CN112398519A

CN112398519A - Electronic device, method, and storage medium for wireless communication system

Info

Publication number: CN112398519A
Application number: CN201910751265.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 曹建飞; 崔焘
Original assignee: Sony Corp
Current assignee: Sony Corp
Priority date: 2019-08-15
Filing date: 2019-08-15
Publication date: 2021-02-23
Also published as: CN114208379A; WO2021027802A1

Abstract

The present invention relates to an electronic device, a method, and a storage medium for a wireless communication system. The present disclosure provides an electronic device for a wireless communication system, comprising: a processing circuit configured to: communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams; selecting a beam passing the initial CCA to transmit under the condition that the initial CCA passes; and performing a further CCA for one or more of the plurality of beams in the event the initial CCA fails.

Description

Electronic device, method, and storage medium for wireless communication system

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates generally to wireless communication systems, and in particular to a directional carrier sensing mechanism for unlicensed bands in wireless communication systems.

Background

In a wireless communication system, unlicensed frequency bands may be used for transmission. Different types of systems (such as NR systems, WiFi systems, etc.) may use unlicensed frequency bands for data transmission. Considering that different types of systems should have fair use right for the spectrum, in order to avoid unnecessary interference, the transmitting end of any system needs to perform carrier sense operation before using the unlicensed spectrum to determine whether the spectrum is being occupied at the current time.

However, in the conventional carrier sensing mechanism, only FR1 (low band) carrier sensing is involved, in which only a receiving beam with a wide spatial coverage (e.g., an omni-directional beam) is used for carrier sensing operation, so that even if a strong received signal energy is received, the transmitting end cannot determine from which direction the energy comes. However, in an unlicensed frequency band (for example, a millimeter wave frequency band), due to strong path loss, a directional beam formed by beam forming is generally used for transmission, wherein the beam forming technology concentrates the power of a transmission signal in some specific spatial directions, so that a better signal coverage effect can be achieved to resist the path loss. In view of this, if the carrier sensing operation is performed using a reception beam with a wide spatial coverage (for example, an omni-directional beam) in the unlicensed band, as in the carrier sensing of the low band, it may result in a possibility that the opportunity of communicating using a specific beam in some directions may be wasted.

Therefore, there is a need for a directional carrier sensing mechanism for unlicensed bands in a wireless communication system, so as to be able to sense whether a channel is free for a direction of a beam and thus to be able to effectively utilize the beam in a specific direction for communication.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the present disclosure proposes a directional clear channel estimation scheme to perform clear channel estimation in a directional beam direction with respect to the beam direction, thereby facilitating communication using a beam in a specific direction.

The present disclosure provides an electronic device, a method, and a storage medium for a wireless communication system.

One aspect of the present disclosure relates to an electronic device for a wireless communication system, comprising: a processing circuit configured to: communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams; selecting a beam passing the initial CCA to transmit under the condition that the initial CCA passes; and performing a further CCA for one or more of the plurality of beams in the event the initial CCA fails.

Another aspect of the disclosure relates to a method for a wireless communication system, comprising: a processing circuit configured to: communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams; selecting a beam passing the initial CCA to transmit under the condition that the initial CCA passes; and performing a further CCA for one or more of the plurality of beams in the event the initial CCA fails.

Another aspect of the disclosure relates to an electronic device for a wireless communication system, comprising: communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: and performing CCA on the directions of the plurality of beams in sequence, and when CCAs of a preset threshold number of beams pass, not performing CCA on the rest beams in the plurality of beams.

Another aspect of the disclosure relates to a method for a wireless communication system, comprising: communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: and performing CCA on the directions of the plurality of beams in sequence, and when CCAs of a preset threshold number of beams pass, not performing CCA on the rest beams in the plurality of beams.

Another aspect of the disclosure relates to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed, implement any of the methods described above.

Another aspect of the disclosure relates to an apparatus comprising: a processor and a storage device storing executable instructions that, when executed, implement any of the methods described above.

