CN109548133B

CN109548133B - Time advance management method and device

Info

Publication number: CN109548133B
Application number: CN201710634430.2A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘亚林; 李铕; 陈磊
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-07-29
Filing date: 2017-07-29
Publication date: 2021-12-03
Anticipated expiration: 2037-07-29
Also published as: CN109548133A

Abstract

The application discloses a method for notifying time advance, which comprises the following steps: when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, the layer 2 of the terminal sends an indication message indicating the overtime of the TA timer to the physical layer.

Description

Time advance management method and device

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for managing a time advance.

Background

In a wireless communication system, ta (timing advance) is a timing advance sent in uplink, and is used to compensate transmission delay, so that information sent by different terminals can all arrive in a receiving window of a base station.

For convenience of description, the timing advance of uplink transmission is abbreviated as TA in the application, for example, in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, the management of TA includes the following operations:

the base station informs the terminal of the TA value through a Timing Advance Command of an MAC (Media Access Control) layer; the base station also configures a TA timer for the terminal, such as a timeAlignmenttimer, for managing the validity of the TA value; if the timeAlignmentTimer is overtime, the TA is considered to be invalid, the terminal may delete the configured data transmission resource and part of the signaling resource, and the timeAlignmentTimer may set a minimum value, for example: 500ms, the maximum value may be infinite, i.e., consistently valid.

In addition, the terminal may set a new TA value according to the received Timing Advance Command, use the new TA value every time the terminal receives a new TA value, and start or reset (reset) the TA timer for which the TA timer is already running.

The TA value is obtained as follows:

when the access is started, the TA value is configured through Timing Advance Command in the random access response;

in the service transmission process, when the base station transmits a downlink response or transmits data, the base station may transmit a TA value to the terminal by using a Timing Advance Command carried by a MAC CE (control element).

When the TA timer expires, the terminal may perform at least one of the following operations, for example:

clearing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) cache;

notifying a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer to release a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resource;

informing the RRC layer to release Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) resources;

clearing downlink resource indication, uplink authorization and the like;

afterwards, if the terminal has the requirement of uplink transmission, the terminal needs to reacquire the TA through the random access process (i.e. perform uplink synchronization again); it should be noted that the TA timer is only uplink asynchronous and does not affect Downlink synchronization and the terminal monitors a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).

At present, New technologies are introduced into 5G NR (New Radio, New air interface), such as: beam Management (BM), Grant-free (GF) transmission, etc., while the TA mechanism in LTE cannot be directly applied to 5G NR to avoid the collision of the above new technologies, so how to avoid the collision of the conventional TA mechanism to the new technologies when the TA mechanism is applied in 5G NR is a problem that needs to be solved at present.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a time advance management method and a time advance management device, so that a TA mechanism can better adapt to a new technology in 5G NR.

In one aspect of the present application, a method for managing a time advance is disclosed, including:

after the terminal starts a TA timer, when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, the layer 2 of the terminal informs a physical layer that the TA timer is overtime.

For example: when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, the layer 2 of the terminal sends an indication message indicating the TA timer is overtime to a physical layer.

Further, when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime and the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released, the layer 2 of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the TA timer is overtime.

When the TA timer is overtime, layer 2 of the terminal can detect the TA timer, so that the layer 2 of the terminal can inform a physical layer that the TA timer is overtime; in addition, the physical uplink control channel resource and/or uplink reference signal resource can be released by layer 2, or can be released by a higher layer, such as an RRC layer; layer 2 can know whether layer 2 is released or RRC layer is released, so layer 2 can inform the physical layer that the TA timer is overtime when the physical uplink control channel resource and/or uplink reference signal resource is released, releasing or needing to release.

In addition, since layer 2 can know the release condition of the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource, when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, layer 2 of the terminal can also notify the physical layer that the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released, or notify the physical layer to release the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource.

Further, when the TA timer of the terminal expires, layer 2 may notify a higher layer, such as an RRC layer, to release the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource.

Since the TA timeout period layer 2 may notify the higher layer to release the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource, in another implementation, the higher layer, such as the RRC layer, may notify the physical layer that the TA timer is timeout.

The following examples illustrate:

after receiving the notice of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource from the layer 2, the RRC layer of the terminal notifies the TA timer of the physical layer to be overtime;

further, after receiving the notification of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource from the MAC layer and completing the resource release, the RRC layer of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the TA timer is overtime;

in another scheme, after receiving a notification from a MAC layer to release uplink control channel resources and/or uplink reference signal resources, an RRC layer of a terminal notifies a physical layer that the uplink control channel resources and/or uplink reference signal resources are released;

further, after receiving the notification of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource from the MAC layer and completing resource release, the RRC layer of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released.

