CN111756458B

CN111756458B - Beam failure recovery method and communication device

Info

Publication number: CN111756458B
Application number: CN201910233027.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 管鹏
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-03-26
Filing date: 2019-03-26
Publication date: 2021-10-26
Anticipated expiration: 2039-03-26
Also published as: WO2020192566A1; CN111756458A

Abstract

The application provides a beam failure recovery method which can avoid the situation that each cell respectively carries out a beam failure recovery process and can achieve the purpose of reducing expenditure and time delay. The method comprises the following steps: if the terminal device detects that at least one cell in the associated multiple cells has beam failure, determining that the multiple cells have beam failure. The terminal device determines at least one available beam for the terminal device to communicate with the network device on each of the plurality of cells, wherein the at least one available beam belongs to a candidate beam set corresponding to one of the plurality of cells.

Description

Beam failure recovery method and communication device

Technical Field

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

Background

Because the aligned beams are disabled due to factors such as human body occlusion and rotation, a Beam Failure Recovery (BFR) mechanism is designed in the New Radio (NR) for fast recovery from the disabled state. Through a beam failure recovery mechanism, the terminal equipment can adjust the current failure beam to the available beam according to the beam measurement result, so that frequent radio link failure caused by beam failure is avoided.

In the prior art, a beam failure recovery procedure of a primary cell (PCell) is specified, but a beam failure recovery procedure of a secondary cell (SCell) is not involved.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a beam failure recovery method which can avoid the situation that each cell respectively carries out a beam failure recovery process and can achieve the purpose of reducing expenditure and time delay.

In a first aspect, a method for recovering beam failure is provided, where the method includes: the terminal equipment detects that at least one cell in the associated multiple cells has beam failure; the terminal equipment determines that the wave beams of the plurality of cells fail to occur; the terminal device determines at least one available beam for the terminal device to communicate with the network device on the plurality of cells.

It should be understood that the at least one available beam may be, for example, one available beam or a plurality of available beams. Wherein the at least one available beam belongs to a candidate beam set corresponding to a cell (denoted as a first cell) of the plurality of cells.

Specifically, if the terminal device detects that at least one cell of the multiple cells has a beam failure, it considers that other cells associated with the at least one cell also have a beam failure. The terminal device may determine at least one available beam, which is a new available beam for each of the multiple cells, and since the at least one available beam belongs to the candidate beam set corresponding to the first cell, if the beam failure recovery procedure of the first cell is successful, the terminal device may communicate with the network device through the at least one available beam in each of the multiple cells.

Therefore, according to the beam failure recovery method provided by the application, when at least one cell fails to generate a beam, it is considered that other cells associated with the cell all have beam failures, and if one cell in the associated cells fails to recover from the beam failure, it is considered that the other cells all have beam failure and recover from the beam failure. Therefore, the beam failure recovery process does not need to be carried out for each cell independently, so that the beam failure recovery processes of a plurality of cells are simplified, and the aims of reducing the overhead and the time delay can be achieved.

It should be understood that the at least one available beam may belong to a set of candidate beams corresponding to two or more cells of the plurality of cells. For example, one beam may be selected as an available beam from the candidate beam sets corresponding to cell 1 and cell 2, respectively.

Optionally, the multiple cells may all be scells, and may also include pcells.

Optionally, the plurality of cells correspond to a cell group; alternatively, the multiple cells use the same beam, for example, the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) beams of the multiple cells are the same.

It should be understood that the number of the at least one cell may be 1, that is, if the terminal device detects that a beam failure occurs in one of the cells (for example, cell 1), it is determined that the beam failure occurs in all of the cells. In this scenario, cell 1 may be the cell of the plurality of cells in which the beam failure occurs first. It should also be appreciated that when a beam failure occurs in cell 1, it is possible that beam failures may also occur in other cells of the plurality of cells at the same time. Therefore, in the present application, if the terminal device detects that a beam failure occurs in one cell of the multiple cells or a beam failure occurs in at least one cell simultaneously, it is determined that the multiple cells have a beam failure. The meaning of "simultaneously" herein may be extended to "almost simultaneously", or the at least one cell has beam failures within a preset time period, or the time difference between the beam failures of cells having beam failures successively occurring in the at least one cell does not exceed the preset time period.

Further, the method may further include: the terminal device communicates with the network device over the at least one available beam on each of the plurality of cells.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, after the terminal device determines that the beam failure occurs in the multiple cells, the method further includes: the terminal equipment resets or clears counters which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and used for judging beam failure, and/or resets or clears time windows which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and used for judging beam failure.

The counter for judging the beam failure is used for recording the times of beam failure instances (beam failure instances) reported by a physical layer of the terminal equipment. The time window for determining the beam failure is used for the terminal device to perform the beam failure detection, that is, in the time window, the terminal device performs the beam failure detection.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the determining, by the terminal device, at least one available beam includes: at least one cell of the plurality of cells is configured with a set of candidate beams (denoted as set q)₁) In this case, the terminal device determines the at least one available beam.

For example, in a set q where cell groups are arranged₁In the case of (2), or in the case where a set q is configured for each cell₁In this case, the terminal device may autonomously determine the at least one available beam.

Further, a set q corresponding to the cell group is configured₁The terminal device may determine the at least one available beam according to the prior art.

The set q is configured for each cell₁In this case, the terminal device may respectively correspond to the sets q according to the plurality of cells₁The at least one available beam is determined. E.g. in the set q of cells₁Under different configurations, the terminal device may pass through a set q corresponding to each cell₁And performing beam measurement on the corresponding reference signals, and selecting a beam corresponding to one or more reference signals with the best beam quality or meeting a preset condition as the at least one available beam. That is, the at least one available beam is a beam satisfying a predetermined condition or having the best beam quality in the candidate beam sets respectively corresponding to the cells. In particular implementation, for example, the terminal device may pass through a set q corresponding to each cell₁And carrying out beam measurement on the corresponding reference signals, determining the beam with the best beam quality in each cell, and then selecting one or more beams from the beams with the best beam quality as the at least one available beam.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the terminal device sends a beam failure recovery request to the network device according to the at least one available beam; the terminal device receives a beam failure recovery request response for the beam failure recovery request, wherein the beam failure recovery request response is used for indicating that the beam failure recovery of the plurality of cells is successful.

That is, if the terminal device receives the beam failure recovery request response for the first cell, it considers that the beam failure recovery of the first cell is successful, and also considers that the beam failure recovery of the other cells is successful.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the beam failure recovery request includes at least one of the following information: the identifier corresponding to each of the plurality of cells, the identifier of one of the plurality of cells, the beam identifier of the PDCCH corresponding to the plurality of cells, or the identifier of the cell group corresponding to the plurality of cells.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, after the terminal device receives the beam failure recovery request response, the method further includes: the terminal equipment resets or clears the time windows which are respectively corresponding to the cells and used for controlling the beam failure recovery, and/or resets or clears the counters which are respectively corresponding to the cells and used for controlling the beam failure recovery request retransmission times.

The counter for controlling the retransmission times of the beam failure recovery request is used for recording the times of the beam failure recovery request sent by the terminal equipment. The time window for controlling the beam failure recovery is used for the terminal device to receive the beam failure recovery request response, i.e. within the time window, the terminal device receives the beam failure recovery request response.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes:

the terminal device receives a media access control element (MAC CE) sent by a network device, where the MAC CE is configured to add at least one target beam to a beam list of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), and/or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) respectively corresponding to the multiple cells, and the at least one target beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with the network device over the multiple cells.

Optionally, the at least one target beam may be the at least one available beam.

In this application, the MAC CE may be for any one of the plurality of cells. When the terminal device receives the MAC CE of the cell, it may consider that the beam configuration performed by the MAC CE is for the multiple cells, that is, the terminal device considers that the multiple cells all transmit or receive the PDCCH, PDSCH, PUCCH, and/or PUSCH using the target beam.

Based on the technical scheme, the purpose of updating the beam configuration of a plurality of cells through the signaling of one cell can be realized, so that the beam configuration does not need to be carried out for each cell, and the signaling overhead is saved. On the other hand, in the prior art, the target beam can be activated only by adopting Radio Resource Control (RRC) + MAC CE two-stage configuration, but the method of the present application can achieve the purpose of activating the target beam by introducing a new MAC CE without RRC pre-configuration, thereby reducing the frequency of RRC reconfiguration and further reducing signaling overhead.

It should be understood that the MAC CE may also be cell-specific, and the specific format of the MAC CE is not limited in this application.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, before the terminal device receives the MAC CE, the method further includes: the terminal equipment transmits PUCCH through a transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells; and/or the terminal device receives the PDCCH and/or the PDSCH through the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells.

Alternatively, the terminal device communicates with the network device through the at least one available beam on each of the plurality of cells, including: the terminal equipment transmits PUCCH through a transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells; and/or the terminal device receives the PDCCH and/or the PDSCH through the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells.

Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device sends the PUCCH through the transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam on the plurality of cells in the beam failure state; and/or, the PDCCH and/or the PDSCH are received through the at least one available beam, so that communication interruption caused by beam failure can be avoided, and the continuity of communication is ensured. The beam failure state refers to a period of time after the terminal device determines that the terminal device has failed in beam in a certain cell and transmits a beam failure recovery request, but before the terminal device has not received a beam failure recovery request response, that is, a period of time when the beam has not been successfully recovered.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, before the terminal device detects that the beam failure occurs in at least one cell of the associated multiple cells, the method may further include:

the terminal device receives one (or a set of) or more BFR configurations sent by the network device, and the BFR configurations are used for the terminal device to perform beam failure recovery.

In one implementation, the network device may configure a set of BFR configurations for the plurality of cells. For example, in the case that the plurality of cells are grouped into one cell, the network device may configure a set of BFR configurations for the terminal device, that is, the BFR configurations of the cells in one cell group are the same. As another example, the network device may configure a set of BFR configurations for cells using the same beam (e.g., the same PDCCH beam).

In another implementation, the network device configures a set of BFR configurations for each of the plurality of cells. For any two cells in the multiple cells, the content included in the BFR configuration corresponding to one cell and the content included in the BFR configuration corresponding to another cell may be partially or completely the same, or may be different.