Drawings

A better understanding of the present disclosure may be obtained when the following detailed description of the embodiments is considered in conjunction with the following drawings. The same or similar reference numbers are used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the present disclosure and together with the detailed description, serve to explain the principles and advantages of the disclosure. Wherein:

fig. 1 schematically illustrates a type 2 "listen before talk" carrier sensing mechanism;

fig. 2 schematically illustrates a type 4 "listen before talk" carrier sensing mechanism;

fig. 3 schematically illustrates a communication system according to the present disclosure;

fig. 4 schematically shows a conceptual configuration of an electronic device according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 schematically shows a conceptual operation flow of a Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) unit of an electronic device according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure;

figure 6 schematically shows a flow chart of a directional CCA according to a first example of a first embodiment of the present disclosure;

figure 7 schematically shows a flow diagram of a directional CCA according to a second example of the first embodiment of the present disclosure;

figure 8 schematically shows a flow diagram of a directional CCA according to a third example of the first embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 9 schematically illustrates an example of indicating information related to directional clear channel assessment in accordance with the present disclosure;

FIG. 10 schematically illustrates an exemplary transport configuration indication status (TCI-State) information element;

fig. 11a schematically illustrates an exemplary Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) spatial relationship information (PUCCH-spatial relationship info) information element;

FIG. 11b schematically illustrates an exemplary channel Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) spatial relationship information (SRS-spatial relationship Info) information element;

fig. 12 schematically shows a conceptual operational flow of an electronic device according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 13 schematically shows a conceptual configuration of an electronic apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 14 schematically shows a conceptual operation flow of a Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) unit of an electronic device according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 15 schematically shows a conceptual operational flow of an electronic device according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 16 is a block diagram of an example structure of a personal computer as an information processing apparatus employable in the embodiments of the present disclosure;

fig. 17 is a block diagram illustrating a first example of a schematic configuration of a gNB to which the techniques of the present disclosure may be applied;

fig. 18 is a block diagram showing a second example of a schematic configuration of a gNB to which the techniques of the present disclosure may be applied;

fig. 19 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a smartphone to which the technique of the present disclosure can be applied; and

fig. 20 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a car navigation device to which the technique of the present disclosure can be applied.

While the embodiments described in this disclosure may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.

Detailed Description

Representative applications of various aspects of the apparatus and methods according to the present disclosure are described below. These examples are described merely to add context and aid in the understanding of the described embodiments. It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that the embodiments described below may be practiced without some or all of the specific details. In other instances, well known process steps have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the described embodiments. Other applications are possible, and aspects of the disclosure are not limited to these examples.

Typically, a wireless communication system includes at least a control device and a terminal device, and the control device may provide a communication service to one or more terminal devices.

In the present disclosure, the term "base station" or "control device" has its full breadth of general meaning and includes at least a wireless communication station that is part of a wireless communication system or radio system to facilitate communications. As an example, the base station may be, for example, an eNB of a 4G communication standard, a gNB of a 5G communication standard, a remote radio head, a wireless access point, a drone control tower, or a communication device performing similar functions. In this disclosure, "base station" and "control device" may be used interchangeably, or "control device" may be implemented as part of a "base station". An application example of the base station/control apparatus will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings by taking the base station as an example.

In this disclosure, the term "terminal device" or "User Equipment (UE)" has its full breadth of general meaning and includes at least a terminal device that is part of a wireless communication system or radio system to facilitate communications. By way of example, the terminal device may be a terminal device such as a mobile phone, a laptop, a tablet, a vehicle communication device, etc., or an element thereof. In the present disclosure, "terminal device" and "user device" (which may be referred to simply as "user" hereinafter) may be used interchangeably, or "terminal device" may be implemented as part of "user device". The following section will describe in detail an application example of the terminal device/UE by taking the terminal device as an example.

In this disclosure, the term "control device side"/"base station side" has its full breadth of common meaning, typically indicating the side of the communication system downlink on which data is transmitted. Similarly, the terms "terminal device side"/"user equipment side" have their full breadth of common meaning and accordingly may indicate the side of the communication system downlink on which data is received.

