CN111918327B - Communication method and device - Google Patents

Abstract

The application provides a communication method and a communication device, which are used for improving the utilization rate of channel resources. The method comprises the following steps: the terminal device determines a limiting position according to a plurality of measuring positions in a first time period, wherein the limiting position comprises a target measuring position which is determined by the terminal device from the plurality of measuring positions and is used for performing RRM measurement; the terminal device further sends indication information to the network device, the network device may determine, from the plurality of measurement locations, a measurement location other than the limiting location as an available measurement location according to the indication information, and during a communication in a subsequent first period, the network device may schedule the terminal device at the available measurement location. The method can enable the network equipment to release the scheduling restriction at some measurement positions allocated to the terminal equipment, thereby increasing the scheduling opportunity of the terminal equipment and being beneficial to improving the utilization rate of channel resources.

Description

A communication method and device

Technical field

The present application relates to the field of wireless communication technology, and in particular, to a communication method and device.

Background technique

In wireless communication systems, terminal equipment in a radio resource control (RRC) connected state often needs to perform radio resource management (RRM) measurements.

Specifically, the network device can periodically broadcast the reference signal, and the terminal device can implement RRM measurement through the reference signal broadcast by the network device. For example, the terminal device can measure the current cell and surrounding neighboring cells based on the reception result of the reference signal. Service quality, and determine whether to perform cell switching based on the obtained service quality of the current cell and surrounding adjacent cells.

Usually, network equipment allocates multiple measurement positions to terminal devices, and each measurement position corresponds to the time domain position of a reference signal. The terminal equipment can receive reference signals at these measurement locations and perform RRM measurements. Usually, there are scheduling restrictions on the terminal equipment and the network equipment at these measurement locations, for example, downlink and uplink data transmission between the terminal equipment and the network equipment is stopped at these measurement locations. However, terminal equipment often only uses some of the multiple measurement locations to perform RRM measurements, thus causing a waste of channel resources.

Contents of the invention

The purpose of this application is to provide a communication method and device that can enable network equipment to release scheduling restrictions at some measurement locations assigned to terminal equipment, thereby increasing scheduling opportunities for terminal equipment and conducive to improving channel resource utilization.

These and other objects are achieved by the features stated in the independent claims. Further implementations are revealed in the dependent claims, the description and the drawing.

In a first aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a communication method, including: a terminal device determines a restricted position based on multiple measurement locations within a first time period, where the restricted location includes a location determined by the terminal device from the multiple measurement locations. , the target measurement location used to perform RRM measurement; the terminal device then sends indication information to the network device, and indicates to the network device through the indication information that among the above multiple measurement locations, measurement locations other than restricted locations can be used as available measurement locations, Used by network equipment to schedule terminal equipment.

Using the above method, the terminal device determines the restricted location within the first time period in advance, and sends indication information to the network device to indicate to the network device that among the multiple measurement locations allocated to the terminal device, the available measurement locations other than the restricted location are Measuring position. In the first period of time, the network device can lift the scheduling restrictions at the available measurement locations and schedule the terminal equipment to work, thereby increasing the scheduling opportunities for the terminal equipment and improving channel resource utilization. Moreover, since the restricted position includes the target measurement position used by the terminal device to perform RRM measurement in the first time period, the available measurement position of the network device does not include the target measurement position of the terminal device, so that even if the network device is available Scheduling the terminal equipment at the measurement location will not (or only slightly) interfere with the RRM measurement of the terminal equipment.

For example, the limit position may be the target measurement position. The network device can determine the target measurement position of the terminal device according to the instruction information of the terminal device, and when scheduling the terminal device, the network device can be at a time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position and a time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position. Maintain the scheduling limit on the length, that is, provide a certain time redundancy for the target measurement location to use for terminal equipment switching processing capabilities, such as processing capabilities for different subcarrier intervals, or to reduce the impact of other possible scheduling processes on RRM measurements. interference.

It can be understood that the limit position determined by the terminal device can also be the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and the time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position. In this case, the terminal device actively A certain amount of time redundancy is reserved for the target measurement location, and the network device can directly schedule the terminal device at the determined available measurement location.

In addition, the limit position can also be the measurement window where the target measurement position is located. When the network device allocates multiple measurement positions to the terminal device in the form of measurement windows, the terminal device can also directly determine the limit position in units of measurement windows, that is, the measurement window where the target measurement position is located is used as the limit position.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among multiple measurement locations, the indication information may be used to indicate the at least one restricted location, or to indicate the above-mentioned available measurement locations.

For example, the indication information may include identification information corresponding to at least one of the above restricted positions, and may also include identification information corresponding to available measurement positions. For another example, the indication information can also be in the form of a bitmap. Each bit in the bitmap corresponds to a certain position (the position can be a measurement position or a measurement window). By taking each bit, The value indicates whether the location is a restricted location.

For example, in the case where the at least one restriction position is at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located, the indication information may include identification information of at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located, or the indication information may include available measurement locations. Identification information of at least one measurement window where it is located.

In a possible implementation, the indication information is also used to indicate the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the multiple measurement positions, the indication information can also be used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is within the first time period. All or part of the time period except for at least one restricted location.

In a possible implementation, when the target measurement position does not exist among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information may also be used to indicate the first time period.

In a second aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a communication method, including: a network device receives indication information sent by a terminal device; and the network device determines, based on the indication information, available measurement locations among multiple measurement locations allocated to the terminal device within a first time period. The measurement position includes a target measurement position used by the terminal device to perform RRM measurement among multiple measurement positions, and the available measurement position is a measurement position that can be used to schedule the terminal device.

In a possible implementation, the restriction position is the target measurement position; or, the restriction position is the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and the time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position; or , the limit position is the measurement window where the target measurement position is located.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted location among multiple measurement locations, the indication information is used to indicate at least one restricted location; the network device determines the first time period allocated for the terminal device based on the indication information. The available measurement locations among the multiple measurement locations include: the network device determines, according to the indication information, that the measurement locations among the multiple measurement locations except at least one restricted location are available measurement locations; alternatively, the indication information can also be used to indicate the available measurement locations. location; in this case, the network device determines the available measurement locations among the plurality of measurement locations allocated to the terminal device within the first time period according to the indication information, including: the network device determines that the measurement location indicated by the indication information is the available measurement location.

In a possible implementation, at least one restriction position is at least one measurement window in which the target measurement position is located, and the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window in which the target measurement position is located; in this case, the network device determines the target measurement window according to the indication information. Determining the available measurement locations among the plurality of measurement locations allocated to the terminal device within the first time period includes: the network device determines at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window based on the identification information of the at least one measurement window. ; The network device determines that among the plurality of measurement positions, the measurement positions other than the measurement positions included in at least one measurement window are available measurement positions; or, the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window in which the available measurement position is located; here In this case, the network device determines the available measurement positions among the plurality of measurement positions allocated to the terminal device within the first time period based on the instruction information, including: the network device determines the identity of at least one measurement window based on the identity information of at least one measurement window. The measurement positions included in at least one measurement window respectively corresponding to the information are available measurement positions.

In a possible implementation, the indication information is also used to indicate the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is the period other than the first time period. All or part of the time period outside at least one restricted position; in this case, the network device may determine, according to the indication information, that the measurement position in at least a second time period is the available measurement position.

In a possible implementation, when the target measurement location does not exist among the multiple measurement locations, the indication information may also be used to indicate the first time period; in this case, the network device may Multiple measurement positions within the first time period of the information are available measurement positions.

In a third aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a device, which may be a terminal device, or may be a semiconductor chip provided in the terminal device. In an example, the device includes: a communication unit and a processing unit; the processing unit is configured to determine a restriction position according to a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period, the restriction position including all of the plurality of measurement positions. The device is used to perform RRM measurement at a target measurement position; the communication unit is used to send indication information to a network device, and the indication information is used to indicate measurements at the plurality of measurement positions except for the restricted position. A location is an available measured location that can be used by the network device to schedule the device.

In a possible implementation, the limiting position is the target measurement position; or, the limiting position is the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position and the target The time length of one data symbol after the measurement position; or, the limit position is the measurement window in which the target measurement position is located.

In a possible implementation, if there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement locations, the indication information is used to indicate the at least one restricted location, or to indicate the available measurement location.

In a possible implementation, the at least one limiting position is at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located, and the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located, or, The indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window where the available measurement location is located.

In a possible implementation, the indication information is also used to indicate the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is the All or part of the time period except the at least one restricted position within the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when the target measurement position does not exist among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate the first time period.

