CN108243395B

CN108243395B - Method for cooperative communication of user equipment, base station and user equipment

Info

Publication number: CN108243395B
Application number: CN201611211028.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 向铮铮; 苏宏家; 庞继勇
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2016-12-24
Filing date: 2016-12-24
Publication date: 2020-11-27
Anticipated expiration: 2036-12-24
Also published as: WO2018113564A1; CN108243395A

Abstract

The embodiment of the application provides a method for cooperative communication of user equipment. The method comprises the following steps: a base station receives a first signaling from User Equipment (UE), wherein the first signaling carries a group identifier of a user equipment cooperation group, and the group identifier indicates that the user equipment cooperation group is a user equipment cooperation group which the UE needs to quit; and the base station updates the group information of the user equipment cooperation group according to the identity information of the UE in the user equipment cooperation group. By the method provided by the embodiment of the application, various situations of UE group quitting in the cooperative communication process of the user equipment can be well realized, and the problem of inaccurate group information caused by the user group quitting can be timely solved through corresponding signaling of the base station side and the UE side.

Description

Method for cooperative communication of user equipment, base station and user equipment

Technical Field

The embodiment of the present application relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a method for cooperative communication of user equipment.

Background

In future communication systems, the cooperative communication of the user equipment can significantly improve the capacity of the system and the coverage of the network, and simultaneously can reduce the load on the base station side. Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary scenario of cooperative communication of user equipment. As shown in fig. 1, the typical difference includes a base station, a cooperative User Equipment (ue), and a Target User Equipment (TUE), where the ue is configured to provide cooperative transmission for the TUE. Specifically, the transmission based on the cooperation of the user equipment mainly comprises two stages: in the first stage, the base station sends data to the TUE and the CUE1 and CUE 2; in the second stage, the CUE1 and the CUE2 forward the received signal to the TUE, wherein the forwarding manner may be various, such as amplify-forward, decode-forward, compress-forward, etc. Thus, the TUE can jointly decode the signal transmitted by the base station received in the first stage and the signal forwarded by the CUE1 and the CUE2 received in the second stage, thereby improving the receiving performance.

In the cooperative communication of the UE, a plurality of UEs (User Equipment, UE for short) may form a UE cooperation group, where a UE providing cooperative transmission for other UEs is referred to as UE, and a UE receiving cooperative transmission provided by other UEs is referred to as TUE. For example, TUE and CUE1 and CUE2 in fig. 1 form a cooperative group of ues. In the same cell, there may be a plurality of different user equipment cooperation groups.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for establishing a ue cooperation group. As shown in fig. 2, the TUE broadcasts a Cooperation Seeking Request (CSR) message to Neighboring User Equipments (NUE). The cooperative seek request is for requesting the NUE to provide a cooperative transmission for the TUE. The NUE, upon receiving the CSR sent by the TUE, may send a message to the base station reporting to the base station that it may provide a cooperative transmission, or the NUE informs the base station that it may assist the TUE in transmitting. After receiving the message which is sent by the NUE and can assist transmission, the base station uses the NUE and the TUE as a ue cooperation group, and assigns a group identifier of the ue cooperation group to the ue cooperation group, where the NUE may be referred to as a CUE. After the ue cooperation group is established, the TUEs in the group can perform ue cooperation-based information transmission and reception with the assistance of the CUE in the group.

In the cooperative ue communication, the cooperative ue group may change, for example, some CUEs actively exit the cooperative ue group, some CUEs can not participate in the cooperative ue, or the TUE switches to other cells. Therefore, the update problem of the user equipment cooperation group needs to be considered.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a method for cooperative communication of user equipment, a base station and UE. By the method provided by the embodiment of the application, various situations of UE group quitting in the cooperative communication process of the user equipment can be well realized, and the problem of inaccurate group information caused by the user group quitting can be timely solved through corresponding signaling of the base station side and the UE side.

In one aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a method for cooperative communication of user equipment. The method comprises the steps that a base station receives a first signaling from User Equipment (UE), wherein the first signaling carries a group identifier of a user equipment cooperation group, and the group identifier indicates that the user equipment cooperation group is a user equipment cooperation group which the UE needs to quit; and the base station updates the group information of the user equipment cooperation group according to the identity information of the UE in the user equipment cooperation group. Wherein, the identity information of the out-of-group UE in the UE cooperative group includes: the UE is a TUE in the group, the UE is a CUE, the UE is the last TUE in the group, the UE is the last CUE in the group, the UE is one of the TUEs in the group, or the UE is one of the CUEs in the group, etc. The base station can update the group information of the user equipment cooperative group in time by actively reporting the group quitting information by the UE, so that the latest group information is more effectively utilized for the cooperative communication of the user equipment.

In one possible design, the updating, by the base station, the group information of the UE cooperative group according to the identity information of the UE in the UE cooperative group includes at least one of the following three situations: when the UE is the last cooperative user equipment CUE in the group, the base station sends a second signaling to the target user equipment TUE in the group, wherein the second signaling carries a group identifier required by the TUE for reestablishing the cooperative group of the user equipment; when the UE is the last TUE in the group, the base station sends a third signaling to the CUE in the group to inform the CUE to update the group information of the user equipment cooperation group, wherein the third signaling carries the group identification; or, when the UE is neither the last CUE nor the last TUE of the group, the base station deletes the information of the UE in the group. Specifically, the base station deletes the information of the UE in the group it maintains. By correspondingly performing group quitting operation aiming at different identities of the UE of the quitting group, the accurate group information updating of the user equipment cooperative group can be effectively realized.