With the above scheme, the RRC layer may notify the physical layer that the TA timer expires or that the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource are released through a signaling or a message; or

Pre-configuring a physical layer maintenance parameter, for example: the physical layer can search/read the state quantity of the TA timer, and the physical layer judges whether the TA timer is overtime or not by checking the state quantity; after receiving the notification of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource from the MAC layer, the RRC layer sets the state quantity to an invalid value, for example, 0 is an invalid value; if the physical layer reads that the state quantity is found to be 0, it is determined that the TA timer has timed out.

The parameters maintained by the physical layer can be set in the physical layer, and can also be set in other positions; the physical layer may also be notified that the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released by using a similar method, and a parameter indicating whether the resource is released is preset, for example: a 1 indicates not, a 0 indicates released and vice versa.

In combination with the above schemes, the uplink Reference Signal includes at least one of an SRS (sounding Reference Signal), a DMRS (demodulation Reference Signal), and a PTRS (Phase Tracking Reference Signal); the Uplink Control Channel is at least one of a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and a New Radio-Physical Uplink Control Channel (NR-PUCCH) of a 5G New air interface.

With reference to the foregoing solutions, the indication message includes at least one of the following: a beam identification, a beam group identification, a TA group identification, and a number of the TA timer.

With the above schemes, the layer 2 is a MAC layer.

With the above solutions, the method further includes: the terminal starts a TA timer; for example: the terminal receives a TA value sent by the network equipment and starts or resets the TA timer; for example: the base station can send the value of TA to the terminal through Timing Advance Command, and the terminal uses the value of TA and starts a TA timer after receiving the value; if the TA timer is not initially used, the TA timer may be reset.

One TA timer may correspond to values of one or more TAs, that is, one TA timer may manage one TA, or may manage a plurality of TAs.

With the above aspects in mind, the method further includes: and the terminal reserves the Grant-free configuration.

Corresponding to the method for managing the time advance of the above aspect, a device for managing the time advance is also disclosed, which comprises a processor and a memory, wherein the memory stores a computer program, and when the computer program runs on the processor, the device executes the corresponding steps in the above method embodiments, such as:

when a Time Advance (TA) timer of the device times out, layer 2 of the device sends an indication message indicating that the TA timer times out to a physical layer.

For other steps, reference may be made to corresponding descriptions in the foregoing method embodiments, for example, the TA timer is started, and details are not described again.

The device may be a terminal or a chip.

In addition, another form of apparatus is disclosed, the apparatus including modules or circuitry corresponding to the various steps of the method, such that the apparatus performs the corresponding steps of the method described above; for example:

means or circuitry for causing layer 2 of the apparatus to send an indication message to a physical layer indicating that a time-out of a TA timer of the apparatus has expired;

further, means or circuitry may be included to detect whether a time advance, TA, timer of the apparatus has expired.

Of course, there may be other modules or circuits, for example, a module or circuit for enabling the TA timer, which may refer to the description in the foregoing method embodiments and are not described in detail.

In addition, another form of time advance management apparatus is also disclosed, which includes a processor configured to detect whether a time advance TA timer expires, and send an indication message to a physical layer through a layer 2 to indicate that the TA timer expires when the processor detects that the TA timer expires.

The processor may be a processing module or a processing unit.

In another example, detecting whether the TA timer is overtime may be implemented by the detecting unit, and sending the indication message to the physical layer through the layer 2 to indicate that the TA timer is overtime may be implemented by the processing unit or the sending unit, or of course, other unit division manners may also be available, which is not limited in this application.

In addition, the processor and the memory in the above embodiments may be independent devices, or may also be integrated devices, for example, the memory is integrated in the processor, or both are integrated in a chip, and of course, other integration manners may also be available, which is not limited in this embodiment.

By the time advance management method, the physical layer of the terminal can know whether the TA timer is overtime, so that the physical layer can execute subsequent corresponding processes, such as beam management.

On the other hand, a time advance management method is also disclosed, which can be combined with the technical scheme on the one hand or be an independent scheme, and comprises the following steps: and when the time advance TA timer of the terminal is overtime, the terminal reserves the Grant-free configuration.

Further, when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime and the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released, the terminal reserves Grant-free configuration.

The Grant-free configuration refers to Type1 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration in the NR standard, and does not include Type2 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration.

Further comprising: and the terminal clears the Type2 uplink data authorization-free transmission configuration.

The method also comprises the following steps: and the terminal starts the TA timer.

With the above scheme in mind, the method further includes: and the terminal clears the configured downlink resource indication and the uplink authorization.

