE2 and UE4 according to the offloading ratio indication information.

In the relay communication method provided in this embodiment, the centralized control entity and the base station complete relay communication decision making together, so that in a scenario of wide coverage, when a base station providing service for a first user equipment cannot access the first user equipment due to insufficient air interface resources, or when the first base station cannot provide service meeting service requirements for an accessed user equipment, a user equipment in a cell covered by an adjacent base station is used as a relay user equipment to establish a communication link between the first equipment and the relay user equipment, so that the first equipment obtains service by using resources of the adjacent base station through the relay equipment and the adjacent base station.

Fig. 2C is a second signaling diagram of the scenario shown in fig. 2A. The difference from the embodiment shown in fig. 2B is that in this embodiment, mainly the centralized control entity completes the relay communication decision process of the first user equipment. Referring to fig. 2A, the present embodiment may include the following steps:

301. the centralized control entity collects relay service information.

Since the centralized control entity has the function of managing the radio resources of each base station, the centralized control entity can periodically or event-triggered collect the cell operation information of the cell covered by each base station and the relay service capability information of each user equipment for all the base stations in the jurisdiction area. Step 3011 shown in FIG. 2C is for the centralized control entity to collect cell operation information of eNB1 and relay service capability information of UE 1; step 3012 shows that the centralized control entity collects cell operation information of the eNB2 and relay service capability information of the UE2, and please refer to step 203 in fig. 2B, which is not described herein again.

302. It is determined whether relay service needs to be provided for the UE 1.

In this step, since the centralized control entity has already collected the relay service information of all base stations and user equipments in the jurisdiction area, it can decide whether it is necessary to provide a relay service for a certain user equipment according to the collected relay service information. Taking UE1 as an example, according to the collected relay service information, if the centralized control entity finds a cell covered by eNB1, and cannot enable UE1 to access or UE1 to access with a low success rate due to limited air interface resources, the centralized control entity determines that relay service needs to be provided for UE1, or if UE1 has access to eNB1, when UE1 has a need for improving service experience, but eNB1 cannot provide service for UE1 that meets the service need after improving service experience, the centralized control entity determines that relay service needs to be provided for UE 1.

303. And determining a first adjacent base station and a first relay user equipment which can provide the relay service.

In this step, when the centralized control entity determines that the relay service needs to be provided for the UE1, the first neighboring base station and the first user equipment capable of providing the relay service for the UE1 are determined according to the collected relay service information. For a specific determination process, please refer to step 203 in fig. 2B, which is not described herein again.

304. The centralized control entity selects a second base station and a second user equipment for the UE.

305. The centralized control entity sends a first relay setup instruction to the UE 1.

306. The centralized control entity sends a second relay setup instruction to the UE 2.

307. The centralized control entity establishes a relay link between UE1 and UE 2.

Referring to steps 304-308 of FIG. 2B, the above steps 304-308 are not repeated. Specifically, the step 307 includes two substeps:

3071. the centralized control entity informs the eNB2 to establish a relay link between UE1 and UE 2;

3072. the centralized control entity establishes a relay link between UE1 and UE 2.

308. The first device performs relay service data communication with the second base station through the second user equipment.

Specifically, the communication link may be a signaling overhead saving link shown in 3081 or a delay saving link shown in 3082:

3081. serving gateway (not shown in figure) > eNB2- > UE2- > UE 1;

3082. serving gateway (not shown in figure) > eNB1- > eNB2- > UE2- > UE 1.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment shown in fig. 2A, the centralized control entity and the base station complete the relay communication decision making work together, and in fig. 2B, the centralized control entity completes the relay communication decision making process of the user equipment. However, since the base stations can communicate with each other through the base station interface, each base station can know the current status of other base stations, especially the current status of the neighboring base stations, and therefore, a centralized control entity is not required to be provided, and a certain base station serves as the centralized control entity, and only the base station is responsible for determining whether to provide the relay service, and determining the relay communication decision work such as the second base station and the second user equipment.