In one possible design, the second signaling further carries forwarding mode information, where the forwarding mode information is used to indicate a forwarding mode of the TUE for cooperative communication, where the forwarding mode includes amplify-and-forward, decode-and-forward, or compress-and-forward.

In one possible design, the method further includes: and when the UE is the CUE, the base station sends a fourth signaling to the TUE in the group, wherein the fourth signaling carries indication information of the UE, and the indication information of the UE is used for informing the TUE that the UE exits the UE cooperation group.

In one possible design, the first signaling, the second signaling, the third signaling, and the fourth signaling may be radio resource control, RRC, layer control information or medium access control, MAC, layer control signaling.

In one possible design, the user device collaboration group includes a candidate collaboration set CCS and an active collaboration set CAS; the first signaling may further be used to instruct the UE to exit from the CAS to the CCS, wherein the CAS includes the TUE and the CUE actually providing cooperative communication for the TUE, and the CCS includes all the UEs in the UE cooperation group.

On the other hand, the embodiment of the application provides a base station. The base station includes: the transceiver is used for receiving a first signaling from User Equipment (UE), wherein the first signaling carries a group identifier of a user equipment cooperation group, and the group identifier indicates that the user equipment cooperation group is a user equipment cooperation group which the UE needs to quit; and the processor is used for updating the group information of the user equipment cooperation group according to the identity information of the UE in the user equipment cooperation group. Wherein, the identity information of the out-of-group UE in the UE cooperative group includes: the UE is a TUE in the group, the UE is a CUE, the UE is the last TUE in the group, the UE is the last CUE in the group, the UE is one of the TUEs in the group, or the UE is one of the CUEs in the group, etc. The base station can update the group information of the user equipment cooperative group in time by actively reporting the group quitting information by the UE, so that the latest group information is more effectively utilized for the cooperative communication of the user equipment.

In a possible design, when the UE is a CUE, the base station may further send a fourth signaling to the TUE in the group, where the fourth signaling carries indication information of the UE, and the indication information of the UE is used to notify the TUE that the UE exits from the UE cooperation group.

On the other hand, the embodiment of the application also provides another method for the cooperative communication of the user equipment. The method comprises the following steps: user Equipment (UE) sends a first signaling to a base station, wherein the first signaling carries a group identifier of a user equipment cooperation group, and the group identifier indicates that the group is the user equipment cooperation group which the UE needs to quit. After receiving the group quitting information, the base station may update the group information of the group according to the identity information of the UE in the group quitting information.

In another aspect, the present application provides a computer storage medium for storing computer software instructions for the base station or the UE, which includes a program designed to perform the method described above.

The method provided by the embodiment of the application can well realize various situations of UE group quitting in the cooperative communication process of the user equipment, and can timely solve the problem of inaccurate group information caused by the user group quitting through corresponding signaling of the base station side and the UE side.

Drawings

Reference will now be made in detail to the embodiments or drawings required for use in the description of the prior art, it being understood that the drawings described below are merely exemplary of the application and that other drawings may be derived by those skilled in the art without undue inventive faculty.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary scenario for cooperative communication between user devices;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for establishing a UE cooperative group;

fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a method for cooperative communication of user equipment according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method for updating a ue cooperation group according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a CCS and CAS scenario;

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating the structure of a MAC protocol data unit;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of an uplink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 8a is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 11 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 11a is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof;

fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a possible structure of a base station according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 13 is a simplified schematic diagram of a possible design structure of a UE involved in the embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

Technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are some embodiments of the present application, but not all embodiments. 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 application.

It should be understood that the base station in the embodiments of the present application is a network device deployed in a radio access network or other apparatuses to provide a UE with a wireless communication function. Which may include various forms of macro base stations, micro base stations (also known as small stations), relay stations, access points, etc. In systems using different Radio access technologies, names of devices having a base station function may be different, for example, in an LTE system, the device is called an evolved Node B (eNB or eNodeB), in a third generation (3 rd generation, 3G) system, the device is called a Node B, and in a New Radio (NR) network, the device is called a gNB. For convenience of description, in all embodiments of the present application, the above-mentioned apparatus for providing a UE with a wireless communication function is collectively referred to as a base station. The UE in this embodiment may refer to a Terminal, and specifically includes but is not limited to a Mobile Station (MS), a Mobile Terminal (Mobile Terminal), a Mobile phone (Mobile phone), a Mobile phone (handset), a portable device (portable equipment), a handheld device having a wireless communication function, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, and a Terminal device in a New Radio (NR) network in the future. The TUE in the embodiment of the present application refers to a UE that accepts cooperative communication, and the CUE provides a UE that provides cooperative communication for other UEs. For a UE, when it accepts cooperative communication, it may be referred to as TUE; when it provides cooperative communication for other UEs, it may be referred to as CUE.

It should be noted that the embodiment of the present application may be applied to the scenario shown in fig. 1. In this scenario, the embodiments of the present application may support more TUEs and more or less CUEs.

In addition, for simplicity and convenience of description, the user equipment cooperation group in the embodiment of the present application may be referred to as a group.