By combining the above scheme, further, the terminal clears the configured downlink resource indication and uplink grant, including the Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration, that is, clears the Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration.

In another scheme, the terminal may also reserve all uplink data grant-free transmission configurations, that is, reserve Type1 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration and Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration; or only the Type2 uplink data authorization-free transmission configuration is reserved, the terminal clears the configured downlink resource indication and uplink authorization, and the Type1 uplink data authorization-free transmission configuration is also deleted.

Corresponding to the above another aspect of the time advance management method, there is also disclosed a time advance management apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, the memory storing therein a computer program which, when run on the processor, instructs the apparatus to execute the processor to perform the respective steps of the above method, such as:

when the time advance TA timer of the device times out, the device retains the Grant-free configuration.

Other steps can refer to the description in the above method, and are not described again.

The device is a terminal or a chip.

when the time advance TA timer of the device times out, the device is caused to retain the blocks or circuits of the Grant-free configuration.

There may of course be other modules or circuits, for example: the TA timer enabled module or circuit may refer to the description of the method above.

There is also disclosed another form of time advance management apparatus comprising: a processor for reserving a Grant-free configuration when a Time Advance (TA) timer of the apparatus times out.

Specifically, the processor is configured to detect whether a time advance TA timer expires, and when the processor detects that the TA timer expires, maintain a Grant-free configuration.

The processor may be a processing module or a processing unit.

In another example, detecting whether the TA timer expires may be implemented by a detection unit, and maintaining the Grant-free configuration may be implemented by a processing unit, which may also have other unit division manners, and the present application is not limited thereto.

Further, the processor is further configured to detect whether the time advance TA timer expires, and if the time advance TA timer expires, the Grant-free configuration is retained.

Further, the processor is further configured to execute corresponding steps in the foregoing method, for example, clear the configured downlink resource indication and the uplink grant, which may specifically refer to the foregoing method and is not described again.

In the above scheme, when the TA timer of the terminal times out, the GF configuration is reserved, so that the terminal can initiate transmission of the delay sensitive service in time.

Yet another aspect of the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions, which when executed on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of the above-described aspects.

Yet another aspect of the present application provides a communication chip having instructions stored therein, which when run on a network device or a terminal device, cause a computer to perform the method of the above aspects.

Yet another aspect of the present application provides a computer program product containing instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of the above-described aspects.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system architecture;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method for managing timing advance according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a timing advance management apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a hardware architecture diagram of a management apparatus for timing advance according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The communication system related to the embodiment of the application comprises network equipment and a terminal.

The terminal in the embodiment of the present application is a device with a wireless communication function, and may be a handheld device with a wireless communication function, an in-vehicle device, a wearable device, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, and the like. The terminal devices in different networks may be called different names, for example: user Equipment (UE), access terminal, subscriber unit, subscriber station, mobile station, remote terminal, mobile device, user terminal, wireless communication device, user agent or user equipment, cellular telephone, cordless telephone, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) telephone, Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), terminal equipment in a 5G network or future evolution network, and the like.

The network device in the embodiment of the present invention is a device deployed in a radio access network to provide a wireless communication function, and includes but is not limited to: a base station (e.g., a BTS (base transceiver station), a Node B (NB), an evolved node B (eNB or eNodeB), a transmission reception point (TRP or TP) or a next generation node B (gNB) in an NR system, a base station or network device in a future communication network, a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a Wi-Fi (wireless-fidelity) station, a wireless backhaul node, a small station, a micro station, and so on.

For example, fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary communication system architecture according to an embodiment of the present invention. In fig. 1, taking a network device as an example of a base station, the base station 102 may include multiple antenna groups. Each antenna group can include one or more antennas, e.g., one antenna group can include

antennas

104 and 106, another antenna group can include

antennas

108 and 110, and additional groups can include

antennas

112 and 114. Different antenna groups in high frequency communication may be combined into different antenna planes (panels), for example, one antenna group forms one beam pointing in one direction and another antenna group forms another beam pointing in another direction, and more antennas may be needed to fit different device capabilities, so that additional groups may be provided with different numbers of antennas according to different device capabilities. Illustratively, 2 antennas are shown in fig. 1 for each antenna group, however, more or fewer antennas may be utilized for each group. Base station 102 can additionally include a transmitter chain and a receiver chain, each of which can be implemented as a number of components associated with signal transmission and reception, e.g., processors, modulators, multiplexers, demodulators, demultiplexers, antennas, etc., as will be appreciated by one skilled in the art.