Optionally, the BFR configuration in the present application may include one or more of the following (1) to (7), and the following are descriptions thereof.

(1) Set of reference signal resources for beam failure detection (denoted as set q)₀)

Set q₀The corresponding reference signals may be located on some or all of the plurality of cells. For example, for the case of cell grouping, set q₀The corresponding reference signals may be located on any one or more of the plurality of cells. Set q of certain cells for the case of non-grouped cells₀The corresponding reference signals may be located on the cell, or on other cells, or on both the cell and other cells.

(2) Set of candidate reference signal resources (i.e., set q)₁)

Set q₁Also referred to as a candidate beam set. And set q₁Similarly, set q₁The corresponding reference signal can be located at theSome or all of the plurality of cells. Further, set q₁Corresponding reference signal and set q₀The corresponding reference signals may be located in the same cell, and of course, the two reference signals may also be located in different cells, which is not limited in this application.

(3) A counter (i.e., noted as: a first counter) and/or a time window (noted: a first time window) for determining a beam failure.

For example, for cell grouping, the network device may configure one first counter and/or first time window for each cell grouping, and may also configure one first counter and/or first time window for each cell. For non-cell grouping, the network device may configure a first counter and/or a first time window for each cell, but the present application does not limit the above configuration, and other reasonable configurations should also fall within the scope of the present application. For example, when the multiple cells use the same beam, for example, a PDCCH beam, only one first counter and/or first time window may be configured, and the first counter and/or first time window may be shared by the multiple cells, and the following configuration manner of the second counter and/or second time window is similar.

(4) And the uplink resource is used for sending the beam failure recovery request.

In one BFR configuration, the network device may configure one or more uplink resources for transmitting beam failure recovery requests. Further, if uplink resources for sending the beam failure recovery request are configured in the plurality of cells, the terminal device may select uplink resources before time to send the beam failure recovery request according to positions of the uplink resources in the time domain in the at least two cells. In addition, the terminal device may select uplink resources on the cell with the smaller or larger identifier to send the beam failure recovery request according to the sizes of the identifiers of the at least two cells.

Optionally, the uplink resource for transmitting the beam failure recovery request may be associated with the set q₁Associating according to the uplink resource and the set q₁One of the two and the association relationship between the two canThe other of the two is determined. The uplink resource and the set q₁The association relationship(s) may be configured by the network device or specified by a protocol, which is not limited in this application. It can be understood that the uplink resource and the set q are known at the terminal device₁In the case of the association relationship, the network device may only configure the uplink resource and the set q₁One of the two.

(5) A control resource set (CORESET) and/or a search space set for receiving a beam failure recovery request response.

In one BFR configuration, a network device may configure one or more sets of search spaces and/or one or more CORESETs. Further, in the case that the network device is configured with a plurality of CORESETs, the network device may select to transmit the beam failure recovery request response on the CORESET that is earlier in time according to the positions of the plurality of CORESETs in the time domain. In addition, the network device may select to send the beam failure recovery request response on the CORESET corresponding to the cell with the smaller or larger identifier according to the identifier sizes of the at least two cells.

(6) The time window used to control the overall time of the BFR (i.e., the time window used to control beam failure recovery, noted as: the second time window).

Optionally, for the cell grouping, one second time window may be configured for each cell grouping, or one second time window may be configured for each cell. For the non-cell grouping, one second time window may be configured for each cell, but the present application does not limit the above configuration manner, and other reasonable configuration manners should also fall within the protection scope of the present application.

The second time window may be a beamf ailurerecoverytimer in the prior art, but the embodiment of the present application does not limit this.

(7) A counter (denoted as the second counter) for controlling the number of times the beam failure recovery request is retransmitted.

Optionally, for the cell grouping, one second counter may be configured for each cell grouping, or one second counter may be configured for each cell. For the non-cell grouping, one second counter may be configured for each cell, but the present application does not limit the above configuration manner, and other reasonable configuration manners should also fall within the protection scope of the present application.

The second counter may be preambleTransMax in the prior art, but the embodiment of the present application does not limit this.

Based on the BFR configuration, the terminal device may perform beam failure detection, new available beam discovery, and transmit beam failure recovery request and receive beam failure recovery response, that is, the terminal device may perform a beam failure recovery procedure.

In a second aspect, a beam failure recovery method is provided, and the method includes: the network equipment generates one or more BFR configurations, wherein the one or more BFR configurations are used for the associated cells to perform beam failure recovery; the network device sends the one or more BFR configurations to the terminal device.

According to the beam failure recovery method provided by the application, the terminal equipment can perform beam failure recovery according to one or more BFR configurations provided by the network equipment.

Optionally, the content included in the BFR configuration may refer to the description of the first aspect, and is not described herein again.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the method may further include: the network equipment receives a beam failure recovery request sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the beam failure recovery request is used for indicating at least one cell in the plurality of cells to have beam failure; the network device sends a beam failure recovery request response to the terminal device, wherein the beam failure recovery request response is used for indicating that the beam failure recovery of the plurality of cells is successful.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes:

the network device sends a media access control element (MAC CE) to the terminal device, wherein the MAC CE is used for adding at least one target beam to a beam list of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and/or a physical uplink control channel (PUSCH) corresponding to the plurality of cells respectively, and the at least one target beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with the network device in the plurality of cells.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the network device receives a PUCCH through a receive beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells; and/or

The network device transmits the PDCCH and/or PDSCH on the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells.

In a third aspect, a communication device is provided, which includes various means or units for performing the method of the first aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, a communications apparatus is provided that includes a processor. The processor is coupled to the memory and is operable to execute instructions in the memory to implement the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect and the first aspect. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a memory. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface.

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

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

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

In a fifth aspect, a communication device is provided, which comprises various modules or units for performing the method of the second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect.

In a sixth aspect, a communications apparatus is provided that includes a processor. The processor is coupled to the memory and is operable to execute the instructions in the memory to implement the method of any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect and the second aspect. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a memory. Optionally, the communication device further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface.

In one implementation, the communication device is a network device. When the communication device is a network device, the communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface.

In another implementation, the communication device is a chip configured in the network device. When the communication device is a chip configured in a network device, the communication interface may be an input/output interface.

In a seventh aspect, a processor is provided, including: input circuit, output circuit and processing circuit. The processing circuit is configured to receive a signal through the input circuit and transmit a signal through the output circuit, so that the processor performs the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect to the second aspect and the first aspect to the second aspect.

In a specific implementation process, the processor may be a chip, the input circuit may be an input pin, the output circuit may be an output pin, and the processing circuit may be a transistor, a gate circuit, a flip-flop, various logic circuits, and the like. The input signal received by the input circuit may be received and input by, for example and without limitation, a receiver, the signal output by the output circuit may be output to and transmitted by a transmitter, for example and without limitation, and the input circuit and the output circuit may be the same circuit that functions as the input circuit and the output circuit, respectively, at different times. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific implementation manner of the processor and various circuits.

In an eighth aspect, a processing apparatus is provided that includes a processor and a memory. The processor is configured to read instructions stored in the memory, and may receive a signal via the receiver and transmit a signal via the transmitter to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to second aspects and the first to second aspects.

Optionally, the number of the processors is one or more, and the number of the memories is one or more.

Alternatively, the memory may be integral to the processor or provided separately from the processor.

In a specific implementation process, the memory may be a non-transient memory, such as a Read Only Memory (ROM), which may be integrated on the same chip as the processor, or may be separately disposed on different chips.

It will be appreciated that the relevant data interaction process, for example, sending measurement configuration information may be a process of outputting measurement configuration information from the processor, and receiving information may be a process of receiving information by the processor. In particular, the data output by the processor may be output to a transmitter and the input data received by the processor may be from a receiver. The transmitter and receiver may be collectively referred to as a transceiver, among others.

The processing device in the above eighth aspect may be a chip, the processor may be implemented by hardware or may be implemented by software, and when implemented by hardware, the processor may be a logic circuit, an integrated circuit, or the like; when implemented in software, the processor may be a general-purpose processor implemented by reading software code stored in a memory, which may be integrated with the processor, located external to the processor, or stand-alone.

In a ninth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising: a computer program (which may also be referred to as code, or instructions), which when executed, causes a computer to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to second aspects and of the first to second aspects described above.

A tenth aspect provides a computer-readable medium storing a computer program (which may also be referred to as code or instructions) which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of any one of the possible implementations of the first to second aspects and the first to second aspects described above.

In an eleventh aspect, a communication system is provided, which includes the foregoing network device and terminal device.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system suitable for use in the present application.

Fig. 2 is an exemplary flowchart of a beam failure recovery method provided in the present application.

Fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device provided in the present application.

Fig. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device provided in the present application.

Fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided in the present application.

Detailed Description

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

The technical scheme of the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication systems, for example: global system for mobile communications (GSM) systems, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) systems, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) systems, LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD), universal mobile telecommunications system (universal mobile telecommunications system, UMTS), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication systems, future fifth generation (5G) or new radio NR systems, etc.

The network device in the present application is a device deployed in a radio access network to provide a wireless communication function for a terminal device. Network devices include, but are not limited to: evolved Node B (eNB), Radio Network Controller (RNC), Node B (Node B, NB), Base Station Controller (BSC), Base Transceiver Station (BTS), Home Base Station (e.g., Home evolved NodeB, or Home Node B, HNB), BaseBand Unit (Base band Unit, BBU), Access Point (AP) in Wireless Fidelity (WIFI) system, etc., and may also be 5G, such as NR, gbb in system, or TRP, transmission Point (TRP or TP), one or a group of antennas (including multiple antennas, NB, or a transmission panel) of a Base Station in 5G system, such as a baseband unit (BBU), or a Distributed Unit (DU), etc. The network device may also be a wireless controller in a Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) scenario. The network device may also be a wearable device or a vehicle mounted device, etc.

