CN109392044B

CN109392044B - Method and device for cell switching

Info

Publication number: CN109392044B
Application number: CN201810802061.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 李国荣; 张莉莉
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-08-10
Filing date: 2018-07-20
Publication date: 2020-10-23
Anticipated expiration: 2038-07-20
Also published as: CN109392044A

Abstract

The application provides a cell switching method and a device, and the method comprises the following steps: the target base station determines a beam for communication between the target base station and the terminal equipment through the first uplink resource set, specifically, the target base station determines a downlink beam where the terminal equipment is located through receiving the uplink resource sent by the terminal equipment by establishing a mapping relation between the uplink resource set and the downlink beam, and performs downlink transmission on the downlink beam; or the target base station informs the terminal equipment of the identification or index information of the uplink beam where the uplink resource is located, and the terminal equipment selects the uplink beam for uplink transmission; or the target base station informs the terminal device of the beam communicated with the target base station through the mapping relation or the beam information of the uplink resource and the beam included in the DCI; the method can reduce the beam scanning of the terminal equipment and the target base station, thereby reducing the switching time delay in the cell switching process.

Description

Method and device for cell switching

The present application claims priority of chinese patent applications filed in 2017 on 10/08/201710682182.9 entitled "RACH-less handover method and apparatus in high frequency" and 2018 on 1/03/201810171237.4 entitled "RACH-less handover method and apparatus in high frequency", the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for cell handover.

Background

In a cell handover procedure of an existing Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, in order to reduce handover interruption time, a RACH-less handover mechanism is defined. Among them, the target base station allocates a periodic uplink grant (UL grant) to the terminal device in advance, and transmits related information (e.g., a period) to the terminal device in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message. The RRC message of the handover command (HO) may configure the subframe allocation and UL grant format, e.g., the starting subframe of the UL grant. If the terminal device does not obtain the UL grant from the RRC message of HO, the terminal device should monitor a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) of the target base station to obtain the UL grant. When the terminal device is ready to handover to the target base station, it may use the pre-allocated UL grant to send a handover complete message to complete the handover. And the source base station stops downlink transmission when the UE is considered to be switched to the target base station.

In New Radio (NR), the RACH-less handover scheme may also be adopted as a method for reducing handover interruption time. In a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna system, a transmitting end and a receiving end use large-scale transmitting antennas and receiving antenna arrays, respectively, so that signals are transmitted and received through the large-scale antenna arrays of the transmitting end and the receiving end, thereby improving communication quality. In the high frequency operation of NR, beam forming (beam shaping) is generally used to improve the cell coverage, but beam scanning (beam scanning) is required to select an appropriate beam during communication between the base station and the terminal device, so as to perform data transmission.

In the current LTE RACH-less handover mechanism, beam scanning of the base station and the terminal device may increase cell handover delay, and therefore, a method is needed to reduce the delay of beam scanning, thereby reducing the cell handover delay.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a cell switching method and a cell switching device, which can reduce the power consumption of terminal equipment and reduce the time delay of cell switching.

In a first aspect, a communication method is provided, including: a first network device determines a first uplink resource set used by a terminal device, wherein the first uplink resource set comprises at least one uplink resource, and the first network device is a network device providing a target cell for the terminal device; the first network device determines a first beam according to the first uplink resource set, where the first beam is any one of multiple beams determined by the first network device according to a measurement result reported by the terminal device; the first network device communicates with the terminal device via the first beam.

By the method provided by the application, in the switching process of the terminal equipment from the source base station to the target base station or the switching process from the source base station to the target base station, the uplink resource UL grant is configured into one or more sets, each set at least comprises one UL grant, uplink beams and downlink beams for communication between the target base station and the terminal equipment are determined through the uplink resources, for example, a mapping relation between the UL grant sets and the downlink beams is established, and the target base station can determine the downlink beams received by the terminal equipment through receiving the UL grant sent by the terminal equipment and perform downlink transmission on the downlink beams; or the target base station notifies the terminal device of the identifier or the index information of the uplink beam where the UL grant is located, and the terminal device selects the uplink beam to perform uplink transmission. The method can reduce the uplink beam scanning process of the terminal equipment and the downlink beam scanning of the target base station, thereby reducing the time delay of the cell switching process.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the determining, by the first network device, a first beam according to the first uplink resource set includes: the first network equipment acquires a first mapping relation, wherein the first mapping relation is used for indicating the corresponding relation between a plurality of uplink resource sets and a plurality of beams; and the first network equipment determines the beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as the first beam according to the first mapping relation.

Alternatively, the target base station may determine the first mapping relationship according to the UL grant set and the downlink beam pre-allocated to the terminal device. The first mapping relationship may include a corresponding relationship between the uplink resource set and the identifier of the downlink beam, and may also include a corresponding relationship between the uplink resource index in the uplink resource set and the identifier of the downlink beam.

It should be understood that the first mapping relationship obtained by the target base station here may be determined by the target base station, may also be determined by the source base station and sent to the target base station, or may be preconfigured.

It should also be understood that the first mapping relationship here may be a mapping relationship between the UL grant and the downlink beam of the target base station, may be a corresponding relationship between the UL grant and the uplink beam of the terminal device, and may also be a common corresponding relationship between the UL grant, the downlink beam of the target base station, and the uplink beam of the terminal device.

It should be further understood that, in the first mapping relationship, the first network device may determine the quality of the beam according to the measurement result reported by the terminal device, and correspond the beam with the better quality to the uplink resource with the higher priority, or generate the first mapping relationship according to the priority order of the beam and the priority order of the uplink resource, and the first mapping relationship generation principle is not limited in the present application.

Through the technical scheme, the target base station informs the terminal equipment of the mapping relation between the UL grant and the wave beam in the switching command, so that the target base station is facilitated to know the wave beam where the terminal equipment is located, the target base station communicates with the terminal equipment on the wave beam, the wave beam scanning of the target base station is avoided, and the switching time delay in the switching process is reduced.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manners, in some possible implementation manners, the determining, by the first network device, a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as the first beam according to the first mapping relationship is performed, where the determining is performed by the first network device, and the determining includes: the first network equipment determines a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set according to a first mapping relation; the first network device determines the beam indicated by the first identifier as the first beam.

Specifically, during the handover process between the target base station and the source base station, the uplink signal of the terminal device has been detected by the target base station, so the target base station knows the appropriate uplink beam from the terminal device to the target base station, and therefore the target base station can be notified by the source base station to detect the uplink signal of the terminal device to identify the appropriate uplink beam from the terminal device to the target base station.