In the cooperative communication of the ue, after a ue cooperation group is established, the TUE in the group can transmit and receive information with the assistance of the CUE in the group. However, a UE (including a TUE or a CUE) in a UE cooperation group may exit the UE cooperation group (which may be referred to as UE exiting) for various reasons, thereby causing a change in the UE cooperation group. The UE quitting can be divided into active quitting and passive quitting according to different reasons of the UE quitting. The active quitting means that the UE reports to the base station that the UE quits the UE cooperative group where the UE is located, for example, the UE notifies the base station that the UE quits the UE cooperative group through a first signaling (which may also be referred to as a quitting signaling) sent to the base station, where the first signaling carries a group identifier of the UE cooperative group where the UE needs to quit. And passive group exit means that the UE has exited the UE cooperative group in which it is located, or the base station has not detected that the UE is in an active state, although the UE does not explicitly send the first signaling to the base station. For example, a UE is usually passively out of group when the UE performs cell handover, the UE is out of coverage of a base station, or the UE is powered off, or other situations occur in which the UE cannot operate normally.

The embodiment of the application provides a method for cooperative communication of user equipment, which provides an operation flow for UE (user equipment) group quitting and a specific design for related control signaling aiming at possible changes of a user equipment cooperative group in the cooperative communication of the user equipment, such as situations of TUE group quitting, CUE group quitting, UE active group quitting, UE passive group quitting and the like.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a method for cooperative communication of user equipment according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 3, the method includes the following two steps.

Step 301: and the base station knows that the UE exits the user equipment cooperation group.

Specifically, when the UE actively quits the group, the UE sends a first signaling to the base station to inform the base station that the UE wants to quit the group. Therefore, the base station can know that the UE exits the group by receiving the first signaling. When the UE passively exits the group, the base station may know that the UE exits the group by detecting an active state of the UE. The first signaling carries a group identifier of a UE cooperative group to be exited by the UE, that is, the base station can obtain the UE cooperative group to be exited by the UE through the group identifier.

Step 302: and according to the identity information of the UE which is quitted in the user equipment cooperation group, the base station updates the group information of the user equipment cooperation group in which the UE is positioned.

Wherein, the identity information of the out-of-group UE in the UE cooperative group includes: the UE is a TUE in the group, the UE is a CUE, the UE is the last TUE in the group, the UE is the last CUE in the group, the UE is one of the TUEs in the group, or the UE is one of the CUEs in the group, etc. The group information of the UE including the group information of the UE updated by the base station includes the group information of the UE updated by the base station or the group information maintained by the other UE scheduled by the base station to be updated by the other UE in the UE cooperation group.

Step 302 is further described below in conjunction with fig. 4. Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method for updating a ue cooperation group according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 4, when UE group leaving occurs, it needs to consider whether the UE performing group leaving is a TUE or a CUE, and whether it is the last TUE or CUE in the UE cooperation group where the UE is located.

And when the UE for group quitting is the last CUE in the group, the base station schedules the TUE in the group to reestablish the user equipment cooperation group. Alternatively, the TUEs in the group may establish a new user equipment cooperation group by the method shown in fig. 2. In the establishing stage of the ue cooperative group, the base station may assign a group identifier to the ue cooperative group, for example, the base station may reassign the group identifier carried in the first signaling to the ue cooperative group as the group identifier. Wherein the group identity is unique at least in the own cell. Specifically, the base station may allocate a new group identifier by sending the second signaling, and the UE completes establishment of the UE cooperation group according to the group identifier carried in the received second signaling. It should be noted that, when the group is first established, the base station may also allocate the group identifier through the second signaling. In addition, if the last CUE in the group exits the group and the rest TUEs no longer need other UEs to provide cooperative communication, the base station may update the group information of the group it maintains. Specifically, the base station may delete the group information of the group, which is equivalent to disseminating the user equipment cooperation group.

And when the UE for group quitting is the last TUE in the group, the base station sends a third signaling to the CUE in the group to inform the CUE to update the group information of the group, wherein the third signaling carries the group identifier of the group. Specifically, the CUE deletes group information of the group. The base station may also update the group information of the group that it maintains, for example, the base station may delete the group information of the group, which is equivalent to the disseminating of the ue cooperation group.

When the UE performing the group leaving is neither the last CUE nor the TUE of the group, the base station may also update the group information of the group that it maintains, for example, the base station may delete the information of the UE in the UE cooperation group.

As can be seen from the above, there are three control signaling mainly involved in updating the ue cooperation group. Firstly, when the UE actively quits the group, the UE sends a first signaling to the base station to notify the base station that the UE quits the group, where the first signaling carries a group identifier of a UE cooperative group that the UE quits. Secondly, the base station allocates a group identifier for the newly established user equipment cooperation group, and notifies all the UEs in the user equipment cooperation group of the group identifier through a second signaling. Thirdly, after the TUE exits the ue cooperation group, the base station sends a third signaling to the CUE in the ue cooperation group to notify the CUE to update (e.g., delete) the group information of the ue cooperation group. Thus, the first signaling is sent by the UE to the base station, and the second signaling and the third signaling are sent by the base station to the UE.

The Radio communication Control signaling includes Medium Access Control (MAC) layer Control signaling and Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer Control signaling. The first signaling, the second signaling, and the third signaling are explained below from the perspective of these two types of signaling.