Fig. 3A is a schematic diagram of an LTE-Hi communication scenario in a third embodiment of the relay communication method in the present invention. As shown in fig. 3A, the first user equipment is user equipment, a solid black line is control signaling, and a dashed black line is a communication link. In this embodiment, a macro station (Marco) is similar to the centralized Control entity in the embodiment shown in fig. 2A, and has a Radio Resource Control function (RRC), and is responsible for managing each Micro station (Micro) in the network, and serves as an anchor node to manage Micro1 and Micro2, where UE1 communicates through Marco, UE2 communicates with Micro2, and UE3 communicates with Micro 1. In the prior art, when Marco cannot provide service for the UE1 for some reason, the UE1 is far away from the Micro1 and the Micro2, and cannot communicate through the Micro1 or the Micro2 to obtain the required service. In this embodiment, Marco establishes a communication link with the UE2 as a relay to the UE1, so that the UE1 uses the UE2 as a relay, thereby utilizing the idle resource of the Micro2 for communication.

It should be noted that, in this embodiment, the present invention is described in detail by taking an example that Marco is only responsible for policing the areas covered by the Micro stations Micro1, Micro2, and Micro1 and only includes the UE2 in the area covered by the UE1 and the Micro2, however, the present invention is not limited thereto, and in an actual implementation, there may be a plurality of the Micro stations managed by Marco and there may also be a plurality of user equipments in the areas covered by the Micro1 and the Micro 2.

Fig. 3B is a first signaling diagram of the scenario shown in fig. 3A. Referring to fig. 3A, in the embodiment, Marco is responsible for relay communication decision making. Specifically, the present embodiment may include the following steps:

401. macro gathers relay service information.

Since the Macro has a line resource control function and manages each Micro in the LTE-Hi network, for all the Micro in the jurisdiction area, the Macro can periodically or event-triggered collect cell operation information of a cell covered by each Micro and relay service capability information of each user equipment which is communicated through the Micro or directly communicated through the Macro. As shown in fig. 3B, step 4011 collects cell operation information of Micro2 and relay service capability information of UE2 for Macro; step 4012 shows Macro gathering cell operation information of Micro1 and relay service capability information of UE3, and please refer to step 203 in fig. 2B, which is not described herein again.

402. It is determined whether relay service needs to be provided for the UE 1.

In this step, since the UE1 directly communicates with Macro, Macro can know the current status of the UE1 and determine whether to provide relay service for the UE1 according to the current status of the UE 1. For example, if the Macro finds that the UE1 cannot be accessed or the success rate of the UE1 access is low due to limited air interface resources, the Macro determines that the relay service needs to be provided for the UE1, or if the UE1 already accesses the Macro but the Macro cannot meet the service requirement after the UE1 improves the service experience, the Macro determines that the relay service needs to be provided for the UE 1.

403. A first neighboring base station and a first relay user equipment capable of providing a relay service are determined.

In this step, when Macro determines that relay service needs to be provided for UE1 in direct communication with Macro, according to the collected relay service information, a micro station capable of providing relay service for UE1 and user equipment under the micro station are determined as a first neighboring base station and a first relay user equipment. For a specific determination process, please refer to step 203 in fig. 2B, which is not described herein again.

It should be noted that the figure only shows that the interaction with the Micro2 is performed to determine whether the Micro2 can serve as the first neighboring base station, and the UE2 can serve as the relay user equipment to provide the relay service for the UE1, however, the interaction process with the Micro1 and other Micro stations (not shown in the figure) is actually included.

404. Macro selects a second base station and a second user equipment for UE 1.

Specifically, please refer to step 404 in fig. 2B, which is not described herein again.

405. Macro sends a first relay setup instruction to UE 1.

406. Macro sends a second relay setup instruction to UE 2.

Specifically, the steps 405 to 406 are described above with reference to the steps 205 to 206 in fig. 2B, which are not described herein again.

407. Macro establishes a relay link between UE1 and UE 2.

After determining the second base station and the second user equipment, Macro may establish a communication link between the first user equipment and the second user equipment, i.e., a communication link between UE1 and UE2, so that UE1 communicates with Micro through UE 2. Specifically, the present step may include the following substeps:

4071. macro informs Micro2 to establish a relay link between UE1 and UE 2;

4072. micro2 establishes a relay link between UE1 and UE 2.

In the LTE-Hi communication network, Macro is connected to the core network, and Micro acquires the core network resources through Macro, so in this embodiment, the established communication link may be: serving gateway (not shown in the figure) > Macro- > Micro2- > UE2- > UE 1.

408. The first device performs relay service data communication with the second base station through the second user equipment.

