CN110691414A

CN110691414A - Cell establishing method and device

Info

Publication number: CN110691414A
Application number: CN201810731406.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张一�; 李燕; 孟庆梧; 李弋; 罗昕
Original assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Current assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Priority date: 2018-07-05
Filing date: 2018-07-05
Publication date: 2020-01-14
Anticipated expiration: 2038-07-05
Also published as: CN110691414B

Abstract

The application discloses a cell establishing method and device. The method comprises the following steps: a CU receives a request message for triggering the establishment of a logical cell; and if the CU judges that the number of the cells carried by the enabled RRC process does not reach the upper limit and has the idle PDCP process, the CU allocates the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources to the logical cell requested to be established.

Description

Cell establishing method and device

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of wireless communications technologies, and in particular, to a cell establishment method and apparatus.

Background

A conventional base station is implemented by a dedicated physical device, and mainly includes a Base Band Unit (BBU) and a Radio Remote Unit (RRU), as shown in fig. 1. When a cell is established, the BBU and the RRU complete the related processes of physical cell establishment, logical cell establishment, antenna calibration and the like through signaling interaction.

In the future, wireless networks need to provide various service services, which can be divided into three categories: enhanced mobile broadband service (Embb), large-scale machine type Communication service (mtc) oriented to vertical industry, and emergency Communication service (URLLC) focusing on safety and reliability. The requirements of different services on the network architecture are different, and mainly reflect on the aspects of time delay, transmission capability of forward transmission and return transmission, service data processing capacity and the like. In the traditional network structure, on one hand, due to the time delay requirement and the pressure of the transmission of the bottom layer I/Q data on the forward transmission, the data cannot be processed in a centralized way; on the other hand, the base station has strong software and hardware coupling, cannot adapt to signal processing of different wireless access technologies, and is not beneficial to network virtualization.

With the development of mobile communication, when a conventional base station faces a general network structure and various service requirements, the conventional base station is more and more limited, and the requirement for partitioning the base station architecture is increasingly strong, and a centralized unit/distributed unit (CU/DU) architecture arises accordingly. Wherein the CU is further split into a control plane CU (CU-C) and a user plane CU (CU-U) according to a control plane and user plane separation principle.

The CU mainly processes non-real-time information streams and protocol stacks, can run on a general processor, is suitable for clouding, realizes software and hardware decoupling, and generates centralized cooperation gain; the DU focuses on processing delay-sensitive underlying information, involves a large amount of scheduling, modulation and demodulation, encoding and decoding, and requires dedicated hardware to ensure air interface performance.

Due to the change of architecture, the conventional base station based cell establishment is not suitable for the CU/DU architecture.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a cell establishment method and a cell establishment device, which are used for realizing cell establishment based on a CU/DU architecture.

In a first aspect, a cell establishment method is provided, including: the method comprises the steps that a CU receives a request message for triggering the establishment of a logical cell, the CU determines that the logical cell which is requested to be established needs to be automatically activated, whether the number of cells carried by an enabled Radio Resource Control (RRC) process reaches an upper limit and whether idle Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) processes exist is judged, and if the CU determines that the number of the cells carried by the enabled RRC process does not reach the upper limit and the idle PDCP processes exist, the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources are allocated to the logical cell which is requested to be established.

In a possible implementation manner, the determining whether there is an idle PDCP process includes: the DU queries the processor core occupation information stored in the resource sharing pool; and if the number of the idle processor cores is not less than the number of the processor cores occupied by one PDCP process according to the processor core occupation information, judging that the idle PDCP process exists, otherwise, judging that no idle PDCP process exists. Wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and DUs.

In one possible implementation manner, the method further includes: if the CU judges that the number of the cells borne by the started RRC process reaches the upper limit, judging whether an idle RRC process exists or not; and if the idle RRC process is judged, loading the idle RRC process, distributing the loaded RRC process resources to the logic cell requested to be activated, and otherwise, sending a capacity expansion request.