Base station 102 may communicate with one or more terminal devices, such as terminal device 116 and terminal device 122. However, it is to be appreciated that base station 102 can communicate with any number of terminal devices similar to

terminal devices

116 or 122. As shown in fig. 1, terminal device 116 is in communication with

antennas

112 and 114, where

antennas

112 and 114 transmit information to terminal device 116 over forward link 118 and receive information from terminal device 116 over reverse link 120. In addition, terminal device 122 is in communication with

antennas

104 and 106, where

antennas

104 and 106 transmit information to terminal device 122 over forward link 124 and receive information from terminal device 122 over reverse link 126. In a Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, forward link 118 may utilize a different frequency band than that used by reverse link 120, and forward link 124 may utilize a different frequency band than that used by reverse link 126, for example. Further, in a Time Division Duplex (TDD) system, forward link 118 and reverse link 120 can utilize a common frequency band and forward link 124 and reverse link 126 can utilize a common frequency band.

The area covered by each set of antennas and/or the area covered by the transmission that is designed for communication is referred to as a sector of base station 102. For example, antenna groups can be designed to communicate to terminal devices in a sector of the areas covered by base station 102. During communication by base station 102 with

terminal devices

116 and 122 over forward links 118 and 124, respectively, the transmitting antennas of base station 102 can utilize beamforming to improve signal-to-noise ratio of forward links 118 and 124. Moreover, mobile nodes in neighboring cells can experience less interference when base station 102 utilizes beamforming to transmit to

terminal devices

116 and 122 scattered randomly through an associated coverage, as compared to a base station transmitting through a single antenna to all its access terminal devices.

Base station 102, terminal device 116, or terminal device 122 may be a wireless communication transmitting apparatus and/or a wireless communication receiving apparatus at a given time. When sending data, the wireless communication sending device may encode the data for transmission. Specifically, the wireless communication transmitting apparatus can acquire, for example, generate, receive from other communication apparatuses, or store in a memory, a certain number of data bits to be transmitted to the wireless communication receiving apparatus through the channel. Such data bits may be contained in a transport block or transport blocks of data, which may be segmented to produce multiple code blocks.

It should be noted that the terms "system" and "network" in the embodiments of the present invention may be used interchangeably. The "plurality" means two or more, and in view of this, the "plurality" may also be understood as "at least two" in the embodiments of the present invention. "and/or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, meaning that there may be three relationships, e.g., a and/or B, which may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. In addition, the character "/" generally indicates that the preceding and following related objects are in an "or" relationship, unless otherwise specified.

A beam (beam) and a Beam Pair (BPL) are introduced into the communication system. A beam is a communication resource. The beams may be divided into transmit beams and receive beams. The technique of forming the beam may be a beamforming technique or other technical means. Beamforming includes transmit beamforming and receive beamforming.

Transmitting a beam: the transmitting terminal equipment transmits signals with a certain beam forming weight value, so that beams with space directivity are formed by the transmitted signals. In the uplink direction, the transmitting end device may be a terminal; in the downlink direction, the transmitting end device may be a network device.

Receiving a beam: the receiving end equipment sends signals with a certain beam forming weight value, so that the signals are received to form a beam with space directivity. In the uplink direction, the receiving end device may be a network device; in the downlink direction, the receiving end device may be a terminal.

In a communication system, such as a 5G New Radio (NR) system, a network device and a terminal may each generate one or more transmit beams and one or more receive beams. Before transmitting data, beam alignment is required, and the network device and the terminal communicate through one or more beam pairs.

At present, a New technology is introduced into a 5G NR (New Radio, New air interface), such as a Beam Management (BM) mechanism:

■ for downlink BM, the terminal uses PUCCH and other uplink channels to report the beam recovery request;

■ for the uplink BM, the terminal will send SRS for the base station to measure;

following the TA mechanism of the existing LTE, if the TA times out, SRS and PUCCH will be released, which may affect the BM process, for example:

-downlink BM cannot send beam recovery request if PUCCH is employed;

-no SRS resources are available for uplink BM;

the TA timer is overtime, which means that the terminal can stop uplink data transmission, so that the TA timer in the 5G NR can be overtime to consider stopping BM operation so as to save the energy consumption of the terminal; however, according to the LTE protocol, TA management is implemented by layer 2 (e.g., MAC layer), and in NR, BM is managed and executed by physical layer, and the physical layer cannot know whether the TA timer is expired, and cannot manage BM; the TA mechanism in LTE cannot be directly applied to 5G NR.

The application provides a TA management method, which solves the problem that the existing TA management mode cannot adapt to the new technology in NR, and further avoids influencing new characteristics of NR, such as BM and the like.