The UE1 uses the UE2 as a relay, and based on the relay communication link among the UE1, the UE2 and the Micro2 established in step 205, enables the UE1 to perform communication services such as uplink and downlink data transmission through the UE2 and the Micro 2. Specifically, the communication link may be the communication link shown at 408 in the figure:

serving gateway (not shown in the figure) > Macro- > Micro2- > UE2- > UE 1.

In the relay communication method provided by this embodiment, Macro completes relay communication decision work, so that in an LTE-Hi scenario, when a Macro station cannot provide service for a first user equipment directly communicating with the Macro station, a user equipment in a cell covered by a micro station in its jurisdiction area is used as a relay user equipment to establish a communication link between the first user equipment and the relay user equipment, so that the first user equipment communicates with the micro station through the relay user equipment, and the service is flexibly deployed by using idle resources of the micro station.

Fig. 4A is a schematic diagram of a suburban coverage scenario according to a third embodiment of the relay communication method in the present invention. As shown in fig. 4A, in the present embodiment, the centralized control entity controls the serving gateway, the base station 1 and the base station 2, the thick solid black line indicates transmission of control signaling, in the present embodiment, the first device is a suburban base station, the black dotted line indicates a communication link in the prior art, the suburban base station communicates with the normal base station 1 through a Relay (Relay), and when communication cannot be performed between the suburban base station and the base station 1 due to a failure of the communication link or the like, for example, when the Relay (Relay) is in a cell covered by the base station 1 and the suburban base station is not within a range of the cell covered by the base station 1, the communication link between the suburban base station and the Relay or the communication link between the Relay and the base station 1 fails so that the suburban base station cannot implement communication service based on the Relay and the base station 1; or when the communication link between the suburban base station and the Relay (Relay) cannot meet the service requirement of the suburban base station, the suburban base station cannot continue to communicate with the base station 1 because the suburban base station is not in the area covered by the base station 1. In this embodiment, the centralized control entity establishes a communication link with the UE1 as a relay to the suburban base station, so that the suburban base station continues to communicate with the base station 1 by using the UE1 as a relay; alternatively, the centralized control entity establishes a communication link with the UE2 as a relay to the suburban base station, so that the suburban base station communicates with the base station 2 with the UE2 as a relay.

Fig. 4B is a signaling diagram of the scenario shown in fig. 4A. Referring to fig. 4A, in the present embodiment, the base station 1 and the centralized control entity complete the relay communication decision. Specifically, the present embodiment may include the following steps:

501. the base station 1 detects the communication link condition with the suburb base station and the service requirement of the suburb base station.

When the base station 1 detects that a problem occurs in the relay, the communication link between the relay and the suburb base station, or the communication link between the base station 1 and the relay, so that the communication link between the base station 1 and the suburb base station fails, or the base station 1 receives a service upgrade request containing a service requirement sent by the suburb base station, so that the service requirement of the suburb base station exceeds the transmission capability between the suburb base station and the relay, the service upgrade request is, for example, the base station 1 receives a service request newly added to the suburb base station, and the base station 1 determines whether to send a relay service request to the centralized control entity.

502. The base station 1 sends a relay service request to the centralized control entity.

When the base station 1 detects a communication link with a suburb base station in the process of detecting the communication link, if it detects that the communication link fails or detects that the existing bandwidth of the base station 1 cannot meet the newly added service due to the application of a new service by the suburb base station, the base station 1 sends a relay service request to the centralized control entity.

503. The centralized control entity sends measurement configuration information to the UE 1.

After receiving the relay service request sent by the base station 1, the centralized control entity sends measurement configuration information to the UE1 and receives a report result, where the measurement configuration information carries information such as the system and frequency point of the suburban base station. Since there may be a plurality of user equipments included in the cell covered by the base station 1, generally, the centralized control entity selects the user equipment sending the measurement configuration information as the user equipment closest to the suburban base station.

It should be noted that, for clarity of explanation, in this embodiment, the measurement configuration information is sent to the UE1 in the cell covered by the base station 1, which is taken as an example for detailed explanation, and in an actual application scenario, the measurement configuration information may be sent to a plurality of user equipments under a plurality of base stations adjacent to the suburban base station.

504. And selecting a second base station and second user equipment.

In this step, the centralized control entity selects a suitable second base station and second user equipment from the reported result of the user equipment or the pre-stored relay service capability information of the user equipment.

