CN111148235A

CN111148235A - Communication method and device

Info

Publication number: CN111148235A
Application number: CN201811303690.2A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 黄曲芳; 范强; 徐小英; 娄崇
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2018-11-02
Filing date: 2018-11-02
Publication date: 2020-05-12
Anticipated expiration: 2038-11-02
Also published as: CN111148235B; WO2020088538A1

Abstract

A communication method and device, the principle of the method is: and simplifying a protocol stack between the first network equipment and the terminal equipment, thereby simplifying the data processing process and accelerating the processing speed. For example, the first network device may not add PDCP SNs to N data packets received from the second network device, and may accelerate the data processing speed compared to a scheme in which PDCP SNs are necessarily added to N data packets.

Description

Communication method and device

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a communication method and apparatus.

Background

With the application of the wireless communication technology in industrial production becoming deeper and deeper, the processing speed in industrial production needs to be faster and faster, and how to realize data transmission in industrial production by using the base station does not have a relevant solution at present.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a communication method and a communication device, which are used for transmitting industrial production data by utilizing a base station.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, which is applicable to a first network device, and includes: a first network device receives first information from a second network device, wherein the first information comprises N data packets, and N is a positive integer; the first network equipment generates at least one transmission block according to the N data packets, wherein the transmission block is generated by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, and the transmission block does not comprise a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sequence number SN; and the first network equipment sends the at least one transmission block to terminal equipment.

In the embodiment of the application, no PDCP SN is needed to be added to the transmission block, so that compared with the scheme of adding PDCP SN to the transmission block, the processing process between the terminal equipment and the first network equipment can be simplified, the processing speed is increased, and the requirement of industrial production on the speed is met.

In one possible implementation, the generating, by the first network device, at least one transport block according to the N data packets includes: the first network equipment only performs MAC layer encapsulation on the N data packets to obtain the at least one transmission block; or, the first network device encapsulates the N data packets only in the PDCP layer and the MAC layer, and obtains the at least one transport block.

In the embodiment of the present application, only the MAC layer or only the PDCP layer and the MAC layer may be performed on N data packets in the application layer, so that, compared with the existing method in which the SDAP layer, the PDCP layer, the MAC layer, and the RLC layer must be performed on the data packets, a protocol stack between the terminal device and the first network device is simplified, and the data processing speed is increased.

In one possible implementation, the number of the transport blocks is one, and the one transport block includes the N data packets.

In a possible implementation, the one transport block further includes size information of each of the N data packets, or the one transport block further includes size index information of each of the N data packets.

In one possible implementation, the number of the transport blocks is M, and the M transport blocks include the N data packets, where M is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

In the embodiment of the application, N data packets of the application layer are put into a plurality of transmission blocks for transmission, and compared with the case that N data packets are put into one transmission block for transmission, the case that all of the N data packets are lost due to transmission failure of one transmission block can be avoided.

In a possible implementation, each of the M transport blocks includes size information of a data packet included in the transport block, or each of the M transport blocks includes size index information of a data packet included in the transport block.

In a possible implementation, each of the M transport blocks further includes transport block identification information, where the transport block identification information is used to identify a sequence of the M transport blocks.

In one possible implementation, the sending, by the first network device, the at least one transport block to a terminal device includes: and the first network equipment adopts different hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes to respectively send the M transmission blocks to the terminal equipment.

In the embodiment of the application, different transmission blocks are sent by using different HARQ processes, so that different transmission blocks are identified by using different HARQ processes, and therefore, transmission block identifiers do not need to be added in the transmission blocks, and air interface overhead is saved.

In one possible implementation, the method further comprises: and the first network equipment sends first indication information to the terminal equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

In one possible implementation, the sending, by the first network device, the at least one transport block to a terminal device includes:

the first network equipment receives second indication information sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating the sending of the at least one transmission block; and the first network equipment sends the at least one transmission block to the terminal equipment according to the second indication information.

In this embodiment, before entering the safety shutdown state, the terminal device may send second indication information to the first network device to indicate sending of the transport block, so as to prevent the terminal device from entering the safety shutdown state.

In a second aspect, a communication method is provided, which is applicable to a terminal device, and includes: the method comprises the steps that terminal equipment receives at least one transmission block sent by first network equipment, wherein the transmission block is generated by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, and the transmission block does not comprise a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sequence number SN; and the terminal equipment processes the at least one transmission block to obtain N data packets, wherein N is a positive integer.

In a possible implementation, the processing, by the terminal device, the at least one transport block to obtain N data packets includes: the terminal equipment only carries out de-encapsulation of an MAC layer on the at least one transmission block to obtain the N data packets; or, the terminal device only decapsulates the PDCP layer and the MAC layer for the at least one transport block to obtain the N data packets.

In one possible implementation, the number of the transport blocks is M, the M transport blocks include the N data packets, where M is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

In a possible implementation, each of the M transport blocks includes size information of each data packet included in the transport block, or each of the M transport blocks includes size index information of each data packet included in the transport block.

In one possible implementation, the receiving, by the terminal device, at least one transport block sent by the first network device includes: and the terminal equipment respectively receives the M transmission blocks by adopting different hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes.

In one possible implementation, the method further comprises: and the terminal equipment receives first indication information sent by the first network equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

In one possible implementation, the method further comprises: and the terminal equipment sends second indication information to the first network equipment, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating the sending of the at least one transmission block.

In a third aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, which is applicable to a first network device and includes a transceiver and a processor;

the transceiver is configured to receive first information from a second network device, where the first information includes N data packets, and N is a positive integer; a processor, configured to generate at least one transport block according to the N data packets, where the transport block is generated by a media access control MAC layer, and the transport block does not include a packet data convergence protocol PDCP sequence number SN; a transceiver further configured to transmit the at least one transport block to a terminal device.

In a possible implementation, when the processor generates at least one transport block according to the N data packets, the processor is specifically configured to: only performing MAC layer encapsulation on the N data packets to obtain the at least one transmission block; or, only performing the encapsulation of the PDCP layer and the MAC layer on the N data packets to obtain the at least one transport block.

In a possible implementation, when the transceiver transmits the at least one transport block, the transceiver is specifically configured to: and respectively sending the M transmission blocks to the terminal equipment by adopting different hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver is further configured to: and sending first indication information to the terminal equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

In a possible implementation, when the transceiver sends the at least one transport block to the terminal device, the transceiver is specifically configured to: receiving second indication information sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating the sending of the at least one transmission block; and sending the at least one transmission block to the terminal equipment according to the second indication information.

Optionally, the communication device may further include a memory, wherein the processor is coupled with the memory, and the processor may read instructions in the memory to implement the functions of the processor, such as generating at least one transmission block according to the N data packets.