In one possible implementation manner, the determining whether there is an idle RRC procedure includes: and the CU inquires processor core occupation information stored in the resource sharing pool, if the number of idle processor cores is judged to be not less than the number of processor cores occupied by one RRC process according to the processor core occupation information, the idle RRC process is judged to exist, and if the idle processor cores are not judged to exist, the idle RRC process does not exist. Wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

In one possible implementation, the CU includes a CU-C and a CU-U, and the allocating the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources to the logical cell requested to be activated includes: a CU-C in the CU stores resource information used for bearing the RRC process of the logical cell in a resource sharing pool; a CU-C in the CU sends a request for loading a PDCP process to a CU-U in the CU, and the CU-U loads the PDCP process and sends resource information of the loaded PDCP process to the CU-C; and the CU-C saves the resource information of the PDCP process for bearing the logical cell in the resource sharing pool. Wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

In one possible implementation manner, the method further includes: the CU receives a logical cell deletion request message, wherein the logical cell deletion request message is used for requesting to delete the logical cell; the CU releases RRC process resources and PDCP process resources distributed for the logic cell, releases processor core resources occupied by the PDCP process resources, and updates the resource information of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

In one possible implementation, the receiving, by the CU, a request message for triggering establishment of a logical cell includes: and the CU receives a physical cell establishment success notification message sent by the DU, wherein the physical cell establishment success notification message is used for triggering the CU to establish the logical cell. After the CU receives the request message for triggering establishment of the logical cell, the method further includes: the CU sends a service parameter configuration request message to the DU, wherein the service parameter configuration request message carries service configuration parameters; and the CU sends a request message for establishing the logical cell to the DU, wherein the request message for establishing the logical cell is used for triggering the RRU and the COM on the DU to carry out the relevant processing of establishing the logical cell. After the CU allocates the enabled RRC process resource and the idle PDCP process resource to the logical cell requested to be established, the method further includes: and the CU sends a logical cell establishment success notification message to the DU.

In one possible implementation, the CU includes CU-C and CU-U, and the CU-U includes a PDCP protocol unit. The method further comprises the following steps: a CU-C in the CU receives a user information inquiry request message sent by a DU; the CU-C inquires user information according to the user information inquiry request message and sends the inquired user information to a CU-U in the CU; and the CU-U sends the user information to an RLC protocol unit of the DU to trigger the RLC protocol unit to send the user information to an MAC protocol unit in the DU.

In a second aspect, there is provided a CU comprising: CU-C and CU-U. And the CU-C is used for receiving a request message for triggering the establishment of the logical cell, determining that the logical cell required to be established needs to be automatically activated, judging whether the number of the cells carried by the enabled RRC process reaches an upper limit and whether idle PDCP processes exist, and if the number of the cells carried by the enabled RRC process does not reach the upper limit and the idle PDCP processes exist, allocating the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources to the logical cell required to be established.

In one possible implementation, the CU-C is specifically configured to: inquiring the occupation information of the processor cores stored in the resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the DU; and if the number of the idle processor cores is not less than the number of the processor cores occupied by one PDCP process according to the processor core occupation information, judging that the idle PDCP process exists, otherwise, judging that no idle PDCP process exists.

In one possible implementation, the CU-C is further configured to: if the number of the cells borne by the started RRC process reaches the upper limit, judging whether an idle RRC process exists; and if the idle RRC process is judged, loading the idle RRC process, distributing the loaded RRC process resources to the logic cell requested to be activated, and otherwise, sending a capacity expansion request.

In a possible implementation manner, the CU-C is specifically configured to: saving resource information for bearing the RRC process of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the distribution unit DU; a CU-C sends a request for loading a PDCP process to the CU-U; the CU-U is specifically configured to: loading a PDCP process and sending the resource information of the loaded PDCP process to the CU-C; the CU-C is further configured to: and saving the resource information of the PDCP process for bearing the logical cell in the resource sharing pool.

In one possible implementation, the CU-C is further configured to: receiving a logical cell deletion request message, wherein the logical cell deletion request message is used for requesting to delete the logical cell; releasing RRC process resources and PDCP process resources allocated to the logic cell, releasing processor core resources occupied by the PDCP process resources, and updating the resource information of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

In a third aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, including: the system comprises a processor and a memory, wherein the processor and the memory are connected through a bus; the processor is configured to read a program in the memory and execute the method according to any one of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for causing the computer to perform the method of any of the first aspects above.