Specifically, the handover response message may include information of one or more uplink beams, such as information of a first identifier or index of the uplink beam. The terminal device may determine the uplink beam according to the information of the first identifier of the first beam. And the terminal equipment directly determines an uplink beam according to the first identifier and performs uplink transmission to the target base station by adopting a pre-allocated UL grant in the uplink beam. The method can reduce the uplink beam scanning before the terminal equipment carries out uplink transmission, thereby reducing the time delay of the cell switching process; meanwhile, the target base station does not need to reserve a pre-allocated periodic UL grant in each possible uplink beam, and the utilization rate of uplink resources can be improved.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementation manners, in some possible implementation manners, when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the method further includes: the first network device sends downlink control information DCI to the terminal device, where the DCI includes at least one of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

It should be understood that when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated UL grant from the handover command transmitted by the base station, the terminal device should monitor the PDCCH of the base station, i.e., obtain the configuration information of the UL grant according to the DCI. Therefore, in the foregoing embodiment, when there is no configured UL grant in the handover response message sent by the target base station to the source base station and the RRC link reconfiguration message sent by the source base station to the terminal device, after the terminal device and the target base station establish a connection, the target base station may send DCI to the terminal device to configure the UL grant, but the terminal device and the target base station also need to perform beam scanning to select a suitable beam, so that the time delay of the cell handover process may also be increased.

By including mapping relation information of a UL grant set and a wave beam and/or identification or index information of the wave beam in DCI sent to the terminal equipment by the target base station, after the terminal equipment receives the DCI sent by the target base station, the terminal equipment determines the wave beam communicated with the target base station according to the information in the DCI, thereby reducing wave beam scanning in the cell switching process and reducing switching time delay.

The terminal device receives the DCI, and obtains information included in the DCI, for example, the DCI may include information of a mapping relationship between a UL grant set and a downlink beam, or information of at least one uplink beam, for example, information such as an identifier of the uplink beam, or an index number of the uplink beam. The terminal equipment determines a beam through the DCI, and communicates with the target base station on the beam. The method can avoid the terminal equipment from scanning the uplink wave beams, thereby reducing the time delay of cell switching, and can also avoid the target base station from scanning the downlink wave beams, thereby reducing the time delay of cell switching.

With reference to the first aspect and the foregoing implementations, in some possible implementations, the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

In a second aspect, a communication method is provided, including: the terminal equipment determines a first wave beam according to a first uplink resource set, wherein the first wave beam is any one of a plurality of wave beams determined by first network equipment according to a measurement result reported by the terminal equipment, the first uplink resource set comprises at least one uplink resource, and the first network equipment is network equipment for providing a target cell for the terminal equipment; the terminal device communicates with the first network device via the first beam.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the determining, by the terminal device, a first beam according to the first uplink resource set includes: the terminal equipment acquires a first mapping relation, wherein the first mapping relation is used for indicating the corresponding relation between a plurality of uplink resource sets and a plurality of beams; and the terminal equipment determines the beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as the first beam according to the first mapping relation.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manners, in some possible implementation manners, the determining, by the terminal device, a first beam according to the first uplink resource set by using the first mapping relationship to indicate a correspondence relationship between indexes of the multiple uplink resource sets and identifiers of the multiple beams includes: the terminal equipment determines a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set according to the first mapping relation; the terminal equipment determines the beam indicated by the first identification as the first beam.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementation manners, in some possible implementation manners, when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the method further includes: the terminal equipment receives Downlink Control Information (DCI) sent by the target base station, wherein the DCI comprises at least one information of a first mapping relation and a first identifier; the terminal equipment determines the first beam according to the first uplink resource set and the DCI; the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a corresponding relationship between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

With reference to the second aspect and the foregoing implementations, in some possible implementations, the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

In a third aspect, a communication device is provided, which has the function of implementing the target base station in the method design of the first aspect. These functions may be implemented by hardware, or by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more units corresponding to the above functions.

In a fourth aspect, a communication device is provided, which has the function of implementing the terminal equipment in the method design of the second aspect. These functions may be implemented by hardware, or by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more units corresponding to the above functions.

In a fifth aspect, a communications apparatus is provided that includes a transceiver and a processor. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a memory. The processor is configured to control the transceiver to transceive signals, the memory is configured to store a computer program, and the processor is configured to retrieve from the memory and execute the computer program, so that the apparatus performs the method of the first aspect or any one of the possible implementation manners of the first aspect.

In a sixth aspect, a communications apparatus is provided that includes a transceiver and a processor. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a memory. The processor is configured to control the transceiver to transmit and receive signals, the memory is configured to store a computer program, and the processor is configured to call and execute the computer program from the memory, so that the apparatus executes the method in the second aspect or any one of the possible implementation manners of the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, a communication device is provided, which may be a target base station designed in the method described above, or a chip disposed in the target base station. The communication device includes: a processor, coupled to the memory, and configured to execute the instructions in the memory to implement the method performed by the target base station in the first aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a memory. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface.

The communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface, when the communication device is a target base station.

When the communication device is a chip configured in the target base station, the communication interface may be an input/output interface.

Alternatively, the transceiver may be a transmit-receive circuit. Alternatively, the input/output interface may be an input/output circuit.

In an eighth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, which may be a terminal device designed by the method or a chip provided in the terminal device. The communication device includes: a processor, coupled to the memory, and configured to execute the instructions in the memory to implement the method performed by the terminal device in the second aspect or any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a memory. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface.

When the communication device is a terminal device, the communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface.

When the communication device is a chip configured in a terminal device, the communication interface may be an input/output interface.

In a ninth aspect, there is provided a computer program product, the computer program product comprising: computer program code which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of the above-mentioned aspects.

In a tenth aspect, a computer-readable medium is provided, having program code stored thereon, which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of the above aspects.

Drawings

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a communication system of an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic interaction diagram of a cell handover method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating an example of a cell handover method according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 4 shows a schematic interaction diagram of an example cell handover method according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a mapping relationship between an uplink resource and a downlink beam according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 6 shows a schematic interaction diagram of another example of a cell handover method according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 7 is a schematic block diagram illustrating an example of a cell switching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 8 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a further cell switching apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 9 shows a schematic block diagram of another cell switching apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 10 shows a schematic block diagram of another cell switching apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solution in the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The technical scheme of the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication systems, for example: a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, an LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, an LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD) system, a fifth generation (5th generation, 5G) mobile communication system, a New Radio (NR) communication system, a future mobile communication system, and the like.

Fig. 1 shows a communication system 100 to which an embodiment of the present application is applied. The communication system 100 may include at least two radio access network devices (e.g., network device 110 and network device 120), and one terminal device (e.g., terminal device 130). The terminal equipment is connected with the wireless access network equipment in a wireless mode, and the wireless access network equipment is connected with the core network equipment in a wireless or wired mode. The core network device is not shown in fig. 1, and it should be understood that the core network device and the radio access network device may be separate physical devices, or the function of the core network device and the logical function of the radio access network device may be integrated on the same physical device, or a physical device may be integrated with a part of the function of the core network device and a part of the function of the radio access network device. The terminal equipment may be fixed or mobile. Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram, and other network devices, such as a wireless relay device and a wireless backhaul device, may also be included in the communication system, which are not shown in fig. 1. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the number of core network devices, radio access network devices, and terminal devices included in the mobile communication system.