In a fourth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a device, which may be a network device, or may be a semiconductor chip provided in the network device. In an example, the device includes: a communication unit and a processing unit; the communication unit is configured to receive indication information sent by a terminal device; and the processing unit is configured to determine the number of resources allocated to the terminal device based on the indication information. Available measurement positions among a plurality of measurement positions within the first time period, the restricted position includes a target measurement position used by the terminal device to perform RRM measurement among the plurality of measurement positions, and the available measurement position is capable of Used to schedule the measurement location of the terminal device.

In a possible implementation, the limiting position is the target measurement position; or, the limiting position is the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position and the target The time length of one data symbol after the measurement position; or, the limit position is the measurement window in which the target measurement position is located.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement locations, the indication information is used to indicate the at least one restricted position; the processing unit is specifically configured to: according to the The indication information determines that the measurement positions other than the at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement positions are the available measurement positions; or the indication information is used to indicate the available measurement positions; the processing unit specifically Used for: determining that the measurement position indicated by the indication information is the available measurement position.

In a possible implementation, the at least one limiting position is at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located, and the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located; The processing unit is specifically configured to: determine at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window according to the identification information of the at least one measurement window; determine among the plurality of measurement positions, except for the at least one measurement window. The measurement positions other than the measurement positions included in the window are the available measurement positions; or the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window in which the available measurement position is located; the processing unit is specifically configured to: according to the The identification information of the at least one measurement window determines that the measurement position included in the at least one measurement window respectively corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window is the available measurement position.

In a possible implementation, the indication information is also used to indicate the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is the All or part of the time period in the first time period except the at least one restricted position; the processing unit is specifically configured to: determine the measurement position in the at least one second time period as the available measurement position.

In a possible implementation, when the target measurement position does not exist among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate the first time period; the processing unit is specifically configured to: A plurality of measurement positions within the first time period are determined to be the available measurement positions.

In a fifth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a device, including: a processor and a memory; the memory is used to store computer execution instructions, and when the device is running, the processor executes the computer execution instructions stored in the memory, so that The device performs the method performed by the terminal device as described in the above-mentioned first aspect or any one of the implementations of the first aspect, or causes the device to perform the method as described in the above-mentioned second aspect or any one of the implementations of the second aspect. The method implemented by the network device.

In a sixth aspect, embodiments of the present application further provide a communication system, which includes the terminal device in the above-mentioned first aspect or any implementation of the first aspect and the above-mentioned second aspect or any one of the second aspects. Network equipment in the implementation.

In a seventh aspect, embodiments of the present application also provide a computer-readable storage medium. The computer-readable storage medium stores instructions that, when run on a computer, cause the computer to execute the methods described in the above aspects.

In an eighth aspect, embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product including instructions that, when run on a computer, cause the computer to execute the methods described in the above aspects.

These and other aspects of the application will be more clearly understood in the following description of the embodiments.

Description of the drawings

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the network architecture of a communication system applicable to the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of an SS burst set applicable to the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of an SMTC measurement window applicable to the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the correspondence between an SSB bitmap and a measurement position provided by an embodiment of the present application;

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a DRX cycle applicable to the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of WUS signal function in a DRX cycle applicable to the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 7 is a schematic flow chart of a communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application;

Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario provided by the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 9 is a schematic diagram of an application scenario provided by the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 10 is a schematic diagram of the device structure provided by the embodiment of the present application;

Figure 11 is a schematic structural diagram of a device provided by an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed ways

In order to make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the embodiments of the present application clearer, the embodiments of the present application will be described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: global system for mobile communications (GSM) system, code division multiple access (code division multiple access, CDMA) system, wideband code division multiple access (wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system, general packet radio service (GPRS), long term evolution (LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (time division duplex, TDD), universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS), global interoperability for microwave access (WIMAX) communication system, fifth generation (5th generation, 5G) system or new wireless ( newradio, NR), or be applied to future communication systems or other similar communication systems.

Please refer to Figure 1, which is a schematic diagram of the network architecture of a communication system applicable to the embodiment of the present application. The communication system includes a network device 110, a terminal device 120, a terminal device 130 and a terminal device 140. The network device may communicate with at least one terminal device (such as the terminal device 120) through an uplink (UL) and a downlink (DL).

The network equipment in Figure 1 may be an access network equipment, such as a base station. Among them, the access network equipment corresponds to different equipment in different systems. For example, in the fourth generation mobile communication technology (the ^4th generation, 4G) system, it can correspond to the eNB, and in the 5G system, it can correspond to the access network equipment in 5G. For example gNB. Although only the terminal device 120, the terminal device 130 and the terminal device 140 are shown in Figure 1, it should be understood that the network device can provide services for multiple terminal devices, and the embodiment of the present application does not limit the number of terminal devices in the communication system. Similarly, the terminal device in Figure 1 is explained using a mobile phone as an example. It should also be understood that the terminal device in the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto.

In the following, some terms used in the embodiments of the present application are explained to facilitate understanding by those skilled in the art.

1) Terminal equipment, also known as user equipment (UE), mobile station (MS), mobile terminal (MT), etc., is a device that provides voice and/or data connectivity to users device of. The terminal equipment may communicate with the core network via a radio access network (radio access network, RAN), and exchange voice and/or data with the RAN. For example, the terminal device may be a handheld device, a vehicle-mounted device, etc. with a wireless connection function. Currently, some examples of terminal devices are: mobile phones, tablets, laptops, PDAs, mobile internet devices (MID), wearable devices, virtual reality (VR) devices, augmented reality (augmented reality, AR) equipment, wireless terminals in industrial control, wireless terminals in self-driving, wireless terminals in remote medical surgery, wireless terminals in smart grids Terminals, wireless terminals in transportation safety, wireless terminals in smart cities, wireless terminals in smart homes, etc.

2) Network equipment is a device in the network used to connect terminal equipment to the wireless network. The network device may be a node in a wireless access network, may also be called a base station, or may be called a radio access network (radio access network, RAN) node (or device). The network device may be used to convert received air frames to and from Internet Protocol (IP) packets and act as a router between the end device and the rest of the access network, which may include the IP network. Network devices can also coordinate attribute management of air interfaces. For example, the network device may include an evolutionary base station (NodeB or eNB or e-NodeB, evolutionary Node B) in a long term evolution (LTE) system or an evolved LTE system (LTE-Advanced, LTE-A), or It may include the next generation node B (gNB) in the fifth generation mobile communication technology (5th generation, 5G) new radio (NR) system, or it may also include a transmission reception point (TRP) ), home base station (for example, home evolved NodeB, or home Node B, HNB), base band unit (BBU), or WiFi access point (access point, AP), etc., or may also include cloud access The embodiments of this application are not limited to the centralized unit (CU) and the distributed unit (DU) in the cloud radio access network (CloudRAN) system.

3) Synchronization signal/broadcast channel block SSB, SSB includes primary synchronization signal (primary synchronization signal, PSS), secondary synchronization signal (secondary synchronization signal, SSS) and physical broadcast channel (physical broadcast channel, PBCH). One SSB occupies 4 consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain and 240 consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain.

4) Downlink data channel, used to carry downlink data information. For example, it is a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), or an enhanced physical downlink shared channel (enhanced physical downlink control channel, EPDSCH), or a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink conrtol channel, PDCCH). Illustratively, in the following description of this application, the downlink data channel is explained by taking a channel used for transmitting control information and/or data, such as PDSCH or PDCCH, as an example.

5) The terms "system" and "network" in the embodiments of this application can be used interchangeably. "Multiple" means two or more. In view of this, "plurality" may also be understood as "at least two" in the embodiments of this application. "At least one" can be understood as one or more, for example, one, two or more. For example, including at least one means including one, two or more, and does not limit which ones are included. For example, if at least one of A, B and C is included, then it may include A, B, C, A and B, A and C, B and C, or A and B and C. In the same way, the understanding of descriptions such as "at least one" is similar. "And/or" describes the relationship between related objects, indicating that there can be three relationships. For example, A and/or B can mean: A exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. In addition, the character "/", unless otherwise specified, generally indicates that the related objects are in an "or" relationship.

Unless otherwise stated, the embodiments of this application mention ordinal numbers such as "first" and "second", which are used to distinguish multiple objects, but are not used to limit the order, timing, priority or importance of multiple objects. Moreover, the descriptions of “first” and “second” do not limit the objects to be different.

In a communication system, a terminal device can perform mobility RRM measurements. For terminal equipment in RRC idle state (RRC_IDLE) and RRC inactive state (RRC_INACTIVE), cell selection/reselection (cell selection/reselection) can be performed based on the measurement results of RRM measurement. For terminal equipment in the RRC connected state (RRC_CONNECTED), cell switching can be performed based on the measurement results of RRM measurement.