In a fourth aspect, a communication apparatus, which is applicable to a terminal device, includes: a transceiver and a processor;

the transceiver is used for receiving at least one transmission block sent by a first network device, wherein the transmission block is generated by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, and the transmission block does not include a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) Sequence Number (SN); and the processor is used for processing the at least one transmission block to obtain N data packets, wherein N is a positive integer.

In a possible implementation, the processor is configured to, when processing the at least one transport block to obtain N data packets, specifically: only performing MAC layer decapsulation on the at least one transmission block to obtain the N data packets; or, only performing decapsulation of the PDCP layer and the MAC layer on the at least one transport block to obtain the N data packets.

In a possible implementation, when receiving at least one transport block sent by the first network device, the transceiver is specifically configured to: and respectively receiving the M transmission blocks by adopting different hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver further comprises: and receiving first indication information sent by the first network equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver is further configured to: and sending second indication information to the first network equipment, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating the sending of the at least one transport block.

Optionally, the communication device may further include a memory, where the processor is coupled with the memory, and the processor may read instructions in the memory to implement functions of the processor, such as processing the at least one transport block to obtain N data packets.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present application further provides a communication apparatus, where the communication apparatus is applicable to a first network device, and the communication apparatus includes a processing module and a transceiver module;

the receiving and sending module is configured to receive first information from a second network device, where the first information includes N data packets, and N is a positive integer; a processing module, configured to generate at least one transport block according to the N data packets, where the transport block is generated by a media access control MAC layer, and the transport block does not include a packet data convergence protocol PDCP sequence number SN; and the transceiver module is further used for transmitting the at least one transmission block to the terminal equipment.

For the introduction of the transceiver module and the processing module, reference may be made to the description of the first aspect.

In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present application further provides a communication apparatus, where the communication apparatus is applicable to a terminal device, and the communication apparatus may include a processing module and a transceiver module;

the receiving and sending module is used for receiving at least one transmission block sent by a first network device, wherein the transmission block is generated by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, and the transmission block does not include a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sequence number SN; and the processing module is used for processing the at least one transmission block to obtain N data packets, wherein N is a positive integer.

For the introduction of the transceiver module and the processing module, reference may be made to the description of the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, a computer program product is provided, the computer program product comprising computer instructions that, when executed, cause the method of the first or second aspect to be performed.

In an eighth aspect, there is provided a computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a method of the first or second aspect to be performed.

A ninth aspect provides a communication system including a first network device and a terminal device; wherein the first network device is configured to perform the method of the first aspect, and the terminal device is configured to perform the method of the second aspect. Optionally, the method may further include: and the second network equipment is used for sending the first information to the first network equipment.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a protocol stack according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a protocol stack according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 4 is a flowchart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of packet processing according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of data transmission according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of packet processing according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 8 is a schematic diagram of packet processing according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of an RAR message according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 11 is a flowchart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a flowchart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 14 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 15 is a schematic structural diagram of a base station according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 16 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

For ease of understanding, an explanation of concepts related to the present application is given by way of example for reference, as follows:

1) a terminal device is a device that provides voice and/or data connectivity to a user. Specifically, the UE may be a User Equipment (UE), a Mobile Station (MS), a Mobile Terminal (MT), or the like. Such as a handheld device, a vehicle-mounted device, etc., having a wireless connection function. Currently, some examples of terminals are: a mobile phone (mobile phone), a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a palm top computer, a Mobile Internet Device (MID), a wearable device, a Virtual Reality (VR) device, an Augmented Reality (AR) device, a wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), a wireless terminal in unmanned driving (self), a wireless terminal in remote surgery (remote medical supply), a wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal in transportation safety (transportation safety), a wireless terminal in city (smart city), a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), and the like. For example, the terminal device may be an operation arm terminal in an industrial control.

2) The network device refers to a device in a wireless network, and the network device may be a first network device or a second network device. The first network device is a device in the network for accessing the terminal device to the wireless network. The first network device is a node in a radio access network, which may also be referred to as a base station, and may also be referred to as a Radio Access Network (RAN) node (or device). Currently, some examples of network devices are: a gNB, a Transmission Receiving Point (TRP), an evolved Node B (eNB), a home base station (e.g., home evolved Node B, or home Node B, HNB), a baseband unit (BBU), or a WiFi Access Point (AP), etc. The second network device may be, but is not limited to being, a controller that may control the operation of the terminal device. For example, in industrial control, a controller is a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), and a terminal device is an operation arm, and the PLC controls the operation of the operation arm.

3) At least one means one or more, and the plurality means two or more.

4) at least one (one) of a, b, or c, may represent: a; b; c; a and b; a and c; b and c; or a, b and c. Wherein, a, b and c can be single or multiple.

It is to be understood that the terms "first," "second," and the like in the description of the present application are used for descriptive purposes only and not for purposes of indicating or implying relative importance, nor for purposes of indicating or implying order.

The technical solution in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application.

In future industrial production, as shown in fig. 1, one possible networking mode is: the controller sends downlink information to the base station, and the base station forwards the downlink information to the terminal device, and the terminal device performs corresponding actions, for example, the controller may be a programmable controller, and the terminal device may be an operation arm. It should be understood that the scenario shown in fig. 1 is only an example of the application of the embodiment of the present application, and is not limited to the embodiment of the present application, and the method provided by the embodiment of the present application may be applied to a service whose end-to-end delay is smaller than a data generation period, or a service whose transport block does not have a requirement for rearrangement.

In the fifth generation mobile communication system, as shown in fig. 2, in the user plane, the radio protocol stack between the base station and the terminal device sequentially includes, from top to bottom: a Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) layer, a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, and a Physical (PHY) layer.

In the networking mode shown in fig. 1, if the base station and the terminal equipment are in use, the radio protocol stack shown in fig. 2 is used. The data processing process at the base station side comprises the following steps: and the base station receives the downlink information sent by the controller, sequentially encapsulates the SDAP layer, the PDCP layer, the RLC layer and the MAC layer from top to bottom to form a Transport Block (TB), and transmits the TB through the PHY layer. After receiving the TB at the PHY layer, the terminal device obtains downlink information from the bottom to the top via decapsulation of the MAC layer, the RLC layer, the PDCP layer, and the SDAP layer in sequence, and transmits the downlink information upwards to an application layer (APP layer), where the APP layer is a peer layer between the terminal device and the controller.

It can be seen from the above description that if the wireless protocol stack shown in fig. 2 is used between the base station and the terminal device in the networking mode shown in fig. 1, the processing process of data is complex, the processing speed is slow, and the requirement of industrial production on the speed is difficult to meet.