In the mobile communication system 100, the radio access network device 120 is an access device that the terminal device accesses to the mobile communication system wirelessly. The radio access network device 120 may be: a base station, an evolved nodeB (base station), a home nodeB, an Access Point (AP), a wireless relay node, a wireless backhaul node, a Transmission Point (TP), a Transmission and Reception Point (TRP) in a wireless fidelity (WIFI) system, and the like, and may also be a gNB in an NR system, or may also be a component or a part of a device constituting the base station, such as a Central Unit (CU), a Distributed Unit (DU), or a baseband unit (BBU). It should be understood that, in the embodiments of the present application, there is no limitation on the specific technology and the specific device form adopted by the radio access network device. In this application, a radio access network device is referred to as a network device for short, and if no special description is provided, network devices are referred to as radio access network devices in this application. Network devices 110 and 120 may be devices that communicate with terminal devices, each of which may provide communication coverage for a particular geographic area and may communicate with terminal devices located within that coverage area (cell). In this application, the network device may refer to the network device itself, or may be a chip applied to the network device to complete a wireless communication processing function.

In addition, in this embodiment of the present application, an access network device provides a service for a cell, and a terminal device communicates with the access network device through a transmission resource (for example, a frequency domain resource or a spectrum resource) used by the cell, where the cell may be a cell corresponding to the access network device (for example, a base station), and the cell may belong to a macro base station or a base station corresponding to a small cell (small cell), and the small cell here may include: urban cell (metro cell), micro cell (microcell), pico cell (pico cell), femto cell (femto cell), etc., and these small cells have the characteristics of small coverage and low transmission power, and are suitable for providing high-rate data transmission service.

The terminal equipment in the mobile communication system 100 may also be referred to as a terminal, a User Equipment (UE), a Mobile Station (MS), a Mobile Terminal (MT), and the like. The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be a mobile phone (mobile phone), a tablet computer (Pad), a computer with a wireless transceiving function, or a wireless terminal applied to Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), industrial control (industrial control), unmanned driving (self driving), remote medical (remote medical), smart grid (smart grid), transportation safety (transportation safety), smart city (smart city), and smart home (smart home). The terminal device and the chip applicable to the terminal device are collectively referred to as a terminal device in the present application. It should be understood that the embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific technology and the specific device form adopted by the terminal device.

Fig. 1 exemplarily shows two network devices and one terminal device, and optionally, the communication system 100 may include a plurality of network devices and may include other numbers of terminal devices within the coverage of each network device, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application. Optionally, the wireless communication system 100 may further include other network entities such as a network controller, a mobility management entity, and the like, which is not limited thereto.

In the description of the embodiment of the present application, the terminal device 130 is handed over from the source base station to the target base station as an example. It should be understood that the source base station and the target base station may be two different cells under the same base station, or may be two cells under different base stations. As shown in fig. 1, in a source base station 110, a terminal device 130 may switch from position 1 to position 2, so as to implement switching of different cells under the same base station 110; handover from the source base station 110 to the target base station 120, such as handover from position 1 to position 3 in fig. 1, may also be performed to implement handover between different cells under different base stations. For both of the two handover scenarios, the handover is performed in units of cells, and whether the source cell and the target cell are located in the same base station is not limited in the present application. The following description mainly takes the example of the terminal device 130 being handed over from the source base station to the target base station as an example.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a process for implementing handover from a source base station to a target base station by a terminal device. As shown in fig. 2, the cell handover process specifically includes the following four stages.

1. Measurement control phase

The measurement control phase includes steps 1-2 of fig. 2. The terminal equipment initially communicates with a source base station, the source base station sends measurement control information to the terminal, and the terminal equipment performs measurement based on the measurement control information after receiving the measurement control information. And when the report condition of the measurement report is met, the terminal equipment reports the measurement result to the source base station. Specifically, the source base station executes a measurement control program according to the operating characteristics, location characteristics, and the like of the terminal device, and requires the terminal device to provide a corresponding measurement report in an event-triggered or periodic reporting manner, so that the source base station makes a decision to trigger handover.

2. Preparation phase of handover

The handover preparation phase includes steps 3-7 in fig. 2, after receiving the measurement result sent back by the terminal device, the source base station makes a handover decision based on the measurement result reported by the terminal device, and the source base station can make a handover selection according to the service quality of the service of the terminal device, the surrounding wireless resources and other conditions, determine a target base station to which the terminal device is handed over, and send a handover request message (HO request) to the target base station. When the target base station receives the HO request, the basic attribute, the wireless parameter, the measurement result, etc. of the terminal equipment carried by the signaling are detected, the target base station performs admission control, after the receiving terminal equipment is determined, the target base station sends a handover request acknowledgement (HO _ req ACK) signaling to the source base station, and then the source base station sends a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection reconfiguration message, that is, a handover command to the terminal equipment, which marks the completion of the handover preparation work.

In the handover command of the RRC message, information to be provided to the terminal device is also included, including a new Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier (C-RNTI), random access channel information, a System Information Block (SIB), and the like, which can help the terminal to get in contact with the target base station in the shortest time and resume communication.

3. A handover execution phase

The handover execution phase includes steps 8-11 in fig. 2, and after receiving the handover command, the terminal device accesses the target base station according to the parameters carried in the handover command.

Once the terminal equipment starts to execute the switching, the terminal equipment disconnects the connection with the source base station, sends a random access request to the target base station, requires the target base station to provide a TA (timing advance) adjustment value, and completes uplink synchronization. In the process, the source base station transmits downlink data to the target base station in a cache mode; and after the link is established, the link is issued to the terminal equipment, so that the data is ensured to be lossless.

The target base station detects a request sent by the terminal equipment in a random access period, sends a confirmation signaling of the random access request to the terminal, allocates uplink resources, replies a TA (timing advance) adjustment value and helps the terminal equipment to synchronously access the target base station after receiving the confirmation signaling. And then, the terminal equipment sends a switching completion signaling to the target base station, the switching completion signaling is synchronized with the target base station, the switching execution is marked to be completed smoothly, and the terminal equipment and the target base station recover normal communication.

4. Stage of completion of handover

The switching completion phase includes steps 12-18 in fig. 2, after the communication between the terminal device and the target base station is recovered, the target base station sends a path switching request to the access gateway, and requests to change the downlink data path of the terminal device and update the user interface. After the access gateway finishes, an end marker (end marker) signaling is sent to the source base station to mark the end of caching data and inform the target base station of finishing updating. And then the target base station informs the source base station of the completion of the switching, so that the target base station releases the system resources occupied by the terminal. The source base station sends the buffered data until an end marker flag is encountered.