In the above embodiments of the present application, in the CU/DU architecture, a CU is used to implement a logical cell establishment procedure. After receiving the message for requesting to establish the logical cell, the CU allocates the RRC resource and the PDCP resource to the logical cell only if it is determined that the logical cell needs to be automatically activated, so that the resources can be allocated to the logical cell according to the service requirement, thereby saving the use of system resources. On the other hand, the CU may allocate resources to the logical cell according to the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC procedure and whether there is an idle PDCP procedure, thereby providing an effective logical cell establishment scheme.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a base station in the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating the sharing of resources between CUs and DUs in the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a logical cell establishment procedure according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view illustrating an interaction flow of a CU-C and a CU-U in a logical cell establishment process according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a logical cell establishment procedure according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a logical cell deletion process according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic signaling flow diagram of interaction between a DU and a CU according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic diagram of a cell establishment and deletion process under a condition of link state change according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 9 is a schematic view of a user information query flow provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a CU according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 11 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

A Radio Access Network (RAN) is the part of a network that accesses terminals to the radio network. A RAN node (or device) is a node (or device) in a radio access network, which may also be referred to as a base station. Currently, some examples of RAN nodes are: a gbb, a Transmission Reception Point (TRP), an evolved Node B (eNB), a Radio Network Controller (RNC), a Node B (NodeB, NB), a Base Station Controller (BSC), a Base Transceiver Station (BTS), a home base station (e.g., home evolved NodeB or home Node B, HNB), a Base Band Unit (BBU), or a wireless fidelity (Wifi) Access Point (AP), etc. In addition, in one network configuration, the RAN may include a Centralized Unit (CU) node and a Distributed Unit (DU) node.

The RAN node employs a CD/DU architecture, wherein the PDCP and upper protocol layers (e.g., RRC layer) belong to the CU, and the lower protocol layers (e.g., RLC layer, MAC layer) of the PDCP belong to the DU, cut from a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) location. After the segmentation, a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer and a PDCP layer in a RAN node protocol stack are located in a CU, and a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, a Physical Layer (PL) and radio resources are located in a DU.

In the CU/DU architecture, the DU and the CU exchange messages via a communication interface (e.g., an F1 interface).

Based on the RAN node adopting the CD/DU architecture, embodiments of the present application provide a cell establishment method and a related apparatus. The embodiments of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Based on the CU/DU architecture, the embodiments of the present application share resource information in a cell establishment procedure due to separation of CUs and DUs. Through resource sharing, the data uniqueness of the whole RAN node can be ensured.

To this end, a resource sharing pool may be set, which is accessible by CUs and DUs. The resource sharing pool may store configuration information derived from device-related parameters on the physical cell and the logical cell.

Specifically, the information stored in the resource sharing pool may include the following categories:

(1) information about occupied DU resources.

(2) Master Information Block (MIB) information.

In the prior art, a CU only maintains MIB information related to a logical cell, and a DU only maintains MIB information related to a physical cell. In the embodiment of the application, the resource sharing pool can store the MIB information related to the logical cell and can also store the MIB information related to the physical cell. Through resource sharing, both CUs and DUs can obtain MIB information of all physical cells and logical cells.

The MIB information related to the logical cell according to the embodiment of the present application may include resource information for carrying an RRC procedure of the logical cell (also referred to as topology information of the RRC procedure), resource information for carrying a PDCP procedure of the logical cell (also referred to as topology information of the PDCP procedure), and other related information.

(3) The MAC layer and the PL layer are part of a Software Function Unit (SFU) processor core distribution information.

Wherein the processor distribution information of the SFU may include: the number of total processor cores on the virtual machine and the number of processor cores occupied by the enabled RRC process and PDCP process. Wherein, since the CU is located on the virtual machine, the number of total processor cores on the virtual machine and the number of processor cores occupied by the RRC process and the PDCP process that have been enabled may include: the number of total processor cores on each CU and the number of processor cores occupied by the RRC processes and PDCP processes that have been enabled.

One RRC process or PDCP process may handle one or more cells, occupying one or more processor cores. For example, 1 RRC process handles 8 cells, occupying one processor core, and one PDCP process handles 1 cell, occupying 5 processor cores.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of resource sharing between CUs and DUs. As shown, CUs may store logical cell-related MIB information in a resource-shared pool. The DU may provide DU device information (including information about occupied DU resources) to the resource share pool, MIB information about the physical cell to the resource share pool, and processor core distribution information of the SFU to the resource share pool.

In the embodiment of the application, the RAN node adopting the CU/DU architecture loads the RRC resource and the PDCP resource and delays to the cell activation stage, unlike the conventional base station that loads the resource during initialization. Since the CUs are located on the virtual machine, the number of resources is no longer fixed, and RRC resources and PDCP resources need to be dynamically increased or decreased according to the service requirements.