In the 5G NR scene, a base station configures parameters of TA and parameters of BM for a terminal, and the terminal performs TA management and BM according to the configured parameters. Referring to fig. 2, the TA management method includes:

101. the terminal starts a TA timer.

The terminal uses the TA value configured by the base station, and the base station may issue the configured TA value to the terminal, for example: the base station can send the value of TA to the terminal through Timing Advance Command, and the process is the prior art and is not detailed; in addition, the terminal may start the TA timer for the first time, and if not, the previously used timer may be reset.

102. And when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, the layer 2 of the terminal informs a physical layer that the TA timer is overtime.

Further, when the TA timer of the terminal is expired and the physical uplink control channel resource and/or uplink reference signal resource is released, the layer 2 of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the TA timer is expired.

For example: the uplink reference signal resource may be an SRS resource.

In the above scheme, layer 2 of the terminal may send an indication message to the physical layer to indicate that the TA timer is expired.

The layer 2 is a MAC layer.

In another example, when the TA timer of the terminal expires and the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released, the layer 2 of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the TA timer expires.

In one embodiment, the TA timer is a timer for managing TA validity, for example, a timeAlignmentTimer, and after the TA timer expires, the MAC layer of the terminal sends an indication message to notify the physical layer that the TA timer expires, for example, by sending a "TA failure" indication to notify the physical layer that the TA timer expires.

Further, after receiving the indication, the physical layer of the terminal may trigger subsequent processing according to a specific BM mechanism and configuration, for example: stopping downlink BM including but not limited to downlink signal quality measurement, beam quality determination, etc.

The above indication message for indicating TA timer timeout is sent by MAC to physical layer, and may have the following implementation form:

1: a new signaling type is defined, such as TA invalid, and the TA timer is expired when the physical layer receives the signaling of this type.

2: multiplexing existing signaling, adding a field, for example, using 1bit information to indicate TA timer timeout, for example: setting 1 indicates TA failure and setting 0 indicates TA activity.

In addition, in the 5G NR, the base station and the terminal may have one or more beams, the terminal and the base station may communicate through one or more beam pairs, and different TAs may be used and maintained between different beams (pairs) or beam (pair) groups. Thus, in another embodiment, it is contemplated to introduce multiple TA timers, each managing the validity of the TA values for different beams (pairs) or beam (pair) groups, which may use different TA timers.

In the previous embodiment, when the TA timer of the terminal times out, the layer 2 of the terminal notifies the TA timer of the physical layer to time out, in this embodiment, when the TA timer of a certain beam or beam group of the terminal times out, the layer 2 of the terminal notifies the TA timer of the beam or beam group of the physical layer to time out; for example: the MAC layer of the terminal further indicates the beam or beam grouping information of the TA timer in an indication message which is sent to the physical layer and indicates the TA timer to be overtime.

Other related steps and descriptions refer to the previous embodiment and are not described in detail.

In the above embodiments, one TA timer may correspond to values of one or more TAs, that is, one TA timer may manage one TA, or may manage multiple TAs.

The indication of beam or beam grouping information in the indication message can be realized by the following methods:

explicit indication: the indication message includes an Identifier (ID) of the beam or beam packet, so when the base station configures a TA timer for the terminal, such as a timeAlignmentTimer, the base station needs to configure the ID of the beam or beam packet corresponding to the TA timer;

implicit indication: the ID of the beam or the beam Group is invisible to the layer 2 and is replaced by a TA Group (TAG) ID, and when a TA timer is configured by the base station, the corresponding TAG ID needs to be configured; one TAG ID may correspond to one beam or a group of beams; of course TA identification (TA ID) may be used.

Another implementation of implicit indication: the TA timer number is used as it is, and the TA timer number is used to indicate a specific beam or beam packet, and the indication message may include the number of the TA timer.

When the implicit indication mode is used, the layer 2 only needs to manage the TAG ID, and after receiving the TAG ID sent by the MAC layer, the physical layer needs to map the beam or beam packet (beam ID or beam packet ID) with the TAG (TAG ID) or TA (TA ID), so as to determine the beam or beam packet to which the TA belongs. Therefore, the base station configures corresponding TAG ID or TA ID for each beam or beam group;

when the physical layer of the terminal receives an indication message indicating that the TA timer is overtime, the corresponding beam or beam packet is identified according to the TAG ID, and a subsequent operation is taken on the corresponding beam or beam packet, for example: stopping downlink BM including but not limited to downlink signal quality measurement, beam quality determination, etc.

When the TA timer number is used to indicate a specific beam or beam packet, when the physical layer of the terminal receives an indication message indicating that the TA timer is overtime, the beam or beam packet corresponding to the TA is identified according to the TA timer number, for example, the corresponding beam or beam packet is searched in a mapping manner, and a subsequent operation is performed on the corresponding beam or beam packet.