The RRC layer control signaling exists in the form of RRC messages, and each RRC message contains many Information Elements (IE). The RRC message may be transmitted through different types of Physical channels, such as a Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), and the like. The first signaling, the second signaling, and the third signaling may be RRC layer control signaling.

Specifically, it is possible to design a new RRC layer control signaling or modify an existing RRC layer control signaling as the first signaling, the second signaling, or the third signaling.

For example, for the first signaling, a new information element, i.e., SidelinkUEInformation-vxx-IEs, in the RRC message may be designed to carry the group identity of the UE cooperating group that the UE exits. Optionally, the information element comprises exitucopgroupidlist indicating a group identity of a user cooperation group that one or more UEs exit. The information element may have the following format. Wherein vxx is used for representing a version number, N is a positive integer, and maxUEGROUP is the maximum number of the user equipment cooperation groups. The meaning of other relevant parameters can refer to 3GPP standards, and will not be described herein.

The uecoopcroupid is a bit sequence with the length of N and is used for representing the group identification of the user equipment cooperation group. The exitucopgroupidlist contains the group identity of the UE-affiliated group that the UE exits. Wherein exitucopgroupllist is an array having at most maxUEGROUP elements, where each element is a ue cooperation group id.

For example: for the second signaling, a new information element in the RRC message, RRCConnectionReconfiguration-vxx-IEs, may be designed. At least newGroupID indicating the group identity assigned to the cooperating group of user equipments is included in the information element. And sending the information element to all the UE in the UE cooperation group through a second signaling, and forming the UE with the group identification into a UE cooperation group. The information element may have the following format, among others. Wherein vxx is used to indicate a version number, N is a positive integer, and meanings of other related parameters can refer to a 3GPP standard, which is not described herein again.

The newGroupID is a group identifier of a ue cooperative group, and is used to indicate a group identifier allocated by the base station to the newly established ue cooperative group.

For example: for the third signaling, a new information element in the RRC message, RRCConnectionReconfiguration-vxx-IEs, may be designed. The information element contains the group identifier of the user equipment cooperation group which is used by the discarduecoopcoopcidlist to indicate that one or more UEs need to delete. And the base station sends the information element to the CUE in the user equipment cooperation group through a third signaling, and the CUE deletes the group information of the user equipment cooperation group corresponding to the group identification carried in the third signaling. The information element may have the following format, among others. Wherein vxx is used to indicate a version number, N is a positive integer, and meanings of other related parameters can refer to a 3GPP standard, which is not described herein again.

The discarduecoopcoupllist is an array having at most maxdiscardougeroup elements, where each element is a UE cooperative group identifier, and is used to indicate a group identifier of one or more UE cooperative groups that the base station notifies the UE to delete. maxdiscarduegorup is the maximum number of cooperating groups of user equipment that need to be deleted.

Further, for the ue cooperative communication, the CUE may have different forwarding modes when forwarding the message to the TUE. Common forwarding modes are amplify-and-forward, decode-and-forward, and compress-and-forward. The amplifying and forwarding refers to amplifying and then forwarding the power of the message, the decoding and forwarding refers to decoding the message to obtain upper layer information and forwarding, and the compressing and forwarding refers to compressing and then forwarding the message. The base station may indicate a forwarding mode of the user equipment cooperation group when allocating the group identifier to the user equipment cooperation group. Thus, the second signaling may further carry forwarding mode indication information. For example, the information element of the second signaling contains forwardMode to indicate the forwarding mode of the ue cooperative group, and the information element may have the following format.

Wherein forwardMode is a forwarding mode used to indicate the cooperative group of the ue, and may take one of three possible values { AF, DF, CF }. AF stands for amplify-and-forward mode, DF stands for decode-and-forward mode, and CF stands for compress-and-forward mode. Certainly, the value of forwardMode may be greater than or less than three, that is, there may be other possible forwarding modes besides AF, DF, and CF, which may be set according to actually required forwarding modes, and is not limited by the embodiment of the present application. After receiving the second signaling, the UE may forward the message according to the forwarding mode indicated by forwardMode. Since the second signaling may be used for allocating the group identifier when the ue cooperative group is initially established, the forwarding mode may also be set when the ue cooperative group is initially established.

Further, when the CUE exits the ue cooperation group, the base station may also send a fourth signaling to inform the TUEs of the ue cooperation group which CUE or CUEs exit the group. In the prior art, when a UE accesses a wireless Network, a base station allocates an Identifier to the UE to distinguish different UEs, that is, Cell Radio Network Temporary identifiers (C-RNTI), where the C-RNTI of the UE is unique at least in a Cell where the UE is located.