As shown in fig. 3, the present application provides a wireless protocol stack, where the wireless protocol stack includes a first wireless protocol stack and a second wireless protocol stack, where the first wireless protocol stack is used for communication between a first network device and a second network device, and the second wireless protocol stack is used for communication between the second network device and a terminal device, and the first wireless protocol layer is not limited in this embodiment of the present application. The second radio protocol stack comprises 2 layers, layer 1 and layer 2, respectively, layer 1 corresponding to the PHY layer, and layer 2 comprising at least the MAC layer, but not limited to at least one of the SDAP, PDCP or RLC layers. If the second wireless protocol stack shown in fig. 2 is applied to the communication between the terminal device and the base station, the data processing process between the base station and the terminal device can be simplified, the processing speed can be increased, and the requirement of industrial production on the speed can be met.

It should be noted that, an example of the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3 may be: layer 1 includes a PHY layer, and layer 2 includes an SDAP layer, a PDCP layer, and an RLC layer. It can be seen that the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3 is now identical to the radio protocol stack shown in fig. 2. At this time, the improvement of the present application is to simplify the operation process of each layer in the second radio protocol stack, and compared with the radio protocol stack shown in fig. 2, the present application can also achieve the requirements of simplifying data processing and increasing processing speed. For example, in the protocol stack of fig. 2, the encapsulation of the PDCP layer may include ciphering, header compression, adding a PDCP Sequence Number (SN), and integrity protection. In the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3, the encapsulation procedure of the PDCP layer may not include: increasing PDCP SN, etc. That is, in the embodiment of the present application, for the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3, compared with the radio protocol stack shown in fig. 2, not only the number of layers included in the second radio protocol stack can be reduced, but also the processing procedure of the encapsulation operation of each layer can be simplified.

As shown in fig. 4, the present application provides a flow of a communication method, in which a first network device in the flow may be the controller in fig. 1, a second network device may be the base station in fig. 1, and a terminal device may be the terminal device in fig. 1. The communication method can be applied to an uplink communication process and can also be applied to a downlink communication process, and in the embodiment of the present application, the following communication process is taken as an example for description. It is understood that, in the embodiment of the present application, the function of the network device may also be implemented by a chip applied to the network device, and the function of the terminal device may also be implemented by a chip applied to the terminal device. The process specifically comprises the following steps:

s401, first network equipment sends first information, wherein the first information comprises N data packets, and N is a positive integer.

S402, the second network equipment receives the first information.

The N data packets are specifically data packets of an application layer, and the first network device may use the first wireless protocol stack shown in fig. 3 to encapsulate the N data packets, obtain the first information, and send the first information to the second network device in a wired or wireless manner. Accordingly, the second network device may use the first wireless protocol stack shown in fig. 3 to decapsulate the first information, and obtain N data packets.

And S403, the second network equipment generates at least one transmission block according to the N data packets. Wherein the transport block is generated by a MAC layer, and the PDCP SN is not included in the transport block.

S404, the second network equipment sends the at least one transmission block.

The second network device may trigger the sending of the at least one transport block by itself, or may be triggered by the terminal device to send the at least one transport block. For example, the terminal device may send second indication information to the first network device, where the second indication information is used to indicate sending of the at least one transport block. The first network device may send the at least one transport block to the terminal device when receiving the second indication information sent by the terminal device.

S405, the terminal equipment receives the at least one transmission block.

Specifically, the second network device may use the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3 to encapsulate the N data packets, generate at least one transmission block, and transmit the transmission block to the terminal device through the air interface.

In one example, only the MAC layer is included in layer 2 of the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3. The second network device may perform MAC layer encapsulation on only N data packets at layer 2 to obtain at least one transport block, and the at least one transport block is transmitted to the terminal device through the PHY layer. Specifically, the number of the transmission blocks is one, and each transmission block includes N data packets. Or the number of the transmission blocks is M, where M is an integer greater than or equal to 2, the M transmission blocks include the N data packets, and the data packets included in each transmission block are not overlapped. For example, N is 4, and 4 data packets are data packet 0, data packet 1, data packet 2, and data packet 3. The value of M is 2, the 2 transmission blocks are respectively a transmission block 0 and a transmission block 1, the transmission block 0 may include a data packet 0 and a data packet 1, and the transmission block 1 may include a data packet 2 and a data packet 3.

In an example, layer 2 of the second radio stack shown in fig. 3 only includes a PDCP layer and a MAC layer, and the second network device may encapsulate the PDCP layer and the MAC layer only on N data packets at layer 2 to obtain at least one transport block, and the at least one transport block is transmitted to the terminal device through the PHY layer. The number of the transport blocks may be one or M. For the number of data packets included in each transport block, reference is made to the above description of examples.

The encapsulation process of the MAC layer may include at least one of grouping packets, concatenating or adding MAC subheaders. The process of encapsulating the PDCP layer may include at least one of header compression, ciphering, or integrity protection, for example, in the embodiment of the present application, the PDCP layer may perform only header compression, ciphering, integrity protection, or both header compression and ciphering.

And S406, the terminal equipment processes the at least one transmission block to obtain N data packets.

For example, if the first network device performs only MAC layer encapsulation in layer 2 of the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3, correspondingly, the terminal device performs only MAC layer decapsulation on at least one transport block, and obtains N data packets.

Illustratively, if the first network device performs only the encapsulation of the MAC layer and the PDCP layer at layer 2 of the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 3, the terminal device decapsulates at least one transport block only in the MAC layer and the PDCP layer.

Optionally, the transport block may include size information of data packets included in the transport block, for example, for a case that one transport block includes N data packets, the one transport block may further include size information of each data packet of the N data packets. For the case that the M transport blocks include N data packets, for an ith transport block, i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to M, the ith transport block includes X data packets, the X data packets are a part of the N data packets, and the ith transport block further includes size information of each data packet in the X data packets. Alternatively, the size information of the data packet included in the transport block may be replaced by size index information of the data packet. The size of the data packet of the application layer only has a plurality of limited values, the limited data packet sizes can be numbered, and the index value represents the size of the data packet, so that the load of a transmission block can be reduced. For example, there are three sizes of packets in the application layer, and a packet of a first size is denoted by 00, a packet of a second size is denoted by 01, a packet of a third size is denoted by 10, and so on.

Optionally, the transport block may not include size information of the data packet, nor include index information of the size of the data packet. The second network device may notify the terminal device of the size of each data packet by sending first indication information to the terminal device, where the first indication information is used to indicate the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

It is understood that the size of the data packet in the transport block refers to the size of the data packet processed by layer 2 of the second radio protocol stack shown in fig. 2. For example, as shown in fig. 5, 7 or 8, each data packet includes a header (header) portion and a data (data) portion. If header compression is performed in the PDCP layer of layer 2, the size of the packet refers to the size of the packet after header compression, otherwise the size of the packet refers to the size of the packet without header compression. If integrity protection is performed on the MAC layer of layer 2, MAC integrity protection (I, MAC-I) information is added to the data packet, so the size of the data packet refers to the size of the data packet after the MAC-I is included, otherwise, the size of the data packet refers to the size of the data packet without the MAC-I.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the size information of the data packet, or the size index information, or the first indication information is added to the transport block, so as to notify the receiving end of the size of each data packet in the transport block, so that the receiving end can read each data packet in the transport block. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present application, for the case where two or more data packets are included in each transport block, the last data packet included in each transport block may not be added with the data packet size information or the size index information of the data packet. For example, one transmission block includes two data packets, which are a first data packet and a second data packet, and size information or size index information of the first data packet may be added to the transmission block, and size information or size index information of the second data packet is not added to the transmission block. For the case where a data packet is included in a transport block, size information or size index information of the data packet may not be added to the transport block.