The terminal equipment needs to receive reference signals to perform RRM measurements. Currently, the available reference signals mainly include SSB signals and channel state information-reference signals (channel state information-reference signals, CSI-RS). Among them, the SSB signal is a cell-level signal, so it can be applied to terminal equipment in the RRC idle state, RRC inactive state, and RRC connected state. The CSI-RS signal can only be used by the terminal device in the RRC connected state. When the terminal device processes the RRC connected state, the network device can configure certain CSI-RS resources for the terminal device through RRC signaling for RRM measurement.

It can be seen that the terminal device in the RRC connected state can perform RRM measurement based on the SSB signal or the CSI-RS signal. Generally, the network device can configure which reference signal the terminal device uses to perform RRM measurement through RRC signaling. The communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application is suitable for terminal equipment in the RRC connection state. Therefore, the reference signal in the embodiment of the present application can be either an SSB signal or a CSI-RS signal. Next, the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application will be further described by taking the reference signal as an SSB signal as an example. It can be understood that the implementation when the reference signal is a CSI-RS signal should also be included in the embodiment of the present application.

The SSB signal is a broadcast signal sent periodically by network equipment. As shown in Figure 2, in the application scenario of multi-beam cells, network equipment periodically sends synchronization signal clusters (SS burst set). One SS burst set includes multiple SSB signals, and the multiple SSB signals correspond to multiple Beams and adjacent SSB signals may be continuous in the time domain, or may have a certain interval in the time domain. This embodiment of the present application does not impose many restrictions on this. For the application scenario of multi-beam cells, the SSB signal period refers to the period of SS burst set, which can generally be any value among 5ms, 10ms, 20ms, 40ms, 80ms and 160ms. As shown in Figure 2, an SS burst set is located in the first half or second half of a radio frame, and the length of a radio frame is 10ms. That is to say, the network device sends an SSburst within 5ms. set, an SS burst set includes multiple SSB signals, and these SSB signals can respectively correspond to beams in different transmission directions.

For RRM measurement based on SSB signals, the network device usually configures measurement resources for the terminal device to perform RRM measurement. As shown in Figure 3, the network device configures SSB measurement time configuration (SS/PBCH blockmeasurement time configuration, SMTC) information for the terminal device. The SMTC information includes the SMTC cycle, offset value, and measurement window time length configured by the network device for the terminal device. (SMTC window duration) etc.

Among them, the SMTC cycle is used to indicate the length of the time interval in which the terminal device can perform RRM measurement. Currently, the SMTC cycle can be any value among 5ms, 10ms, 20ms, 40ms, 80ms, and 160ms. The offset value in the SMTC information is used to indicate the offset value of the SMTC measurement window. The terminal device can determine the offset value according to the measurement window time length, The offset value and SMTC period determine the time period allocated by the network device that can be used to perform RRM measurement. This time period is the SMTC measurement window. The length of the SMTC measurement window can be 1ms, 2ms, 3ms, 4ms, and 5ms. any value in .

The resources of every 4 time domain symbols within the SMTC measurement window can constitute a measurement position, and a measurement position corresponds to an SSB signal sent by the network device within the SSB signal cycle. For example, there is a measurement position a in the SMTC measurement window, and the measurement position a corresponds to the SSB signal A sent by the network device. Then the terminal device can perform RRM measurement by receiving the SSB signal A at the measurement position a.

It can be understood that since adjacent SSB signals in an SS burst set can be continuous in the time domain or discontinuous in the time domain, two adjacent measurement positions within the SMTC measurement window can be continuous in the time domain or discontinuous in the time domain. There may be a certain interval. In order to facilitate distinction, in the embodiment of this application, SSB symbols are used to specifically refer to time domain symbols at measurement positions in the SMTC measurement window, and data symbols are used to specifically refer to time domain symbols that do not belong to measurement positions in the SMTC measurement window.

It should be noted that the subcarrier spacing (SCS) of data symbols and SSB symbols may be the same or different. When the subcarrier spacing of data symbols and SSB symbols is the same, the time length of one SSB symbol and one data symbol is the same. When the subcarrier spacing of data symbols and SSB symbols are not the same, the time length of one SSB symbol and one data symbol are different. same.

When SMTC information is configured, the terminal device can only perform RRM measurement in the SMTC measurement window within the SMTC cycle. That is to say, the terminal device can only perform RRM measurement at the measurement position within the SMTC measurement window. As shown in Figure 3, there is one SMTC measurement window in one SMTC cycle. For two adjacent SMTC measurement windows, the first time domain symbol of the previous SMTC measurement window is equal to the first time domain symbol of the next SMTC measurement window. The interval is the SMTC cycle.

In a possible implementation, the network device can also configure an SSB bitmap (SSB-ToMeasure) for the terminal device. The SSB bitmap can indicate the measurement position in the SMTC measurement window where the terminal device can perform RRM measurements. Taking Figure 4 as an example, in an SMTC measurement window, there are four reference signal transmission opportunities, which means that there are at most four measurement positions S1 to S4 in the SMTC measurement window. In a possible implementation, the network device can send SSB-ToMeasure to the terminal device to indicate which measurement locations the terminal device can perform RRM measurements on. Usually, SSB-ToMeasure can be represented in the form of a bitmap, which can also be called an SSB bitmap. Each bit in it corresponds to a measurement position existing in the SMTC measurement window, as shown in Figure 4 In the case shown, SSB-ToMeasure has four bits in total. These four bits respectively correspond to the four measurement positions existing in the SMTC measurement window and are used to indicate whether the terminal device can perform RRM measurement at the corresponding measurement position.

For example, if SSB-ToMeasure is 0101, the terminal device can perform RRM measurement at the measurement position S2 and the measurement position S4. It should be pointed out that even if the network device indicates to the terminal device that RRM measurement cannot be performed at a certain measurement position, it does not mean that the network device does not send the SSB signal corresponding to the measurement position. For example, although the first bit in "0101" is "0", the network device may still send the SSB signal corresponding to the measurement location S1.

It can be understood that if the network device does not configure the SSB bitmap for the terminal device, the terminal device can perform RRM measurement at all possible measurement positions in the SSB measurement window. That is to say, when the network device is configured with the SSB bitmap (SSB-ToMeasure), the measurement position indicated by the SSB bitmap is the measurement position assigned by the network device to the terminal device. If the network device is not configured with the SSB bitmap (SSB-ToMeasure) ), then all measurement positions within the SSB measurement window are the measurement positions assigned by the network device to the terminal device. For ease of description, unless otherwise specified, the following “measurement positions” in the embodiments of this application specifically refer to the measurement positions assigned by the network device to the terminal device. For other SMTC measurement windows that may exist but are not assigned by the network device, The network equipment can normally schedule the terminal equipment at these measurement locations. Therefore, the embodiments of this application do not need to consider them. These measurement locations that are not allocated to the terminal equipment will not affect the implementation of the embodiments of this application. accomplish.

It can be seen from the above SMTC information that network equipment often configures multiple measurement positions for terminal equipment within an SMTC measurement window. However, this configuration method will cause scheduling restrictions on the terminal equipment, which will cause a waste of channel resources. Specifically, the terminal equipment does not expect to send physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) PUCCH/physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH)/detection reference signal ( sounding reference signal (SRS), nor is it expected to receive PDCCH/PDSCH/tracking reference signal (TRS) and CSI-RS used for channel quality indicator (channel quality indicator, CQI) measurement.

It is worth noting that the terminal device decides whether to perform RRM measurement at the measurement location assigned to it by the network device when the measurement requirements (such as measurement accuracy, minimum number of measured reference signals) are met. In order to avoid interfering with the RRM measurement of the terminal equipment, the network equipment will stop scheduling the terminal equipment at all measurement positions allocated to the terminal equipment, thus causing a waste of channel resources.

The following is a further explanation of scenarios where scheduling restrictions may exist:

RRM measurement includes measurement of the serving cell that currently provides services to the terminal device, measurement of the same-frequency neighboring cells of the serving cell, and measurement of the inter-frequency neighboring cells of the serving cell. When measuring neighboring cells on the same frequency, scheduling restrictions often occur.