In the present disclosure, the term "beam (beam)" denotes a directional beam formed by focusing a transmission signal in some specific spatial direction through beamforming, without particularly designating. And in general, the term "beam" may be equivalent to the term "Spatial domain filter". More specifically, the transmit beam (Tx beam) is equivalent to a transmit Spatial filter (Spatial domain transmission filter), and the receive beam (Rx beam) is equivalent to a receive Spatial filter (Spatial domain reception filter).

In the present disclosure, the directional carrier sensing is generally performed by the device on the transmission side, and the operation of such directional carrier sensing is similar whether performed on the control device side or the terminal device side. Therefore, in the following description, unless otherwise specified, the operation of the directional carrier sense may be performed on both the control device side and the terminal device side.

It should be noted that although the embodiments of the present disclosure are described below primarily based on a communication system including a base station and a terminal device, the descriptions may be correspondingly extended to the case of a communication system including any other type of control device side and terminal device side. For example, for the downlink case, the control device side operation may correspond to the base station operation, while the terminal device side operation may correspond to the terminal device operation accordingly.

Fig. 1 and 2 show an existing carrier sensing mechanism called "Listen Before Talk (LBT)". In this disclosure, this carrier sensing mechanism, referred to as LBT, is also referred to as Clear Channel Assessment (CCA). In the existing 3GPP or non-3 GPP standards (e.g., IEEE standards), such an LBT mechanism is defined in a related manner, and the following uses a simpler type (type 2) LBT (i.e., cat.2 LBT) and a more complex type (type 4) LBT (i.e., cat.4 LBT) as examples to briefly describe the listen-before-talk carrier sense mechanism.

Fig. 1 schematically illustrates a carrier sensing mechanism of cat.2 LBT. As described in fig. 1, the transmitting end is in an idle state when there is no data to transmit. When data needs to be transmitted, the transmitting end performs idle channel estimation on a wide-coverage beam (e.g., an omni-directional beam), that is, the transmitting end monitors energy on a frequency band to be used in the wide space within a predetermined period of time (e.g., 34 μ s), and if the energy exceeds a certain predetermined threshold, it considers that the channel of the frequency band is being used, and therefore the transmitting end needs to keep silent and cannot transmit using the spectrum resource (this case is also referred to as LBT Failure, LBT Failure), otherwise, if the energy is lower than the predetermined threshold, it considers that the channel is idle and can transmit.

Fig. 2 schematically shows a more complex carrier sensing mechanism of cat.4 LBT. As shown in fig. 2, the operation of cat.4 LBT can be divided into two parts, initial CCA and extended CCA. The initial CCA is similar to cat.2 LBT if the channel is detected for a predetermined period of time (e.g., initial CCA period B as shown in fig. 2)_iCCA) And if the mobile station is idle, transmitting, otherwise, performing extended CCA. During extended CCA, first, it will be based on a contention window (e.g., [0, q-1 as shown in fig. 2)]) (the contention window may be updated based on positive Acknowledgement (ACK) or Negative Acknowledgement (NACK), and the specific updating method is less relevant to the present disclosure, and is not described here) to generate the random number N, and then the transmitting end enters a back-off period D_eCCAE.g., 34us, if the channel is idle and N is not zero during the back-off period, it is detected whether the channel is idle for a predetermined time period T (e.g., 9 or 10 μ s), and if the channel is idle for T, the value of N is decremented by 1 and the detection of whether the channel is idle for T continues until N equals zero. When N is equal to zero, the transmitting end can transmit. Entering further back-off if the channel busy is detected within the back-off period or within T, wherein the purpose of the back-off period is to provide other systems competing for using the unlicensed frequency band with an opportunity to transmit using the spectrum resource.

An example of an existing carrier sensing mechanism has been briefly introduced with reference to fig. 1 and 2. However, as explained above, this existing mechanism is to evaluate whether the channel is free on a beam with a wide spatial coverage, e.g. whether the channel is free in all directions. However, in a wireless communication system, in particular, in an unlicensed frequency band, directional transmission may be performed using a directional beam. In this case, it is desirable that even if the channel energy in a certain direction is strong (i.e., the channel in that direction is occupied), another directional beam whose channel is clear can be used for transmission. In such a case of transmitting by using directional beams, the existing carrier sensing mechanism may cause that the transmitting end cannot judge which direction the energy on the channel comes from. Thus, opportunities to communicate using a particular beam in certain directions may be wasted. In view of this, the present disclosure provides a directional carrier sensing mechanism for unlicensed bands in a wireless communication system, so that a directional beam can be more effectively utilized for transmission.