In this embodiment of the present application, for the case that the N data packets are allocated to M transmission blocks for transmission, each transmission block in the M transmission blocks further includes transmission block identification information, and the transmission block identification information may be used to identify a transmission order of the M transmission blocks. The transport block identification information may be a TB SN, or a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process ID. For example, in the embodiment of the present application, the transport block numbered 0 is transmitted through HARQ process 0, the transport block numbered 1 is transmitted through HARQ process 1, and so on, and the transport block numbered M-1 is transmitted through HARQ process M-1, so that HARQ can be directly utilized to identify the transmission sequence of different transport blocks.

Alternatively, in this embodiment of the present application, each of the M transport blocks may not include the transport block identification information, and the second network device may notify the terminal device of the selected sequence of the different transport blocks and respectively send the M transport blocks to the terminal device by using different HARQ processes.

To address the above description, in the following embodiments of the present application, layer 2 shown in fig. 3 includes a PDCP layer and an MAC layer, where the PDCP layer performs operations such as header compression, ciphering, and integrity protection, and the MAC layer performs operations such as multiplexing and packet packing, and places N data packets in the same transport block TB, where N is 3 for example.

As shown in fig. 5, a cluster (cluster) of data includes three data packets, namely, a data packet 0, a data packet 1, and a data packet 2, wherein each data packet includes a header portion and a data portion. In this embodiment, a second network device (e.g., a base station) may first perform a header compression operation on the PDCP layer on the three data packets, then perform operations such as ciphering and integrity protection on the PDCP layer, and finally perform a packet packing operation on the MAC layer, and place the ciphered three data packets into one TB. The TB further includes size (legnth) information of each of the three data packets, where the size information of the data packet may specifically refer to a number of bits occupied by each data packet. The size of the data packet can be referred to the description of fig. 4, and will not be described here.

For the data processing procedure shown in fig. 5, the method may be specifically applied to processing of periodic services, and specifically includes:

for periodic services, parameters of a data model of the periodic services are shown in table 1, and it can be seen that end-to-end delay requirement of data transmission is lower than a generation period of data, that is, at any time, data packets transmitted at an air interface all come from the same cluster of data. In table 1, the generation cycle of data may be specifically represented by a transfer interval (transfer interval).

TABLE 1

This means that at any one time, the packets transmitted over the air interface are from the same cluster of data. It can be seen that there is no reordering requirement between data in different clusters, and if data packets in the same cluster are transmitted by the same TB, there is no reordering requirement, so all data in a data packet in a cluster can be transmitted by one TB without increasing the number of the transport block (for example, the number of the transport block may be TB SN or HARQ process ID described below).

For example, as shown in fig. 6, the second network device (e.g., the base station) receives a first cluster of data at time t1, where the first cluster of data includes data packet 1, data packet 2, and data packet 3. The first cluster of data may arrive at the terminal device (e.g., manipulator arm) at time t 2. The second network device receives a second cluster of data at time t3, the second cluster of data including packet 4, packet 5, and packet 6. The first cluster data and the second cluster data may be generated by a first network device (e.g., a PLC controller) and transmitted to the first network device. It can be seen that the second cluster of data is generated only after the first cluster of data reaches the terminal device, that is, only the first cluster of data is transmitted in the air interface within the time period from t1 to t 2. Therefore, if a cluster of data is put in the same TB packet for transmission, the TB packets do not need to be sequenced.

In the following embodiments of the present application, layer 2 shown in fig. 3 includes a PDCP layer and an MAC layer, where the PDCP layer performs operations such as header compression, ciphering, and integrity protection, and the MAC layer performs a packet packing operation, and places N data packets in M transport blocks TB, where N is 3 and M is 2.

As shown in fig. 7, a cluster of data includes three data packets, namely, a data packet 0, a data packet 1, and a data packet 2, wherein each data packet includes a header portion and a data portion. The second network device (e.g., the base station) may first perform header compression on the 3 data packets, then perform ciphering on the PDCP layer, and finally perform packet packing on the MAC layer. In the embodiment of the present application, the three data packets may be placed into two transport blocks TB, which are TB1 and TB2, respectively, wherein TB1 includes data packet 0 and data packet 1, and TB2 includes data packet 2. Among them, TB1 also includes size (legnth) information of packet 0 and packet 1, and TB2 also includes size information of packet 2. Optionally, TB1 further includes a TB SN of TB1, and TB2 further includes a TB SN of TB2, for example, the value of the TB SN of TB1 may be 0, and the value of the TB SN of TB2 may be 1. If the terminal device receives TB1 with TB SN equal to 0 first, the terminal device may decapsulate the MAC layer and the PDCP layer for TB1, and deliver the decapsulated data packet to an upper layer (e.g., an application layer). If the terminal device receives TB2 with TB SN equal to 1 first, the terminal device may wait for TB1 with TB SN equal to 0, and if TB1 with TB SN equal to 0 is received within a preset time (the preset time may specifically refer to an end-to-end delay, such as t2 shown in fig. 6), the terminal device may perform PDCP layer decapsulation and MAC decapsulation on TB1 with TB SN equal to 0 and TB2 with TB SN equal to 1, respectively, and deliver the decapsulated data packets to an upper layer in sequence. If TB1 with TB SN of 0 is not received within a preset time, the terminal device may decapsulate the PDCP layer and the MAC layer for TB2 with TB SN of 1, and deliver the decapsulated data packet to the upper layer.

In the embodiment shown in fig. 7, a cluster of data is divided into two TBs for transmission, which is not intended to limit the embodiment of the present application. For example, in the embodiment of the present application, a cluster of data may be divided into any number of TBs greater than or equal to 2 for transmission. In practice, a cluster of data can be divided into several TBs for transmission, and it is configurable. And the length of the TB SN is related to the number of TBs. For example, the number of TBs is 2, the TB SN requires only 1 bit, the number of TBs is 4, the TB SN requires 2 bits, the number of TBs is 8, and the TB SN requires 3 bits.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment shown in fig. 7, the TB SN may be replaced by a HARQ process ID, and reference may be made to the above description for how to replace the TB SN by the HARQ process ID, which is not described herein again.

In the embodiment shown in fig. 7, a cluster of data is transmitted in a plurality of TBs, which has the following advantages compared with the transmission of a cluster of data in one TB:

firstly, the method comprises the following steps: if a cluster of data is placed in a TB for transmission, if the TB fails to be transmitted, then a cluster of data will be lost in its entirety.