The base station can directly send the C-RNTI of the grouped CUE to the TUE through carrying in the fourth signaling. But then the signaling overhead can be large, e.g. in LTE systems the C-RNTI for a UE is 16 bits in length. The embodiment of the application provides that the notification can be carried out in a bitmap (English) mode. Specifically, for the ue cooperation group where the TUE is located, the ue cooperation group includes M CUEs, and the base station and the TUE both have C-RNTI information of the M CUEs. The M CUEs are represented by a bit sequence with the length of M, the leftmost bit of the sequence represents the CUE with the minimum C-RNTI, the rightmost bit of the sequence represents the CUE with the maximum C-RNTI, and when the bit corresponding to the position is 1 (or a first value), the CUE represented by the bit sequence exits from the UE cooperative group, and when the bit corresponding to the position is 0 (or a second value), the CUE represented by the bit sequence does not exit from the UE cooperative group. By way of example, the UE cooperation group in which the TUE is located has 5 CUEs, and the C-RNs of the CUEsTI size relation is C-RNTI₁＜C-RNTI₂＜C-RNTI₃＜C-RNTI₄＜C-RNTI₅Then we can represent with a bit sequence of 5 bits. When the base station sends a bit sequence 10010 to inform the TUE which CUE or CUEs to quit the group, then the sequence means that the identity is C-RNTI₁And the identity is C-RNTI₄The CUE of (2) exits the user equipment cooperation group. If the maximum number of CUEs allowed by the ue cooperative group is Mmax, the base station may use a bit sequence with a length of Mmax to notify the TUE which CUE or CUEs exits the ue cooperative group. When the number of CUEs in the UE cooperation group is smaller than Mmax, the bit representing the CUE in the UE cooperation group always occupies the leftmost bit of the bit sequence with the length of Mmax. While the remaining bits do not represent the CUE and may be set to a value of 0 by default. It should be noted that when the UE uses other identifiers (without C-RNTI) for distinction, the above method can also be referred to inform the TUE which CUE or CUEs are ungrouped, as long as the identifiers can be compared in size. Under the condition that the TUE knows which CUEs exist in the user equipment cooperation group, the TUE is informed of which CUEs exit the group, and can know which CUEs (if any CUEs remain) in the group can serve the TUE, so that the TUE and the remaining CUEs can conveniently select reasonable antenna configuration and MIMO mode when Multi-input Multi-output (English: MIMO) transmission is carried out subsequently.

For the fourth signaling, a new information element in the RRC message, RRCConnectionReconfiguration-vxx-IEs, may be designed. exitCUEList is included in the information element to indicate the CUE that group retirement occurred. And the base station sends the information element to the TUE in the UE cooperation group through a fourth signaling, and the TUE deletes the information of the CUE indicated in the fourth signaling. Because the RRC message is directly sent to the determined UE, the UE receiving the RRC message may determine that the indication made by the RRC message is specific to itself, and the TUE may delete the CUE information of the CUE for the UE cooperation group where the TUE is located without carrying the group identifier of the UE cooperation group in the fourth signaling. Further, the information element may have the following format.

exitCUEList is a bit sequence of length Mmax, which indicates which CUE or CUEs exit the cooperative group of ues where the TUE is located, where Mmax is a positive integer.

Further, in the ue cooperative communication, a ue cooperative group in which the TUE is located may include more CUEs, and during a specific transmission process, only a part of CUEs in the cooperative group may assist the TUE in transmitting for a period of time. Thus, we can refer to the entire ue Cooperation group as a Candidate Cooperation Set (CCS), and refer to the part of the CUE and the TUE that actually cooperate with the TUE transmission for a period of time as an Active Cooperation Set (CAS), and the CAS can be specified by the base station according to the network condition, the user status, and the like. FIG. 5 is a diagram of a CCS and CAS scenario. As shown in fig. 5, the TUE and 5 CUEs constitute a user equipment cooperation group (which may be referred to as CCS). During a certain period of time, the CUE1 and CUE2 assist the TUE in transmission, i.e., CUE contained in the current CAS are CUE1 and CUE 2. Thus, for CUE active logout, the CUE active logout can be divided into logout of the user equipment cooperative group (i.e. logout of CCS) and logout of CAS; for the CUE passive quit, the default is to quit the CCS, namely, the whole user equipment cooperative group. It is noted that the CAS itself does not have a separate group id, which is also the group id of the cooperating group of the user equipments.

When the CUE is actively withdrawing from the group, if it is in the CAS, it needs to tell the base station whether to withdraw from the CAS or from the CCS when sending the withdrawal signaling to the base station. The base station may be informed by the information element sildelinkueinformation-vxx-IEs in the first signalling. The information element may contain exititeCooperationIDListActive to indicate which CAS of which user equipment cooperation group or groups the CUE exited. The information element may have the following format.

The exituccopogroupllistactive is an array having at most maxUEGROUP elements, each element of which is a group identifier of a ue cooperative group, and each group identifier indicates that the CUE exits from the CAS of the ue cooperative group corresponding to the group identifier.

Accordingly, the base station may also inform the TUE which CUE or CUEs to quit and whether to quit the CCS or CAS. An exitCUEListActive entry may be further added through an information element in the fourth signaling to indicate which CUEs of the ue cooperation group where the TUE is located exit the CAS. The information element may have the following format.

exitCUEList active is a bit with length Mmax, and a bit bitmap with a representation mode similar to exitCUEList is used to indicate which CUE or CUEs exit the CAS where the TUE is located.

The ue cooperative transmission method provided in the embodiment of the present application is described above from the perspective of RRC message, and the ue cooperative transmission method provided in the embodiment of the present application is further described below from the perspective of MAC layer control signaling.

The MAC layer control signaling is mainly implemented by a MAC control Unit, and is transmitted in a load portion of a MAC Protocol Data Unit (PDU for short), and a corresponding sub-packet header is included in a MAC packet header to correspondingly indicate the MAC control Unit. Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a structure of a MAC protocol data unit. As shown in fig. 6, the MAC protocol data unit includes a header and a payload. Wherein the header part is composed of one or more sub-packet headers, and the payload part is composed of a MAC control unit corresponding to the self-packet header. The first signaling, the second signaling, the third signaling and the fourth signaling may also be implemented by MAC layer control signaling.