Fig. 3 schematically illustrates a communication system according to the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 3, communication is performed between a base station and a terminal device using a directional beam (hereinafter, simply referred to as a beam). 4 beams between the base station 10 and the terminal device 20A are schematically shown in fig. 3, but the number of beams between the base station and the terminal device is not limited thereto, and there may be more than 4 beams (e.g., 8) or less than 4 beams that can be used for communication therebetween. Further, although fig. 3 shows only an exemplary beam between the base station 10 and the terminal device 20A, similar directional beams also exist between the base station and other terminal devices (e.g., the terminal devices 20B, 20C).

According to the present disclosure, an electronic device (base station or terminal device) to perform transmission may perform communication using an unlicensed band, and perform directional Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to perform transmission based on the result of the directional CCA. In the present disclosure, it is generally considered that a transmitting beam at a transmitting end may be equivalent to a receiving beam, i.e., there is beam symmetry (beam symmetry). According to the disclosure, the transmitting end performs the directional CCA on a receive beam corresponding to a transmit beam direction. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, a directional CCA may be performed by: performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams; selecting a beam passing the initial CCA to transmit under the condition that the initial CCA passes; and performing a further CCA for one or more of the plurality of beams in the event the initial CCA fails. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the directional CCA may also be performed by: and performing CCA on the directions of the plurality of beams in sequence, and when CCAs of a preset threshold number of beams pass, not performing CCA on the rest beams in the plurality of beams.

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the plurality of beams for which CCA is performed is pre-configured through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, or alternatively, the plurality of beams for which CCA is performed is pre-configured through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling and activated through a control element MAC CE of a medium access control layer. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, a plurality of beams may be preset for one or more channels between a base station and a terminal device, wherein the one or more channels include one or more of: a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), and a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH).

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, an electronic device that has performed directional CCA (i.e., a base station or a terminal device that is to perform transmission) may notify information about directional CCA of a beam to an electronic device on the other end of communication (i.e., a base station or a terminal device that is a receiving side). Additionally, the electronic device that has performed the directional CCA may, for example, notify the electronic device at the other end of communication of a beam that can perform transmission and a beam that cannot perform transmission determined based on the result of the directional CCA, so that both communication parties subsequently prepare and/or negotiate a beam for transmission and reception.

Having briefly introduced the communication system according to the present disclosure, the configuration and operation of the electronic devices in the communication system of the present disclosure will be described in detail below.

Structure of electronic apparatus according to first embodiment

A conceptual configuration of an electronic apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure will be explained below with reference to fig. 4.

The electronic device may be implemented as a device to perform directional CCA and thus may be a device or terminal device on the base station side to perform transmission. In the case of being implemented as a base station-side device, the electronic device may be implemented as a Base Station (BS), a small cell, a Node B, an e-NodeB, a g-NodeB, a relay, or the like in a cellular communication system, a terminal device in a machine type communication system, a sensor Node in an ad hoc network, a Coexistence Manager (CM) in a cognitive radio system, an SAS, or the like. For example, the electronic device may be implemented as any type of evolved node b (eNB), such as a macro eNB (associated with a macro cell) and a small eNB (associated with a small cell). The small eNB may be an eNB that covers a cell smaller than a macro cell, such as a pico eNB, a micro eNB, and a home (femto) eNB. Alternatively, the electronic device may be implemented as any other type of base station, such as a network node in a next generation network, e.g., a gNB, a NodeB, and a Base Transceiver Station (BTS). The electronic device may include: a main body (also referred to as a base station apparatus) configured to control wireless communication; and one or more Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) disposed at a different place from the main body. In addition, various types of apparatuses to be described later can operate as the electronic device by temporarily or semi-persistently executing the function of the base station. It should be noted that the electronic device may be a control device included in the base station as an integral part of the base station, or separate from the base station, for controlling the base station.