Above is a detailed procedure of the current cell handover, in the RACH-less handover mechanism, if the handover command is configured to include an indication of Timing Advance (TA) and a pre-allocated UL grant, for example, the TA value of the source base station may be repeatedly used for the target base station or the TA value from the terminal device to the target base station is 0. Specifically, step 6 and step 7 in the handover preparation phase may be configured, and the terminal device may send a handover complete message to complete handover by using a pre-allocated UL grant after handover to the target base station; if the pre-allocated UL grant is not included in the handover command, the terminal device should monitor the PDCCH of the target base station to receive the UL grant, and the terminal device uses the first available UL grant to perform uplink transmission after synchronizing to the target base station.

In the high frequency operation of NR, in order to improve coverage of a cell, a large-scale antenna array is employed to improve transmission quality of a radio signal, i.e., a beamforming technique. Beamforming is used in Multiple-input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna systems, and is a combination of antenna technology and digital signal processing technology for the purpose of directional signal transmission and reception. Due to the adoption of multiple groups of antennas, wireless signals from a transmitting end to a receiving end are transmitted through multiple paths, for example, in a downlink process, a base station sequentially transmits wireless signals by using beams with different directions, and the process is called beam scanning (beam sweeping); meanwhile, the terminal equipment measures wireless signals emitted by the obstructed wave beams and reports related information to the base station, and the base station determines the optimal emitting wave beam according to the information reported by the user. However, the terminal device also has an antenna array, i.e. in the beam forming process, the transmit beam is considered urgently, and the receive beam is also considered. In other words, in the uplink process, the terminal device also needs to perform uplink transmission for uplink beam scanning, for example, transmission of a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH). A high delay is caused during the beam scanning process of the base station and the terminal device. In the cell handover process, the terminal device may need to perform PUSCH transmission by using uplink beam scanning in the pre-allocated UL grant, which may cause high power consumption and handover delay of the terminal device. Furthermore, the target base station needs to reserve the pre-allocated periodic UL grant resources in each possible uplink beam, which also reduces the resource usage efficiency.

In order to reduce the time delay of cell handover, embodiments of the present application provide a method for cell handover, where a handover command includes UL grant information of one or more uplink resource sets, and a beam for communication between a target base station and a terminal device is determined through a mapping relationship between each UL grant and a beam (e.g., an uplink beam or a downlink beam); or determining the beam communicated between the target base station and the terminal equipment by indicating beam information in the re-switching command, such as the identification or index of the beam; or after the handover is completed, the Downlink Control Information (DCI) sent by the target base station to the terminal device includes Information of a mapping relationship between the UL grant and the beam, and/or identification or index Information of the beam, and the terminal device determines the beam communicated with the target base station through the DCI. The method can reduce the beam scanning process of the base station and the terminal equipment in the cell switching process, thereby reducing the time delay of the cell switching process.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an example of a cell handover method according to an embodiment of the present application, where the method 300 may be applied to the target base station in the communication system 100, and as shown in fig. 3, the method 300 specifically includes the following contents.

S301, a first network device determines a first uplink resource set used by a terminal device, where the first uplink resource set includes at least one uplink resource, and the first network device is a network device that provides a target cell for the terminal device.

In the description of the embodiment of the present application, a network device that provides a target base station for a terminal device is referred to as a first network device, and a network device that provides a source base station for the terminal device is referred to as a second network device.

It should be understood that, before the source base station sends the handover request message to the target base station, the source base station pre-allocates a plurality of uplink resources UL grant to the terminal device. The pre-allocated UL grants are configured into one or more sets, each set including one or more pre-allocated UL grants.

It should be understood that the UL grant included in the first uplink resource set herein may be configured by RRC signaling or some semi-static UL grant resources. In addition, the first uplink resource set may be configured by the source base station for the terminal device, and the target base station obtains the interface interaction with the source base station in the cell handover process, or may be configured by the source base station for the terminal device.

S302, the first network device determines a first beam according to the first uplink resource set, where the first beam is any one of a plurality of beams determined by the first network device according to the measurement result reported by the terminal device.

It should be understood that the first beam here refers to a beam for communication between the target base station and the terminal device, and optionally the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

A method of determining the first beam is described as an example where the first beam is a downlink beam. The terminal device may measure downlink beams before data transmission, for example, measure downlink beams of the source base station and the target base station, and report the beam measurement result to the source base station, and the source base station may forward the measurement result of the downlink beam of the target base station from the terminal device to the target base station through the X2 interface. Based on these measurement results, the target base station may select a downlink beam with good quality, and establish a mapping relationship between the downlink beam with good quality and the uplink resource UL grant, that is, the first mapping relationship in this application, and it can be understood that the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a corresponding relationship between the first uplink resource set and the first beam. The target base station obtains the first mapping relationship, and determines the first beam according to the first uplink resource set and the first mapping relationship determined in S301 for uplink transmission.

In another possible implementation manner, the target base station determines a first identifier of the first beam according to the first uplink resource set, and determines the first beam according to the first identifier.

A method of determining the first beam is described by way of example in which the first beam is an uplink beam. In the role switching between the target base station and the source base station, the uplink signal of the terminal device is already detected by the target base station, so the target base station knows the appropriate uplink beam from the terminal device to the target base station. In some co-sited scenarios, the target base station has the same TA as the source base station, and therefore the target base station may be notified by the source base station to detect the uplink signal of the terminal device to identify a suitable uplink beam from the terminal device to the target base station. Therefore, the UE can be informed of the beam where the uplink data is sent in the RACH-less switching process, so as to reduce the uplink beam scanning of the terminal equipment.

Specifically, the target base station may also indicate information of one or more uplink beams, for example, information carrying a first identifier or index of the uplink beam, when the pre-allocated ul grant is configured in the handover response message sent to the source base station. When receiving a handover completion message sent by a source base station, a terminal device determines a first beam according to a pre-allocated UL grant and information of one or more uplink beams, such as a first identifier, notified in the handover completion message, and sends uplink data to a target base station in the first beam by using the pre-allocated UL grant.

In another possible implementation manner, when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the target base station sends downlink control information DCI to the terminal device, where the DCI includes at least one of the first mapping relationship information and the first identifier described above. The terminal equipment determines a first beam according to the DCI by receiving the DCI sent by the target base station.

Specifically, the DCI may include first mapping relationship information, for example, indicating a corresponding relationship between the first uplink resource set and the downlink beam, and the terminal device determines the downlink beam of the target base station according to the first mapping relationship; or, the DCI includes information of one or more uplink beams, for example, information such as a first identifier or an index carrying the uplink beam, and the terminal device determines the uplink beam according to the first identifier; or, the DCI includes the information of the first mapping relationship and the information of the uplink beam at the same time, and the terminal device determines the uplink beam and the downlink beam of the target base station through the DCI. The method can reduce the switching time delay caused by the beam scanning process.

S303, the first network device communicates with the terminal device through the first beam.

An example of a cell handover method provided in the embodiments of the present application is described above from the target base station side, and details of the method will be described below with respect to an interaction procedure between the terminal device, the source base station, and the target base station.