505. And the centralized control entity sends a first relay establishment instruction to the suburban base station.

506. The centralized control entity sends a second relay setup instruction to the UE 1.

507. The centralized control entity establishes a relay link between the base station 1 and the suburban base station.

The centralized control entity controls the gateway device (not shown in fig. 4B) and the base station 1 to establish a communication link between the base station 1 and the suburban base station.

508. The suburban base station performs relay service data transmission with the base station 1 through the UE 1.

Specifically, please refer to steps 206-208 in the embodiment shown in fig. 2B for steps 506-508, which are not described herein again.

Optionally, in this embodiment, when the bandwidth required by the service data of the suburban base station is large, the centralized control entity may select multiple base stations as the second base station, for example, select the base station 1 and the base station 2 as the second base station of the suburban base station at the same time; the centralized control entity may also select multiple pieces of user equipment as relay user equipment of the suburban base station, for example, in this embodiment, the UE1 under the base station 1 and the UE2 under the base station 2 may be simultaneously selected as second user equipment of the suburban base station, and the configuration information of the centralized control entity to the gateway device further includes the uplink and downlink offloading proportions and modes of the service data. In addition, the centralized control entity may also select multiple pieces of user equipment under the same base station as second user equipment of the suburban base station, such as selecting multiple pieces of user equipment under the base station 1 or simultaneously selecting multiple pieces of user equipment under the base station 2, at this time, the centralized control entity may carry the uplink and downlink traffic distribution ratios and manners of the service data in the configuration information of the gateway device, or send the configuration information of the uplink and downlink traffic distribution ratios and manners of the service data to the base station, so that the base station controls, according to the traffic distribution ratio indication information, to perform traffic distribution control and the like on the relay traffic of at least two pieces of relay user equipment.

In the relay communication method provided by this embodiment, the centralized control entity and the base station together complete the relay communication decision making work, so that in the suburban coverage scenario, when a suburb base station newly adds a service request or a link between the suburb base station and a normal base station providing a service fails or the like, taking the user equipment in the area covered by the common base station adjacent to the suburban base station as second user equipment, establishing a communication link between the second user equipment and the suburban base station, the suburban base station communicating with the common base station through the second user equipment, when the service requirement of the suburb base station exceeds the transmission capability between the suburb base station and the relay, the suburb base station can rapidly transmit the service data through the newly established communication link between the relay user equipment and the suburb base station, therefore, the service experience of the user is ensured, the frequency spectrum utilization rate is improved, and the service load of each cell is balanced.

Fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a relay communication device according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 5, the relay communication device 500 provided in this embodiment may be disposed on a base station or a base station control entity, or may be the base station or the base station control entity itself, and the relay communication device 500 provided in this embodiment may include:

a first sending module 11, configured to send a first relay establishment instruction to a first device served by a first base station;

a second sending module 12, configured to send a second relay establishment instruction to a second user equipment served by a second base station;

the establishing module 13 is configured to establish a relay link, where the first device performs a communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment, according to the first relay establishing instruction and the second relay establishing instruction.

In the relay communication apparatus provided in the embodiment of the present invention, the base station or the centralized control entity establishes the relay link through which the first device communicates with the second base station by using the second user equipment as the relay user equipment, so that the first device can obtain the service from the second base station through the second user equipment, and when the first device in the area covered by the first base station cannot obtain the communication service meeting the service requirement through the first base station, the second base station and the second user equipment are determined, and the service is provided for the first device through the second user equipment and the second base station, thereby improving the spectrum utilization rate and balancing the service load of each cell.

Further, the establishing module 13 is specifically configured to:

establishing a relay link based on a second base station, second user equipment and first equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction; or,

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a second embodiment of the relay communication device in the present invention, and as shown in fig. 6, the relay communication device 600 in this embodiment further includes, on the basis of the embodiment shown in fig. 5:

a first determining module 14, configured to determine whether a relay service needs to be provided for a first device under a first base station.

Further, the first determining module 14 is specifically configured to:

if the air interface resource of the first base station is determined to be insufficient, the inter-cell relay service needs to be provided for the first user equipment to be accessed into the first base station; or,

if the first base station is determined to be incapable of providing the service meeting the service requirement for the accessed equipment, the inter-cell relay service needs to be provided for the first user equipment under the first base station; or,

Further, the first determining module 14 is further configured to, if an inter-cell relay service request sent by a first base station is received, need to provide an inter-cell relay service for a first device under the first base station, where the inter-cell relay service request includes: at least one of an identifier of the first base station, an identifier of the first device, location information of the first device, service requirement information of the first device, a service type of the first device, and a relay service requirement trigger reason of the first device; or,

if a service upgrading request containing a service requirement and sent by a first base station is received, relay service needs to be provided for a suburb base station, and the service upgrading request is sent by the first base station when a new service request sent by the suburb base station is received.