In the case of being implemented as a terminal apparatus, the electronic apparatus may be implemented as a mobile terminal such as a smart phone, a tablet Personal Computer (PC), a notebook PC, a portable game terminal, a portable/cryptographic dog-type mobile router, and a digital camera, or a vehicle-mounted terminal such as a car navigation apparatus. The electronic device may also be implemented as a terminal (also referred to as a Machine Type Communication (MTC) terminal) that performs machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. Further, the electronic device may be a wireless communication module (such as an integrated circuit module including a single chip) mounted on each of the above-described terminals. The electronic Device may also be implemented as a smart meter, a smart home appliance, or a geo-location Capability Object (GCO) in a cognitive Radio system, a citizen Broadband wireless Service Device (CBSD).

As shown in fig. 4, the electronic device may include a processing circuit 400. The processing circuit 400 may be configured to communicate using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams; selecting a beam passing the initial CCA to transmit under the condition that the initial CCA passes; and performing a further CCA for one or more of the plurality of beams in the event the initial CCA fails.

The processing circuit 400 may be in the form of a general purpose processor or may be a dedicated processing circuit, such as an ASIC. For example, the processing circuit 400 can be constructed by a circuit (hardware) or a central processing device such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU). Further, the processing circuit 400 may carry thereon a program (software) for causing the circuit (hardware) or the central processing apparatus to operate. The program can be stored in a memory (such as arranged in the memory 401) or an external storage medium connected from outside, and downloaded via a network (such as the internet).

According to some embodiments, the processing circuitry of the electronic device may include various units to implement embodiments according to the present disclosure.

According to a first embodiment of the disclosure, the processing circuit 400 may include a CCA unit 4001 that performs directional Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) for a plurality of beams. In an implementation, the CCA unit may include various modules/sub-units to implement various ones of the CCA operations described herein. For example, the CCA unit may include an initial beam determination module configured to determine one beam from a plurality of beams for which an initial CCA is to be performed. The CCA unit may also include a calculation module configured to perform directional CCA operation procedures described in detail below.

Alternatively, the CCA unit 4001 may also comprise more or fewer modules, e.g. the initial beam determination module may not be comprised in the CCA unit 4001 or even in the processing circuit 400, and may be transmitted to the CCA unit 4001 of the processing circuit 400 after the beam is determined. Alternatively, the calculation module may be further divided into more detailed sub-modules to process the respective decision/calculation operations, respectively. The detailed operation of the CCA unit 4001 will be explained below with reference to fig. 5 to 8.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing circuit 400 may include a CCA result processing unit 4002 that processes a result of the directional CCA. In implementations, the CCA result processing unit may include various modules/sub-units to implement various operations described herein related to processing results of directional CCA. For example, the CCA result processing unit may comprise a transmit beam determination module configured to determine which beam or beams may be used for transmission based on the result of the directional CCA. The CCA result processing unit may further include a CCA result indication module configured to perform an operation related to indicating information related to directional CCA in order to cause the communication unit 402 of the electronic device 40 to notify another electronic device communicating with the electronic device 40 of information related to directional CCA of the beam based on such an indication. Alternatively, the CCA result processing unit 4002 may also include more or fewer modules. The detailed operation of the CCA result processing unit 4002 will be described later.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing circuit 400 may further include a Channel Occupancy Time (COT) configuration unit 4003. The COT configuration unit 4003 may be configured to configure (i.e., initialize) a channel occupying time of directivity in a direction of a beam to be transmitted, which is determined by the transmission beam determination unit 4002. The channel occupancy time indicates, for example, that the transmitting party will occupy the channel for a period of time, and during that period of time, the transmitting party may transmit without performing a clear channel assessment. Conventionally, the channel occupancy time is not declared for a certain beam direction, which results in that when transmitting with directional beams, transmission opportunities in certain beam directions may be missed due to the channel occupancy time being initialized. Further, conventionally, since the channel occupancy time is not initialized for a specific direction, a shorter channel occupancy time is generally initialized to prevent occupancy of a channel in each direction (e.g., omni-direction) for an excessively long time. In view of this, according to the present disclosure, the directional COT is initialized based on the result of the directional CCA, so that it is possible to prevent occupation of channel resources on other beams. Further, according to the present disclosure, since the COT of directivity is initialized for a beam to be transmitted determined based on the result of directional CCA, it is possible to appropriately initialize a COT longer than the conventional COT, thereby avoiding an inappropriate waiting time between continuous transmissions (e.g., for a base station, a PDSCH is transmitted after a PDCCH is transmitted, or for a terminal device, a PUSCH is transmitted after a PUCCH is transmitted). This is particularly advantageous in the case where the recipient device takes a longer time to understand the received content in preparation for receiving the next information. For example, in the case of operating at 60kHz subcarrier spacing, the terminal device needs 2 slots at maximum to understand the content of the PDCCH and get ready to accept the PDSCH, which is likely to result in a type of CCA that still requires a longer CCA or wait time to re-perform for the transmission of the PDSCH following the PDCCH, since the conventional non-directional COT is likely to be shorter than the sum of the duration of the transmission of the PDCCH and the duration of the terminal device understanding the content of the PDCCU. This situation can be effectively avoided by means of a longer directional COT than the conventional non-directional COT.