In summary, the indication message for indicating the TA timer timeout may carry at least one of the following identifiers, such as a beam identifier, a beam group identifier, a TA group identifier, and a number of the TA timer.

For example: the identifier can be carried by newly defined TA overtime signaling, and when the signaling is received, the corresponding TA timer is indicated to be overtime;

in addition, it may also indicate whether a specific TA timer has timed out through the above-mentioned mark +1bit information, for example, setting 1bit information to 1 indicates that the TA timer corresponding to the mark is timed out, and setting 0 indicates that the TA timer is not timed out; or setting 1 to indicate that the corresponding TA timer of the identifier is not overtime, and setting 0 to indicate overtime.

Of course, the present invention is not limited to the above two indication methods, and other indication methods may be used.

By the method of the above embodiment, the physical layer of the terminal may know whether the TA timer is overtime, so as to perform subsequent operations related to the physical layer, for example: and managing the beams.

In the scheme of the above embodiment, when the TA timer of the terminal expires, the layer 2 of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the TA timer expires; in addition, since layer 2 can know the release condition of the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource, when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, layer 2 of the terminal can also notify the physical layer that the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource is released, or notify the physical layer to release the physical uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource.

Of course, the two examples described above may be separate embodiments.

In combination with the above scheme, layer 2 may notify the physical layer or the RRC layer of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource through a signaling or a message, or notify the physical layer that the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource are released.

Since the TA timeout period layer 2 may notify the higher layer, for example, the RRC layer, to release the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource, in another embodiment, the higher layer may notify the physical layer that the TA timer is expired; various implementations of the scheme are described below by taking the RRC layer as an example:

after receiving the notice of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource from the MAC layer, the RRC layer of the terminal notifies the TA timer of the physical layer to be overtime;

in another embodiment, after receiving a notification from the MAC layer to release uplink control channel resources and/or uplink reference signal resources, the RRC layer of the terminal notifies the physical layer that the uplink control channel resources and/or uplink reference signal resources are released;

Pre-configuring a physical layer maintenance parameter, for example: the physical layer can search/read the state quantity of the TA timer, and the physical layer judges whether the TA timer is overtime or not by checking the state quantity; after receiving the notification of releasing the uplink control channel resource and/or the uplink reference signal resource from the MAC layer, the RRC layer sets the state quantity to an invalid value, for example, 0 is an invalid value; if the physical layer reads that the state quantity is found to be 0, determining that the TA timer is overtime; if 1, it indicates that the TA timer has not timed out, and vice versa.

The parameters maintained by the physical layer can be set in the physical layer, and can also be set in other positions; notifying the physical layer that the uplink control channel resources and/or uplink reference signal resources are released, or notifying the physical layer or the RRC layer that the uplink control channel resources and/or uplink reference signal resources are released, or setting parameters indicating whether resources are released in advance by using a similar method, for example: 1 indicates unreleased, 0 indicates released, and antisense.

With Reference to the schemes of the foregoing embodiments, the uplink Reference Signal includes at least one of an SRS (sounding Reference Signal), a DMRS (demodulation Reference Signal), and a PTRS (Phase Tracking Reference Signal); the uplink control channel is at least one of PUCCH and NR-PUCCH.

With the above schemes, the layer 2 is a MAC layer.

Corresponding to the above method for managing the time advance, a device for managing the time advance is also disclosed, comprising a processor, a memory, in which is stored a computer program which, when run on the processor, instructs the device to perform the corresponding steps of the method, such as:

For other steps, reference may be made to the description of the above method, for example, enabling a TA timer, and the like, which are not described in detail.

The device is a terminal or a chip.

further, means or circuitry may be included for detecting whether a time advance, TA, timer of the apparatus has timed out.

Of course, there may be other modules or circuits, for example, a module or circuit for enabling the TA timer, and reference may be made to the description in the foregoing method, which is not described again.

The processor may be a processing module or a processing unit.

In another example, referring to fig. 3, detecting whether the TA timer expires or not may be implemented by the detecting unit 301, and sending an indication message to the physical layer through the layer 2 to indicate that the TA timer expires may be implemented by the processing unit 302 or the sending unit, but other unit division manners may also be available, which is not limited in this application.