Specifically, the RRM measurement of co-frequency neighboring cells based on SSB signals can be defined as: the center frequency of the SSB signal of the target neighboring cell and the SSB signal of the serving cell are the same, and the subcarrier spacing of the two SSB signals is ( The same goes for subcarrier spacing (SCS). However, when the subcarrier spacing of the SSB signal and the PDSCH/PDCCH of the serving cell are different, or the terminal equipment works in frequency range 2, there will be scheduling restrictions as described below:

Scenario 1. For frequency range 1 (FR1), if the subcarrier intervals of the SSB signal and the PDSCH/PDCCH of the serving cell are the same, there is no scheduling restriction on the terminal equipment. If the subcarrier spacing of the SSB signal and the PDSCH/PDCCH of the serving cell are different, whether there are scheduling restrictions depends on the capabilities of the terminal equipment. Specifically, if the terminal device supports receiving data and SSB signals with different SCS at the same time (that is, the terminal device supports simultaneousRxDataSSB-DiffNumerology), there is no scheduling restriction. If the terminal device does not support receiving data and SSB signals with different SCS at the same time, the following scheduling restrictions will exist:

1a. If the co-frequency neighbor cell and the serving cell are synchronized cells that have completed time alignment, there are scheduling restrictions at all measurement positions within the SMTC measurement window. In addition, there are scheduling constraints on the time length of one data symbol before and after the measurement position, as a time redundancy for the measurement position.

1b. If the co-frequency neighbor cell and the serving cell are asynchronous cells with incomplete time alignment, the terminal equipment has scheduling restrictions on all time domain symbols within the SMTC measurement window.

If the terminal equipment is configured with carrier aggregation (CA) within the same frequency band (intra-band), all cells in the frequency band will have the scheduling restrictions in 1a and 1b.

Scenario 2. For frequency range 2 (FR2), since the terminal device can perform receiving beam scanning when performing RRM measurements, regardless of whether the terminal device supports receiving data and SSB signals with different SCS at the same time, the terminal device is measuring the same frequency. Neighboring cells will have the following scheduling restrictions:

2a. The terminal equipment has scheduling restrictions on all measurement positions within the SMTC measurement window, as well as one time domain data symbol before and after the measurement position adjacent to the measurement position.

In the FR2 frequency band, whether the terminal equipment is configured with carrier aggregation within the same frequency band or with carrier aggregation between different frequency bands, the terminal equipment will be subject to the scheduling restrictions in 2a in all cells.

Due to the existence of the above scheduling restrictions, the scheduling opportunities of network devices for terminal devices are reduced, which has a greater impact on the throughput and scheduling delay of terminal devices. The problem is more serious in the CA scenario. For example, for carrier aggregation in the same frequency band, all serving cells of the terminal device in the frequency band are subject to scheduling restrictions.

Next, take the impact of scheduling restrictions on discontinuous reception (connected-discontinuous reception, C-DRX) of terminal equipment in the connected state as an example for further explanation:

Terminal equipment in RRC connected state may be configured with C-DRX. As shown in Figure 5, the terminal equipment is configured with a DRX cycle. A DRX cycle includes DRX duration (DRX on duration) and DRX sleep period (opportunity for DRX). When the terminal device is in DRX on duration, it can send and receive data. However, when the terminal device is in opportunity for DRX, it does not monitor the PDCCH, thus reducing the power consumption of the terminal device.

Specifically, terminal equipment equipped with C-DRX mainly has the following two states: DRX active state (DRXactive time) and DRX inactive state (DRX non-active time). During the DRX duration, the terminal equipment is in the DRX active state and can continue to monitor the PDCCH. During the DRX sleep period, the terminal equipment is in the DRX inactive state and the terminal equipment no longer monitors the PDCCH.

Usually, multiple timers can be configured in the terminal device to control the status switching of the terminal device. When any of the following timers are running, the terminal device is in the DRX active state. These timers include: DRX duration timer (drx-OndurationTimer), DRX inactivity timer (drx-InactivityTimer), DRX downlink retransmission Timer (drx-RetransmissionTimer DL), DRX uplink retransmission timer (drx-RetransmissionTimer UL), random access contention resolution timer (ra-ContentionresolutionTimer).

Taking the DRX cycle shown in Figure 5 as an example, within the DRX on duration in the DRX cycle, the terminal device turns on the timer drx-OndurationTimer and enters the DRX activation state. If the terminal device receives a PDCCH indicating new downlink or uplink data transmission within the DRX on duration, the terminal device will start (or restart) the timer drx-InactivityTimer. While the timer drx-InactivityTimer is running, the terminal device is still in DRX. In the active state, the terminal device will continue to listen to the PDCCH until the timer drx-InactivityTimer times out, and the terminal device enters the DRX inactive state. If the terminal device does not receive the PDCCH to indicate new downlink or uplink data transmission within the DRX on duration, then after the drx-OndurationTimer times out, the terminal device enters the opportunity for DRX, that is, the terminal device enters the DRX inactive state.

Currently, the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) may introduce a new power saving signal in NR. To reduce the power consumption of terminal equipment. For example, the power saving signal may be sent before the start of the DRX cycle to indicate whether the next one or more DRX cycles need to enter the DRX active state to monitor the PDCCH.

Specifically, the power saving signal can be divided into a wake-up signal (WUS) and a sleep signal (go-to-sleep signal, GTS) according to different functions. If the power saving signal is a WUS signal, the terminal device can determine whether to wake up and enter the DRX activation state by detecting the signal. As shown in Figure 6, if the terminal device detects the WUS signal before the start of the DRX cycle, the terminal device turns on the drx-OndurationTimer in the next DRX cycle, thereby monitoring the PDCCH within the DRX on duration. If the terminal device does not detect the WUS signal before the start of the DRXcycle, the terminal device will not turn on the drx-OndurationTimer in the next DRX cycle. That is, the terminal device does not need to wake up in the next DRX cycle and will remain in the sleep state to save power consumption.

If the power saving signal is a GTS signal, then if the terminal device detects the GTS signal before the start of the DRX cycle, it will not turn on the drx-OndurationTimer in the next DRX cycle, thus maintaining the sleep state. If the GTS signal is not detected, the drx-OndurationTimer will be enabled by default in the next DRX cycle, thereby monitoring the PDCCH during DRX on duration.

In addition, the power saving signal can also be implemented through specific indication bits in DCI. For example, when the value of the specific indication bit is "1", it instructs the terminal device to wake up within the DRX on duration of the next DRX cycle. The value of the specific indication bit is When "0", instructs the terminal device to keep sleeping within the DRX on duration of the next DRX cycle.

In addition, during the DRX active time, the network device can also send a power saving signal to instruct the terminal device to skip PDCCH detection for a period of time, or stop drx-InactivityTimer and drx-OndurationTimer, or enter the DRX inactive state, etc.

Although there are many possibilities for specific implementation methods and functions of the power saving signal, the power saving signal generally needs to be sent through the PDCCH channel. When there are scheduling restrictions, if the resource sending the powersaving signal happens to be located at a measurement location where scheduling restrictions exist, the network device will delay sending the powersaving signal until the scheduling restrictions are lifted before sending the power saving signal to the terminal device. In turn, the terminal device cannot receive the power saving signal in time. In some cases, this will cause the terminal device in the DRX activated state to be unable to enter the DRX inactive state in time, which is not conducive to further reducing the power consumption of the terminal device.

In addition, scheduling restrictions will also extend the total time for network equipment to schedule terminal devices, prolonging the time that terminal devices are in DRXactive time, and increasing the power consumption of terminal devices. If the network device can also schedule the terminal device at the measurement location subject to scheduling restrictions, then the network device can complete data scheduling as soon as possible, so the network device can send MAC CE signaling or power saving signal signaling to the terminal device as early as possible to make the terminal device Enter sleep state to save power consumption.

In addition, in NR's research on terminal equipment power consumption (UE power saving), there is a tendency to relax RRM measurement to a certain extent to save the power consumption of terminal equipment performing RRM measurement, such as increasing the measurement period of RRM measurement, or reducing The number of SSB signals measured by RRM, etc. Therefore, the terminal device may not perform RRM measurements at more measurement locations, further reducing resource utilization.

To sum up, the scheduling restrictions between network equipment and terminal equipment reduce the utilization of channel resources and further cause problems such as increased power consumption of terminal equipment. In view of this, embodiments of the present application provide a communication method, in which the terminal device can predetermine the measurement location used to perform RRM measurement in the next period of time, and send instruction information to the network device to unblock the network. Scheduling restrictions on equipment at some or all measurement locations, thereby improving channel resource utilization.

Figure 7 exemplarily shows a schematic flow chart of the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 7, it mainly includes the following steps:

Step 701: The terminal device determines a restricted position based on multiple measurement positions within a first time period. Wherein, the restricted position includes a target measurement position used by the terminal device to perform RRM measurement within the first time period.