In some deployments, the gNB may include a Centralized Unit (CU) and a DU. The gNB may also include a Radio Unit (RU). A CU implements part of the function of a gNB, and a DU implements part of the function of the gNB, for example, the CU implements the function of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer, a Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, and the DU implements the function of a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer, a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, and a Physical (PHY) layer. Since the information of the RRC layer eventually becomes or is converted from the information of the PHY layer, the higher layer signaling, such as the RRC layer signaling, may also be considered to be transmitted by the DU or the DU + CU under this architecture. It is to be understood that the network device may be a CU node, or a DU node, or a device including a CU node and a DU node. In addition, the CU may be divided into network devices in a Radio Access Network (RAN), or may be divided into network devices in a Core Network (CN), which is not limited in this application.

A terminal device in this application may also be referred to as a User Equipment (UE), a terminal, an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment. The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be a mobile phone (mobile phone), a tablet computer (pad), a computer with a wireless transceiving function, a Virtual Reality (VR) terminal device, an Augmented Reality (AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), a wireless terminal in self driving (self driving), a wireless terminal in remote medical (remote medical), a wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal in transportation safety (transportation safety), a wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), and the like. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the application scenarios.

The following first explains some concepts or terms referred to in the present application.

1. Wave beam

In some communication systems, such as 5G systems, to combat path loss in high frequency scenarios, gains may be obtained between two communication devices having communication connections through beamforming, respectively. The transmitting end, such as network device 110, and the receiving end, such as terminal device 120, may obtain the pairing relationship between the transmitting beam and the receiving beam through beam (beam) training.

A beam may be understood as a spatial filter, a spatial parameter or a spatial domain filter. A beam for transmitting a signal may be referred to as a transmission beam (Tx beam), or may be referred to as a spatial domain transmission filter (spatial transmission filter) or a spatial transmission parameter (spatial transmission parameter); the beam used for receiving the signal may be referred to as a reception beam (Rx beam), or may be referred to as a spatial domain receive filter (spatial Rx parameter) or a spatial Rx parameter.

The transmit beam may refer to a distribution of signal strengths formed in different spatial directions after the signal is transmitted through the antenna, and the receive beam may refer to a distribution of signal strengths of the wireless signal received from the antenna in different spatial directions.

Further, the beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam, or other type of beam. The technique of forming the beam may be a beamforming technique or other technique. The beamforming technology may specifically be a digital beamforming technology, an analog beamforming technology, or a hybrid digital/analog beamforming technology.

Alternatively, a plurality of beams having the same or similar communication characteristics are regarded as one beam. One or more antenna ports may be included in a beam for transmitting data channels, control channels, sounding signals, and the like. The one or more antenna ports forming one beam may also be seen as one set of antenna ports.

In the NR protocol, the beam may be, for example, a spatial filter (spatial filter). It should be understood that this application does not exclude the possibility of defining other terms in future protocols to mean the same or similar meanings.

The beam pairing relationship is a pairing relationship between a transmitting beam and a receiving beam, that is, a pairing relationship between a spatial transmitting filter and a spatial receiving filter. A large beamforming gain can be obtained for transmitting signals between the transmitting beam and the receiving beam having the beam pairing relationship.

In one implementation, the transmitting end may transmit the reference signal in a beam scanning manner, and the receiving end may also receive the reference signal in a beam scanning manner. Specifically, the transmitting end may form beams with different directivities in a space domain by means of beam forming, and may poll on a plurality of beams with different directivities to transmit the reference signal through the beams with different directivities, so that the power of the reference signal transmitting the reference signal in the direction in which the transmitting beam is directed may be maximized. The receiving end can also form beams with different directivities in a space domain through a beam forming mode, and can poll on a plurality of beams with different directivities to receive the reference signal through the beams with different directivities, so that the power of the reference signal received by the receiving end can be maximized in the direction pointed by the received beam.

By traversing each transmitting beam and each receiving beam, the receiving end can perform channel measurement based on the received reference signal, and report the measured result to the transmitting end through the CSI. For example, the receiving end may report a part of reference signal resource with larger Reference Signal Receiving Power (RSRP) to the transmitting end, for example, report an identifier of the reference signal resource, so that the transmitting end receives and transmits signals by using a beam pairing relationship with better channel quality when transmitting data or signaling.

2. Reference signal and reference signal resource

The reference signal may be used for beam measurement or beam quality monitoring.

Beam measurement, i.e., obtaining beam quality information by measuring a reference signal, parameters for measuring beam quality include, but are not limited to, RSRP and a hypothetical block error rate (hypothetical BLER). For example, the beam quality can also be measured by parameters such as Reference Signal Reception Quality (RSRQ), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR), and the like.

The reference signal resource may be used to configure transmission attributes of the reference signal, such as time-frequency resource location, port mapping relationship, power factor, scrambling code, and the like, and refer to the prior art specifically. The transmitting end device may transmit the reference signal based on the reference signal resource, and the receiving end device may receive the reference signal based on the reference signal resource.

The reference signal according to the embodiment of the present application may include, for example, a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB), and a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS). Correspondingly, the reference signal resource may include a CSI-RS resource (CSI-RS resource), an SSB resource, and an SRS resource (SRS resource).

The SSB may also be referred to as a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel block (SS/PBCH block), and the corresponding SSB resource may also be referred to as a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel block resource (SS/PBCH block resource), which may be referred to as SSB resource for short. In some cases, SSB may also refer to SSB resources. In the embodiments of the present application, for convenience of differentiation and illustration, the SSB may be regarded as an SS/PBCH block and the SSB resource may be regarded as an SS/PBCH block resource without specific description.

In order to distinguish between different reference signal resources, each reference signal resource may correspond to an identification of one reference signal resource, for example, a CSI-RS resource identification (CRI), an SSB resource identification (SSBRI), an SRS Resource Index (SRI). The SSB resource identifier may also be referred to as an SSB identifier (SSB index).

It should be understood that the above listed reference signals and corresponding reference signal resources are only exemplary and should not constitute any limitation to the present application, which does not exclude the possibility of defining other reference signals in future protocols to achieve the same or similar functions.

2. Quasi co-location (QCL)

The signals corresponding to the antenna ports having the QCL relationship have the same parameters, or the parameters of one antenna port may be used to determine the parameters of another antenna port having the QCL relationship with the antenna port, or two antenna ports have the same parameters, or the parameter difference between the two antenna ports is smaller than a certain threshold. Wherein the parameters may include one or more of: delay spread (delay spread), Doppler spread (Doppler spread), Doppler shift (Doppler shift), average delay (average delay), average gain, spatial Rx parameters. Wherein the spatial reception parameters may include one or more of: angle of arrival (AOA), average AOA, AOA extension, angle of departure (AOD), average angle of departure (AOD), AOD extension, receive antenna spatial correlation parameter, transmit beam, receive beam, and resource identification.

The angle may be a decomposition value of different dimensions, or a combination of decomposition values of different dimensions. The antenna ports are antenna ports with different antenna port numbers, and/or antenna ports with the same antenna port number for transmitting or receiving information in different time and/or frequency and/or code domain resources, and/or antenna ports with different antenna port numbers for transmitting or receiving information in different time and/or frequency and/or code domain resources. The resource identification may include: a CSI-RS resource identifier, or an SRS resource identifier, or an SSB resource identifier, or a resource identifier of a preamble sequence transmitted on a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH), or a resource identifier of a demodulation reference signal (DMRS), which is used to indicate a beam on a resource.

In the NR protocol, the above QCL relationship can be classified into the following four types based on different parameters:

type a (type a): doppler frequency shift, Doppler spread, average time delay and time delay spread;

type b (type b): doppler shift, doppler spread;

type c (type c): doppler shift, average delay; and

type d (type d): the space receives the parameters.

The QCL referred to in the embodiments of the present application is a QCL of type D. Hereinafter, without being particularly illustrated, the QCL may be understood as a QCL of type D, i.e., a QCL defined based on spatial reception parameters.

When the QCL relationship refers to a QCL relationship of type D: the QCL relationship between the port of the downlink signal and the port of the downlink signal, or between the port of the uplink signal and the port of the uplink signal, may be that the two signals have the same AOA or AOD for indicating that the two signals have the same receive beam or transmit beam. For another example, for QCL relationship between downlink signals and uplink signals or between ports of uplink signals and downlink signals, AOAs and AODs of two signals may have a corresponding relationship, or AODs and AOAs of two signals may have a corresponding relationship, that is, an uplink transmit beam may be determined according to a downlink receive beam or a downlink receive beam may be determined according to an uplink transmit beam by using beam reciprocity.

The signals transmitted on the ports having QCL relationships may also have corresponding beams comprising at least one of: the same reception beam, the same transmission beam, a transmission beam corresponding to the reception beam (corresponding to a reciprocal scene), and a reception beam corresponding to the transmission beam (corresponding to a reciprocal scene).

A signal transmitted on a port having a QCL relationship may also be understood as a signal received or transmitted using the same spatial filter. The spatial filter may be at least one of: precoding, weight of antenna port, phase deflection of antenna port, and amplitude gain of antenna port.

Signals transmitted on ports having a QCL relationship may also be understood as having a corresponding Beam Pair Link (BPL) comprising at least one of: the same downlink BPL, the same uplink BPL, the uplink BPL corresponding to the downlink BPL, and the downlink BPL corresponding to the uplink BPL.

Accordingly, the spatial reception parameter (i.e., QCL of type D) may be understood as a parameter for indicating direction information of a reception beam.

3. Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI)

The TCI may be used to indicate the QCL relationship between two reference signals. The network device may configure a TCI state (TCI state) list for the terminal device through higher layer signaling (e.g., Radio Resource Control (RRC) message), and may configure the TCI state list for the terminal device through higher layer signaling (e.g., MAC CE) or physical layer signaling (e.g., DCI activation or indication of one or more TCI states therein), specifically, the network device may configure the TCI state list for the terminal device through RRC message, the terminal device may activate one or more of the TCI state lists according to an indication of the MAC CE when receiving a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) from the network device, wherein the TCI state lists are a subset of the TCI state lists, the terminal device may obtain the DCI from the PDCCH, and further select one or more TCI states in the TCI state list according to the indication of the DCI, wherein the TCI state list is a subset of the TCI state lists, and the indication is sent to the terminal equipment through MAC CE signaling.