Specifically, in the embodiment of the present application, each time a new cell is activated (i.e., a new logical cell is established), it may be determined whether a new process needs to be started, if the new process needs to be started and the number of idle processor cores remaining on the virtual machine is not less than the number of processor cores occupied by the process that needs to be started, a High Level (HL) process and a PDCP process that are needed to load the cell may be triggered, and then cell activation is performed, and if the number of processor cores on the virtual machine is found to be insufficient to start the new process when the cell is activated, an expansion request needs to be sent to a network management and orchestration (MANO) system. Further, after the cell is deactivated, the PDCP process resource and the HL process resource distributed to the cell may be closed, and the processor core resource may be recovered.

Referring to fig. 3, a schematic diagram of a cell establishment procedure provided in the embodiment of the present application is shown, where the procedure may include:

s301: the CU receives a request message for triggering the establishment of a logical cell.

Optionally, the request message for triggering establishment of the logical cell may be sent by a management station. The management station may request activation of the logical cell (i.e., establishment of the logical cell) according to the service needs. The request message for triggering establishment of the logical cell may also be sent by a DU, and after the physical cell is successfully established, the DU may send a physical cell establishment completion notification message to the CU to trigger the CU to establish the logical cell. The physical cell establishment completion notification message sent by the DU may also be replaced by a logical cell establishment request message or other message names.

S302: the CU determines whether the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process has reached the upper limit and whether there is an idle PDCP process, and if it is determined that the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process has not reached the upper limit and there is an idle PDCP process, S303 is performed.

Optionally, the CU may store the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process, and further determine whether the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process has reached the upper limit. The CU may also obtain the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC procedure by querying MIB information of the logical cells stored in the resource sharing pool. The upper limit of the number of cells carried by one RRC process is a predetermined value, for example, the upper limit may be equal to 8.

Optionally, the CU may query processor core occupation information stored in the resource sharing pool, determine that there is a free PDCP process if it is determined that the number of free processor cores is not less than the number of processor cores occupied by one PDCP process according to the queried processor core occupation information, and otherwise determine that there is no free PDCP process.

Alternatively, after receiving the request for triggering establishment of the logical cell, the CU may first determine whether the logical cell needs to be automatically activated, if so, perform S302 and the subsequent steps, otherwise, end the process.

S303: the CU allocates the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources to the logical cell requested to be established.

In this step, the CU uses the enabled RRC procedure and the idle PDCP procedure to carry the logical cell.

Further, in the above flow, if the CU determines in S302 that the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process has reached the upper limit, the process proceeds to S304.

S304: the CU determines whether there is an idle RRC process, if so, proceeds to S305, otherwise, proceeds to S306.

Optionally, the CU may query processor core occupation information stored in the resource sharing pool, determine that there is an idle RRC process if it is determined that the number of idle processor cores is not less than the number of processor cores occupied by one RRC process according to the queried processor core occupation information, and determine that there is no idle RRC process otherwise.

S305: the CU loads the idle RRC process and allocates the loaded RRC process resource to the logical cell requested to be established.

In this step, the CU uses an idle RRC procedure to carry the logical cell.

S306: the CU sends a capacity expansion request, or ends the flow.

Further, if the CU determines in S302 that there is no idle PDCP process, the process proceeds to S306.

Considering that the CU may include the CU-C and the CU-U, in S303 of the above flow, the CU-C and the CU-U may implement the resource loading process of the logical cell by cooperating with each other.

Referring to fig. 4, a schematic diagram of a logical cell resource loading process provided in the embodiment of the present application, where the process corresponds to S303 in fig. 3. As shown, the process may include:

s401: the CU-C stores resource information for carrying RRC procedures of the logical cell.

Alternatively, the CU-C may save the resource information for carrying the RRC procedure of the logical cell locally, or in a resource sharing pool, or in both locally and in the resource sharing pool.

S402: the CU-C sends a request to the CU-U to load the PDCP process.

S403-404: and the CU-U loads the PDCP process and sends the resource information of the loaded PDCP process to the CU-C.

S405: the CU-C maintains resource information for carrying PDCP processes of the logical cell.

Optionally, the CU-C may save the resource information of the PDCP process for carrying the logical cell locally, or in a resource sharing pool, or in both locally and in a resource sharing pool.