Specifically, the MAC control unit indicates its type by a Logical Channel Identity (LCID) in its corresponding subheader.

In LTE, the value of the interval 01100-.

Therefore, for the first signaling, the MAC control element of the uplink shared channel may be newly added to indicate the group identifier of the one or more UE cooperative groups that the UE exits from, and the LCID of the sub-packet header corresponding to the MAC control element may be selected from the reserved sequence number 01011 and 10111. For example, the selection number 01100 indicates a group id of one or more UE cooperative groups that the corresponding MAC control element uses to indicate the UE exits. Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of an uplink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. Wherein, L of the sub-packet header is used to indicate the length of the corresponding MAC control element, R is a reserved bit, E is an extended bit, and F2 are used to indicate the length of the length field. And UEGroup ID 1-N in the MAC control unit is used for indicating the group identification of the user equipment cooperation group which the UE exits.

In LTE, the value of the interval 01011-.

Therefore, for the second signaling, a MAC control element of a downlink shared channel may be newly added to indicate the allocated ue cooperative group identifier, and the LCID of the sub-packet header corresponding to the MAC control element may be selected from the reserved sequence number 01011 and 10111. For example, the sequence number 01011 is selected to indicate a group identity used by the corresponding MAC control element to indicate the allocated user equipment cooperation group. Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. Where R is a reserved bit, E is an extension bit, and F2 are used to indicate the length of the length field. And the UEGroup ID is the group identification of the allocated user equipment cooperation group.

Accordingly, the forwarding mode of the user equipment cooperation group may be indicated by modifying the MAC layer signaling in fig. 8, and specifically, the forwarding mode of the user equipment cooperation group may be indicated by adding a field on the basis of the MAC control element shown in fig. 8. Fig. 8a is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. The UEGroup ID field is used to indicate the allocated ue cooperative group identifier, the Mode field is used to indicate the forwarding Mode of the ue cooperative group, and the Mode field in fig. 8a is 2 bits or may have other lengths, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

For the third signaling, the MAC control element of the downlink shared channel may be newly added to indicate the group identifier of the UE cooperative group that needs to be deleted by the UE, and the LCID of the sub-packet header corresponding to the MAC control element may be selected from the reserved sequence number 01011 and 10111. For example, the serial number 01100 is selected to indicate a group identifier of a UE cooperating group for which the corresponding MAC control element indicates that the UE needs to delete. Fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. L in the sub-packet header indicates the length of the corresponding MAC control unit, and UEGroup IDs 1-N in the MAC control unit represent the group identification of the user equipment cooperation group needing to be deleted.

In the embodiment of the present application, the length of the UE Group ID (for example, the UE Group ID in fig. 7 to 9) is 8 bits, but may be other lengths, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

For the fourth signaling, MAC layer signaling may be employed to inform the TUE which CUE or CUEs exited the user equipment cooperation group where the TUE is located. Specifically, a MAC control unit for indicating which CUEs of the TUE quit the ue cooperative group where the TUE is located may be added to the MAC control units of the downlink shared channel, and the LCID of the sub-packet header corresponding to the MAC control unit may be selected from the reserved sequence number 01011 and 10111. For example, the sequence number 01101 is selected to indicate that the corresponding MAC control element is used to indicate which CUE or CUEs exited the user equipment cooperation group. Fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. Wherein exitCUEbitmap is a bitmap that can indicate which CUEs have exited the cooperative group of ues where the aforementioned TUEs are located. For example, when a first bit in the exitCUEbitmap is a first value, it indicates that the CUE corresponding to the bit exits from the ue cooperative group where the TUE is located, and when the first bit is a second value, it indicates that the CUE corresponding to the bit does not exit from the ue cooperative group where the TUE is located. The other bits in exitCUEbitmap and so on. Here, the length of exitCUEbitmap is 8, and the length may also be other values, which depends on the maximum number of CUEs that can be included in the ue cooperation group configured by the network, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited herein.

Further, for the case that the CUE exits from the CAS, a MAC control unit for indicating which CAS or CAS the CUE exits from may be added in the MAC control unit of the uplink shared channel, and the LCID of the sub-packet header corresponding to the MAC control unit may be selected from the reserved sequence number 01011-. For example, the serial number 01101 is selected to indicate that the corresponding MAC control element is used to indicate which CAS or CAS the CUE exits. Fig. 11 is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. UEGroup ID 1-N identifies the user equipment cooperation group identification corresponding to one or more CAS (systems and operation systems) promoted by the CUE.

Accordingly, the base station may also inform the TUEs by MAC layer signaling which CUE or CUEs exited the CAS. Specifically, a MAC control unit for indicating which CUE or CUEs the TUE exits from the CAS where the TUE is located is added to the MAC control units of the downlink shared channel, and the LCID of the sub-packet header corresponding to the MAC control unit may be selected from the reserved sequence number 01011 and 10111. For example, the number 01110 is chosen to indicate that the corresponding MAC control element is used to indicate which CUE or CUEs the TUE has retired the CAS where the TUE is located. Fig. 11a is a schematic structural diagram of an MAC control unit of a downlink shared channel and a corresponding sub-packet header thereof. Wherein exitCUEbitmapActive is a CAS where which indicates which CUE or CUEs exit the TUE by means of a bitmap. In the figure, the length of exitCUEbitmapActive is 8, and the length may also be other values, which depends on the maximum number of CUEs that can be included in the ue cooperative group configured by the network, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto.