Furthermore, the processing circuit 400 may further comprise an interface circuit (not shown) for interfacing between the units.

It should be noted that the above units are only logic modules divided according to the specific functions implemented by the units, and are not used for limiting the specific implementation manner, and may be implemented in software, hardware or a combination of software and hardware, for example. In actual implementation, the above units may be implemented as separate physical entities, or may also be implemented by a single entity (e.g., a processor (CPU or DSP, etc.), an integrated circuit, etc.). Furthermore, the various elements described above are shown in dashed lines in the figures to indicate that these elements may not actually be present, but that the operations/functions that they implement may be implemented by the processing circuitry itself. In addition, the units/modules and their operations/functions shown in the figures with dotted lines may be selectively applied according to actual situations, that is, the processing circuit does not necessarily include all the shown units/modules and their operations/functions, but may selectively implement some of the units/modules and their operations/functions.

Further, optionally, the electronic device 40 may further include a memory 401 and a communication unit 402. Further, the electronic device 40 may also include other components not shown, such as radio frequency links, baseband processing units, network interfaces, processors, controllers, and so forth. The processing circuit 400 may be associated with a memory 401 and/or a communication unit 402. For example, the processing circuit 400 may be directly or indirectly (e.g., with other components possibly interposed) connected to the memory 401 for access of data. Also for example, the processing circuit 400 may be directly or indirectly connected to the communication unit 402 to transmit radio signals via the communication unit 402 and to receive radio signals via the communication unit 402.

The memory 401 may store various information to be used by the processing circuit 400 or generated by the processing circuit 400 (e.g., information such as directional CCA-related information, statistical information of CCA results for each beam during which directional CCA is performed, etc.), programs and data for operation of the electronic device 40, data to be transmitted by the communication unit 402, and the like. The memory 41 is depicted with dashed lines, since it may also be located within the processing circuit 400 or outside the electronic device 40. The memory 401 may be volatile memory and/or non-volatile memory. For example, memory 401 may include, but is not limited to, Random Access Memory (RAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), flash memory.

The communication unit 402 may be configured to communicate with an electronic device at the other end of the communication (e.g., a recipient electronic device) under control of the processing circuit 400. In one example, the communication unit 402 may be implemented as a transmitter or transceiver, including an antenna array and/or a radio frequency link, among other communication components. In one implementation, the communication unit 402 may transmit on a beam determined based on the result of the directional CCA. In one implementation, the communication unit 402 may transmit information of beams that can be used for transmission to the receiving electronic device.

Although the processing circuit 400 is shown in fig. 4 as being separate from the communication unit 402, the processing circuit 400 may also be implemented to include the communication unit 402. Further, processing circuit 400 may also be implemented to include one or more other components in electronic device 40, or processing circuit 400 may be implemented as electronic device 40 itself. In actual implementation, the processing circuit 400 may be implemented as a chip (such as an integrated circuit module comprising a single wafer), a hardware component, or a complete product.

Each detailed operation performed by the electronic apparatus 40 will be described below.