Taking Figure 4 as an example, assuming that the terminal device determines to perform RRM measurement at the measurement position S2, the measurement position S2 is the target measurement position. Specifically, the terminal device can determine the target measurement position in a variety of ways. For example, the terminal device can determine the target measurement position for performing RRM measurement based on historical measurement results, RRM measurement cycles, power consumption and other factors. For example, the terminal device can The target measurement position for performing RRM measurement may also be determined according to the preset RRM configuration, etc., which will not be described in detail in the embodiments of this application.

In this embodiment of the present application, the restricted location determined by the terminal device can be implemented in at least the following three specific ways:

Implementation method 1: Limit the position to the target measurement position. For example, if the target measurement position is the measurement position S2, then the limit position is the measurement position S2.

Implementation method 2: The restriction position is the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and the time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position. Among them, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position and the time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position can be used as the time redundancy of the target measurement position for the terminal device to switch between performing RRM measurements and sending and receiving other data. Processing capabilities, such as switching subcarrier spacing, or reducing interference from other scheduling processes that may exist on adjacent time domain symbols to the RRM measurement at the target measurement location.

It should be pointed out that the time domain symbols before or after any target measurement position (such as measurement position A) may be SSB symbols or data symbols. For example, the time domain symbols after measurement position A are four SSB symbols, and the four SSB symbols constitute measurement position B. Assuming that the time length of a data symbol is twice that of an SSB symbol, the first two SSB symbols in measurement location B will also have scheduling restrictions. That is to say, the restriction location determined by the terminal device also includes measurement location B. The first two SSB symbols.

In addition to the time length of one data symbol, in the restricted position, the period before and after the target measurement position can also be other time lengths, subject to the time redundancy that actually meets the capabilities of the terminal equipment, and this application does not limit this. In addition, the time length of the periods before and after the target measurement position in the restricted position may be different, and there may even be a period only before the target measurement position, or only a period behind the target measurement position.

Implementation method 3: Limit the position to the measurement window where the target measurement position is located. The embodiment of this application takes the SMTC measurement window as an example. Assume that there is a measurement position in an SMTC measurement window (such as SMTC measurement window a) as the target measurement position, and then the SMTC measurement window a is the limit position.

During the specific implementation process, the terminal device can flexibly choose a specific implementation method for determining the restricted location according to the network configuration.

It should be noted that the multiple measurement locations in the embodiment of this application refer to the measurement locations configured by the network device for the terminal device and that the terminal device can use within the first time period. Unless otherwise specified, the subsequent "multiple measurement positions" have this meaning and will not be described again.

Step 702: The terminal device sends instruction information to the network device.

In this embodiment of the present application, the indication information may indicate available measurement locations among multiple measurement locations to the network device, and the network device may use the available measurement locations to schedule the terminal device.

Step 703: The network device determines available measurement locations among multiple measurement locations based on the indication information.

In this embodiment of the present application, after the network device determines the available measurement locations among the multiple measurement locations, it no longer needs to reserve a certain amount of time redundancy for the available measurement locations because the scheduling restrictions on the available measurement locations are lifted. That is, the network device can also relieve scheduling constraints for a length of one data symbol before an available measurement location, and for a length of one data symbol after an available measurement location.

In a possible implementation, the network device can also determine whether to use available measurement locations, that is, whether to release scheduling restrictions on available measurement locations, and send a control instruction to the terminal device. For example, if the network device determines to release scheduling restrictions at available measurement locations, it may instruct the terminal device by sending L1 signaling/medium access control channel element (MAC CE)/RRC signaling. If the terminal device does not receive a control instruction sent by the network device within a period of time after sending the indication information, the terminal device considers that the scheduling restrictions still apply to the available measurement locations.

In another possible implementation, the indication information reported by the terminal device may also be used as the default. For example, after receiving the instruction information, the network device confirms that the scheduling restrictions have been lifted at the available measurement locations and returns a reception response to the terminal device. After receiving the reception response, the terminal device confirms that the network device has lifted the scheduling restrictions at the available measurement locations. .

At this point, when the network device schedules the terminal equipment, it can schedule the terminal equipment at the available measurement locations according to the requirements of the terminal service. Taking the above C-DRX as an example, if the timing of the network device sending the GTS signal falls at an available measurement location, the network device can send the GTS signal at the available measurement location. It can be seen that using the communication method shown in Figure 7 can not only avoid (or minimize) interference with the RRM measurement of the terminal equipment, but also help improve channel resource utilization.

Next, taking Embodiments 1 to 5 as examples, the communication method provided by the embodiments of the present application will be further described:

Embodiment 1

In this embodiment of the present application, there may be multiple implementation methods for triggering the terminal device to perform the above steps 701 and 702. For example, there are at least the following two implementation methods:

Method 1: The network device sends a reporting instruction to the terminal device to instruct the terminal device to report the instruction information.

Specifically, the reporting instruction may be an existing instruction that network equipment often sends before starting downlink data transmission. For example, taking the C-DRX scenario as an example, the reporting instruction may be to instruct the terminal device to send data within the next DRXcycle. The wake-up power saving signal can also be the first PDCCH message to schedule new uplink/downlink transmission within DRX On Duration.

Take the first PDCCH message that schedules new uplink/downlink transmission within DRX On Duration as an example. After the terminal device receives this message, it often means that the network device has started sending downlink messages to the terminal device or scheduled the terminal device to send Upward news. In this case, the terminal device reports indication information to the network, so that the network device can determine the available measurement locations based on the reported indication information, and release scheduling restrictions at the available measurement locations, which is beneficial to improving the transmission rate of subsequent downlink or uplink messages.

It can be understood that the reporting instruction can also be a newly added instruction that can instruct the terminal device to report the indication information. The network device may send the indication information before sending the PDCCH indicating scheduling new uplink/downlink transmission to the terminal device, so that the terminal device reports the indication information. Furthermore, available measurement locations can be determined based on the reported indication information, and downlink or uplink messages can be sent at the available measurement locations.

In the embodiment of the present application, the reporting instruction can either implicitly trigger the terminal device to report the indication information, or explicitly trigger the terminal device to report the indication information. Specifically, in the implementation of implicit triggering, the terminal device triggers execution of steps 701 and 702 after receiving a specific downlink message (reporting instruction) by default. For example, by default, the terminal device triggers execution of steps 701 and 702 after receiving a wake up signal indicating wake-up or the first scheduled new PDCCH message. In the implementation of explicit triggering, the reporting instruction carries instruction information, and the instruction information can indicate whether the terminal device reports the instruction information. For example, the reporting instruction is a wake up signal or the first DCI message that schedules a newly transmitted PDCCH, and a certain bit field (for example, 1 bit) in the reporting instruction indicates whether the terminal device reports indication information.

Method 2: The terminal device actively reports indication information.

Specifically, the network device can configure a reporting cycle for the terminal device semi-statically, so that the terminal device can actively and periodically report the indication information according to the reporting cycle. For example, the existing protocol can configure the terminal device to periodically report RRM measurement results during RRM measurement configuration, that is, configured in the reporting configuration (ReportConfigNR), where the reporting interval (reportInterval) represents the reporting period. In view of this, according to the existing protocol, the terminal device can report the indication information while periodically reporting the RRM measurement results to indicate the available measurement locations of the network device in the next reporting period. In this case, the next reporting period can be the above-mentioned first time period.

In addition, the terminal device can also report indication information when it is determined that a specific behavior is performed. For example, when the terminal device starts drx-InactivityTimer, it triggers reporting of indication information. In C-DRX, the terminal device usually starts drx-InactivityTimer after receiving the first scheduled new PDCCH message. Therefore, when the terminal device starts drx-InactivityTimer, it often means that the network device will continue to send messages to the terminal device. Downlink messages or terminal devices send uplink messages to network devices. In this case, the terminal device reports indication information to the network, so that the network device can determine the available measurement locations based on the reported information, and release scheduling restrictions at the available measurement locations, which is beneficial to improving the transmission rate of subsequent downlink messages.

Embodiment 2

When the terminal device reports indication information, it needs to occupy certain uplink resources. In this embodiment of the present application, the network device can either semi-statically configure the uplink resources for sending the indication information for the terminal device, or dynamically configure the uplink resources for the terminal device for sending the indication information. Specifically, there are at least the following four possible implementations:

Method 1: When the terminal device actively reports indication information, the terminal device can actively request uplink resources from the network device.

Specifically, after determining that the indication information needs to be reported, the terminal device may first send a request message to the network device to request the network device to allocate uplink resources for the indication information. After receiving the request message, the network device allocates uplink resources for the indication information and returns a response message to the terminal device. The terminal device determines the uplink resources allocated by the network device for the indication information according to the response message, and sends the indication information on the uplink resources.