Secondly, the method comprises the following steps: for the industrial control type service, the terminal device side includes a survival time (survival time) parameter, and the survival time parameter can be referred to the description in table 1. The survival time parameter represents the time that the application layer of the terminal equipment can be kept in the working state under the condition that the application layer does not receive data, and once the time is exceeded, the application layer of the terminal equipment enters a safe shutdown state and stops working. In industrial production, in order to prevent the terminal device from entering a safe shutdown state, it is necessary to ensure that the terminal device can receive the data packet within a survival time period. If a cluster of data is transmitted in one TB, if the TB is lost, the terminal device may not receive the TB beyond the survival time. In the embodiment described in fig. 7, a cluster of data is divided into multiple TBs for transmission, and only if all the TBs fail to be transmitted, the terminal device enters a safety shutdown state, so that the probability that the terminal device enters the safety shutdown state is reduced.

In the following embodiments of the present application, layer 2 shown in fig. 3 includes a PDCP layer and an MAC layer, where the PDCP layer performs header compression and ciphering, the MAC layer performs packet packing operation, places N data packets in the same transport block TB, where N is 3, and the transport block TB does not include size information of the data packets, and a process of processing the data packets by a second network device (e.g., a base station) may be as shown in fig. 8.

Since the size of each packet is fixed in the data model in industrial control, for example, as shown in table 1, the size of the packet may be 200 Bytes. For the above data structure, the data structure of the TB may be further simplified, the length indication field in the data packet header is eliminated, and the second network device (e.g., the base station) may notify the terminal device of the size of the data packet through the configuration message. After receiving the configuration message, the terminal device can know the size of each data packet, and can read the received TB according to the size of the data packet. For the size of the data packet, the description of fig. 4 can be referred to specifically, and will not be described here.

Therefore, in the embodiment of the application, the size of the data packet is notified to the terminal device through the configuration information, and the length indication field in the TB packet header is cancelled, so that the load of the TB packet header can be reduced.

For the case that the terminal device triggers the second network device to send at least one transport block in the embodiment of fig. 4, the present application provides the following application scenarios:

the second network device may configure a threshold for the terminal device via the configuration message, where the threshold is less than the lifetime of the terminal device. The terminal device side may set a timer, and send the indication information to the second network device if the transmission block has not been received when the timing duration of the timer exceeds the threshold, for example, the indication information may be the second indication information in the embodiment shown in fig. 4. The second network device may send the transport block after receiving the indication information. Optionally, the second network device may send the transport block by using a normal configuration, or may send the transport block by using a more robust manner, for example, increasing the transmission power of the transport block. The terminal equipment side restarts the timer when receiving the transmission block. By adopting the mode, the terminal equipment can be prevented from entering a safe shutdown state.

As shown in fig. 9, an embodiment of the present application provides a flow of a communication method, where a network device in the flow may correspond to the base station in fig. 1, and a terminal device may correspond to the terminal device in fig. 1. The process can be as follows:

s901, a network device sends first indication information, where the first indication information is used to indicate a length of a Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI) used by the terminal device.

The RNTI is used for temporary identification of a terminal device in a wireless communication system, and the length of the RNTI is 16 bits and can represent 65536 terminals at most in a fifth generation mobile communication system. The length of the RNTI indicated by the first indication information may be less than 16 bits, for example, the length of the RNTI indicated by the first indication information may be 4 bits.

And S902, the terminal equipment receives the first indication information.

And S903, the terminal equipment sends the random access lead code.

S904, the network equipment receives the random access lead code.

S905, the network equipment sends a Random Access Response (RAR) message.

S906, the terminal equipment receives the RAR message.

And S907, the terminal equipment determines the RNTI used by the terminal equipment according to the first indication information and the RNTI in the RAR message.

The RAR message may include an RNTI, which may be a temporary cell radio network identifier (temporary, cell RNTI, C-RNTI). In the embodiment of the present application, the format of the RAR message is not limited. For example, as shown in fig. 10, the RAR message may include 7 fields, which are Oct1 through Oct7 in sequence. Among them, Oct1 includes 3 reserved (R) fields and a timing advance command (timing advance command) field. Oct2 includes a timing advance command and an uplink Grant (UL Grant) field. The Oct3, Oct4, and Oct5 fields include UL Grant fields. C-RNTI fields are included in Oct6 and Oct 7. Alternatively, the RAR message may include only Oct 1-Oct 6 fields, but not Oct7 fields. Alternatively, the length of fields such as UL grant, Timing Advance Command and the like in the RAR message may also be variable, as long as the network device is configured in Advance and notifies the terminal device.

Specifically, the terminal device may obtain the RNTI with the corresponding length at the target position of the RAR message according to the first indication information, and use the RNTI as the RNTI used by the terminal device itself. The target location may be specified by a protocol or the network device may notify the terminal device via a configuration message. For example, the length of the RNTI indicated by the first indication information is 4 bits, and as shown in fig. 10, the terminal device may take the first 4 bits of data (see the portion filled with oblique lines in fig. 10) from the Temporary C-RNTI in the Oct6 field as the RNTI used by the terminal device itself. Accordingly, the first four bit positions in the Oct6 field are the target positions. In the embodiment shown in fig. 10, the first four bits of the Temporary C-RNTI are taken as the RNTI used by the terminal device for illustration, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto. For example, the terminal device may take any bit at any position of the Temporary C-RNTI in Oct6 of fig. 10, and the position and the number of bits may be pre-configured by the network device.

Because the RNTI of the terminal device is carried in the Downlink Control Information (DCI) in the actual communication process, the scheme of the application is adopted, the RNTI of the terminal device is shorter, the overhead occupied by the DCI is smaller, and the transmission of the DCI is more robust.

In view of the above flow shown in fig. 9, the present application provides an application scenario, which is not limited to the present application, and in the application scenario, "the network device in fig. 9 is a base station for industrial control, and the terminal device is a UE" for example: in an industrial control scene, after the base station for industrial control is powered on, the length of the RNTI supported by the cell can be notified to each UE through the broadcast message, and after the UE obtains the information, the specific value of the RNTI used by the terminal equipment can be taken out from the RAR message according to the length of the RNTI notified by the broadcast message for subsequent communication. For example, as shown in fig. 10, if the length of the RNTI is 4 bits, after the base station notifies that the RNTI is 4 bits, the UE may extract 4 bits from the Temporary C-RNTI of the RAR message as the RNTI used by the terminal device itself and the 4-bit RNTI extracted by the terminal device, specifically refer to the diagonal filling part shown in fig. 10.