In specific implementation, based on the flow shown in fig. 3, a CU may first determine whether the number of cells carried by an RRC process has reached an upper limit, and after determining that the number of cells has not reached the upper limit, determine whether there is an idle PDCP process, and process according to the above flow according to the determination result. Fig. 5 exemplarily shows the flow.

As shown in fig. 5, the process may include:

s501: and after the CU-C completes the initialization of the single board and obtains the number of the processor cores, the management station sends a request message for establishing the logical cell to the CU-C.

S502: after receiving the request message, the CU-C determines whether the logical cell requested to be established needs to be automatically activated, if so, proceeds to S503, otherwise, ends the process.

S503: and the CU-C judges whether the number of the cells carried by the started RRC process reaches an upper limit, if so, the step is shifted to S504, and if not, the step is shifted to S506.

S504: the CU-C judges whether an idle RRC process exists, if so, the step goes to S505, and if not, the step goes to S513.

S505: the CU-C loads the new RRC procedure.

S506: the CU-C keeps topology information of the RRC procedure carrying the logical cell.

S507: and the CU-C judges whether an idle PDCP process exists, if so, the step is shifted to S508, and if not, the step is shifted to S513.

S508: the CU-C sends a request message to the CU-U to load the PDCP process.

S509: after receiving the message, the CU-U loads the PDCP process.

S510: and the CU-U sends a response message for loading the PDCP process to the CU-C, wherein the response message carries information such as the loaded PDCP resource number and the like.

S511: and after receiving the response message, the CU-C stores the topology information of the PDCP process carrying the logical cell.

S512: and the CU-C returns a cell establishment result notification message to the management station.

S513: the CU-U sends a capacity expansion request message to a network management and orchestration (MANO) system.

The specific implementation of the above process can be referred to the processes shown in fig. 3 and fig. 4, and will not be repeated here.

Referring to fig. 6, a schematic diagram of a logical cell deletion process provided in the embodiment of the present application is shown, where the process may include:

s601: the CU receives a logical cell deletion request message.

S602: and the CU releases the RRC process resources distributed for the logic cell requested to be deleted and the PDCP process resources distributed for the logic cell, and releases the processor core resources occupied by the PDCP process resources.

Further, the method can also comprise the following steps:

s603: the CU updates the logical cell resource information in the resource sharing pool, such as updating MIB information of the logical cell, according to the above logical cell deletion operation.

In order to implement signaling interaction between a CU and a DU, in the embodiment of the present application, a cell agent module is added to the DU. The cell related signaling sent by the CU to the DU is sent to the cell agent module on the DU, and the cell agent module searches the baseband and radio frequency resources used by the cell for distribution processing. The cell agent module receives the signaling reported to the cell agent module by other modules in the DU in the uplink and forwards the signaling to the cell management module on the CU. The signaling interaction between the CU and the DU mainly has the following aspects:

(1) service parameter configuration request flow: the method mainly comprises configuration request information of uplink and downlink algorithm parameters, configuration request information of user log configuration parameters, configuration request information of cell related parameters and antenna parameters and the like.

(2) Cell-related notification message flow: the method mainly comprises a notification message of successful establishment of the physical cell, a response message of successful establishment of the logical cell sent by the DU, a notification message of successful establishment of the logical cell and the like.

(3) F1 process signaling flow after link status change.

Referring to fig. 7, a signaling procedure related to cell establishment is provided in the embodiment of the present application, and the procedure mainly describes interaction between a CU and a DU. The CU is provided with a cell management module, and the DU is provided with a cell agent module for cell management related functions.

As shown, the process may include:

s701: after the cell agent module on DU establishes physical cell, it sends notification message of successful establishment of physical cell to CU.

S702: and after receiving the successful establishment notification message of the physical cell, the cell management module on the CU sends a service parameter configuration request message to the DU, wherein the service parameter configuration request message carries service configuration parameters.

The service configuration parameters may include logical cell establishment related parameters required by a MAC layer and a physical layer on the DU.

S703: the cell management module on the CU sends a logical cell setup request message to the DU.

In this step, after receiving the notification message of successful establishment of the physical cell sent by the DU, the CU may trigger the establishment process of the logical cell. The logical cell establishment procedure on the CU may refer to the flow shown in fig. 3, fig. 4 or fig. 5, again not repeated.

Further, in the process of establishing the logical cell, an establishment request message needs to be sent to the RRC layer, the RRU, and an som (slave of operation and management) operation and maintenance subagent. The RRC is located on the CU, and the RRU and the SOM are located on the DU, so that a logical cell setup request message needs to be sent to the DU to trigger the RRU and the COM to perform a relevant processing operation for logical cell setup.