The 5G NR also introduces an authorization-free transmission mechanism (Type1 of UL data transmission with Grant: UL data transmission with Grant is based on RRC (re) configuration with Grant and transmission in L1 signaling) configured only by RRC, and RRC signaling provides a period and a starting position required by the contention-free transmission, time-frequency resource configuration, MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme ), and the like, and the mechanism is called Grant-free (GF) transmission mechanism; the purpose of introducing the mechanism is to ensure that the terminal can directly initiate uplink transmission (initiate uplink transmission with a specified MCS at a resource location configured by RRC signaling) as soon as data arrives, without acquiring synchronization through random access or sending sr (scheduling request) request for uplink resources.

Specifically, the agrements for GF (unlicensed) transmission configuration that have been agreed upon on the NR protocol are as follows:

·For Type 1UL transmission without UL grant,the RRC(re-)configuration includes at least the following

-period and offset of a resource with estimate to SFN ═ 0 period and offset with respect to System frame number 0 (System frame number)

-Time domain resource allocation

-Frequency domain resource allocation

UE-specific DMRS configuration DMRS (Demodulation Reference signal) configuration for a specific UE

–Note:

·one TB is mapped to a resource at least consisting of time/frequency-domain resource

·RAN1will not introduce specific resource allocation and DMRS configuration for UL data transmission without grant separate from UL data transmission with UL grant within the Rel.15 WI

An MCS/TBS value modulation and coding scheme/Transport Block Size (Transport Block Size)

-Number of repetitions K

-Power controlled related parameters Power control related parameters

-FFS HARQ related parameters

–FFS if multiple resources can be configured

If the existing TA mechanism of LTE is used, after the terminal starts the TA timer, if the TA timer is overtime, all configured uplink transmission resources, including GF resources, are released.

The embodiment provides a TA management method, including: when the TA timer is overtime, the configuration of the Type1 uplink data authorization-free transmission is reserved, that is, the Grant-free configuration is reserved, and other configurations except the Grant-free configuration can be cleared, such as downlink resource indication and/or uplink authorization.

The scheme of this embodiment may be an independent scheme, or may be combined with the scheme of the above embodiment, for example:

and when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime, reserving Grant-free configuration, and informing a physical layer by a layer 2 of the terminal that the TA timer is overtime.

Further, the method includes, before the method, that the terminal starts the TA timer, which is referred to step 101 in the previous embodiment and is not described in detail.

Operations such as clearing the configuration other than the Grant-free configuration, and reserving the Grant-free configuration may be performed by the layer 2 of the terminal.

The above scheme is described in the proposal as follows:

when a timeAlignmentTimer expires:clear any configured downlink assignments and uplink grants except configuration for Type 1 of UL data transmission without grant；

that is, when the TA timer is over, the configured downlink resource indication and uplink grant are cleared, except for the configuration of Type1 uplink data grant-free transmission.

The downlink resource indication and the uplink grant are configured substantially by layer 1 signaling. The configuration of information such as time-frequency resources and MCS through layer 1 signaling is also called dynamic configuration, for example, resource configuration through a downlink physical control channel PDCCH.

The 5G NR further introduces Type2 of UL data transmission with grant (UL data transmission with grant is based on a bought RRC configuration and L1 signalling to activate/deactivate for UL data transmission with grant), called Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission, like LTE uplink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS), which may be referred to as uplink SPS for short, configures information such as time, frequency resources and MCS transmitted through RRC signaling configuration period through L1, and activates the Type of transmission.

The Grant-free in the application refers to Type1 uplink data authorization-free transmission, and is not the Type2 uplink data authorization-free transmission; the Grant-free configuration refers to Type1 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration, and does not include the Type2 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration.

Therefore, "clearing the downlink resource indicator and the uplink grant" may be expressed as "clearing the dynamically configured resource, including the resource of the uplink SPS", that is, the Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration is also deleted, so the above scheme may also be described as follows in the proposal:

when a timeAlignmentTimer expires:clear any dynamic configured downlink assignments and uplink grants including uplink SPS grant except configuration for Type 1 of UL data transmission without grant；

namely, when the TA timer is overtime, the dynamically configured downlink resource indication and uplink grant are cleared, including the uplink semi-persistent scheduling grant, that is, the Type2 uplink data authorization-free transmission configuration is also deleted; except for the Type1 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration, the configuration needs to be reserved, namely the Grant-free configuration needs to be reserved.

In another embodiment, all uplink data grant-free transmission configurations, that is, the Type1 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration and the Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration, may also be reserved.

In another embodiment, only the Type2 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration can be reserved, and the Type1 uplink data grant-free transmission configuration can be deleted.

In the method, the GF configuration is reserved when the TA timer is overtime, so that the terminal can timely initiate transmission to the time delay sensitive service without initiating random access to reacquire uplink synchronization and uplink transmission resources, thereby reducing time delay and signaling overhead.