In view of the above flow shown in fig. 9, the present application provides another application scenario, which is not limited to this application, and in this application scenario, "the network device in fig. 9 is a base station for industrial control, and the terminal device is an operation arm" is exemplified:

in practical application, in the same cell, the industrial control base station serves both the industrial control operation arm and the common UE. The industrial control base station can allocate the RNTI with the first length for the operation arm and allocate the RNTI with the second length for the common UE, and the first length is the same as or different from the second length. For example, the first length is 4 bits and the second length is 16 bits. After receiving the random access request, the operation arm and the common UE can select the time frequency resource and the random access code of the random access according to the type of the operation arm and the common UE, and initiate a random access process. And the industrial control base station sends a first random access response to the operation arm, and the operation arm intercepts the RNTI with the first length in the first random access response message as the RNTI of the operation arm. And the base station for industrial control sends a second random access response to the common UE, and the common UE intercepts the RNTI with the second length in the second random access response as the RNTI of the common UE. The first random access response and the second random access response may be of the same type or different types.

Optionally, the base station for industrial control may further allocate a UL grant of a third length to the operation arm, and allocate a UL grant of a fourth length to the general UE, where the third length is the same as or different from the fourth length. For example, the third length is 16 bits and the fourth length is 25 bits.

As shown in fig. 11, the present application further provides a flow of a communication method, and in the flow, the base station allocates RNTIs and UL grants with different lengths to the general UE and the operation arm, and allocates different types of random access responses to the general UE and the operation arm as an example, so as to describe:

s111, the base station sends first indication information and second indication information, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the RNTI length of the operation arm, and the second indication information is used for indicating the length of the UL grant of the operation arm.

And S112, the operating arm receives the first indication information and the second indication information.

And S113, the operation arm sends the random access lead code.

S114, the base station sends third indication information and fourth indication information, wherein the third indication information is used for indicating the RNTI length of the common UE, and the fourth indication information is used for indicating the length of the UL grant of the common UE.

And S115, the common UE receives the third indication information and the fourth indication information.

And S116, the ordinary UE sends the random access lead code.

And S117, the base station sends the RAR message of the first type and the RAR message of the second type according to the position or the type of the random access lead code.

S118, the operation arm receives the RAR message of the first type.

S119, the common UE receives the RAR message of the second type.

In the embodiment of the present application, because the downlink control information DCI may carry the RNTI of the operation arm or the general UE, by using the method in the embodiment of the present application, the operation arm or the general UE both use a shorter RNTI, thereby reducing the size of the DCI and increasing the robustness of transmission.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment shown in fig. 11, the execution order of S111 to S119 is not limited. For example, S114 may be located in front of S111 to S113, or may be located behind S111 to S113.

In the fifth generation mobile communication system, the number of HARQ processes is constantly 8. Due to traffic demands in industrial control, while the number of data packets in transit is reduced, the number of HARQ processes can also be reduced, which can reduce DCI size and increase robustness.

Based on the above, as shown in fig. 12, the present application provides a flow of a communication method, which can reduce the number of HARQ processes, a network device in the flow can correspond to the base station in fig. 1, and a terminal device can correspond to the terminal device in fig. 1. The process can be as follows:

s120, the network equipment determines first indication information, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the number of HARQ processes used by the terminal equipment, or the first indication information is used for indicating the bit number occupied by the identification of the HARQ processes.

The network device may send the first indication information by using a broadcast signaling or a preset signaling, such as an RRC signaling, where the number of HARQ processes indicated by the first indication information may be smaller than the number of HARQ processes currently used by the terminal device. For example, the terminal device currently supports 8 HARQ processes, then the number of HARQ processes indicated by the first indication information may be less than 8.

And S121, the network equipment sends the first indication information.

S122, the terminal equipment receives the first indication information.

And S123, the terminal equipment determines the number of HARQ processes used by the terminal equipment according to the first indication information.

In the embodiment of the application, the size of the HARQ process ID used by the terminal device is smaller, and the DCI is more robust.

In the embodiment of the present application, the schemes shown in fig. 4, fig. 9, and fig. 12 may be used alone or in combination. For example, the terminal device may use the scheme shown in fig. 9 in the random access process, the random access process is ended, and the scheme shown in fig. 4 is used in the subsequent data transmission process.

Based on the above concept, as shown in fig. 13, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus 1300, where the communication apparatus 1300 includes a transceiver unit 1301 and a processing unit 1302.

In an example of the present application, the communication apparatus 1300 may be applied to a network device or a chip of the network device, and is configured to execute the steps of fig. 4, 9, 11, or 12 that take the network device as an execution subject.

For example, the transceiving unit 1301 is configured to receive first information from a second network device, where the first information includes N data packets, and N is a positive integer; a processing unit 1302, configured to generate at least one transport block according to the N data packets, where the transport block is generated by a media access control MAC layer, and the transport block does not include a packet data convergence protocol PDCP sequence number SN; the transceiving unit 1301 is further configured to send the at least one transport block to a terminal device.

In an example of the present application, the communication apparatus 13000 may be applied to a terminal device or a chip of the terminal device, and is used for executing the steps of fig. 4, fig. 9, fig. 11, or fig. 12 that take the terminal device as an execution subject.

For example, the transceiver 1301 is configured to receive at least one transport block sent by a first network device, where the transport block is generated by a medium access control MAC layer, and the transport block does not include a packet data convergence protocol PDCP sequence number SN; a processing unit 1302, configured to process the at least one transmission block to obtain N data packets, where N is a positive integer.

For specific functions of the transceiver unit 1301 and the processing unit 1302, reference may be made to the descriptions in fig. 4, fig. 9, fig. 11, or fig. 12.

Based on the above concept, as shown in fig. 14, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus 1400, where the communication apparatus 1400 may be applied to the network device or the chip in the network device shown in fig. 4, 9, 11, or 12, and may also be applied to the terminal device or the chip in the terminal device shown in fig. 4, 9, 11, or 12.

The communication device 1400 may include a processor 1401. Optionally, the communication device may further comprise a memory 1402, the processor 401 being coupled to the memory 1402. Further, the apparatus may also include a receiver 1404 and a transmitter 1405. Further, the apparatus may also comprise a bus system 1403.

The processor 1401, the memory 1402, the receiver 1404 and the transmitter 1405 can be connected via the bus system 1403, the memory 1402 can store instructions, and the processor 1401 can be configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory 1402 to control the receiver 1404 to receive signals and the transmitter 1405 to transmit signals, thereby completing the steps of the flows shown in fig. 4, 9, 11 or 12, which are mainly network devices or terminal devices.

The receiver 1404 and the transmitter 1405 may be different physical entities or the same physical entity, and may be collectively referred to as a transceiver. Memory 1402 may be integrated within processor 1401 or may be a different physical entity than processor 1401.

As an implementation manner, the functions of the receiver 1404 and the transmitter 1405 can be considered to be implemented by a transceiving circuit or a dedicated chip for transceiving. Processor 1401 may be considered to be implemented by a dedicated processing chip, processing circuit, processor, or a general-purpose chip.