Operation of the CCA unit 4001 of the electronic device according to the first embodiment

First, a conceptual operation flow 50 of the CCA unit 4001 according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure will be explained with reference to fig. 5.

As shown in fig. 5, the operational flow 50 begins at S500 when the electronic device is in an idle state, i.e., no data needs to be transmitted. When it is determined at S502 that data needs to be transmitted, the operation flow proceeds to S504. In S504, the CCA unit 4001 performs initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams.

According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the initial beam determination module may determine one beam to perform an initial CCA from the plurality of beams. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam for performing the initial CCA may be the most appropriate beam or a predetermined beam. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the predetermined beam may represent a beam configured by RRC or a beam activated by MAC CE in an RRC connection setup procedure. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the most suitable beam may be the beam with the better channel quality in the beam direction. For example, the beam direction with better channel quality can be determined according to the reference signal transmitted between the base station and the terminal device. For example, for the uplink, a beam direction with better channel quality may be determined according to a channel Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) of the terminal device, that is, for the uplink, a beam to perform initial CCA may be determined according to the SRS. For another example, for the downlink, the beam direction with better channel quality may be determined according to a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or channel state information reference information (CSI-RS) of the base station, that is, for the downlink, the beam to be subjected to the initial CCA may be determined according to the SSB or the CSI-RS. The initial CCA is performed for the beam with better channel quality in the beam direction, so that the beam with better channel quality can be used for transmitting when the initial CCA passes through. Alternatively, the beam on which the initial CCA is to be performed may also be randomly determined.

After determining the beam for which the initial CCA is to be performed, the CCA unit 4001 may determine whether the energy on the channel is strong (e.g., greater than a predetermined threshold) in the direction of the beam during a predetermined period of time (e.g., 34 μ β). If the energy on the channel is weak (e.g., below a predetermined threshold) in the direction of the beam, the electronic device may assume that the initial CCA in the direction of the beam has passed (S506: yes), and may transmit with the beam (S510). It will be appreciated that the time to wait for a transmission may be advantageously reduced by transmitting directly after the initial CCA without a subsequent further CCA. If the energy on the channel is strong in the direction of the beam on which the initial CCA is performed, it is considered that the initial CCA in the beam direction has failed (S506: no), and the CCA unit 4001 may perform further CCA (S508).

At S508, as shown in fig. 5, the calculation module of the CCA unit 4001 may perform further CCA according to the following operations: determining a number T within a predetermined range; CCA was performed iteratively as follows: decreasing T by 1 on a current CCA pass, otherwise continuing CCA without changing T until T equals 0, wherein CCA is performed for one or more of the plurality of beams in each iteration. It is noted that throughout the operation of directional CCA (including initial CCA and further CCA), the term "CCA" refers to a clear channel assessment that is directional for a particular beam direction. In order to make the description more concise, it is not particularly noted that each CCA performed is directional in the following detailed description of further CCAs. Furthermore, the expression "CCA through" is intended to mean that the channel is clear in a particular beam direction, i.e. that the energy on the channel in the direction of the beam for which CCA is performed is less than a predetermined threshold within a predetermined time period (e.g. 34 μ β). Hereinafter, "CCA pass" or "CCA success" both mean similar meanings, and these terms are not repeatedly explained.

As shown in fig. 5, in the case where further CCA is performed, when T is equal to 0, the electronic device may select a beam to transmit based on the result of directional CCA (S510).

The conceptual operation flow 50 of the directional CCA by the CCA unit 4001 has been briefly described with reference to fig. 5. Three implementation examples of directional CCA will be described in detail below in conjunction with fig. 6-8. In all of these three implementation examples, the operation regarding the initial CCA is similar to the operation described with reference to fig. 5, and thus is not described in detail below.

First, the operation flow 60 of the first example of the directional CCA will be described in detail with reference to fig. 6.

In fig. 6, operations S600, S602, S604, and S610 correspond to operations S500, S502, S504, and S510 in fig. 5, and have a similar process procedure to the corresponding operations in fig. 5, and details of these operations are omitted here.