Corresponding to the time advance management method of the embodiment of the above another aspect, there is also disclosed a time advance management apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, the memory storing therein a computer program which, when run on the processor, instructs the apparatus to execute the processor to perform the respective steps of the above method, for example:

For other steps, reference may be made to the description of the above method, for example, the TA timer is started, and details are not repeated.

The device is a terminal or a chip.

There may of course be other modules or circuits, for example a circuit or module that enables a TA timer, as described with reference to the method above.

There is also disclosed another form of time advance management apparatus comprising: and the processor is used for reserving the Grant-free configuration when the TA timer of the terminal is overtime.

Further, the processor is further configured to enable the TA timer.

The processor may be a processing module or a processing unit.

In another example, referring to fig. 3, detecting whether the TA timer expires may be implemented by the detecting unit 301, and the Grant-free configuration may be implemented by the processing unit 302, or other unit partitioning manners may be provided, which is not limited in this application.

Further, the processor is further configured to perform corresponding steps in the foregoing method, for example, clear configured downlink resource indication and uplink grant, which may specifically refer to the foregoing method.

In addition, the processor and the memory in the above embodiments of the apparatus may be independent devices, or may be integrated devices, for example, the memory is integrated in the processor, or both are integrated in a chip, and of course, other integration manners are also possible, and the present embodiment is not limited.

The embodiment of the present invention further provides another advanced management apparatus, which may be a terminal in the foregoing method, and may adopt a hardware architecture shown in fig. 4. The transmitting end device can comprise a receiver, a transmitter, a memory and a processor, wherein the receiver, the transmitter, the memory and the processor are connected with each other through a bus. The receiver and the transmitter respectively realize the receiving and sending functions, and other functions are realized by the processor.

The memory includes, but is not limited to, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), or a portable read-only memory (CD-ROM), which is used for storing instructions and data.

A receiver is used to receive data and/or signals and a transmitter is used to transmit data and/or signals. The transmitter and receiver may be separate devices or may be an integral device, such as a transceiver.

The processor may include one or more processors, for example, one or more Central Processing Units (CPUs), and in the case of one CPU, the CPU may be a single-core CPU or a multi-core CPU.

The memory is used for storing program codes and data of the transmitting end device, and can be a separate device or integrated in the processor.

The above devices may be implemented integrally in a chip, for example.

Specifically, the processor is configured to perform the steps except for sending and receiving in the above-described method embodiments. Specifically, reference may be made to the description of the method embodiment, which is not repeated herein.

It will be appreciated that fig. 4 only shows a simplified design of the device. In practical applications, other necessary components, including but not limited to any number of transceivers, processors, controllers, memories, etc., may be included, and all transmitting-end devices that can implement the embodiments of the present invention are within the scope of the present invention.

The method and apparatus for managing a time advance are described by taking an execution subject as a terminal, but those skilled in the art can know that other network devices, such as a base station, may also implement similar functions in the future, so the above embodiments are not limited to the terminal, and may be executed by other network devices, such as a base station, and the specific steps are similar and will not be described in detail again.

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 are not described herein again.

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 apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the embodiment.

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit.

In the above embodiments, the implementation may be wholly or partially realized by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When loaded and executed on a computer, cause the processes or functions described in accordance with the embodiments of the invention to occur, in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a network of computers, or other programmable device. The computer instructions may be stored in or transmitted over a computer-readable storage medium. The computer instructions may be transmitted from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center by wire (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)), or wirelessly (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device, such as a server, a data center, etc., that incorporates one or more of the available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., floppy disk, hard disk, magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)), or a semiconductor medium (e.g., Solid State Disk (SSD)), among others.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or part of the processes in the methods of the above embodiments may be implemented by hardware related to instructions of a computer program, which may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium, and when executed, may include the processes of the above method embodiments. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media that can store program codes, such as a read-only memory (ROM) or a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

Claims

1. A method for managing time advance, comprising: when a time advance TA timer of a terminal is overtime, the terminal reserves Type1 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration;

and the terminal clears the Type2 uplink data authorization-free transmission configuration.

2. A time advance management apparatus, comprising: a processor, a memory having stored therein a computer program, which when run on the processor, the apparatus performs the following:

when the TA timer of the time advance is determined to be overtime, the Type1 uplink data Grant-free transmission configuration is reserved;

and clearing the Type2 uplink data license-free transmission configuration.

3. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that the computer-readable storage medium comprises a computer program or instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, implement the method as claimed in claim 1.

4. A chip, characterized in that it comprises a processor for executing a computer program or instructions stored in a memory, implementing the method as claimed in claim 1.