It should be noted that, in a scenario where the MAC layer control signaling is used for performing the UE cooperative communication, for the relevant operation flows of the base station and the UE, reference may be made to the operation flows of the RRC signaling and the RRC message in the foregoing, which is not described herein again.

Since the first signaling, the second signaling, the third signaling, and the fourth signaling may be implemented by RRC messages or MAC layer control signaling, and the implementation manner of each signaling may be selected according to an actual situation, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

In the embodiments provided in the present application, the method for cooperative communication of user equipment and related signaling provided in the embodiments of the present application are introduced from the perspective of a base station and a UE, respectively. It is understood that a network node or device, such as a UE, a base station, etc., for implementing the above functions, includes corresponding hardware structures and/or software modules for performing the respective functions. Those of skill in the art would readily appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as hardware or combinations of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is performed as hardware or computer software drives hardware depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a possible structure of a base station according to an embodiment of the present application. The base station may be a base station as shown in fig. 1, fig. 2 or fig. 3.

The base station shown includes a transceiver 1201, a controller/processor 1202. The transceiver 1201 may be used to support transceiving information between a base station and the UE in the above embodiments, and to support radio communication between the UE and other UEs. The controller/processor 1202 may be configured to perform various functions for communicating with a UE or other network devices. In the uplink, uplink signals from the UE are received via the antenna, conditioned by the transceiver 1201, and further processed by the controller/processor 1202 to recover traffic data and signaling information sent by the UE. On the downlink, traffic data and signaling messages are processed by controller/processor 1202 and conditioned by transceiver 1201 to generate a downlink signal, which is transmitted via the antenna to the UE. The controller/processor 1202 is further configured to execute the method for cooperative communication of UE as described in the foregoing embodiment, and update the group information of the UE cooperation group in which the UE is located according to the identity information of the UE in the UE cooperation group.

Optionally, when the UE exiting the group is the last CUE in the group, the controller/processor 1202 schedules the TUEs in the group to reestablish the user equipment cooperation group. When the UE exiting the group is the last TUE in the group, the controller/processor 1202 notifies the CUE to update the group information of the group through a third signaling, where the third signaling carries the group identifier of the group. When the UE exiting the group is neither the last CUE nor the last TUE of the group, the controller/processor 1202 may also update the group information of the group that it maintains, for example, may delete the information of the UE in the UE cooperation group. The controller/processor 1202 controls and manages the operation of the base station for performing the processing performed by the base station in the above-described embodiment. For example, scheduling the UE to reestablish the UE cooperative group, and updating the group information of the UE cooperative group maintained by the base station, the relevant details may refer to the above method embodiment, and are not described herein again.

It will be appreciated that fig. 12 only shows a simplified design of a base station. In practical applications, a base station may comprise any number of transmitters, receivers, processors, controllers, memories, communication units, etc., and all base stations that can implement the present application are within the scope of the present application.

Fig. 13 is a simplified schematic diagram of a possible design structure of a UE involved in the embodiment of the present application, where the UE may be one of the UEs in fig. 1, fig. 2, or fig. 3. The UE includes a transceiver 1301, a controller/processor 1302, and may further include a memory 1303 and a modem processor 1304.

The transceiver 1301 conditions (e.g., converts to analog, filters, amplifies, and frequency upconverts) the output samples and generates an uplink signal, which is transmitted via an antenna to the base station as described in the embodiments above. On the downlink, the antenna receives the downlink signal transmitted by the base station in the above embodiment. The transceiver 1301 conditions (e.g., filters, amplifies, downconverts, and digitizes, etc.) the received signal from the antenna and provides input samples. In modem processor 1304, an encoder 13041 receives traffic data and signaling messages to be transmitted on the uplink and processes (e.g., formats, encodes, and interleaves) the traffic data and signaling messages. A modulator 13042 further processes (e.g., symbol maps and modulates) the coded traffic data and signaling messages and provides output samples. A demodulator 13044 processes (e.g., demodulates) the input samples and provides symbol estimates. A decoder 13043 processes (e.g., deinterleaves and decodes) the symbol estimates and provides decoded data and signaling messages for transmission to the UE. The encoder 13041, modulator 13042, demodulator 13044, and decoder 13043 may be implemented by a combined modem processor 1304. These elements are processed in accordance with the radio access technology employed by the radio access network (e.g., the access technologies of LTE and other evolved systems).

The controller/processor 1302 controls and manages the operation of the UE for performing the processing performed by the UE in the above-described embodiments. For example, reestablishing the UE cooperative group, updating group information of the UE cooperative group maintained by the UE, and the like, the relevant details may refer to the above method embodiment, and are not described herein again.

The controller/processor for executing the UE or base station described above may be a Central Processing Unit (CPU), general purpose processor, Digital Signal Processor (DSP), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, transistor logic device, hardware component, or any combination thereof. Which may implement or perform the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits described in connection with the disclosure. The processor may also be a combination of computing functions, e.g., comprising one or more microprocessors, DSPs, and microprocessors, among others.