Further, referring to fig. 6 again, the apparatus provided in this embodiment further includes:

a second determining module 15, configured to determine a second base station capable of providing a relay service for the first device and a second user equipment under the second base station.

Further, the second determining module 15 includes:

a collecting unit 151, configured to collect relay service information of a neighboring base station of the first base station and user equipment under the neighboring base station;

a first determining unit 152, configured to determine, according to the relay service information, a first neighboring base station capable of providing a relay service among neighboring base stations of the first base station and a first relay user equipment capable of providing the relay service under the first neighboring base station;

a measurement unit 153, configured to measure communication between the first user equipment and the first relay user equipment under the first neighboring base station, and obtain a measurement result;

a second determining unit 154, configured to determine, according to the measurement result, a relay base station and a relay user equipment that provide the inter-cell relay service for the first device.

Further, the collecting unit 151 is specifically configured to:

collecting and acquiring at least one of cell position information, cell coverage information, cell spectrum resource use condition, cell user access success rate and cell online user number of adjacent base stations of a first base station;

and collecting and acquiring at least one of information of relay capability, position, electric quantity, existing service condition and moving condition of user equipment under the adjacent base station.

Further, the measurement unit 153 is specifically configured to:

sending a measurement configuration message to the first user equipment and the first relay user equipment, wherein the measurement configuration message comprises: at least one information of a measurement frequency point, a measurement gap, a measurement result reporting identifier, a reporting format and a measurement identifier;

Further, the first relay establishment instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the second user equipment, a relay frequency point of the second user equipment, and a relay bandwidth of the second user equipment, and the second relay establishment instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the first device, a relay frequency point of the first device, and a relay bandwidth of the first device.

a third sending module 16, configured to send, if the relay user equipment is at least two second user equipments, offloading ratio indication information to the gateway equipment and/or the base station, so that the gateway equipment and/or the base station offload relay traffic of the at least two second user equipments according to the offloading ratio indication information.

Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of the relay communication device in the present invention. As shown in fig. 7, the relay communication apparatus 700 of the present embodiment may include a processor 71 and a memory 72. The relay communication device 700 may further include a transmitter 73 and a receiver 74. The transmitter 73 and the receiver 74 may be connected to the processor 71. Wherein, the memory 72 stores execution instructions, when the relay communication device 700 runs, the processor 71 communicates with the memory 72, and the processor 71 calls the execution instructions in the memory 72 to execute the following operations:

the relay communication apparatus 700 transmits a first relay establishment instruction to a first device served by a first base station;

and establishing a relay link of the first equipment for performing communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction.

Optionally, the establishing, according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction, a relay link for the first device to perform a communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment includes:

Optionally, before sending the first relay establishment instruction to the first device served by the first base station, the method further includes:

it is determined whether a relay service needs to be provided for a first device under a first base station.

Optionally, determining whether a relay service needs to be provided for a first device under a first base station includes:

if receiving an inter-cell relay service request sent by a first base station, providing inter-cell relay service for first equipment under the first base station; or,

Optionally, the inter-cell relay service request includes:

the relay service requirement triggering reason comprises at least one of an identifier of the first base station, an identifier of the first device, position information of the first device, service requirement information of the first device, a service type of the first device and the relay service requirement triggering reason of the first device.

Optionally, before sending the second relay establishment instruction to the second user equipment served by the second base station, the method includes:

Optionally, determining a second base station providing a relay service for the first device and a second user equipment under the second base station, includes:

collecting and acquiring relay service information of adjacent base stations of a first base station and user equipment under the adjacent base stations;

measuring communication between first user equipment and first relay user equipment under a first adjacent base station to obtain a measurement result;

and according to the measurement result, determining a second base station and a second user equipment which provide the inter-cell relay service for the first equipment.

Optionally, the collecting and acquiring relay service information of the neighboring base station of the first base station and the user equipment under the neighboring base station includes:

Optionally, the measuring the communication between the first user equipment and the first relay user equipment under the first neighboring base station, and obtaining the measurement result includes:

Optionally, the first relay establishment instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the second user equipment, a relay frequency point of the second user equipment, and a relay bandwidth of the second user equipment, and the second relay establishment instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the first device, a relay frequency point of the first device, and a relay bandwidth of the first device.