Configuration information for a TCI state may include the identity of one or both reference signal resources, and the associated QCL type. When the QCL relationship is configured to one of type a, or B, or C, the terminal device may demodulate the PDCCH or PDSCH according to the indication of the TCI status.

When the QCL relationship is configured to type D, the terminal device may know which transmission beam the network device uses to transmit signals, and may further determine which reception beam the network device uses to receive signals according to the beam pairing relationship determined by the channel measurement.

4. Beam failure recovery mechanism

It should be understood that the BFR is also called a link recovery procedure (link recovery procedure) in the physical layer protocol. In addition, the beam quality in this application is also called radio link quality (radio link quality).

In the prior art, a flow for performing beam failure recovery between a network device and a terminal device is specified, and the terminal device side mainly includes the following four parts:

(1) beam failure detection

The network device may configure reference signal resources for beam failure detection, and when a physical layer of the terminal device detects that the reference signal resources satisfy a condition of a beam failure instance (beam failure instance), that is, a beam quality corresponding to the reference signal resources is worse than a threshold #1, send a beam failure instance indication (beam failure instance indication) to a higher layer of the terminal device. And if the beam failure example indication appears for N times continuously, the high layer of the terminal equipment declares that the beam failure occurs, wherein N is a positive integer. It should be understood that the present application does not limit what parameter is specifically threshold # 1. For example, the threshold #1 may be a hypothetical block error rate, and in this case, if the hypothetical block error rate corresponding to the reference signal resource is greater than or equal to the threshold #1, the physical layer of the terminal device sends a beam failure instance indication to a higher layer of the terminal device. For another example, the threshold #1 may be RSRP, and at this time, if the RSRP corresponding to the reference signal resource is less than or equal to the threshold #1, the physical layer of the terminal device sends a beam failure instance indication to the higher layer of the terminal device. The higher layer may be a MAC layer, but the present application is not limited thereto.

(2) New available beam discovery

The network device may configure the terminal device with reference signal resources, i.e. a set of candidate reference signal resources or referred to as a set of candidate beams, for determining available beams (or referred to as candidate beams or new available beams). The terminal device detects whether there is a candidate reference signal resource with the beam quality better than the threshold #2 in the candidate reference signal resource set, and if so, reports the candidate reference signal resource with the beam quality better than the threshold #2 to the network device. It should be understood that the present application does not limit what parameter is specifically threshold # 2. For example, threshold #2 may be a hypothetical block error rate, and in this case, a beam quality better than threshold #2 may mean that the hypothetical block error rate is less than or equal to threshold # 2. For another example, the threshold #1 may be a layer one reference signal received power (L1-reference signal received power, L1-RSRP), and when the beam quality is better than the threshold #2, L1-RSRP is greater than or equal to the threshold # 2.

(3) Sending of beam failure recovery request (BFRQ)

The upper layer of the terminal device determines an available beam (marked as q _ new), and notifies a physical layer of the terminal device of a Random Access Channel (RACH) resource associated with the available beam, and the physical layer of the terminal device sends a preamble sequence (i.e., BFRQ) corresponding to the available beam on the RACH resource, so as to implicitly inform the network device that a beam failure occurs in the terminal device on a serving cell where the RACH resource is located, and the terminal device finds a new available beam (i.e., a beam corresponding to a reference signal resource corresponding to the RACH resource).

(4) Receiving network device responses to BFRQ

After sending the beam failure recovery request, the terminal device uses q _ new to monitor a dedicated control channel resource set (core set) and its corresponding search space (search space) in order to obtain the response of the terminal device to the BFRQ. The response of the terminal device to the BFRQ is a downlink control channel (PDCCH), that is, if the terminal device receives the PDCCH in the search space corresponding to the dedicated control channel resource set, the beam failure recovery is successful.

For the convenience of understanding the embodiments of the present application, a communication system suitable for the embodiments of the present application will be described in detail with reference to fig. 1. Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a communication system suitable for use in the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system 100 may include at least one network device, such as the network device 110 shown in fig. 1; the communication system 100 may also include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 120 shown in fig. 1. The terminal device 120 and the network device 110 may communicate by Carrier Aggregation (CA). For example, network device 110 communicates with terminal device 120 through aggregated Component Carrier (CC) CC1, CC2, and CC 3. Wherein, CC1 corresponds to cell 1, CC2 corresponds to cell 2, and CC3 corresponds to cell 3, where cell 1 may be a primary cell (PCell), and cell 2 and cell 3 may be secondary cells (scells).

It should be understood that the network device 110 may also aggregate more cells, and that the 3 cells shown in fig. 1 are merely exemplary. It should also be understood that the cell and component carrier in this application represent the same concept and may be used interchangeably.

In the prior art, a beam failure recovery procedure of a primary cell (for example, cell 1 shown in fig. 1) is specified, and through the beam failure recovery procedure, the primary cell may adjust a current failed beam to an available beam, thereby avoiding frequent radio link failure caused by beam failure. However, the prior art does not relate to how the secondary cell performs beam failure recovery.

In view of the above, the present application provides a beam failure recovery method, when a beam failure occurs in at least one cell, it is considered that beam failures occur in other cells associated with the at least one cell, and if the beam failure recovery of at least one cell of the associated cells is successful, it is considered that the beam failure recovery of all other cells is successful. Therefore, the beam failure recovery process does not need to be carried out for each cell independently, so that the beam failure recovery processes of a plurality of cells are simplified, and the aims of reducing the overhead and the time delay can be achieved.

The scheme of the application can be applied to a scene that a plurality of associated cells use the same set of beams. That is, the beams of the network device and the terminal device have only fixed several beams, no matter which cell they operate in. For example, the network device has only 64 fixed beams for receiving/transmitting signals, and the terminal device has only 8 fixed beam directions for receiving/transmitting signals.

Hereinafter, the embodiment of the present application will be described in detail with reference to the system architecture diagram shown in fig. 1 and the flowchart shown in fig. 2.

Fig. 2 is a schematic flow chart of a beam failure recovery method provided in accordance with the present application. The method may include S210 to S270, and each step is described in detail below.

S210, the network device sends the associated BFR configurations of the multiple cells to the terminal device. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the BFR configuration transmitted by the network device.

The plurality of cells may include a primary cell or may not include the primary cell, that is, all of the cells are secondary cells, but the present application does not limit this.

In a first implementation, the plurality of cells may correspond to a grouping of cells. That is, the network device may group cells, and the plurality of cells are grouped into a group.

For example, the cells may be grouped by multiplexing Master Cell Group (MCG) or Secondary Cell Group (SCG) in the prior art, that is, one cell group may be one MCG or SCG. It should be understood that other ways of grouping cells may be used, for example, cells using the same beam may be grouped into one group, and the present application is not limited to the way of grouping cells. The meaning of "cells using the same beam" will be described in detail hereinafter, and will not be explained for the time being.

Further, one cell group may uniquely correspond to one group identifier. The group identifier may be configured by the network device, and the terminal device may determine which cells belong to a cell group according to the group identifier.

In a second implementation, the multiple cells may also be cells using the same beam.

Wherein, the meaning that the plurality of cells use the same beam may be any one of the following:

(1) the PDCCH beams of the multiple cells are the same.

Here, the meaning of "PDCCH beam is the same" may be any one of the following:

A. the CORESET with the same index (or identification) in the CORESETs corresponding to the cells respectively corresponds to the same activated TCI.

For example, assuming that the cells are cell 1, cell 2, and cell 3, if the CORESET corresponding to cell 1 is CORESET {1,2,3}, and the activated TCIs corresponding to CORESET {1,2,3} are TCIs {1,2,3} respectively, then the activated TCIs corresponding to CORESET {1,2,3} corresponding to cell 2 and cell 3 are also TCIs {1,2,3} respectively.

B. The CORESETs with the same index in the CORESETs corresponding to the plurality of cells correspond to the same configuration TCI.

Similarly, assuming that the cells are cell 1, cell 2 and cell 3, if the CORESET corresponding to cell 1 is CORESET {1,2,3}, and the configured TCIs corresponding to CORESET {1,2,3} are TCIs {1, 2; 3, 4; 5,6}, that is, the TCIs corresponding to CORESET1 are TCI1 and TCI2, the TCIs corresponding to CORESET2 are TCI3 and TCI4, and the TCIs corresponding to CORESET3 are TCI5 and TCI6, then the TCIs corresponding to CORESET {1,2,3} corresponding to cell 2 and cell 3 are also TCI {1, 2; 3, 4; 5,6}.

For the meanings of the activated TCI corresponding to the CORESET and the configured TCI corresponding to the CORESET, and the relationship between the activated TCI and the configured TCI, reference may be made to the prior art specifically, and details are not described here.

C. For any two cells in the multiple cells, the activated TCI sets corresponding to all the CORESETs corresponding to one cell are the same as the activated TCI sets corresponding to all the CORESETs corresponding to another cell.

Similarly, assuming that the cells are cell 1, cell 2 and cell 3, if all the CORESETs corresponding to cell 1 are CORESET {1,2,3}, and the activated TCI corresponding to any of the CORESETs {1,2,3} belong to TCI {1,2,3}, then the activated TCI corresponding to any of the CORESETs corresponding to cell 2 belong to TCI {1,2,3}, and the activated TCI corresponding to any of the CORESETs corresponding to cell 3 belong to TCI {1,2,3 }.

D. For any two cells in the multiple cells, the configured TCI sets corresponding to all the CORESETs corresponding to one cell are the same as the configured TCI sets corresponding to all the CORESETs corresponding to another cell.

Similarly, assuming that the cells are cell 1, cell 2 and cell 3, if all the CORESETs corresponding to cell 1 are CORESET {1,2,3} and the configured TCI corresponding to any of the CORESETs {1,2,3} all belong to TCI {1,2,3,4,5,6}, then the activated TCI corresponding to any of the CORESETs corresponding to cell 2 all belong to TCI {1,2,3,4,5,6}, and the activated TCI corresponding to any of the CORESETs corresponding to cell 3 also belong to TCI {1,2,3,4,5,6 }.