As another implementation manner, a manner of using a computer may be considered to implement the functions of the network device or the terminal device provided in the embodiments of the present application. I.e., program code that implements the functions of processor 1401, receiver 1404 and transmitter 1405, is stored in memory 1402, which can be executed by a general-purpose processor to implement the functions of processor 1401, receiver 1404 and transmitter 1405 by executing the code in the memory.

For the concepts, explanations, and detailed descriptions related to the technical solutions provided in the present application and other steps related to the communication device 1400, reference may be made to the descriptions of the foregoing methods or other embodiments, which are not described herein again.

For example, in an example of the present application, the communication apparatus 900 may be applied to a network device or a chip in the network device, and the communication apparatus 1400 may be configured to execute the steps that take the first network device as an execution subject in the flow shown in fig. 4. For example, receiver 1404 may be configured to receive a first message from a second network device, processor 1401 may be configured to generate at least one transport block based on the N packets, and transmitter 1405 may be configured to transmit the at least one transport block to a terminal device.

For example, in an example of the present application, the communication apparatus 1400 may be applied to a terminal device or a chip in the terminal device, and the communication apparatus 1400 may be configured to execute the steps that take the terminal device as an execution subject in the flow shown in fig. 4. Such as receiver 1404, may be configured to receive at least one transport block transmitted by the first network device. A processor 1401, configured to process the at least one transport block to obtain N data packets.

For descriptions of the processor 1401, the receiver 1404 and the transmitter 1405, reference may be made to descriptions of the flows shown in fig. 4, fig. 9, fig. 11 or fig. 12, which are not described herein again.

Similar to the above concept, as shown in fig. 15, the present application further provides a schematic structural diagram of a network device, for example, a base station. The base station may be applied in the scenario of the communication system shown in fig. 1, and the base station may be a network device in the flows shown in fig. 4, fig. 9, fig. 11, or fig. 12.

Specifically, the base station 1500 may include one or more radio frequency units, such as a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) 1501 and one or more baseband units (BBUs) (also referred to as digital units, DUs) 1502. The RRU1501, which may be a transceiver unit, transceiver circuitry, or transceiver, etc., may include at least one antenna 15011 and a radio frequency unit 15012. The RRU1501 may be used in part for transceiving and converting radio frequency signals to baseband signals, such as receiving first information from a second network device, or sending to a terminal device less than one transport block, etc. The BBU portion 1502 can be used for baseband processing, control of base stations, and the like. The RRU1501 and the BBU1502 may be physically disposed together or may be physically disposed separately, that is, a distributed base station.

The BBU1502 is a control center of a base station, and may also be referred to as a processing unit, and is used to perform baseband processing functions, such as channel coding, multiplexing, modulation, spreading, and the like. For example, the BBU (processing unit) can be used to control the base station to execute the steps with the network device as the execution subject in the flows shown in fig. 4, 9, 11, or 12.

In an example, the BBU1502 may be formed by one or more boards, and the boards may support a radio access network (such as an NR network) of a single access system together, or may support radio access networks of different access systems respectively. The BBU1502 may also include a memory 15021 and a processor 15022. The memory 15021 is used to store necessary instructions and data. For example, the memory 15021 stores instructions for "generating at least one block transport block based on the N packets" in the above-described embodiment, and the processor 15022 is configured to control the base station to perform necessary operations. In addition, each single board can be provided with necessary circuits.

As with the above concept, fig. 16 provides a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device, which is applicable to the flows shown in fig. 4, 9, 11, or 12, and takes the terminal device as an execution main step, and for convenience of explanation, fig. 16 only shows main components of the terminal device. As shown in fig. 16, terminal apparatus 1600 may include a processor, memory, control circuitry, and optionally an antenna and/or input-output device. The processor may be configured to process communication protocols and communication data, and to control the user equipment, execute software programs, and process data of the software programs. The memory may store software programs and/or data. The control circuit can be used for conversion of the baseband signal and the radio frequency signal and processing of the radio frequency signal. The control circuit and the antenna together, which may also be called a transceiver, may be used for transceiving radio frequency signals in the form of electromagnetic waves. Input and output devices, such as touch screens, display screens, keyboards, etc., can be used to receive data entered by a user and to output data to the user.

In the embodiment of the present application, the processor may read the software program in the storage unit, interpret and execute the instructions of the software program, and process the data of the software program. When data needs to be sent wirelessly, the processor outputs a baseband signal to the radio frequency circuit after performing baseband processing on the data to be sent, and the radio frequency circuit performs radio frequency processing on the baseband signal and sends the radio frequency signal outwards in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. When data is sent to user equipment, the radio frequency circuit receives radio frequency signals through the antenna, converts the radio frequency signals into baseband signals and outputs the baseband signals to the processor, and the processor converts the baseband signals into the data and processes the data.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that fig. 16 shows only one memory and processor for ease of illustration. In an actual user equipment, there may be multiple processors and memories. The memory may also be referred to as a storage medium or a storage device, and the like, which is not limited in this application.

As an alternative implementation, the processor may include a baseband processor and a central processing unit, the baseband processor may be configured to process the communication protocol and the communication data, and the central processing unit may be configured to control the entire user equipment, execute a software program, and process data of the software program. The processor in fig. 16 integrates the functions of the baseband processor and the central processing unit, and those skilled in the art will understand that the baseband processor and the central processing unit may be independent processors, and are interconnected through a bus or the like. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the terminal device may include a plurality of baseband processors to accommodate different network formats, the terminal device may include a plurality of central processors to enhance its processing capability, and various components of the terminal device may be connected by various buses. The baseband processor may also be expressed as a baseband processing circuit or a baseband processing chip. The central processing unit may also be expressed as a central processing circuit or a central processing chip. The function of processing the communication protocol and the communication data may be built in the processor, or may be stored in the storage unit in the form of a software program, and the processor executes the software program to realize the baseband processing function.

For example, in the embodiment of the present application, an antenna and a control circuit with transceiving functions may be used as the transceiving unit 1601 of the terminal device 1600, and a processor with processing functions may be regarded as the processing unit 1602 of the terminal device 1600. As shown in fig. 16, the terminal device 1600 may include a transceiving unit 1601 and a processing unit 1602. A transceiver unit may also be referred to as a transceiver, a transceiving device, etc. Alternatively, a device for implementing the receiving function in the transceiver 1601 may be regarded as a receiving unit, and a device for implementing the transmitting function in the transceiver 1601 may be regarded as a transmitting unit, that is, the transceiver 1601 includes a receiving unit and a transmitting unit. For example, the receiving unit may also be referred to as a receiver, a receiving circuit, etc., and the sending unit may also be referred to as a transmitter, a transmitting circuit, etc.