S704: and the DU carries out corresponding processing according to the received logical cell establishment request message and then sends a logical cell establishment response message to the CU.

S705: after finishing the establishment of the logical cell, the CU sends a notification message that the establishment of the logical cell is successful to the DU.

Referring to fig. 8, a cell establishment and deletion procedure in case of a link state change is provided in the embodiment of the present application. Wherein the link state detection module may detect a state of an F1 link between the CU and the DU.

As shown in the figure, when the link state detection module detects that the F1 link changes from the failure state to the normal state, it sends a physical cell setup notification message to the DU to trigger the DU to setup the physical cell. After the DU establishes the physical cell, the CU may be triggered to establish the logical cell (see S801 in the figure). The process of establishing the logical cell can be referred to the foregoing embodiments, and is not repeated here.

When detecting that the link of F1 changes from the normal state to the failure state, the link state detection module sends a physical cell deletion notification message to the DU to instruct the DU to delete the physical cell (see S803-804 in the figure). The link state detection module sends a logical cell deletion request message to the CU to instruct the CU to delete the logical cell (see S805 in the figure). The deleting process of the logical cell can be referred to the foregoing embodiments, and is not repeated here.

In the embodiment of the application, in the CU/DU architecture, the CU and the DU may query the user information respectively. Fig. 9 shows a user information query flow diagram.

Referring to fig. 9, a schematic view of a user information query process provided in the embodiment of the present application is shown, where the process may include:

s901: the DU sends a user information query request message to the CU.

S902: and after receiving the user information inquiry request message, the CU-C in the CU sends a corresponding user identifier (UEindex) to the CU-U.

Wherein, the CU-C is positioned at a higher layer above the PDCP protocol unit, and the CU-U is positioned at the PDCP protocol unit.

S903: the CU-U inquires user information according to the user identification (UEindex);

s904: the CU-U sends the queried user information to the DU.

S905: after receiving the group user service plane inquiry message, the RLC protocol unit in the DU sends the message to the MAC protocol unit.

In the above flow, the CU-U is located in the PDCP protocol unit, and the user information queried by the CU-U passes through the PDCP protocol unit, the RLC protocol unit, and then the MAC protocol unit, so in the whole query flow, the returned user information adds the relevant information of the corresponding protocol unit according to the passed protocol unit, and finally the user information returned to the DU includes the relevant information of the PDCP, RLC, and MAC protocol units.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the PDCP protocol unit and the PDCP layer have substantially the same meaning, and are both used to refer to one protocol layer in a protocol stack. Similarly, the RLC protocol unit and the RLC layer also have substantially the same meaning, and the MAC protocol unit and the MAC layer also have substantially the same meaning.

It can be seen from the above description that the embodiment of the present application can implement a cell establishment process under a CU/DU architecture, effectively handle problems of resource sharing, signaling flow, and the like under a new architecture, and provide a strong guarantee for service verification.

Based on the same technical concept, the embodiment of the application also provides a CU.

Referring to fig. 10, a schematic structural diagram of a CU provided in the embodiment of the present application is shown, where the apparatus may include: CU-C1001 and CU-U1002. Wherein, CU-U can comprise a plurality.

And the CU-C1101 is configured to receive a request message for triggering establishment of a logical cell, determine that the logical cell requested to be established needs to be automatically activated, determine whether the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process reaches an upper limit and whether there are idle PDCP processes, and allocate resources of the enabled RRC process and the idle PDCP processes to the logical cell requested to be established if it is determined that the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process does not reach the upper limit and there are idle PDCP processes.

Optionally, CU-C1001 is specifically configured to: and inquiring the occupation information of the processor cores stored in the resource sharing pool, if the number of the idle processor cores is judged to be not less than the number of the processor cores occupied by one PDCP process according to the occupation information of the processor cores, judging that the idle PDCP process exists, and otherwise, judging that the idle PDCP process does not exist. Wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the DU.

Optionally, CU-C1001 is also used to: if the number of the cells borne by the started RRC process reaches the upper limit, judging whether an idle RRC process exists; and if the idle RRC process is judged, loading the idle RRC process, distributing the loaded RRC process resources to the logic cell requested to be activated, and otherwise, sending a capacity expansion request.