It should be understood that the processor in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented by the processing module, and the transceiver may be implemented by the transceiver module.

The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with the disclosure herein may be embodied in hardware or in software instructions executed by a processor. The software instructions may consist of corresponding software modules that may be stored in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. Of course, the storage medium may also be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC. Additionally, the ASIC may reside in user equipment. Of course, the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in user equipment.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that in one or more of the examples described above, the functions described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer.

The above-mentioned embodiments, objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application are further described in detail, it should be understood that the above-mentioned embodiments are only examples of the present application, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present application, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements and the like made on the basis of the technical solutions of the present application should be included in the scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A method for cooperative communication of User Equipment (UE), comprising:

a base station receives a first signaling from User Equipment (UE), wherein the first signaling carries a group identifier of a user equipment cooperation group, the group identifier indicates that the user equipment cooperation group is a user equipment cooperation group which the UE needs to quit, the user equipment cooperation group comprises cooperation user equipment and target user equipment, and the cooperation user equipment provides cooperation transmission for the target user equipment, wherein the cooperation user equipment and the target user equipment are in the same cell, the UE is the cooperation user equipment or the target user equipment, and the target user equipment combines a received signal sent by the base station and a received signal forwarded by the cooperation user equipment for decoding;

the base station updates the group information of the UE cooperation group according to the identity information of the UE in the UE cooperation group, wherein the update comprises at least one of the following three situations:

when the UE is the CUE which is the last cooperative user equipment in the user equipment cooperative group, the base station sends a second signaling to target user equipment TUE in the user equipment cooperative group, the second signaling carries a group identifier which is used for the TUE to reestablish the user equipment cooperative group, the CUE is the UE which provides cooperative communication for other UE, and the TUE is the UE which receives the cooperative communication;

when the UE is the last TUE in the UE cooperation group, the base station sends a third signaling to a CUE in the UE cooperation group to notify the CUE to update group information of the UE cooperation group, wherein the third signaling carries the group identifier; or the like, or, alternatively,

and when the UE is neither the last CUE nor the last TUE of the UE cooperation group, the base station deletes the information of the UE in the UE cooperation group.

2. The method of claim 1,

the second signaling also carries forwarding mode information, where the forwarding mode information is used to indicate a forwarding mode of the TUE for cooperative communication, where the forwarding mode includes amplify-and-forward, decode-and-forward, or compress-and-forward.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

and when the UE is the CUE, the base station sends a fourth signaling to the TUE in the UE cooperation group, wherein the fourth signaling carries indication information of the UE, and the indication information of the UE is used for informing the TUE that the UE exits the UE cooperation group.

4. The method according to claim 1 or 2,

the first signaling, the second signaling and the third signaling are Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer control information or Media Access Control (MAC) layer control signaling.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 2,

the user equipment cooperation group comprises a candidate cooperation set CCS and an active cooperation set CAS; the first signaling is further used for instructing the UE to exit from a CAS to a CCS, wherein the CAS includes the TUE and the CUE actually providing cooperative communication for the TUE, and the CCS includes all UEs in the UE cooperation group.

6. A base station, comprising:

a transceiver, configured to receive a first signaling from a user equipment UE, where the first signaling carries a group identifier of a user equipment cooperation group, where the group identifier indicates that the user equipment cooperation group is a user equipment cooperation group that the UE needs to quit, the user equipment cooperation group includes cooperative user equipment and target user equipment, and the cooperative user equipment provides cooperative transmission for the target user equipment, where the cooperative user equipment and the target user equipment are in a same cell, the UE is the cooperative user equipment or the target user equipment, and the target user equipment combines a received signal sent by the base station and a received signal forwarded by the cooperative user equipment to decode the received signal;

the processor is used for updating the group information of the user equipment cooperation group according to the identity information of the UE in the user equipment cooperation group;

when the UE is the CUE which is the last cooperative user equipment in the user equipment cooperative group, the transceiver sends a second signaling to target user equipment TUE in the user equipment cooperative group, wherein the second signaling carries a group identifier required by the TUE for reestablishing the user equipment cooperative group, the CUE is the UE which provides cooperative communication for other UEs, and the TUE is the UE which receives the cooperative communication; or

When the UE is the last TUE in the UE cooperation group, the transceiver sends a third signaling to a CUE in the UE cooperation group to inform the CUE to update group information of the UE cooperation group, wherein the third signaling carries the group identifier; or the like, or, alternatively,

when the UE is neither the last CUE nor the last TUE of the UE cooperation group, the processor deletes the information of the UE in the UE cooperation group.

7. The base station of claim 6,

8. The base station of claim 6,

and when the UE is the CUE, the transceiver sends a fourth signaling to the TUE in the UE cooperation group, wherein the fourth signaling carries indication information of the UE, and the indication information of the UE is used for informing the TUE that the UE exits the UE cooperation group.

9. The base station according to claim 6 or 7,

10. The base station according to any of claims 6-7, wherein the cooperative group of user equipments comprises a candidate cooperative set CCS and an active cooperative set CAS; the first signaling is further used for instructing the UE to exit from a CAS to a CCS, wherein the CAS includes the TUE and the CUE actually providing cooperative communication for the TUE, and the CCS includes all UEs in the UE cooperation group.