Fig. 4 is a schematic interaction diagram of an example cell handover method according to an embodiment of the present application. Each step of method 400 is described in detail below.

S401, a source base station sends a switching request message to a target base station, wherein the switching request message is used for requesting to switch a terminal device from the source base station to the target base station, and the switching request message comprises a measurement result reported by the terminal device.

Optionally, before the source base station sends the handover request message to the target base station, the source base station pre-allocates a plurality of uplink resources UL grant to the terminal device. The pre-allocated UL grants are configured into one or more sets, each set including one or more pre-allocated UL grants. For example, set 1 includes 2 UL grants with index numbers 1a and 1 b; set 2 includes 1 UL grant with index number 2; set 3 includes 1 UL grant with index number 3.

And after receiving the measurement control information sent by the source base station, the terminal equipment carries out measurement based on the measurement control information. For example, the terminal device may measure the downlink beam of the target base station and report the measurement result to the source base station. The source base station may forward the measurement results of the terminal device to the target base station over the X2 interface.

S402, the target base station carries out admission control according to the measurement result of the terminal equipment.

Optionally, the target base station obtains a first mapping relationship, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between a UL grant and a downlink beam.

Specifically, the target base station obtains information such as basic attributes, wireless parameters, measurement results, and the like of the terminal device according to the handover request message sent by the source base station, and performs admission control. After the target base station determines to receive the terminal device, based on the measurement result of the terminal device, the target base station may select a downlink beam with good quality for transmission of downlink data.

In a high-frequency multi-beam operation scenario, during RACH-less handover, the terminal device performs PUSCH transmission to the target base station in a pre-assigned ul grant. Then, the target base station sends the PDCCH addressed to the terminal device identifier by using downlink beam scanning, that is, by detecting and scanning a plurality of downlink beams, an optimal beam with good transmission quality is selected, and a beam scanning process may cause higher time delay. In order to save this delay, it is preferable to let the target base station know the downlink beam where the terminal device is currently located.

Alternatively, the target base station may determine the first mapping relationship according to the UL grant set and the downlink beam pre-allocated to the terminal device. Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a mapping relationship between an uplink resource and a downlink beam, and table 1 shows specific mapping contents of the uplink resource and the downlink beam. In conjunction with fig. 3 and table 1, in one possible scenario, the first allocated 4 UL grants (UL grant 1a, UL grant 1b, UL grant 2, and UL grant 3) are configured into 3 sets (set 1, set 2, and set 3), each set including at least one UL grant; one set corresponds to at least one downlink beam, e.g. set 1 corresponds to downlink beam 1 and set 3 corresponds to downlink beams 2 and 3.

TABLE 1

It should be understood that the first mapping relationship may include a corresponding relationship between the uplink resource set and the identifier of the downlink beam, and may also include a corresponding relationship between the uplink resource index in the uplink resource set and the identifier of the downlink beam. Here, the identifier of the downlink beam may be a synchronization signal block (SS block) identifier or a Channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) identifier.

It should also be understood that the uplink resource index may correspond to uplink resource scheduling content one to one, where the uplink resource scheduling content may include a Transmission period or Transmission Time Interval (TTI) of the uplink resource, for example, a basic Time unit of Transmission is one TTI, and the TTI length may be 1 ms; the uplink resource scheduling content may further include a starting time slot or symbol of the uplink resource, the basic time unit for transmission may be one or more time slots or one or more symbols, and the uplink resource index may indicate the available time slot or symbol of the starting uplink resource; the uplink Resource content may further include information of a Physical Resource Block (PRB) of the uplink Resource, a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS), digital information such as a slot or symbol length, and the like. This is not limited in this application.

It should be understood that, here, the first mapping relationship obtained by the target base station may be determined by the target base station, may also be determined by the source base station and sent to the target base station, or may be preconfigured, which is not limited in this application.

It should be further understood that the first mapping relationship here may be a mapping relationship between the UL grant and the downlink beam of the target base station, may be a corresponding relationship between the UL grant and the uplink beam of the terminal device, and may also be a common corresponding relationship between the UL grant, the downlink beam of the target base station, and the uplink beam of the terminal device, which is not limited in this application.

S403, the target base station sends a switching response message to the source base station.

Optionally, the handover response message includes information of the first mapping relationship. Correspondingly, the source base station receives the switching response message sent by the target base station, and acquires the information of the first mapping relation.

Alternatively, the handover response message includes information of one or more uplink beams, for example, information such as a first identifier or index of an uplink beam.

S404, the source base station sends a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection reconfiguration message to the terminal equipment.

Optionally, the RRC connection reconfiguration message includes information of the first mapping relationship. Correspondingly, the terminal equipment receives the radio resource control RRC connection reconfiguration message sent by the source base station.

Alternatively, the RRC connection reconfiguration message includes information of one or more uplink beams, for example, information such as a first identifier or an index of the uplink beam.

S405, the terminal device synchronizes to the target base station in a downlink manner according to the RRC connection reconfiguration message, and determines a UL grant and a first beam for communicating with the target base station according to the RRC message.

After receiving the RRC connection reconfiguration message sent by the source base station, the terminal device completes the handover preparation phase and prepares to enter the handover execution phase. The terminal equipment firstly synchronizes downlink to the target base station and selects one or more downlink beams suitable in the target base station for receiving.

Optionally, the terminal device may determine a downlink beam of the target base station according to the information of the first mapping relationship included in the RRC connection reconfiguration message, and send a message including a handover completion message in the UL grant of the one or more UL grant sets corresponding to the received downlink beam.

For example, taking the mapping relationship listed in fig. 5 as an example, after the terminal device completes downlink synchronization to the target base station, if the beam 1 sent by the target base station is received, the uplink resource 1a or the uplink resource 1b is directly utilized to send a handover completion message to the target base station correspondingly; if the terminal equipment receives the beam 2 sent by the target base station, the uplink resource 2 or the uplink resource 3 is correspondingly and directly utilized to send a switching completion message to the target base station; if the terminal equipment receives the beam 3 sent by the target base station, the uplink resource 3 is directly utilized correspondingly to send a switching completion message to the target base station.

Or, the terminal device may determine the uplink beam according to the information of the first identifier of the first beam included in the RRC connection reconfiguration message. And the terminal equipment directly determines an uplink beam according to the first identifier and performs uplink transmission to the target base station by adopting a pre-allocated UL grant in the uplink beam. The method can reduce the uplink beam scanning before the terminal equipment carries out uplink transmission, thereby reducing the time delay of the cell switching process; meanwhile, the target base station does not need to reserve a pre-allocated periodic UL grant in each possible uplink beam, and the utilization rate of uplink resources can be improved.