Optionally, CU-C1001 is specifically configured to: saving resource information used for bearing the RRC process of the logical cell in a resource sharing pool, and sending a request for loading a PDCP process to a CU-U by a CU-C; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU. CU-U1002 is specifically configured to: the PDCP process is loaded and the resource information of the loaded PDCP process is transmitted to the CU-C1001. CU-C1001 is also used to: and saving the resource information of the PDCP process for bearing the logical cell in the resource sharing pool.

Optionally, CU-C1001 is also used to: receiving a logical cell deletion request message, wherein the logical cell deletion request message is used for requesting to delete the logical cell; releasing RRC process resources and PDCP process resources allocated to the logic cell, releasing processor core resources occupied by the PDCP process resources, and updating the resource information of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

Based on the same technical concept, the embodiment of the present application further provides a communication device, which can implement the functions implemented by the CU in the foregoing embodiments.

Referring to fig. 11, a schematic structural diagram of a communication device provided in the embodiment of the present application is shown, where the communication device may include: a processor 1101, a memory 1102, a network interface 1103, and a bus interface 1104.

The processor 1101 is responsible for managing the bus architecture and general processing, and the memory 1102 may store data used by the processor 1101 in performing operations. The network interface 1103 is used to receive and transmit data under the control of the processor 1101.

The bus architecture may include any number of interconnected buses and bridges, with one or more processors, represented by processor 1101, and various circuits of memory, represented by memory 1102, being linked together. The bus architecture may also link together various other circuits such as peripherals, voltage regulators, power management circuits, and the like, which are well known in the art, and therefore, will not be described any further herein. The bus interface provides an interface. The processor 1101 is responsible for managing the bus architecture and general processing, and the memory 1102 may store data used by the processor 1101 in performing operations.

The process disclosed by the embodiment of the invention can be applied to the processor 1101, or can be implemented by the processor 1101. In implementation, the steps of the cell establishment procedure may be performed by instructions in the form of hardware integrated logic circuits or software in the processor 1101. The processor 1101 may be a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor, an application specific integrated circuit, a field programmable gate array or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or the like that may implement or perform the methods, steps, and logic blocks disclosed in embodiments of the present invention. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or any conventional processor or the like. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present invention may be directly implemented by a hardware processor, or may be implemented by a combination of hardware and software modules in the processor. The software module may be located in ram, flash memory, rom, prom, or eprom, registers, etc. storage media as is well known in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory 1102, and the processor 1101 reads the information in the memory 1102 and completes the steps of the signal processing flow in conjunction with the hardware thereof.

Specifically, the processor 1101 is configured to read the program in the memory 1102 and execute: after receiving a request message for triggering establishment of a logical cell through the network interface 1103, if it is determined that the logical cell requested to be established needs to be automatically activated, it is determined whether the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process has reached an upper limit and whether there is an idle PDCP process, and if it is determined that the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process has not reached the upper limit and there is an idle PDCP process, the enabled RRC process resource and the idle PDCP process resource are allocated to the logical cell requested to be established. The specific implementation manner of the process can be referred to the foregoing embodiments, and is not repeated here.

Based on the same technical concept, the embodiment of the application also provides a computer readable storage medium. The computer-readable storage medium stores computer-executable instructions for causing the computer to perform the processes performed by the foregoing embodiments.

The present application is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the application. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

While the preferred embodiments of the present application have been described, additional variations and modifications in those embodiments may occur to those skilled in the art once they learn of the basic inventive concepts. Therefore, it is intended that the appended claims be interpreted as including preferred embodiments and all alterations and modifications as fall within the scope of the application.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made in the present application without departing from the spirit and scope of the application. Thus, if such modifications and variations of the present application fall within the scope of the claims of the present application and their equivalents, the present application is intended to include such modifications and variations as well.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a cell, comprising:

a central unit CU receives a request message for triggering the establishment of a logical cell;

and if the CU judges that the number of the cells carried by the enabled RRC process does not reach the upper limit and has idle PDCP processes, the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources are distributed to the logical cell requested to be established.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether there is a PDCP process that is idle comprises:

the DU queries the processor core occupation information stored in the resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the distribution unit DU;

and if the number of the idle processor cores is not less than the number of the processor cores occupied by one PDCP process according to the processor core occupation information, judging that the idle PDCP process exists, otherwise, judging that no idle PDCP process exists.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the CU judges that the number of the cells borne by the started RRC process reaches the upper limit, judging whether an idle RRC process exists or not;