(2) The TCI list configurations of any two of the plurality of cells are the same.

(3) The plurality of TCI list configurations corresponding to the plurality of cells have a non-empty intersection. Wherein, the plurality of cells are in one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of TCI list configurations.

Similarly, assuming that the cells are cell 1, cell 2 and cell 3, and the TCI list configurations corresponding to the three cells are {1,2,3} for the TCI list configurations, respectively, then the TCI list configurations {1,2,3} may be identical; or, where two TCI list configurations are a subset of another TCI list configuration, e.g., TCI list configurations 1 and 2 are a subset of 3; alternatively, one of the TCI list configurations is a subset of the other two TCI list configurations, e.g., TCI list configuration 1 is a subset of 2 and 3.

The plurality of cells may be associated in other manners, which is not limited in the present application. For example, a plurality of cells within a frequency band (band) are associated cells. That is, the plurality of cells in the present application may belong to the same frequency band.

The implementation of the BFR configuration is described below in conjunction with the implementation of the cell association described above.

In a first mode

The network device may allocate a set of BFR configurations for the plurality of cells.

For example, the network device may configure a set of BFR configurations for each cell group, that is, the BFR configurations of the cells in a cell group are the same. For example, multiple high frequency cells within one SCG may use the same set of BFR configurations. As another example, the network device may configure a set of BFR configurations for cells using the same beam.

Mode two

The network device configures a set of BFR configurations for each of the plurality of cells. For any two cells in the multiple cells, the content included in the BFR configuration corresponding to one cell and the content included in the BFR configuration corresponding to another cell may be partially or completely the same, or may be different.

The BFR configuration in the present application may include one or more of the following items (1) to (7), and the following are descriptions of the items.

Illustratively, for the above-mentioned way one, only one set q may be configured₀. To the above-mentioned sideIn equation two, a set q may be configured for each cell₀Wherein each cell corresponds to a set q₀May be the same or different.

Set q₀The corresponding reference signals may be located on some or all of the plurality of cells. For example, for the above implementation one, the set q₀The corresponding reference signals may be located on any one or more of the plurality of cells. For the second implementation, a set q of a certain cell₀The corresponding reference signals may be located on the cell, or on other cells, or on both the cell and other cells.

For any cell, the terminal device may detect the set q corresponding to the cell₀And judging whether the cell has beam failure or not. For example, if the terminal device detects a set q corresponding to a cell 1 in the plurality of cells₀If the corresponding beam quality is worse than a predetermined threshold, such as threshold #1, a beam failure instance indication is sent to the higher layer of the terminal device. If the beam failure instance indication occurs for a preset number of times (for example, N times), the terminal device determines that the beam failure occurs in the cell 1, where N is a positive integer.

It should be understood that the reference signal described in this application is located in a cell, which means that the frequency domain resource carrying the reference signal belongs to the frequency band in which the cell is located.

(2) Set of candidate reference signal resources (denoted as set q)₁)

Set q₁Which may also be referred to as a candidate beam set, is used for the terminal device to determine an available beam (or a new available beam as described in the foregoing), i.e. the available beam determined by the terminal device belongs to the set q₁。

It is understood that, for the above-mentioned manner one, only one set q may be configured₁. For the second method, a set q may be configured for each cell₁Wherein each cell corresponds to a set q₁May be the same or different.

And set q₁Similarly, set q₁The corresponding reference signals may be located in the pluralitySome or all of the cells. Further, set q₁Corresponding reference signal and set q₀The corresponding reference signals may be located in the same cell, and of course, the two reference signals may also be located in different cells, which is not limited in this application.

(3) A counter (denoted as: first counter) and/or a time window (denoted as: first time window) for determining a beam failure.

A first counter: the recording beam failure example indicates the reported number of times, which may be BFI _ COUNTER in the prior art, but this is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

In particular, if the physical layer of the terminal device detects the set q₀If the quality of the beam corresponding to the reference signal resource in (1) is worse than a preset threshold, such as threshold #1, a beam failure instance indication is reported. And each time the beam failure example indication is reported, the first counter accumulates 1, and when the first counter reaches a preset number of times, such as N, the beam failure is determined to occur. In short, if the quality of the reference signal is lower than the threshold event, the beam is determined to fail after N consecutive detections and reporting. It should be understood that reference to a signal quality below a threshold event refers to the set q₀The quality of the beam corresponding to the reference signal resource in (2) is worse than a preset threshold.

A first time window: and judging and reporting the time interval of the reference signal quality lower than the threshold event each time.

Specifically, the terminal device may perform beam failure detection in a first time window, and determine that a beam fails if the reference signal quality is lower than a threshold event is detected and reported N consecutive times in the first time window. It should be understood that reporting herein refers to reporting by the physical layer of the terminal device to the higher layers of the terminal device.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, if the terminal device detects that a cell has failed to beam, the terminal device may clear or reset the first counter and/or the first time window for the cell.

For example, with respect to the first method, one first counter and/or first time window may be configured for each cell group, or one first counter and/or first time window may be configured for each cell. For the second mode, a first counter and/or a first time window may be configured for each cell, but the present application is not limited to the above configuration mode, and other reasonable configuration modes should also fall within the protection scope of the present application.

The uplink resource includes a time domain resource and a frequency domain resource. It can be understood that the time domain resource indicates a position of the uplink resource in a time domain, and the frequency domain resource indicates a position of the uplink resource in a frequency domain. In addition, the uplink resource may also include resources such as a code domain and/or a space domain.

Optionally, the network device may configure one or more uplink resources for transmitting the beam failure recovery request. For example, the network device may configure the uplink resource on one of the cells, that is, the uplink resource used for sending the beam failure recovery request may be located on one of the cells. For another example, the network device may also configure the uplink resources for the uplink resources on two or more cells of the multiple cells, that is, the uplink resources for transmitting the beam failure recovery request are located on at least two cells.

Further, if uplink resources for sending the beam failure recovery request are configured in the plurality of cells, the terminal device may select uplink resources before time to send the beam failure recovery request according to positions of the uplink resources in the time domain in the at least two cells. In addition, the terminal device may select uplink resources on the cell with the smaller or larger identifier to send the beam failure recovery request according to the sizes of the identifiers of the at least two cells.

It should be understood that the frequency domain position of the uplink resource belongs to the frequency band corresponding to a certain cell in the sense that the uplink resource is on the certain cell.

Optionally, the uplink resource for transmitting the beam failure recovery request may be associated with the set q₁Associating according to the uplink resource and the set q₁One of them and the association between themThe relationship, the other of the two may be determined. The uplink resource and the set q₁The association relationship(s) may be configured by the network device or specified by a protocol, which is not limited in this application. It can be understood that the uplink resource and the set q are known at the terminal device₁In the case of the association relationship, the network device may only configure the uplink resource and the set q₁One of the two.

(5) A CORESET and/or a set of search spaces for receiving beam failure recovery request responses.

For example, in the LTE system, the network device may only configure one search space set, where the search space set corresponds to one of the cells, that is, a frequency domain position of a search space included in the search space set belongs to a frequency band corresponding to the cell. In addition, the network device may also configure at least two search space sets, where the at least two search space sets correspond to at least two cells in the plurality of cells one to one, that is, one search space set corresponds to one cell. Wherein a set of search spaces may include one or more search spaces.

For another example, in the NR system, one CORESET may correspond to one search space set, or may correspond to a plurality of search space sets. The network device may only configure one CORESET or a corresponding search space set thereof, and the terminal device may determine the corresponding search space set or CORESET according to a correspondence between the CORESET and the search space set, where the CORESET corresponds to one of the cells, that is, a frequency domain position of the CORESET belongs to a frequency band corresponding to the cell. In addition, the network device may also configure at least two CORESET or a search space set corresponding to each CORESET, where the at least two CORESETs correspond to at least two cells in the multiple cells one to one, that is, one CORESET corresponds to one cell.

Further, in the case that the network device is configured with a plurality of CORESETs, the network device may select to transmit the beam failure recovery request response on the CORESET that is earlier in time according to the positions of the plurality of CORESETs in the time domain. In addition, the network device may select to send the beam failure recovery request response on the CORESET corresponding to the cell with the smaller or larger identifier according to the identifier sizes of the at least two cells.

(6) A time window (denoted as: second time window) for controlling the overall time of the BFR.

And for one cell, the terminal equipment opens a second time window when determining that the beam failure occurs, and if the beam failure recovery request response is not received when the second time window expires, the beam failure recovery is determined to be unsuccessful. Further, the terminal device may not use the method of the present application for beam failure recovery, for example, the terminal device may use other methods such as contention based random access for beam failure recovery.

Optionally, in this application, for the first manner, one second time window may be configured for each cell group, or one second time window may be configured for each cell. For the second mode, one second time window may be configured for each cell, but the present application does not limit the above configuration mode, and other reasonable configuration modes should also fall within the protection scope of the present application.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, if the terminal device receives the beam failure recovery request response within the second time window, the terminal device may clear or reset the corresponding second time window.

For a cell, after determining that a beam failure occurs, the terminal device sends a beam failure recovery request to the network device, and if no beam failure recovery request response is received within a preset time, the terminal device resends the beam failure recovery request. And adding 1 to the second counter every time the beam failure recovery request is sent, and if the second counter reaches the preset maximum value and the terminal equipment does not receive the response of the beam failure recovery request, not retransmitting the beam failure recovery request.

Optionally, in this application, for the first manner, one second counter may be configured for each cell group, or one second counter may be configured for each cell. For the second mode, one second counter may be configured for each cell, but the present application does not limit the above configuration mode, and other reasonable configuration modes should also fall within the protection scope of the present application.

As can be understood by those skilled in the art, if the terminal device receives the beam failure recovery request response when the second counter does not overflow or does not reach the preset maximum value, the terminal device may clear or reset the corresponding second counter.

S220, the terminal device detects that a beam failure occurs in at least one of the cells.

S230, the terminal device determines that the beam failure occurs in the multiple cells.