It should be understood that, the above two methods for indicating beams in cell handover are provided, for example, by including mapping relationship information of an uplink resource UL grant and a downlink beam in a handover message, a target base station can determine a downlink beam according to the UL grant sent by a terminal device and use the downlink beam for downlink transmission, thereby reducing a time delay caused by downlink beam scanning performed by the base station; or the switching message includes the uplink resource UL grant and the information of the uplink beam, so that the terminal device can determine the uplink beam according to the indication information of the uplink beam and perform uplink transmission on the uplink beam, thereby reducing the time delay caused by the terminal device performing uplink beam scanning. The two methods can be independently applied to a cell switching scene, and can achieve the purpose of reducing the switching delay, and in addition, the two methods can also be used in combination, that is, the switching message received by the terminal device includes not only the information for indicating the mapping relationship between the UL grant and the downlink beam, but also the information for indicating the uplink beam, so as to reduce the delay caused by uplink and downlink beam scanning at the same time, and improve the utilization rate of the uplink resource.

It should also be understood that the handover message referred to herein may include a handover request message sent by the source base station to the target base station, a handover response message sent by the target base station to the source base station, and an RRC link reconfiguration message sent by the source base station to the terminal device during the handover process, which is not limited in this application.

S406, the terminal device sends a handover complete message to the target base station through the determined UL grant, where the handover complete message is used to indicate that the terminal device completes handover and completes establishment of RRC connection.

And S407, the target base station determines the downlink beam received by the terminal device according to the received UL grant.

And S408, the target base station performs downlink transmission on the downlink beam.

Optionally, the target base station receives an RRC connection reconfiguration complete message sent by the terminal device, and determines one or more downlink beams received by the terminal device according to the received UL grant for uplink transmission and the information of the first mapping relationship; the target base station may then perform downlink transmission on the downlink beam.

According to the cell switching method provided by the scheme, in the RACH-less switching process, a mapping relation between UL grant sets and downlink beams is established by configuring the UL grants allocated in advance into one or more sets, wherein each set at least comprises one UL grant, and a target base station can determine the downlink beams received by terminal equipment by receiving the UL grants sent by the terminal equipment and perform downlink transmission on the downlink beams; or the target base station notifies the terminal device of the identifier or the index information of the uplink beam where the UL grant is located, and the terminal device selects the uplink beam to perform uplink transmission. The method can reduce the downlink beam scanning of the target base station, thereby reducing the time delay of the cell switching process.

It should be appreciated that the transmission of data (e.g., uplink or downlink transmission) may be based on a schedule-free transmission or may be based on a scheduling of a base station. Scheduling transmission may refer to a base station allocating and informing a plurality of transmission resources to a terminal device in advance; when the terminal equipment has the requirement of uplink data transmission, selecting at least one transmission resource from a plurality of transmission resources pre-allocated by the base station, and sending uplink data by using the selected transmission resource; the base station detects uplink data sent by the terminal equipment on one or more transmission resources in a plurality of pre-allocated transmission resources. A specific procedure for scheduling transmission may be that the base station sends a control channel, such as a PDCCH, to the terminal device. The control Channel may carry scheduling information for scheduling a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) using different DCI formats, where the scheduling information may include control information such as resource allocation information and modulation and coding scheme. The terminal equipment detects the control channel and receives the downlink data channel or transmits the uplink data channel according to the scheduling information carried in the detected control channel.

In LTE, when a terminal device does not obtain a pre-allocated UL grant from a handover command transmitted by a base station, the terminal device should monitor the PDCCH of the base station, i.e., obtain configuration information of the UL grant according to DCI. Therefore, in the foregoing embodiment, when there is no configured UL grant in the handover response message sent by the target base station to the source base station and the RRC link reconfiguration message sent by the source base station to the terminal device, after the terminal device and the target base station establish a connection, the target base station may send DCI to the terminal device to configure the UL grant, but the terminal device and the target base station also need to perform beam scanning to select a suitable beam, so that the time delay of the cell handover process may also be increased.

In another example of the method for cell handover, the DCI sent by the target base station to the terminal device includes mapping relationship information of a UL grant set and a beam and/or identifier or index information of the beam, so that the terminal device determines the beam communicated with the target base station according to the information in the DCI after receiving the DCI sent by the target base station, thereby reducing beam scanning in a cell handover process and reducing handover delay.

Fig. 6 is a schematic interaction diagram of another cell handover method according to an embodiment of the present application. The method 600 may be used when the terminal device does not obtain pre-allocated uplink resources. Each step of method 600 is described in detail below.

S601, the target base station sends downlink control information DCI to the terminal device, where the downlink control information DCI includes the first indication information. Correspondingly, the terminal equipment receives the DCI and acquires the first indication information.

It should be understood that, when the terminal device receives the handover command sent by the source base station, and then downlink synchronization is performed to the target base station, the terminal device may select one or more downlink beams for reception, in other words, the terminal device receives the PDCCH sent by the target base station, so as to obtain DCI carried in the PDCCH, and further obtain the first indication information included in the DCI.

Optionally, the first indication information may include at least one of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

Specifically, the first indication information may include information of a first mapping relationship, which may be information indicating a mapping relationship between a UL grant and a downlink beam. The first mapping relationship is described in detail above, and is not described herein again.

Alternatively, the first indication information may be information including at least one uplink beam, for example, information such as an identifier of the uplink beam or an index number of the uplink beam.

Still alternatively, the first indication information includes information of the first mapping relationship and information of the at least one uplink beam.

S602, the terminal device determines an uplink beam for transmission according to the first indication information.

S603, the terminal device performs uplink transmission on the uplink beam.

And the terminal equipment receives the DCI and acquires the first indication information included in the DCI. If the first indication information includes information of a mapping relationship between a UL grant set and downlink beams, after the terminal device sends the UL grant to the target base station, the target base station receives the UL grant, determines at least one corresponding downlink beam according to the UL grant set to which the received UL grant belongs, and performs downlink transmission on the at least one corresponding downlink beam. The method can avoid the downlink beam scanning of the target base station, thereby reducing the time delay of cell switching.

In order to save signaling overhead in DCI, the mapping relationship from the UL grant set to the downlink beam may be implicit. For example, the occurrence order of the UL grant sets implicitly corresponds to the SS block identification and/or CSI-RS identification of the target base station. It should be understood that the implicit correspondence is usually pre-configured, for example, through RRC signaling, or is a well-known correspondence. This is not limited by the present application.

Or, when the first indication information includes information of at least one uplink beam, for example, the first indication information includes information such as an identifier of the uplink beam or an index number of the uplink beam, the terminal device determines the uplink beam by using the identifier of the uplink beam or the index number of the uplink beam, and performs uplink transmission on the uplink beam. The method can avoid the terminal equipment from performing uplink beam scanning, thereby reducing the time delay of cell switching.