and if the idle RRC process is judged, loading the idle RRC process, distributing the loaded RRC process resources to the logic cell requested to be activated, and otherwise, sending a capacity expansion request.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining whether there is an idle RRC procedure comprises:

the CU inquires processor core occupation information stored in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the distribution unit DU;

and if the number of the idle processor cores is not less than the number of the processor cores occupied by one RRC process according to the processor core occupation information, judging that the idle RRC process exists, otherwise, judging that no idle RRC process exists.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the CUs comprise a control plane centralized unit CU-C and a user plane centralized unit CU-U, and wherein the allocating enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources to the logical cell requested to be activated comprises:

a CU-C in the CU stores resource information used for bearing the RRC process of the logical cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the distribution unit DU;

a CU-C in the CU sends a request for loading a PDCP process to a CU-U in the CU;

the CU-U loads a PDCP process and sends the resource information of the loaded PDCP process to the CU-C;

and the CU-C saves the resource information of the PDCP process for bearing the logical cell in the resource sharing pool.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

the CU receives a logical cell deletion request message, wherein the logical cell deletion request message is used for requesting to delete the logical cell;

the CU releases RRC process resources and PDCP process resources distributed for the logic cell, releases processor core resources occupied by the PDCP process resources, and updates the resource information of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein;

the CU receives a request message for triggering the establishment of a logical cell, and the request message comprises the following steps:

the CU receives a physical cell establishment success notification message sent by a DU, wherein the physical cell establishment success notification message is used for triggering the CU to establish a logical cell;

after the CU receives the request message for triggering establishment of the logical cell, the method further includes:

the CU sends a service parameter configuration request message to the DU, wherein the service parameter configuration request message carries service configuration parameters;

the CU sends a request message for establishing the logical cell to the DU, wherein the request message for establishing the logical cell is used for triggering the RRU and the COM on the DU to carry out the relevant processing of establishing the logical cell;

after the CU allocates the enabled RRC process resource and the idle PDCP process resource to the logical cell requested to be established, the method further includes:

and the CU sends a logical cell establishment success notification message to the DU.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the CU comprises a CU-C and a CU-U, the CU-U comprising a PDCP protocol unit;

the method further comprises the following steps:

a CU-C in the CU receives a user information inquiry request message sent by a DU;

the CU-C inquires user information according to the user information inquiry request message and sends the inquired user information to a CU-U in the CU;

and the CU-U sends the user information to an RLC protocol unit of the DU to trigger the RLC protocol unit to send the user information to an MAC protocol unit in the DU.

9. A Central Unit (CU), comprising: a control plane centralized unit CU-C and a user plane centralized unit CU-U;

and the CU-C is used for receiving a request message for triggering the establishment of the logical cell, determining that the logical cell required to be established needs to be automatically activated, judging whether the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process reaches an upper limit and whether idle Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) processes exist, and if the number of cells carried by the enabled RRC process does not reach the upper limit and the idle PDCP processes exist, allocating the enabled RRC process resources and the idle PDCP process resources to the logical cell required to be established.

10. The CU of claim 9, wherein the CU-C is to:

inquiring the occupation information of the processor cores stored in the resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the DU;

11. The CU of claim 9, wherein the CU-C is further to:

if the number of the cells borne by the started RRC process reaches the upper limit, judging whether an idle RRC process exists;

12. The CU of claim 9, wherein:

the CU-C is specifically used for: saving resource information for bearing the RRC process of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CU and the distribution unit DU;

a CU-C sends a request for loading a PDCP process to the CU-U;

the CU-U is specifically configured to: loading a PDCP process and sending the resource information of the loaded PDCP process to the CU-C;

the CU-C is further configured to: and saving the resource information of the PDCP process for bearing the logical cell in the resource sharing pool.

13. The CU of claim 9, wherein:

the CU-C is further configured to:

receiving a logical cell deletion request message, wherein the logical cell deletion request message is used for requesting to delete the logical cell;

releasing RRC process resources and PDCP process resources allocated to the logic cell, releasing processor core resources occupied by the PDCP process resources, and updating the resource information of the logic cell in a resource sharing pool; wherein the resource sharing pool is used for being accessed by the CUs and the distribution units DU.

14. A communications apparatus, comprising: the system comprises a processor and a memory, wherein the processor and the memory are connected through a bus;

the processor, reading a program in a memory, performing the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.

15. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.