Optionally, if the second user equipment is at least two second user equipments, the method further includes:

and sending the distribution ratio indication information to the gateway equipment and/or the base station so that the gateway equipment and/or the base station distribute the relay traffic of at least two second user equipment according to the distribution ratio indication information.

In addition, based on the above embodiments of the relay communication method and the relay communication device, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a relay communication system, which includes a controller and at least two base stations, where the controller includes any one of the above relay communication devices.

In addition, based on the embodiments of the relay communication method and the relay communication device, an embodiment of the present invention further provides another relay communication system, which is different from the above embodiments, the communication system of the present embodiment may include at least two base stations without a centralized control entity, where at least one of the base stations includes the relay communication device as described above. It should be noted that, in this embodiment, since the communication system does not include the centralized control entity, the first determining module of the relay communication apparatus of this embodiment does not receive the inter-cell relay service request sent by the first base station, and does not need to provide the inter-cell relay service for the first device under the first base station; or, the service upgrading request including the service requirement sent by the first base station is not received, the relay service is not required to be provided for the suburb base station, and the service upgrading request is sent by the first base station when the new service request sent by the suburb base station is received. For a specific working principle, please refer to the method embodiment, the apparatus embodiment and the specific implementation scenario schematic diagram, which are not repeated herein.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention, and not to limit the same; while the invention has been described in detail and with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some or all of the technical features may be equivalently replaced; and the modifications or the substitutions do not make the essence of the corresponding technical solutions depart from the scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. A relay communication method, comprising:

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the establishing the relay link for the first device to perform communication service with the second base station through the second user equipment according to the first relay establishment instruction and the second relay establishment instruction comprises:

3. The method of claim 1, prior to sending the first relay setup instruction to the first device served by the first base station, further comprising:

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the determining whether the first device under the first base station needs to be provided with the relay service comprises:

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the determining whether the first device under the first base station needs to be provided with the relay service comprises:

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the inter-cell relay service request comprises:

7. The method of claim 1, wherein prior to sending the second relay establishment instruction to the second user equipment served by the second base station, the method comprises:

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the determining a second base station providing relay service for the first device and a second user equipment under the second base station comprises:

measuring communication between the first equipment and first relay user equipment under the first adjacent base station to obtain a measurement result;

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the gathering relay service information of neighboring base stations of the first base station and user equipments under the neighboring base stations comprises:

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the measuring the communication between the first device and the first relay user equipment under the first neighboring base station to obtain the measurement result comprises:

sending a measurement configuration message to the first device and the first relay user equipment, the measurement configuration message including: at least one information of a measurement frequency point, a measurement gap, a measurement result reporting identifier, a reporting format and a measurement identifier;

receiving measurement results sent by the first device and the first relay user equipment, where the measurement results include: at least one of the measured signal strengths.

11. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the first relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the relay device, a relay frequency of the relay device, and a relay bandwidth of the relay device, and the second relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the first device, a relay frequency of the first device, and a relay bandwidth of the first device.

12. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein if the second user equipment is at least two second user equipments, the method further comprises:

13. A relay communication apparatus, comprising:

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the establishing module is specifically configured to:

15. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising:

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the first determining module is specifically configured to:

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the first determining module is further configured to:

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the inter-cell relay service request comprises:

19. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising:

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the second determining module comprises:

a measurement unit, configured to measure communication between the first device and a first relay user equipment in the first neighboring base station, and obtain a measurement result;

21. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the gathering unit is specifically configured to:

22. The device according to claim 20, wherein the measurement unit is specifically configured to:

23. The apparatus according to any one of claims 13 to 22, wherein the first relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the relay device, a relay frequency of the relay device, and a relay bandwidth of the relay device, and the second relay setup instruction includes at least one of an identifier of the first device, a relay frequency of the first device, and a relay bandwidth of the first device.

24. The apparatus of any one of claims 13 to 22, further comprising:

25. A communication system, comprising: at least two base stations, at least one of which comprises a relay communication device as claimed in any one of claims 13, 14, 15, 16, 20 to 22.

26. A communication system, comprising: a controller and at least two base stations, the controller comprising a relay communication device as claimed in any one of claims 13 to 22.