Specifically, for any cell, the terminal device may detect the set q corresponding to the cell₀It is determined (or detected) whether a beam failure occurs in the cell. For example, for a cell 1 of the multiple cells, if the terminal device detects a set q corresponding to the cell 1₀If the corresponding beam quality is worse than a preset threshold, such as threshold #1, a beam failure instance indication is sent to the terminal device in the higher layer. If the beam failure instance indication occurs for a preset number of times, for example, the first counter reaches a maximum value, the terminal device may determine that the beam failure occurs in cell 1. For another example, for the cell 1, if the physical layer of the terminal device reports the event that the quality of the reference signal is lower than the threshold in the corresponding first time window, the high layer of the terminal device may determine that the beam failure occurs in the cell 1. If the terminal device detects that the cell 1 has beam failure, it considers that other cells in the plurality of cells also have beam failure, that is, all the cells have beam failure.

It should be understood that the number of the at least one cell may be 1, that is, if the terminal device detects that a beam failure occurs in one of the cells (for example, cell 1), it is determined that the beam failure occurs in all of the cells. In this scenario, cell 1 may be the cell of the plurality of cells in which the beam failure occurs first. It should also be appreciated that when a beam failure occurs in cell 1, it is possible that beam failures may also occur in other cells of the plurality of cells at the same time. For example, in the case that the BFR configuration adopts the first method, the multiple cells may simultaneously have beam failures.

Therefore, in the present application, if the terminal device detects that a beam failure occurs in one cell of the multiple cells or a beam failure occurs in at least one cell simultaneously, it is determined that the multiple cells have a beam failure. The meaning of "simultaneously" herein may be extended to "almost simultaneously", or the at least one cell has beam failures within a preset time period, or the time difference between the beam failures of cells having beam failures successively occurring in the at least one cell does not exceed the preset time period.

It should be noted that if the multiple cells belong to different MAC entity management of the terminal device, interaction between MAC entities may be required. For example, after the terminal device determines that the beam failure occurs in cell 1 of the multiple cells, the MAC entity managing cell 1 may notify the MAC entity managing other cells (e.g., cell 2) of the multiple cells that the beam failure occurs in cell 1. The MAC entity of cell 2 considers that cell 1 has also failed in beam according to the notification of the MAC entity of cell 1. At this time, the MAC entity of the cell 2 clears or resets the first counter and/or the first counter of the cell 2 according to the notification of the MAC entity of the cell 1.

Optionally, as an embodiment of the present application, the method may further include:

the terminal device determines at least one available beam for communicating with the network device via the at least one available beam in each of the plurality of cells S240. Alternatively, the at least one available beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with the network device on each of the plurality of cells.

S240 can configure the terminal device in the network deviceSet q₁And in this case the at least one available beam may be determined by the terminal device itself.

Wherein the at least one available beam belongs to a set q corresponding to a cell (denoted as a first cell) of the plurality of cells₁. That is, the at least one available beam is from the set q for the first cell₁Is determined in (1). It should be understood that the first cell corresponds to a set q₁The network device may be configured for grouping the cells to which the first cell belongs, or may be dedicated to the first cell. The first cell may or may not be at least one cell in which the beam occurs, and the application is not limited thereto.

For example, in S240, the terminal device may respectively correspond to the sets q according to the plurality of cells₁The at least one available beam is determined.

E.g. in the set q of cells₁Under different configurations, the terminal device may pass through a set q corresponding to each cell₁And performing beam measurement on the corresponding reference signals, and selecting a beam corresponding to one or more reference signals with the best beam quality or meeting a preset condition as the at least one available beam. In particular implementation, for example, the terminal device may pass through a set q corresponding to each cell₁And carrying out beam measurement on the corresponding reference signals, determining the beam with the best beam quality in each cell, and then selecting one or more beams from the beams with the best beam quality as the at least one available beam. In this application, the one or more reference signals with the best beam quality or meeting a preset condition may belong to the set q corresponding to the first cell₁。

For example, in S240, the terminal device may select a set q corresponding to any cell (e.g., the first cell) in the plurality of cells₁The at least one available beam is determined.

It should be understood that S240 is not chronologically sequential to S220 and S230.

Specifically, the terminal device determines the at least one available beam, which is a new available beam for each of the multiple cells, and since the at least one available beam belongs to the candidate beam set corresponding to the first cell, if the beam failure recovery procedure of the first cell is successful, the terminal device may communicate with the network device through the at least one available beam in each of the multiple cells.

Therefore, according to the beam failure recovery method provided by the application, when at least one cell fails to generate a beam, it is considered that other cells associated with the cell all have beam failures, and if at least one cell in the associated cells fails to recover successfully from the beam, it is considered that other cells all have beam failures and recover successfully. Therefore, the beam failure recovery process does not need to be carried out for each cell independently, so that the beam failure recovery processes of a plurality of cells are simplified, and the aims of reducing the overhead and the time delay can be achieved.

It should be understood that the at least one available beam may belong to a set of candidate beams corresponding to two or more cells of the plurality of cells. For example, one beam may be selected as an available beam from the candidate beam sets respectively corresponding to the cell 1 and the calibration zone.

Further, the method may further include:

and S250, the terminal equipment sends a beam failure recovery request to the network equipment according to the at least one available beam.

In particular, the terminal device may determine the at least one available beam and the plurality of cells may have failed beams based on the set q₁And determining the uplink resource for transmitting the beam failure recovery request according to the association relation between the uplink resource and the uplink resource for transmitting the beam failure recovery request, and further transmitting the beam failure recovery request on the uplink resource. Alternatively, in the set q₁In the case where there is no association with the uplink resource used for transmitting the beam failure recovery request, the terminal device may directly select the uplink resource to which the beam failure recovery request is transmitted, and transmit the beam failure recovery request on the uplink resource. For example, the terminal device may be used to generate beam loss in only one shareAnd on the uplink resource of the failure recovery request, a beam failure recovery request occurs. For another example, the terminal device may select a previous uplink resource from a plurality of uplink resources for generating the beam failure recovery request, so that the beam failure recovery request can be sent as fast as possible, and beam failure recovery can be achieved as fast as possible.

S260, the terminal device receives a beam failure recovery request response sent by the network device and aiming at the beam failure recovery request. The beam failure recovery request response is used to indicate that beam failure recovery of the plurality of cells is successful.

After receiving the beam failure recovery request, the network device may send a beam failure recovery request response on the corresponding CORESET and/or search space set. Accordingly, the terminal device detects a beam failure recovery request response on the corresponding CORESET and/or search space set, and if the beam failure recovery request response is received, the beam failure recovery of the first cell is successful, and the terminal device confirms that the beam failure recovery of other cells in the plurality of cells is successful.

It should be noted that if multiple cells belong to different MAC entity management of the terminal device, interaction between MAC entities may be required. For example, if the terminal device determines that the beam failure recovery of cell 1 is successful, the MAC entity managing cell 1 notifies the MAC entity managing cell 2 that the beam failure recovery of cell 1 is successful. The MAC entity of cell 2 considers that the beam failure recovery of cell 2 is successful according to the notification of cell 1. Further, the MAC entity of cell 2 may clear or reset the second time window and/or the second counter of cell 2.

Optionally, the beam failure recovery request includes any one of the following information: the identifier corresponding to each of the plurality of cells, the identifier of one of the plurality of cells, the beam identifier of the PDCCH corresponding to the plurality of cells, or the identifier of a cell group corresponding to the plurality of cells.

Specifically, in the case of grouping cells, the network device may determine a cell group or a cell in which a beam failure occurs, according to the identifiers corresponding to the plurality of cells, respectively, or the identifiers of the cell groups corresponding to the plurality of cells. Under the condition that the PDCCHs corresponding to the multiple cells are the same, the network device may determine the multiple cells in which the beam failure occurs according to the identifiers corresponding to the multiple cells, the identifier of one of the multiple cells, or the beam identifiers of the PDCCHs corresponding to the multiple cells.

Optionally, as another embodiment of the present application, S240 may be performed after S250.

For example, the set q is not configured for the terminal device at the network device₁The terminal device is not able to determine the at least one available beam by itself. In this case, the terminal device may transmit a beam failure recovery request to the network device, notifying the network device of the multiple cell beam failures, while or after determining the multiple cell beam failures. After the network device receives the beam failure recovery request, the network device may configure at least one beam for a certain cell, such as a first cell, in the multiple cells, and other cells in the multiple cells also use the at least one beam as an available beam; alternatively, the network device may configure at least one beam for each cell group as an available beam for each cell of the cell group. Accordingly, the terminal device may determine the at least one available beam according to the configuration of the network device.

Alternatively, as another embodiment of the present application, S250 may be performed without performing S240.

For example, after receiving the beam failure recovery request, the network device may turn off the transmission of the multiple cells, that is, the terminal device does not expect to communicate with the network device on the multiple cells.

For another example, after receiving the beam failure recovery request, the network device may trigger beam training to find an available beam.

Optionally, as an embodiment of the present application, before the network device performs beam reconfiguration, for example, before the terminal device receives the MAC CE in S280 below, the method may further include:

s270, the terminal device communicates with the network device through the at least one available beam over the plurality of cells.

Specifically, the terminal device may communicate with the network device through the at least one available beam or a receiving beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the beam failure state. For example, before the network device performs the beam reconfiguration, the terminal device transmits a PUCCH through a transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam on the multiple cells; and/or the terminal equipment receives the PDCCH and/or the PDSCH through the at least one available beam on the plurality of cells. The beam failure state refers to a period of time after the terminal device determines that the terminal device has failed in beam in a certain cell and transmits a beam failure recovery request, but before the terminal device has not received a beam failure recovery request response, that is, a period of time when the beam has not been successfully recovered.

The terminal device communicates with the network device by using the at least one available beam in the beam failure state, so that communication interruption caused by beam failure can be avoided, and the continuity of communication is ensured.

Further, the method may further include:

s280, the network equipment sends the MAC CE to the terminal equipment. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the MAC CE transmitted by the network device.

The MAC CE is configured to add at least one target beam to a beam list of a PDCCH, a PDSCH, a PUCCH, and/or a PUSCH corresponding to the plurality of cells, respectively, where the target beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with the network device in the plurality of cells.