Taking C-DRX as an example, the terminal device can request the network device to allocate uplink resources for sending indication information by sending a scheduling request (SR) within the DRX on duration or the DRX active time.

Method 2: The network device allocates associated uplink resources for the reporting instructions and sends configuration information to the terminal device. The configuration information can be used to configure the association between the reporting instructions and the uplink resources.

For example, the network device can semi-statically configure the uplink resources associated with the reporting instructions. The uplink resources can be PUCCH resources or PUSCH resources. The configuration information sent by the network device to the terminal device includes time/frequency domain configuration parameters of the uplink resources (for example, Frequency domain starting position, frequency domain bandwidth, time domain time slot number, symbol position in the time slot, etc.), and the time offset (offset) from the reported command. After receiving the reporting instruction, the terminal device can determine the uplink resource associated with the indication information based on the configuration information, and then can send the indication information on the uplink resource associated with the indication information.

In addition, the reporting instruction may also include an indication parameter, which may be used to indicate whether the terminal device sends information on the uplink resource associated with the indication information, so that the terminal device can be more flexibly scheduled to report the indication information.

Method 3 is similar to Method 2, except that the above time offset can be carried in the reporting command.

Method 4: The reporting instruction directly indicates the uplink resource used to send the indication information, and the terminal device can send the indication information on the uplink resource indicated by the reporting instruction.

Embodiment 3

In this embodiment of the present application, the network device may determine available measurement locations among multiple measurement locations within the first time period based on the indication information. In a possible implementation, the indication information may indicate the first time period. Specifically, the terminal device may report the indication information of the first time period, for example, it may report a length of time, and the network device may use the time when the indication information of the terminal device is received as the starting time of the first time period, and then determine the first time period. period. Alternatively, the indication information may explicitly indicate the starting moment of the first time period. In another possible implementation, if the terminal device is configured with periodic reporting, the network device may default to the indication information indicating the available measurement locations in the next reporting period (ie, the first time period).

In the embodiment of this application, the indication information can be implemented in a variety of ways. For example, the indication information can be implemented in at least the following ways:

Method 1: When there is at least one restricted position among multiple measurement locations, the indication information is used to indicate at least one restricted location, or to indicate the above-mentioned available measurement location.

As mentioned above, the limit position can be either the target measurement position (and the time length of one data symbol before and after the target measurement position), or the measurement window where the target measurement position is located, which will be described below on a case-by-case basis.

When the constraint position is the target measurement position:

In a possible implementation manner, when the network device configures multiple measurement locations for the terminal device, it can also allocate corresponding identification information (SSB index) to the multiple measurement locations. If the indication information reported by the terminal device to the network device includes identification information corresponding to the target measurement location, the network device can determine the target measurement location among multiple measurement locations based on the identification information corresponding to the target measurement location, and then determine multiple measurement locations. The measurement positions other than the target measurement position among the measurement positions are the available measurement positions. If the indication information reported by the terminal device to the network device includes identification information of available measurement locations, the network device can directly determine the available measurement locations from multiple measurement locations based on the identification information of the available measurement locations.

In another possible implementation, the terminal device can also report indication information in the form of an indication bitmap (SSB-ActuallyToMeasure) based on the SSB-ToMeasure configured on the network device. The indication bitmap can have the same information as SSB-ToMeasure. number of digits. Taking Figure 4 as an example, the SSB-ToMeasure configured by the network device for the terminal device is 0101, indicating that the terminal device is configured with 2 measurement locations: S2 and S4. Assuming that the terminal device determines that the measurement position S4 is the target measurement position and the measurement position S2 is an available measurement position, the terminal device can report the indication bitmap: 0001 to the network device. After receiving the indication bitmap, the network device can determine the measurement position S2 as the available measurement position and the measurement position S4 as the restricted position according to the indication bitmap.

When the limiting position is the measurement window where the target measurement position is located:

In a possible implementation, the indication information reported by the terminal device may include identification information of at least one measurement window where the target measurement location is located, or the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window where the available measurement location is located. If the indication information includes the identification information of at least one measurement window in which the target measurement position is located, the network device can release the scheduling restriction in the measurement window in which RRM measurement is not performed within the first time period, and the measurement in the measurement window in which RRM measurement is not performed is performed. The location is the available measurement location. If the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window in which the available measurement location is located, the network device can determine the corresponding at least one measurement window based on the identification information of the at least one measurement window, and then determine the measurement location in the at least one measurement window. for available measurement locations.

For example, the terminal device instructs the network device that the Nth SMTC measurement window after successfully receiving the instruction information is the measurement window where the target measurement position is located, that is, the terminal device needs to perform RRM measurement in the Nth SMTC measurement window, and at the first time The terminal equipment does not perform RRM measurements within other SMTC measurement windows of the segment.

In addition, it can be understood that if the network device determines a measurement window as a restricted position based on the instruction information sent by the terminal device, the scheduling restrictions within the measurement window are determined based on whether the serving cell and the same-frequency neighboring cell are synchronized, that is, if the same-frequency If the neighboring cell and the serving cell are synchronized, the scheduling restrictions within the measurement window include the measurement position configured by the network equipment for the terminal device and the time length of one data symbol before and after the measurement position. If the same-frequency neighboring cell and the serving cell are asynchronous , then the scheduling restrictions within the measurement window include all time domain symbols within the measurement window. If the network device determines that a measurement window is an unrestricted position based on the instruction information sent by the terminal device, that is, the measurement positions within the measurement window are all If the measurement position (non-target measurement position) is available, all time domain symbols in the measurement window will be released from scheduling restrictions, that is, the network device can schedule the terminal device on any time domain symbol in the measurement window.

In this embodiment of the present application, the identification information of at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located may also be a bitmap. Specifically, the bitmap includes M bits, from the first to the last bit of the bitmap, corresponding to the first measurement window to the last measurement window in the first time period, and each bit in the bitmap is One bit is used to indicate whether the corresponding measurement window is a restricted position. For example, there are a total of 5 measurement windows in the first time period, and the first and third measurement windows are limit positions, then the bitmap can be 10100, where 1 represents the measurement window where the target measurement position is located (i.e. Limit position), 0 indicates the measurement window where the available measurement position is located.

Method 2: When there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement locations, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is excluding at least one restricted position within the first time period. all or part of the time period.

Taking Figure 3 as an example, assuming that the first time period includes 4 SMTC cycles, if the terminal device determines that the first SMTC measurement window is the restricted position, the second time period includes the first time domain after the first SMTC measurement window. symbol, the last time domain symbol of the first time period and other time domain symbols between the two time domain symbols. After receiving the indication information, the network device can determine that the measurement location in the at least one second time period is an available measurement location, so that the terminal device can be scheduled in the at least one second time period.

In the case where there is only one second time period, the indication information may include a time length, and the network device may use the time when the indication information is received as the starting time of the second time period, and determine the second time period based on the time length. , or the indication information can also directly indicate the starting moment of the second time period.

In the case where there are multiple second time periods, the indication information may include the length of each second time period and the starting time point of each second time period. The network device may determine the length of each second time period based on the length of each second time period. , and the starting time points of each second time period respectively determine multiple second time periods.

It can be understood that the terminal device may not perform RRM measurement within the first time period, that is, there is no target measurement position. In this case, the indication information sent by the terminal device may also indicate the first time period. After receiving the indication information, the network device can determine that all measurement locations allocated to the terminal device within the first time period are available measurement locations.

Embodiment 4

Next, a specific embodiment is used to further describe the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 8, the small square in the figure represents an SMTC measurement window, and the SMTC period is 20ms.

As shown in Figure 8, the measurement period for the terminal device to perform RRM measurement is 200 ms, that is, the terminal device needs to obtain at least one RRM measurement result after layer 3 filtering (layer 3 filtering) every 200 ms. The terminal device decides to increase the measurement period from 200ms to 800ms through other powersaving technologies. For example, the terminal device determines that the signal quality (for example, reference signal received power (RSRP)) is higher than a certain threshold, or the terminal device determines that its mobility is low, or the terminal device determines that it is far away from the edge of the cell, etc. , in these cases the RRM measurement results are relatively stable, the terminal equipment may increase the measurement period to reduce the number of RRM measurements.

Since the terminal device may adjust the measurement period of the RRM measurement by itself, the network device cannot determine in which SMTC measurement window the terminal device performed the RRM measurement. Therefore, there are scheduling restrictions at all measurement locations.

In the fourth embodiment, the reporting command is a WUS signal, and the network device semi-statically configures associated uplink resources for the WUS signal through configuration information in advance. The configuration information includes time/frequency domain configuration parameters of the uplink resources, such as frequency domain starting position, frequency domain bandwidth, time domain time slot number, symbol position in the time slot, etc.