Or, when the first indication information includes information of a mapping relationship between the UL grant and the downlink beam and information of at least one uplink beam at the same time, the terminal device first determines the uplink beam by using the information of the uplink beam and performs uplink transmission on the uplink beam; and after receiving the UL grant of the uplink beam, the target base station determines at least one corresponding downlink beam according to the mapping relation between the received UL grant and the downlink beam, and performs downlink transmission. Meanwhile, the terminal equipment can be prevented from carrying out uplink beam scanning, and the target base station can be prevented from carrying out downlink beam scanning, so that the time delay of cell switching is reduced.

In summary, with the method for cell handover provided in the embodiment of the present application, the DCI indicates a corresponding relationship between the uplink resource set and the beam, for example, indicates a mapping relationship between the UL grant set and the downlink beam, and the target base station may determine the downlink beam where the terminal device is located by receiving the UL grant sent by the terminal device and perform downlink transmission on the downlink beam; or the target base station notifies the terminal device of the identifier or the index information of the uplink beam where the UL grant is located, and the terminal device selects the uplink beam to perform uplink transmission. The method can reduce the downlink beam scanning of the target base station, thereby reducing the time delay of the cell switching process.

It should be understood that the sequence numbers of the above-mentioned processes do not mean the execution sequence, and the execution sequence of each process should be determined by its function and inherent logic, and should not constitute any limitation to the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

The cell handover method according to the embodiment of the present application is described in detail above with reference to fig. 1 to 6, and the cell handover apparatus according to the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to fig. 7 to 10.

Fig. 7 shows a communication apparatus 700 provided in this embodiment of the application, where the apparatus 700 may correspond to the target base station described in the method 300, the method 400, or the method 600, and may also be a chip or a component applied to the target base station, and each module or unit in the apparatus 700 is configured to perform each action or process performed by the target base station in the method 300, the method 400, or the method 600, respectively, as shown in fig. 7, where the communication apparatus 700 may include: a determination unit 710 and a communication unit 720.

A determining unit 710, configured to determine a first uplink resource set used by a terminal device, where the first uplink resource set includes at least one uplink resource, and the first network device is a network device that provides a target cell for the terminal device.

The determining unit 710 is further configured to determine a first beam according to the first uplink resource set, where the first beam is any one of multiple beams determined by the first network device according to the measurement result reported by the terminal device.

A communication unit 720, configured to communicate with the terminal device through the first beam.

Optionally, the communication apparatus further includes an obtaining unit, configured to obtain a first mapping relationship, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between the first uplink resource set and the first beam. The determining unit 710 is further configured to determine, according to the first mapping relationship, a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as the first beam.

Optionally, the first mapping relationship is configured to indicate a correspondence between indexes of a plurality of uplink resource sets and identifiers of a plurality of beams, and the determining unit 710 is further configured to determine, according to the first mapping relationship, a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set; and determining the beam indicated by the first identification as the first beam.

Optionally, when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the communication unit 720 is configured to send downlink control information DCI to the terminal device, where the DCI includes at least one of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

Optionally, the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

It should be appreciated that the apparatus 700 herein is embodied in the form of a functional unit. The term "unit" herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an optional example, it may be understood by those skilled in the art that the apparatus 700 may be specifically a target base station in the foregoing embodiment, and the apparatus 700 may be configured to perform each procedure and/or step corresponding to the target base station in the foregoing method embodiment, and in order to avoid repetition, details are not described here again.

Fig. 8 shows a cell switching apparatus 800 provided in this embodiment of the application, where the apparatus 800 may correspond to the terminal device described in the method 300 or the method 400 or the method 600, or may be a chip or a component applied to the terminal device, and modules or units in the apparatus 800 are respectively configured to execute actions or processes executed by the terminal device in the method 300 or the method 400 or the method 600, and as shown in fig. 8, the communication apparatus 800 may include: a determination unit 810 and a communication unit 820.

A determining unit 810, configured to determine, according to a first uplink resource set, a first beam, where the first beam is any one of multiple beams determined by a first network device according to a measurement result reported by the terminal device, and the first uplink resource set includes at least one uplink resource.

A communication unit 820 for communicating with the target base station through the first beam.

Optionally, the apparatus 800 further includes an obtaining unit, configured to obtain a first mapping relationship, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between the multiple uplink resource sets and the multiple beams. The determining unit 810 is further configured to determine, according to the first mapping relationship, a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as the first beam.

Optionally, the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between indexes of a plurality of uplink resource sets and identifiers of a plurality of beams, and the determining unit 810 is further configured to: determining a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set according to the first mapping relation; and determining the beam indicated by the first identification as the first beam.

Optionally, when the communication apparatus does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the communication unit is further configured to receive downlink control information DCI sent by the target base station, where the DCI includes at least one of the first mapping relationship and the first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

The determining unit 810 is further configured to determine the first beam according to the first uplink resource set and the DCI.

It should be appreciated that the apparatus 800 herein is embodied in the form of a functional unit. The term "unit" herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (e.g., a shared, dedicated, or group processor) and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable components that support the described functionality. In an optional example, as can be understood by those skilled in the art, the apparatus 800 may be embodied as the terminal device in the foregoing embodiment, and the apparatus 800 may be configured to execute each procedure and/or step corresponding to the terminal device in the foregoing method embodiment, and in order to avoid repetition, details are not described here again.

Fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 900 according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 9, the communication device 900 (e.g., a base station) includes a processor 910 and a transceiver 920. Optionally, the communication device 900 further comprises a memory 930. Wherein, the processor 910, the transceiver 920 and the memory 930 communicate with each other via the internal connection path to transmit control and/or data signals, the memory 930 is used for storing a computer program, and the processor 910 is used for retrieving and running the computer program from the memory 930 to control the transceiver 920 to transmit and receive signals.

The processor 910 and the memory 930 may be combined into a processing device, and the processor 910 is configured to execute the program codes stored in the memory 930 to implement the functions of the base station in the above-described method embodiments. In particular implementations, the memory 930 may be integrated with the processor 910 or may be separate from the processor 910. The transceiver 920 may be implemented by way of transceiver circuitry.

The communication device may further include an antenna 940, configured to send the downlink data or the downlink control signaling output by the transceiver 920 through a wireless signal, or send the uplink data or the uplink control signaling to the transceiver 820 for further processing after receiving the uplink data or the uplink control signaling.

It should be understood that the apparatus 900 may correspond to the target base station in the method 400 according to the embodiment of the present application, and the apparatus 900 may also be a chip or a component applied to the target base station. Also, each module in the apparatus 900 implements the corresponding flow in the method 400 or the method 600, and specifically, the memory 930 is configured to store a program code, so that when the processor 910 executes the program code, the processor 910 is controlled to execute S402 and S407 in the method 400 or S602 in the method 600; the transceiver 920 is configured to execute S401, S403, S406, and S408 in the method 400 or execute S601 and S603 in the method 600, and specific processes of each unit for executing the corresponding steps are already described in detail in the method 400 and the method 600, and are not described herein again for brevity.

Fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 1000 according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 10, the terminal device 1000 includes a processor 1010 and a transceiver 1020. Optionally, the terminal device 1000 further comprises a memory 1030. Wherein, the processor 1010, the transceiver 1020 and the memory 1030 communicate with each other via the internal connection path to transmit control and/or data signals, the memory 1030 is used for storing a computer program, and the processor 1010 is used for calling and running the computer program from the memory 1030 to control the transceiver 1020 to transmit and receive signals.

The processor 1010 and the memory 1030 may be combined into a processing device, and the processor 1010 is configured to execute the program codes stored in the memory 1030 to implement the functions of the terminal device in the above-described method embodiments. In particular implementations, the memory 1030 may be integrated with the processor 1010 or separate from the processor 1010. The transceiver 1020 may be implemented by way of transceiver circuitry.

The terminal device may further include an antenna 1040, configured to send out the uplink data or the uplink control signaling output by the transceiver 1020 through a wireless signal, or send the received downlink data or the received downlink control signaling to the transceiver 1020 for further processing.

It should be understood that the apparatus 1000 may correspond to the terminal device in the method 400 or the method 600 according to the embodiment of the present application, and the apparatus 1000 may also be a chip or a component applied to the terminal device. Also, each module in the apparatus 1000 implements the corresponding flow in the method 400 or the method 600, and specifically, the memory 1030 is configured to store a program code, so that when the processor 1010 executes the program code, the processor 1010 is controlled to execute S405 in the method 400 or S602 in the method 600; the transceiver 1020 is configured to execute S404, S406, and S408 in the method 400 or execute S601 and S603 in the method 600, and specific processes of each unit executing the corresponding steps are already described in detail in the method 400 and the method 600, and are not repeated herein for brevity.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. 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.

It is clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and no further description is provided herein.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described device embodiments are merely illustrative, and the division of the unit is only one logical functional division, and there may be other division ways in actual implementation, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined. In addition, the shown or discussed coupling or communication connections between each other may be indirect coupling or communication connections through some interfaces, devices or units.

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one physical entity, or each unit may correspond to one physical entity separately, or two or more units may be integrated into one physical entity.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application or portions thereof that substantially contribute to the prior art may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium and including instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of communication, comprising:

a first network device determines a first uplink resource set used by a terminal device, wherein the first uplink resource set comprises at least one uplink resource, and the first network device is a network device providing a target cell for the terminal device;

the first network equipment acquires a first mapping relation, wherein the first mapping relation is used for indicating a corresponding relation between a plurality of uplink resource sets and a plurality of beams;

the first network device determines a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as a first beam according to the first mapping relation and the first uplink resource set, where the first beam is any one of a plurality of beams determined by the first network device according to a measurement result reported by the terminal device;

the first network device communicates with the terminal device via the first beam.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between indexes of a plurality of uplink resource sets and identities of a plurality of beams, and wherein the determining, by the first network device, a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as the first beam according to the first mapping relationship comprises:

the first network equipment determines a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set according to a first mapping relation;

and the first network equipment determines the beam indicated by the first identification as the first beam.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein when the terminal device does not obtain pre-allocated uplink resources, the method further comprises:

the first network device sends downlink control information DCI to the terminal device, where the DCI includes at least one of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

4. A method according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

5. A method of communication, comprising:

the method comprises the steps that terminal equipment obtains a first mapping relation, wherein the first mapping relation is used for indicating the corresponding relation between a plurality of uplink resource sets and a plurality of beams;

the terminal device determines a beam corresponding to a first uplink resource set as a first beam according to the first mapping relation and the first uplink resource set, where the first beam is any one of a plurality of beams determined by a first network device according to a measurement result reported by the terminal device, the first uplink resource set includes at least one uplink resource, and the first network device is a network device providing a target cell for the terminal device;

the terminal device communicates with the first network device via the first beam.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between indexes of multiple uplink resource sets and identifiers of multiple beams, and the determining, by the terminal device, of a first beam according to a first uplink resource set comprises:

the terminal equipment determines a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set according to a first mapping relation;

and the terminal equipment determines the beam indicated by the first identifier as the first beam.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the method further comprises:

the terminal device receives downlink control information DCI sent by the first network device, where the DCI includes at least one information of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

8. The method according to any of claims 5 to 7, wherein the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

9. A communications apparatus, comprising:

an obtaining unit, configured to obtain a first mapping relationship, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between a plurality of uplink resource sets and a plurality of beams;

a determining unit, configured to determine a first uplink resource set used by a terminal device, where the first uplink resource set includes at least one uplink resource, and the communication device is a device that provides a target cell for the terminal device;

the determining unit is further configured to determine, according to the first mapping relationship and the first uplink resource set, a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as a first beam, where the first beam is any one of a plurality of beams determined by the communication apparatus according to a measurement result reported by the terminal device;

a communication unit for communicating with the terminal device via the first beam.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the first mapping relation is used to indicate a correspondence relation between indexes of a plurality of uplink resource sets and identities of a plurality of beams, and wherein the determining unit is further configured to:

determining a first identifier of a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set according to a first mapping relation;

and determining the beam indicated by the first identification as the first beam.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein when the terminal device does not obtain the pre-allocated uplink resource, the communication unit is configured to:

and sending Downlink Control Information (DCI) to the terminal device, where the DCI includes at least one of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam.

12. The apparatus according to any of claims 9-11, wherein the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

13. A communications apparatus, comprising:

a determining unit, configured to determine, according to the first mapping relationship and a first uplink resource set, a beam corresponding to the first uplink resource set as a first beam, where the first beam is any one of multiple beams determined by a first network device according to a measurement result reported by the communication apparatus, and the first uplink resource set includes at least one uplink resource;

a communication unit for communicating with the first network device via the first beam.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the first mapping relation is used to indicate a correspondence relation between indexes of a plurality of uplink resource sets and identities of a plurality of beams, and wherein the determining unit is further configured to:

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein when the communication apparatus does not obtain pre-allocated uplink resources, the communication unit is further configured to:

receiving Downlink Control Information (DCI) sent by the first network device, where the DCI includes at least one of a first mapping relationship and a first identifier, where the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between the first uplink resource set and the first beam, and the first identifier is an identifier of the first beam;

the determination unit is further configured to:

determining the first beam according to the first uplink resource set and the DCI.

16. The apparatus according to any of claims 13-15, wherein the first beam is at least one of an uplink beam and a downlink beam.

17. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that the computer-readable storage medium stores a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the method according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

18. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that the computer-readable storage medium stores a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the method according to any one of claims 5 to 8.

19. A chip system, comprising:

a memory to store instructions;

a processor configured to retrieve and execute the instructions from the memory, so that a communication device on which the system-on-chip is installed performs the method according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

20. A chip system, comprising:

a memory to store instructions;

a processor configured to retrieve and execute the instructions from the memory, so that a communication device on which the system-on-chip is installed performs the method according to any one of claims 5 to 8.