Specifically, after the beam failure occurs, the network device may reconfigure a beam for the cell, and the network device may configure at least one available beam reported by the terminal device to the terminal device, or configure other beams.

Based on the technical scheme, the purpose of updating the beam configuration of a plurality of cells through the signaling of one cell can be realized, so that the beam configuration does not need to be carried out for each cell, and the signaling overhead is saved. On the other hand, in the prior art, the target beam can be activated only by adopting two-stage configuration of RRC and MAC CE, but the method can realize the purpose of activating the target beam by introducing new MAC CE without RRC pre-configuration, thereby reducing the frequency of RRC reconfiguration and further reducing the signaling overhead.

Optionally, the MAC-CE signaling comprises one or more of: an identifier of at least one target beam, a cell identifier, a cell grouping identifier, a bandwidth part (BWP) identifier, a PDCCH resource identifier (i.e., CORESET identifier), a PUCCH resource identifier, a PUCCH resource set identifier, a CSI-RS resource set identifier, a CSI-RS resource setting identifier, an SRS resource set identifier, and an SRS grouping identifier.

For example, when MAC-CE signaling is used to add a new beam configuration to multiple cells as a PDCCH beam, the MAC-CE needs to include: at least one target beam identity, { cell identity/cell group identity/BWP identity }, PDCCH resource identity (i.e., CORESET identity).

For example, when MAC-CE signaling is used to add a new beam configuration to multiple cells as PUCCH beams, the MAC-CE needs to include: at least one target beam identity, { cell identity/cell group identity/BWP identity }, PUCCH resource identity.

Optionally, the MAC-CE signaling may be identified by an lcid (logical channel) of the MAC-CE.

It should be understood that adding the target beam to the beam list of the PDCCH and/or PDSCH may be implemented by adding the TCI corresponding to the target beam to the beam list of the PDCCH and/or PDSCH, but the application is not limited thereto. It should also be understood that adding the target beam to the beam list of the PUCCH and/or PUSCH may be implemented by adding a spatial relationship (spatial relationship) corresponding to the target beam to the beam list of the PUCCH and/or PUSCH, but the present application is not limited thereto.

Fig. 3 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 3, the communication device 300 may include a processing unit 310. Optionally, the communication device 300 may further include a transceiver unit 320.

In one possible design, the communication apparatus 300 may correspond to the terminal device in the above method embodiment, and may be the terminal device or a chip configured in the terminal device, for example. When the communication device is a terminal equipment, the processing unit may be a processor and the transceiving unit may be a transceiver. The communication device may further comprise a storage unit, which may be a memory. The storage unit is used for storing instructions, and the processing unit executes the instructions stored by the storage unit so as to enable the communication device to execute the method. When the communication device is a chip in a terminal device, the processing unit may be a processor, and the transceiving unit may be an input/output interface, a pin, a circuit, or the like; the processing unit executes the instructions stored in the storage unit (e.g., register, cache, etc.) in the chip or located outside the chip (e.g., read only memory, random access memory, etc.) to make the communication device execute the operations performed by the terminal device in the method 2

In one implementation, the communication apparatus 300 may correspond to a terminal device in the method according to the embodiment of the present application, and the communication apparatus 300 may include a unit for performing the method performed by the terminal device in the method in fig. 2. Also, the units in the communication device and the other operations and/or functions described above are for implementing the corresponding flows of the method in fig. 2. Specifically, the processing unit 310 may be configured to perform steps S220 to S240 in the method shown in fig. 2, and the transceiver unit 320 may be configured to perform steps S210 and S250 to S280 in the method shown in fig. 2.

Specifically, the processing unit 310 is configured to detect that a beam failure occurs in at least one cell of the associated multiple cells; determining that the plurality of cells have beam failure; the processing unit is further configured to determine at least one available beam for a terminal device to communicate with a network device on each of the plurality of cells, where the at least one available beam belongs to a candidate beam set corresponding to one of the plurality of cells.

Optionally, the processing unit 310 is specifically configured to: determining the at least one available beam in case at least one of the plurality of cells configures a candidate set of beams.

Optionally, the transceiver 320 is configured to: transmitting a beam failure recovery request to the network device according to the at least one available beam; receiving a beam failure recovery request response for the beam failure recovery request, the beam failure recovery request response being used to indicate that beam failure recovery of the plurality of cells is successful.

Optionally, the transceiver unit 320 is further configured to: and receiving a media access control element (MAC CE) sent by a network device, wherein the MAC CE is used for adding at least one target beam into a beam list of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and/or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) corresponding to the plurality of cells respectively, and the at least one target beam is used for the apparatus to communicate with the network device on the plurality of cells.

Optionally, the transceiver unit 320 is further configured to: transmitting a PUCCH through a transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells; and/or receiving a PDCCH and/or a PDSCH through the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells.

Optionally, the processing unit 310 is further configured to: and resetting or clearing time windows which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for controlling beam failure recovery, and/or resetting or clearing counters which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for controlling the number of times of beam failure recovery request retransmission.

Optionally, the processing unit 310 is further configured to: and resetting or clearing counters which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for judging beam failure, and/or resetting or clearing time windows which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for judging beam failure.

In another possible design, the communication apparatus 800 may correspond to the network device in the above method embodiment, and may be, for example, a network device or a chip configured in a network device. When the communication device is a network device, the processing unit may be a processor and the transceiving unit may be a transceiver. The communication device may further comprise a storage unit, which may be a memory. The storage unit is used for storing instructions, and the processing unit executes the instructions stored by the storage unit so as to enable the communication device to execute the method. When the communication device is a chip within a network device, the processing unit may be a processor, and the transceiving unit may be an input/output interface, a pin, a circuit, or the like; the processing unit executes instructions stored in a storage unit (e.g., a register, a cache, etc.) inside the chip or a storage unit (e.g., a read-only memory, a random access memory, etc.) outside the chip, so as to enable the communication device to perform the operations performed by the network device in the method.

In one implementation, the communication apparatus 300 may correspond to a network device in the method according to the embodiment of the present application, and the communication apparatus 300 may include a unit for performing the method performed by the network device in fig. 2. Also, the units and other operations and/or functions described above in the communication device 300 are for implementing the corresponding flows of the method 200 in fig. 2. Specifically, when the communication device 300 is used to perform the method 200 in fig. 2, the transceiver unit 320 may be used to perform S210 and S250 to S280 in the method in fig. 2.

In particular, processing unit 310 may be configured to generate one or more BFR configurations for beam failure recovery for an associated plurality of cells; the transceiving unit 320 may be configured to transmit the one or more BFR configurations to the terminal device.

Optionally, the transceiver unit 320 is further configured to receive a beam failure recovery request sent by the terminal device, where the beam failure recovery request is used to indicate that a beam failure occurs in at least one cell of the multiple cells; and sending a beam failure recovery request response aiming at the beam failure recovery request to the terminal equipment, wherein the beam failure recovery request response is used for indicating that the beam failure recovery of the plurality of cells is successful.

Optionally, the transceiving unit 320 is further configured to generate a MAC CE to the terminal device, where the MAC CE is configured to add at least one target beam to a beam list of a PDCCH, a PDSCH, a PUCCH, and/or a PUSCH respectively corresponding to the multiple cells, and the at least one target beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with the network device in the multiple cells.

Optionally, the transceiver unit 320 is further configured to receive a PUCCH in a receive beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the multiple cells; and/or the network device transmits the PDCCH and/or PDSCH on the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells.

The network device in the foregoing device embodiments completely corresponds to the network device or the terminal device in the terminal device and method embodiments, and the corresponding module or unit executes the corresponding steps, for example, the transceiver unit (transceiver) method executes the steps of transmitting and/or receiving in the method embodiments, and other steps except for transmitting and receiving may be executed by the processing unit (processor). The functions of the specific elements may be referred to in the respective method embodiments. The transceiver unit may include a transmitting unit and/or a receiving unit, and the transceiver may include a transmitter and/or a receiver, which implement transceiving functions respectively; the processor may be one or more.

It should be understood that the above division of the units is only a functional division, and other division methods may be possible in actual implementation.

The terminal device or the network device may be a chip, the processing unit may be implemented by hardware or may be implemented by software, and when implemented by hardware, the processing unit may be a logic circuit, an integrated circuit, or the like; when implemented in software, the processing unit may be a general-purpose processor implemented by reading software code stored in a memory unit, which may be integrated in the processor or located external to the processor, separately.

Fig. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 10 provided in the present application. For ease of illustration, fig. 4 shows only the main components of the terminal device. As shown in fig. 4, the terminal device 10 includes a processor, a memory, a control circuit, an antenna, and an input-output means.

The processor is mainly configured to process the communication protocol and the communication data, control the entire terminal device, execute a software program, and process data of the software program, for example, to support the terminal device to perform the actions described in the above method embodiments. The memory is used primarily for storing software programs and data. The control circuit is mainly used for converting baseband signals and radio frequency signals and processing the radio frequency signals. The control circuit and the antenna together, which may also be called a transceiver, are mainly used for transceiving radio frequency signals in the form of electromagnetic waves. Input and output devices, such as touch screens, display screens, keyboards, etc., are used primarily for receiving data input by a user and for outputting data to the user.

When the terminal device is turned on, the processor can read the software program in the storage unit, interpret and execute the instruction 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 the terminal 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. 4 shows only one memory and processor for ease of illustration. In an actual terminal device, 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 manner, the processor may include a baseband processor and a central processing unit, where the baseband processor is mainly used to process a communication protocol and communication data, and the central processing unit is mainly used to control the whole terminal device, execute a software program, and process data of the software program. The processor in fig. 4 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 also 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 can also be expressed as a baseband processing circuit or a baseband processing chip. The central processing unit can 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, the antenna and the control circuit having the transceiving function may be regarded as the transceiving unit 101 of the terminal device 10, and the processor having the processing function may be regarded as the processing unit 102 of the terminal device 10. As shown in fig. 4, the terminal device 10 includes a transceiving unit 101 and a processing unit 102. A transceiver unit may also be referred to as a transceiver, a transceiving device, etc. Optionally, a device for implementing a receiving function in the transceiver 101 may be regarded as a receiving unit, and a device for implementing a transmitting function in the transceiver 101 may be regarded as a transmitting unit, that is, the transceiver 101 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 be referred to as a transmitter, a transmitting circuit, etc.