Before receiving the WUS signal, the terminal device remains in sleep state. After receiving the WUS signal, the terminal device wakes up in the next DRX cycle according to the WUS signal. The WUS signal also indicates a time offset (offset), and the terminal device can determine the uplink resource used to send the indication information based on the configuration information and time offset. The terminal device reports indication information on the uplink resource associated with the WUS signal. The indication information may include: a time length, which is the time length of the above-mentioned second time period. In Figure 8, the time length of the second time period T is 130ms. . By default, the network device successfully receives the indication information as the starting time of the second time period T, so that the second time period T can be determined based on the time length.

As shown in Figure 8, the terminal device does not perform RRM measurements on the serving cell and the same-frequency neighbor cell during the second time period T. Therefore, the network device can release the scheduling restriction on the measurement location within the second time period T, that is, determine the measurement location within the second time period T as an available measurement location, so that the terminal device can be scheduled within the second time period T.

Embodiment 5

Next, another specific embodiment is used to further describe the communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 9, there are multiple SMTC measurement windows in the first time period, and the SSB-ToMeasure sent by the network device to the terminal device is 1111, that is, the network device allocates SSB1 to SSB4 to the terminal device to perform RRM measurement. However, the terminal device may only choose to perform RRM measurement at the two target measurement locations of SSB1 and SSB2 based on historical measurement results and other information. In this case, the terminal device can report indication information (such as 1100) to instruct the network device to schedule the terminal device on SSB3 and SSB4 of each SMTC measurement window in the next first time period.

It can be understood that there are multiple possibilities for implementing the indication information in the embodiments of the present application, and different implementation methods can be combined with each other. For example, the indication information may indicate both the second time period and the restricted location. Taking Embodiment 4 and Embodiment 5 as an example, the network device can determine the second time period in which the terminal device can be scheduled according to the instruction information. At the same time, for the time periods in the first time period except the second time period, these time periods The SMTC measurement window in can be considered as the SMTC measurement window used to perform RRM measurements. For the SMTC measurement window used to perform RRM measurement, the restriction positions can be determined according to the bitmap "1100" to be SSB1 and SSB2 in the SMTC measurement window used to perform RRM measurement, thereby further narrowing the range of the restriction positions and increasing scheduling. Opportunities for terminal equipment.

The above mainly introduces the solution provided by this application from the perspective of interaction between network equipment and terminal equipment. It can be understood that, in order to implement the above functions, the network device or the terminal device may include corresponding hardware structures and/or software modules that perform each function. Persons skilled in the art should easily realize that, with the units and algorithm steps of each example described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein, the present invention can be implemented in the form of hardware or a combination of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is performed by hardware or computer software driving the hardware depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality using different methods for each specific application, but such implementations should not be considered to be beyond the scope of the present invention.

In the case of using an integrated unit, FIG. 10 shows a possible exemplary block diagram of the device involved in the embodiment of the present application, and the device 1000 may exist in the form of software. The device 1000 may include: a processing unit 1002 and a communication unit 1003. The processing unit 1002 is used to control and manage the actions of the device 1000 . The communication unit 1003 is used to support communication between the device 1000 and other network entities. The device 1000 may also include a storage unit 1001 for storing program codes and data of the device 1000 .

The processing unit 1002 may be a processor or a controller, such as a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU), a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processing (DSP), or application specific integrated circuits. , ASIC), field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic devices, transistor logic devices, hardware components or any combination thereof. It may implement or execute the various illustrative logical blocks, modules and circuits described in connection with this disclosure. The processor may also be a combination that implements computing functions, such as a combination of one or more microprocessors, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, and so on. The communication unit 1003 may be a communication interface, a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, etc., where the communication interface is a general term. In specific implementation, the communication interface may include multiple interfaces. The storage unit 1001 may be a memory.

The device 1000 may be the terminal equipment in any of the above embodiments, or may also be a semiconductor chip provided in the terminal equipment. The processing unit 1002 can support the device 1000 to perform the actions of the terminal device in each of the above method examples, and the communication unit 1003 can support communication between the device 1000 and the network device.

Specifically, in one embodiment, the processing unit 1002 is configured to determine a restricted position based on a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period, where the restriction position includes the device in the plurality of measurement positions. At the target measurement position where RRM measurement is performed;

The communication unit 1003 is configured to send indication information to a network device, where the indication information is used to indicate that among the plurality of measurement locations, measurement locations other than the restricted location are capable of being used for scheduling by the network device. Available measurement locations for the device described above.

Exemplarily, the limit position may be the target measurement position; or, the limit position may be the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and the time length after the target measurement position. The time length of one data symbol; alternatively, the limit position may also be a measurement window in which the target measurement position is located.

In a possible implementation, if there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement locations, the indication information may be used to indicate the at least one restricted location, or to indicate the available measurement location. .

In a possible implementation, the at least one limiting position is at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located. In this case, the indication information may include at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located. identification information, or the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window in which the available measurement location is located.

In a possible implementation, the indication information may also be used to indicate the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is the All or part of the time period except the at least one restricted position within the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when the target measurement position does not exist among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate the first time period.

In addition, the device 1000 may be the network device in any of the above embodiments, or may also be a semiconductor chip provided in the network device. The processing unit 1002 can support the device 1000 to perform the actions of the network device in each of the above method examples, and the communication unit 1003 can support communication between the device 1000 and the terminal device.

Specifically, in one embodiment, the communication unit 1003 is configured to receive indication information sent by the terminal device;

The processing unit 1002 is configured to determine, according to the indication information, an available measurement position among a plurality of measurement positions allocated to the terminal device within a first time period, and the restricted position is included in the plurality of measurement positions, The target measurement position used by the terminal device to perform RRM measurement, and the available measurement position is a measurement position that can be used to schedule the terminal device.

Exemplarily, the limit position may be the target measurement position; or, the limit position may be the target measurement position, the time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and the time length after the target measurement position. The time length of one data symbol; alternatively, the limit position may also be a measurement window in which the target measurement position is located.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restriction position among the plurality of measurement locations, the indication information is used to indicate the at least one restriction position; in this case, the processing unit 1002 Specifically used to: determine, according to the indication information, the measurement positions among the plurality of measurement positions except the at least one restricted position as the available measurement positions;

Alternatively, the indication information is used to indicate the available measurement location; in this case, the processing unit 1002 is specifically configured to determine that the measurement location indicated by the indication information is the available measurement location.

In a possible implementation, the at least one limiting position is at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located, and the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window where the target measurement position is located; here In this case, the processing unit 1002 is specifically configured to: determine at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window according to the identification information of the at least one measurement window; determine among the plurality of measurement positions, Measurement positions other than measurement positions included in the at least one measurement window are the available measurement positions;

Alternatively, the indication information includes identification information of at least one measurement window in which the available measurement location is located; in this case, the processing unit 1002 may determine the at least one measurement window based on the identification information of the at least one measurement window. The measurement positions included in at least one measurement window respectively corresponding to the identification information of the windows are the available measurement positions.

In a possible implementation, the indication information is also used to indicate the first time period.

In a possible implementation, when there is at least one restricted position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, and the at least one second time period is the All or part of the time period in the first time period except the at least one restricted position; in this case, the processing unit 1002 can determine the measurement position in the at least one second time period according to the instruction information. for the available measurement locations.

In a possible implementation, when the target measurement position does not exist among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate the first time period; in this case, the processing The unit 1002 may determine, according to the indication information, a plurality of measurement locations within the first time period as the available measurement locations.

Refer to FIG. 11 , which is a schematic diagram of a device provided in this application. The device may be a terminal device or a network device in the above embodiment. The device 1100 includes: a processor 1101, a transceiver 1103, and a memory 1102. Optionally, the device 1100 may also include a bus 1104. Among them, the transceiver 1103, the processor 1101 and the memory 1102 can be connected to each other through the bus 1104; the bus 1104 can be a peripheral component interconnect standard (peripheral component interconnect, PCI for short) bus or an extended industry standard architecture (extended industry standard architecture, EISA for short) bus etc. The bus 1104 can be divided into an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, etc. For ease of presentation, only one thick line is used in Figure 11, but it does not mean that there is only one bus or one type of bus.

The processor 1101 may be a CPU, a microprocessor, an ASIC, or one or more integrated circuits used to control the execution of the program of the present application.

The transceiver 1103 uses any transceiver-like device for communicating with other devices or communication networks, such as Ethernet, RAN, wireless local area networks (WLAN), wired access networks, etc.