It should be understood that, in the above-mentioned respective apparatus embodiments, the network device completely corresponds to the terminal device and the network device or the terminal device in the method embodiments, and the corresponding steps are executed by corresponding modules or units, for example, the sending module (transmitter) method executes the steps sent in the method embodiments, the receiving module (receiver) executes the steps received in the method embodiments, and other steps except sending and receiving may be executed by a processing module (processor). The functionality of the specific modules may be referred to in the respective method embodiments. The transmitting module and the receiving module can form a transceiving module, and the transmitter and the receiver can form a transceiver to realize transceiving function together; the processor may be one or more.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, an embodiment of the present application further provides a communication system, which includes the first network device and the terminal device. Optionally, the system may further include a second network device, where the second network device is configured to send the first information to the first network device.

Based on the above embodiments, the present application also provides a computer-readable storage medium, which stores instructions that, when executed, cause the method provided by any one or more of the above embodiments to be performed. The computer storage medium may include: u disk, removable hard disk, read only memory, random access memory, magnetic or optical disk, etc. for storing program codes.

Based on the above embodiments, the present application further provides a computer program product, which includes computer instructions that, when executed, cause the method provided by any one or more of the above embodiments to be performed. Based on the above embodiments, the present application further provides a chip, where the chip includes a processor, and is configured to implement the functions related to any one or more of the above embodiments, such as obtaining or processing information or messages related to the above methods. Optionally, the chip further comprises a memory for storing program instructions and data for execution by the processor. The chip may also contain chips and other discrete devices.

It should be understood that in the embodiments of the present application, the processor may be a Central Processing Unit (CPU), and the processor may also be other general-purpose processors, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) or other programmable logic devices, transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, and the like. The general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, any conventional processor, etc.

The memory may include both read-only memory and random access memory, and provides instructions and data to the processor. The portion of memory may also include non-volatile random access memory.

The bus system may include a power bus, a control bus, a status signal bus, and the like, in addition to the data bus. For clarity of illustration, however, the various buses are labeled as a bus system in the figures. In implementation, the steps of the above method may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or instructions in the form of software. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be directly implemented by a hardware processor, or may be implemented by a combination of hardware and software modules in a 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 a memory, and a processor reads information in the memory and completes the steps of the method in combination with hardware of the processor. To avoid repetition, it is not described in detail here.

In the embodiments of the present application, unless otherwise specified or conflicting with respect to logic, the terms and/or descriptions in different embodiments have consistency and may be mutually cited, and technical features in different embodiments may be combined to form a new embodiment according to their inherent logic relationship.

In the present application, "at least one" means one or more, "a plurality" means two or more. "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, wherein A and B can be singular or plural. In the description of the text of the present application, the character "/" generally indicates that the former and latter associated objects are in an "or" relationship; in the formula of the present application, the character "/" indicates that the preceding and following related objects are in a relationship of "division".

It is to be understood that the various numerical references referred to in the embodiments of the present application are merely for descriptive convenience and are not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments of the present application. The sequence numbers of the above-mentioned processes do not mean the execution sequence, and the execution sequence of the processes should be determined by their functions and inherent logic.

Claims

1. A method of communication, comprising:

a first network device receives first information from a second network device, wherein the first information comprises N data packets, and N is a positive integer;

the first network equipment generates at least one transmission block according to the N data packets, wherein the transmission block is generated by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, and the transmission block does not comprise a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sequence number SN;

and the first network equipment sends the at least one transmission block to terminal equipment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first network device generating at least one transport block from the N data packets comprises:

the first network equipment only performs MAC layer encapsulation on the N data packets to obtain the at least one transmission block;

or, the first network device encapsulates the N data packets only in the PDCP layer and the MAC layer, and obtains the at least one transport block.

3. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the number of the transport blocks is one, and the N data packets are included in the one transport block.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one transport block further includes size information of each of the N data packets, or wherein the one transport block further includes size index information of each of the N data packets.

5. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the number of the transport blocks is M, the M transport blocks include the N data packets, and wherein M is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each of the M transport blocks comprises size information of data packets included in the transport block, or wherein each of the M transport blocks comprises size index information of data packets included in the transport block.

7. The method according to claim 5 or 6, wherein each of the M transport blocks further includes transport block identification information, and the transport block identification information is used to identify a precedence order of the M transport blocks.

8. The method of claim 5 or 6, wherein the first network device sending the at least one transport block to a terminal device comprises:

and the first network equipment adopts different hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes to respectively send the M transmission blocks to the terminal equipment.

9. The method of any of claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, further comprising:

and the first network equipment sends first indication information to the terminal equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

10. The method of any of claims 1 to 9, wherein the first network device sending the at least one transport block to a terminal device comprises:

the first network equipment receives second indication information sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating the sending of the at least one transmission block;

and the first network equipment sends the at least one transmission block to the terminal equipment according to the second indication information.

11. A method of communication, comprising:

the method comprises the steps that terminal equipment receives at least one transmission block sent by first network equipment, wherein the transmission block is generated by a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, and the transmission block does not comprise a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sequence number SN;

and the terminal equipment processes the at least one transmission block to obtain N data packets, wherein N is a positive integer.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the terminal device processing the at least one transport block to obtain N data packets comprises:

the terminal equipment only carries out de-encapsulation of an MAC layer on the at least one transmission block to obtain the N data packets;

or, the terminal device only decapsulates the PDCP layer and the MAC layer for the at least one transport block to obtain the N data packets.

13. The method of claim 11 or 12, wherein the number of the transport blocks is one, and the N data packets are included in the one transport block.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the one transport block further includes size information of each of the N data packets, or wherein the one transport block further includes size index information of each of the N data packets.

15. The method of claim 11 or 12, wherein the number of the transport blocks is M, the M transport blocks include the N data packets, and M is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein each of the M transport blocks includes size information of each data packet included in the transport block, or wherein each of the M transport blocks includes size index information of each data packet included in the transport block.

17. The method according to claim 15 or 16, wherein each of the M transport blocks further includes transport block identification information, and the transport block identification information is used to identify a precedence order of the M transport blocks.

18. The method of claim 15 or 16, wherein the receiving, by the terminal device, at least one transport block transmitted by the first network device comprises:

and the terminal equipment respectively receives the M transmission blocks by adopting different hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) processes.

19. The method of any of claims 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, further comprising:

and the terminal equipment receives first indication information sent by the first network equipment, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the size of each data packet in the N data packets.

20. The method of any of claims 11 to 19, further comprising:

and the terminal equipment sends second indication information to the first network equipment, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating the sending of the at least one transmission block.

21. A communications apparatus comprising a processor coupled to a memory and configured to read and execute instructions from the memory to implement the method of any of claims 1 to 20.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, further comprising the memory.

23. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that the storage medium stores instructions that, when executed, cause the method of any of claims 1-20 to be performed.

24. A communication system comprising a first network device and a terminal device;

wherein the first network device is configured to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 10 and the terminal device is configured to perform the method of any one of claims 11 to 20.