The terminal device shown in fig. 4 can perform each action performed by the terminal device in the above method, and here, a detailed description thereof is omitted to avoid redundancy.

Fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided in the present application, where the network device may be a base station, for example. As shown in fig. 5, the base station may be applied in the communication system shown in fig. 1, and performs the functions of the network device in the above method embodiments. The base station 20 may include one or more radio frequency units, such as a Remote Radio Unit (RRU) 201 and one or more baseband units (BBUs) (which may also be referred to as Digital Units (DUs)) 202. The RRU 201 may be referred to as a transceiver unit, transceiver circuit, or transceiver, etc., which may include at least one antenna 2011 and a radio unit 2012. The RRU 201 is mainly used for transceiving radio frequency signals and converting radio frequency signals and baseband signals, for example, for sending the BFR configuration of the above method embodiment. The BBU 202 is mainly used for performing baseband processing, controlling a base station, and the like. The RRU 201 and the BBU 202 may be physically disposed together or may be physically disposed separately, that is, distributed base stations.

The BBU 202 is a control center of a base station, and may also be referred to as a processing unit, and is mainly used for performing baseband processing functions, such as channel coding, multiplexing, modulation, spreading, and the like. For example, the BBU (processing unit) 202 can be used to control the base station to execute the operation flow related to the network device in the above method embodiment.

In an embodiment, the BBU 202 may be formed by one or more boards, and the boards may jointly support a radio access network (e.g., an LTE network) with a single access indication, or may respectively support radio access networks with different access schemes (e.g., an LTE network, a 5G network, or other networks). The BBU 202 also includes a memory 2021 and a processor 2022, the memory 2021 for storing the necessary instructions and data. The processor 2022 is configured to control the base station to perform necessary actions, for example, to control the base station to perform the operation procedures related to the network device in the above method embodiments. The memory 2021 and the processor 2022 may serve one or more boards. That is, the memory and processor may be provided separately on each board. Multiple boards may share the same memory and processor. In addition, each single board can be provided with necessary circuits.

The network device is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and may be in another embodiment: for example: the antenna comprises a BBU (baseband unit) and an Adaptive Radio Unit (ARU), or the BBU and an Active Antenna Unit (AAU); the CPE may be a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) or another type, and the present application is not limited thereto.

It should be noted that the processor in the embodiments of the present application may be an integrated circuit chip having signal processing capability. In implementation, the steps of the above method embodiments may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or instructions in the form of software. The processor may be a general purpose processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, or discrete hardware components. The various methods, steps, and logic blocks disclosed in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be directly implemented by a hardware decoding processor, or implemented by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding 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.

It should be understood that the processor in the embodiments of the present application 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, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, and the like.

It will also be appreciated that the memory in the embodiments of the subject application can be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or can include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. The non-volatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an Electrically Erasable PROM (EEPROM), or a flash memory. Volatile memory can be Random Access Memory (RAM), which acts as external cache memory. By way of example, but not limitation, many forms of Random Access Memory (RAM) are available, such as Static RAM (SRAM), Dynamic RAM (DRAM), Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), Enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchlink DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct bus RAM (DR RAM).

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application further provides a computer program product, which includes: computer program code which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method in the embodiment shown in fig. 2.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application also provides a computer readable medium storing program code, which when run on a computer, causes the computer to execute the method in the embodiment shown in fig. 2.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application further provides a system, which includes the foregoing one or more terminal devices and one or more network devices.

The above embodiments may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, the above-described embodiments may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When loaded or executed on a computer, cause the flow or functions according to embodiments of the invention to occur, in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a network of computers, or other programmable device. The computer instructions may be stored on a computer readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer readable storage medium to another computer readable storage medium, for example, the computer instructions may be transmitted from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center by wire (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server, data center, etc. that contains one or more collections of available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., floppy disk, hard disk, magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)), or a semiconductor medium. The semiconductor medium may be a solid state disk.

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

It should also be understood that, in the present application, "when …", "if" and "if" all refer to the terminal device or the network device making corresponding processing under certain objective conditions, and are not time-limited, and do not require certain judgment actions when the terminal device or the network device is implemented, and do not mean that there are other limitations.

The term "and/or" herein is merely an association describing an associated object, meaning that three relationships may exist, e.g., a and/or B, may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone.

Herein, the term "at least one of … …" or "at least one of … …" or "at least one of … …" means all or any combination of the listed items, e.g., "at least one of A, B and C", may mean: there are six cases of a alone, B alone, C alone, a and B together, B and C together, and A, B and C together.

It should be understood that in the embodiments of the present application, "B corresponding to a" means that B is associated with a, from which B can be determined. It should also be understood that determining B from a does not mean determining B from a alone, but may be determined from a and/or other information.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

It is clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

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

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

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

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

Claims

1. A method for beam failure recovery, comprising:

the terminal equipment detects that at least one cell in the associated multiple cells has beam failure;

the terminal equipment determines that the wave beams of the plurality of cells fail to occur;

the terminal device determines at least one available beam, wherein the at least one available beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with a network device in the plurality of cells, and the at least one available beam is a candidate beam set corresponding to one of the plurality of cells;

the terminal equipment sends a beam failure recovery request to the network equipment according to the at least one available beam;

the terminal equipment receives a beam failure recovery request response aiming at the beam failure recovery request, wherein the beam failure recovery request response is used for indicating that the beam failure recovery of the plurality of cells is successful.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the terminal device determining at least one available beam comprises:

the terminal device determines the at least one available beam in case at least one of the plurality of cells configures a candidate beam set.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the at least one available beam is a beam satisfying a predetermined condition or having a best beam quality in the candidate beam sets respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

the terminal device receives a media access control element (MAC CE) sent by a network device, wherein the MAC CE is used for adding at least one target beam into a beam list of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and/or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) respectively corresponding to the cells, and the at least one target beam is used for the terminal device to communicate with the network device on the cells.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one target beam is the at least one available beam.

6. The method of claim 4 or 5, wherein prior to the terminal device receiving the MAC CE, the method further comprises:

the terminal equipment transmits PUCCH through a transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells; and/or

And the terminal equipment receives a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) and/or a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) in the plurality of cells through the at least one available beam.

7. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein after the terminal device receives the beam failure recovery request response, the method further comprises:

and the terminal equipment resets or clears the time windows which are respectively corresponding to the cells and used for controlling the beam failure recovery, and/or resets or clears the counters which are respectively corresponding to the cells and used for controlling the beam failure recovery request retransmission times.

8. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the plurality of cells correspond to one cell group, or beams of Physical Downlink Control Channels (PDCCHs) corresponding to the plurality of cells are the same.

9. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the beam failure recovery request comprises at least one of the following information: the identifier corresponding to each of the plurality of cells, the identifier of one of the plurality of cells, the beam identifier of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) corresponding to the plurality of cells, or the identifier of a cell group corresponding to the plurality of cells.

10. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein after the terminal device determines that the plurality of cells failed to beam, the method further comprises:

and the terminal equipment resets or clears counters which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and used for judging beam failure, and/or resets or clears time windows which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and used for judging beam failure.

11. A communications apparatus, comprising:

a processing unit, configured to detect that a beam failure occurs in at least one cell of the associated multiple cells;

the processing unit is further configured to determine that the plurality of cells have failed to generate a beam;

the processing unit is further configured to determine at least one available beam, where the at least one available beam is used for a terminal device to communicate with a network device in the plurality of cells, and the at least one available beam belongs to a candidate beam set corresponding to one of the plurality of cells;

a transceiver unit, configured to send a beam failure recovery request to the network device according to the at least one available beam;

the transceiver unit is further configured to receive a beam failure recovery request response for the beam failure recovery request, where the beam failure recovery request response is used to indicate that beam failure recovery of the multiple cells is successful.

12. The apparatus as recited in claim 11, said processing unit to:

determining the at least one available beam in case at least one of the plurality of cells configures a candidate set of beams.

13. The apparatus according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the at least one available beam is a beam that satisfies a predetermined condition or has a best beam quality in the candidate beam sets respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells.

14. The apparatus as recited in claim 11, wherein said transceiver unit is further configured to:

and receiving a media access control element (MAC CE) sent by a network device, wherein the MAC CE is used for adding at least one target beam into a beam list of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and/or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) corresponding to the plurality of cells respectively, and the at least one target beam is used for the apparatus to communicate with the network device on the plurality of cells.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the at least one target beam is the at least one available beam.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 or 15, wherein the transceiver unit is further configured to:

transmitting a PUCCH through a transmission beam corresponding to the at least one available beam in the plurality of cells; and/or

And receiving a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) and/or a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) in the plurality of cells through the at least one available beam.

17. The apparatus as recited in claim 11 or 12, said processing unit to further:

and resetting or clearing time windows which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for controlling beam failure recovery, and/or resetting or clearing counters which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for controlling the number of times of beam failure recovery request retransmission.

18. The apparatus according to any one of claims 11 or 12, wherein the plurality of cells correspond to one cell group, or beams of physical downlink control channels PDCCH corresponding to the plurality of cells are the same.

19. The apparatus of any one of claims 11 or 12, wherein the beam failure recovery request comprises at least one of: the identifier corresponding to each of the plurality of cells, the identifier of one of the plurality of cells, the beam identifier of a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) corresponding to the plurality of cells, or the identifier of a cell group corresponding to the plurality of cells.

20. The apparatus of any of claims 11 or 12, wherein the processing unit is further to:

and resetting or clearing counters which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for judging beam failure, and/or resetting or clearing time windows which are respectively corresponding to the plurality of cells and are used for judging beam failure.

21. A communication apparatus comprising a processor and a memory, the memory being configured to store a computer program, the processor being configured to invoke and execute the computer program from the memory such that the communication apparatus performs the method of any of claims 1 to 10.

22. A computer-readable medium, comprising a computer program which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 10.

23. A communications apparatus, comprising a processor configured to perform the method of any of claims 1-10.