The memory 1102 may be a read-only memory (ROM) or other type of static storage device that can store static information and instructions, a random access memory (random access memory (RAM)) or other type that can store information and instructions. The dynamic storage device can also be electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) or other optical disk storage, Optical disc storage (including compressed optical discs, laser discs, optical discs, digital versatile discs, Blu-ray discs, etc.), magnetic disk storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and can Any other media accessed by a computer, without limitation. The memory may exist independently and be connected to the processor through a communication line 1104 . Memory can also be integrated with the processor.

Among them, the memory 1102 is used to store computer execution instructions for executing the solution of the present application, and is controlled by the processor 1101 for execution. The processor 1101 is configured to execute computer execution instructions stored in the memory 1102, thereby implementing the communication method provided by the above embodiments of the present application.

Optionally, the computer-executed instructions in the embodiments of the present application may also be called application codes, which are not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application.

Those skilled in the art will understand that embodiments of the present application may be provided as methods, systems, or computer program products. Accordingly, the present application may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment, or an embodiment that combines software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present application may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, etc.) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The present application is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to the present application. It will be understood that each process and/or block in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of processes and/or blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing device to produce a machine, such that the instructions executed by the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing device produce a use A device for realizing the functions specified in one process or multiple processes of the flowchart and/or one block or multiple blocks of the block diagram.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that causes a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to operate in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including the instruction means, the instructions The device implements the functions specified in a process or processes of the flowchart and/or a block or blocks of the block diagram.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing device, causing a series of operating steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable device to produce computer-implemented processing, thereby executing on the computer or other programmable device. Instructions provide steps for implementing the functions specified in a process or processes of a flowchart diagram and/or a block or blocks of a block diagram.

Claims (31)

1. A method of communication, comprising:

the terminal equipment determines a limiting position according to a plurality of measuring positions in a first time period, wherein the limiting position comprises a target measuring position for the terminal equipment to execute RRM measurement in the plurality of measuring positions;

the terminal device sends indication information to the network device, wherein the indication information is used for indicating that the measurement positions except the limiting position are available measurement positions which can be used for the network device to schedule the terminal device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the limit location is the target measurement location; alternatively, the limit position is the target measurement position, a time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and a time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position; or the limiting position is a measurement window where the target measurement position is located.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein in case there is at least one limit position of the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate the at least one limit position or to indicate the available measurement positions.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the at least one limiting position is at least one measurement window in which the target measurement position is located, the indication information comprises identification information of the at least one measurement window in which the target measurement position is located, or the indication information comprises identification information of the at least one measurement window in which the available measurement position is located.

5. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein the indication information is further used to indicate the first time period.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein in case there is at least one limit position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, which is all or part of the time period within the first time period except the at least one limit position.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication information is used to indicate the first time period in the absence of the target measurement location from the plurality of measurement locations.

8. A method of communication, comprising:

the network equipment receives the indication information sent by the terminal equipment;

the network device determines available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein a limiting position comprises a target measurement position for performing RRM measurement in the plurality of measurement positions, and the available measurement positions are measurement positions which can be used for scheduling the terminal device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the limit location is the target measurement location; alternatively, the limit position is the target measurement position, a time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and a time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position; or the limiting position is a measurement window where the target measurement position is located.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein in the event that at least one limit position exists among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate the at least one limit position;

the network device determining available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein the available measurement positions comprise:

the network equipment determines that the measurement positions except the at least one limiting position in the plurality of measurement positions are available measurement positions according to the indication information;

or, the indication information is used for indicating the available measurement position;

the network device determining available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein the available measurement positions comprise:

the network device determines the measurement position indicated by the indication information as the available measurement position.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one limiting location is at least one measurement window in which the target measurement location is located, and the indication information includes identification information of the at least one measurement window in which the target measurement location is located;

The network device determining available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein the available measurement positions comprise:

the network equipment determines at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window according to the identification information of the at least one measurement window;

the network device determining a measurement location other than the measurement location included in the at least one measurement window among the plurality of measurement locations as the available measurement location;

or the indication information comprises identification information of at least one measurement window where the available measurement position is located;

the network device determining available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein the available measurement positions comprise:

and the network equipment determines the measurement positions included in at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window as the available measurement positions according to the identification information of the at least one measurement window.

12. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 11, wherein the indication information is further used to indicate the first time period.

13. The method according to claim 8, wherein in case there is at least one limit position among the plurality of measurement positions, the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, which is all or part of the time period within the first time period except the at least one limit position;

the network device determining available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein the available measurement positions comprise:

the network device determines a measurement location in the at least one second time period as the available measurement location.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the indication information is used to indicate the first time period in the absence of the target measurement location from the plurality of measurement locations;

the network device determining available measurement positions in a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period allocated to the terminal device according to the indication information, wherein the available measurement positions comprise:

the network device determines a plurality of measurement locations within the first time period as the available measurement locations.

15. A communication device, comprising: a communication unit and a processing unit;

the processing unit is configured to determine a limiting position according to a plurality of measurement positions within a first time period, where the limiting position includes a target measurement position of the plurality of measurement positions, where the apparatus is configured to perform RRM measurements;

the communication unit is configured to send indication information to a network device, where the indication information is configured to indicate that a measurement location other than the restriction location is an available measurement location that can be used by the network device to schedule the apparatus, among the plurality of measurement locations.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the limit position is the target measurement position; alternatively, the limit position is the target measurement position, a time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and a time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position; or the limiting position is a measurement window where the target measurement position is located.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the indication information is used to indicate at least one of the limit locations or to indicate the available measurement locations if there is at least one limit location in the plurality of measurement locations.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the at least one restricted location is at least one measurement window in which the target measurement location is located, the indication information comprises identification information of the at least one measurement window in which the target measurement location is located, or the indication information comprises identification information of the at least one measurement window in which the available measurement location is located.

19. The apparatus of any one of claims 16 to 18, wherein the indication information is further for indicating the first time period.

20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, in the event that at least one limit position exists among the plurality of measurement positions, the at least one second time period being all or part of the time period within the first time period other than the at least one limit position.

21. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the indication information is used to indicate the first time period in the absence of the target measurement location from the plurality of measurement locations.

22. A communication device, comprising: a communication unit and a processing unit;

The communication unit is used for receiving the indication information sent by the terminal equipment;

the processing unit is configured to determine, according to the indication information, an available measurement location from a plurality of measurement locations within a first period allocated to the terminal device, where a restriction location includes a target measurement location for the terminal device to perform RRM measurement, where the available measurement location is a measurement location that can be used for scheduling the terminal device.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the limit position is the target measurement position; alternatively, the limit position is the target measurement position, a time length of one data symbol before the target measurement position, and a time length of one data symbol after the target measurement position; or the limiting position is a measurement window where the target measurement position is located.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the indication information is for indicating at least one limit position in the case where the at least one limit position exists among the plurality of measurement positions; the processing unit is specifically configured to: determining a measurement position other than the at least one limiting position among the plurality of measurement positions as the available measurement position according to the indication information;

Or, the indication information is used for indicating the available measurement position; the processing unit is specifically configured to: and determining the measurement position indicated by the indication information as the available measurement position.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the at least one limiting location is at least one measurement window in which the target measurement location is located, and the indication information includes identification information of the at least one measurement window in which the target measurement location is located; the processing unit is specifically configured to: determining at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window according to the identification information of the at least one measurement window; determining a measurement position other than the measurement position included in the at least one measurement window among the plurality of measurement positions as the available measurement position;

or the indication information comprises identification information of at least one measurement window where the available measurement position is located; the processing unit is specifically configured to: and determining the measurement positions included in at least one measurement window corresponding to the identification information of the at least one measurement window as the available measurement positions according to the identification information of the at least one measurement window.

26. The apparatus of any one of claims 23 to 25, wherein the indication information is further for indicating the first time period.

27. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the indication information is used to indicate at least one second time period, in the case where there is at least one limit position among the plurality of measurement positions, the at least one second time period being all or part of the time period within the first time period other than the at least one limit position;

the processing unit is specifically configured to: determining a measurement location in the at least one second time period as the available measurement location.

28. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the indication information is used to indicate the first time period in the absence of the target measurement location from the plurality of measurement locations;

the processing unit is specifically configured to: determining a plurality of measurement locations within the first time period as the available measurement locations.

29. A communication device comprising a processor, a memory, and instructions stored on the memory and executable on the processor, which when executed, cause the device to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 7.

30. A communications apparatus comprising a processor, a memory, and instructions stored on the memory and executable on the processor, which when executed, cause the apparatus to perform the method of any one of claims 8 to 14.

31. A computer readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 14.