When it is determined in step S606 that the initial CCA is not passed, a further CCA is performed as in S608. Specifically, first, the number T may be determined within a predetermined range. According to this first example, the value of T may be randomly selected within said range. The range may be similar to the contention window described above with reference to cat.4 LBT, for example. The determination of the range is intended to give a value interval for the number T, the range is not limited to the size of the contention window of cat.4 LBT, and any range that can define a suitable value interval for the number T is applicable.

Subsequently, during the CCA iterative procedure explained with reference to operation S508 of fig. 5, at each iteration, a randomly selected one of the plurality of beams for directional CCA is CCA performed, and the result of CCA of the beam is taken as the CCA result of the iteration. In other words, at each iteration, one beam is randomly selected from the plurality of beams for CCA, if the CCA passes, the T value is decremented by 1 and the next iteration is performed if the T value is not 0 (that is, one beam is randomly selected again from the plurality of beams for CCA), otherwise, the next iteration is performed directly without decrementing the T value. When the value of T is 0 (that is, T CCA is successfully performed, each for one beam randomly selected from the plurality of beams), a beam is selected for transmission based on the result of the directional CCA. A detailed procedure for selecting a transmission beam based on the result of the directional CCA will be explained below.

For example, assuming that directional CCA is performed for 4 beams (B1, B2, B3, B4), during a process in which an initial CCA is not passed and further CCA is performed, according to the first example as shown in fig. 6, the CCA unit 4001 first determines a random number T within a predetermined range, for example, T ═ 5. Subsequently, the CCA unit 4001 randomly selects one beam (e.g., beam B2) for the first CCA iteration, assuming that this CCA is passed, the T value is decremented to 4, and the CCA unit 4001 randomly selects one beam again (the result of the random selection may be the same or a different beam than the beam B2 of the first iteration) for the next CCA iteration, assuming that this CCA fails, the T value remains unchanged (i.e., T ═ 4) and one beam is randomly selected again for the next CCA iteration, and so on until T ═ 0. Finally, when T is 0, i.e., CCA is successfully performed T times (5 times in this example), the CCA unit 4001 may control the processing circuit 400 to select a beam to transmit data based on the result of the directional CCA.

The operation flow of the first example of the directional CCA has been explained with reference to fig. 6. By randomly selecting beams for clear channel assessment in each iteration, each beam can be considered fairly and the total number of CCAs (CCA is performed for only one beam per iteration) is effectively limited, thereby avoiding lengthy waiting transmission times.

Next, the operation flow 70 of the second example of the directional CCA will be described in detail with reference to fig. 7.

In fig. 7, operations S700, S702, S704, and S710 correspond to operations S500, S502, S504, and S510 in fig. 5, and have a similar process procedure to the corresponding operations in fig. 5, and details of these operations are omitted here.

When it is determined in step S706 that the initial CCA is not passed, a further CCA is performed as in S708. Specifically, first, the number T may be determined within a predetermined range. According to this second example, the T value may be determined as a product of the number of the plurality of beams and a value randomly selected from a predetermined range. The range may be similar to the range in the first example described with reference to fig. 6.

Subsequently, during the CCA iterative procedure explained with reference to operation S508 of fig. 5, at each iteration, one of the plurality of beams that perform directional CCA is CCA-performed in a predetermined order that enables the plurality of beams to be sequentially CCA-performed cyclically, and the result of CCA of the beam is taken as the CCA result of the iteration. In other words, CCA iteration is performed in turn for a plurality of beams performing directional CCA. If the current CCA passes, subtracting 1 from the T value and performing the next iteration (performing CCA on the next beam of the plurality of beams) if the T value is not 0, otherwise, directly performing the next iteration without decrementing the T value. When the value of T is 0 (that is, T CCA is successfully performed), a beam is selected for transmission based on the result of the directional CCA.

For example, assuming that directional CCA is performed for 4 beams (B1, B2, B3, B4), during a process in which an initial CCA is not passed to perform further CCA, according to the second example shown in fig. 7, the CCA unit 4001 first selects a random number N within a predetermined range, for example, N is 2, and determines the product of the number of beams to be subjected to directional CCA and the random number N as a number T, that is, T is 4 is 2 is 8.

Subsequently, the CCA unit 4001 performs the iteration of CCA for each beam in turn in a predetermined order that enables CCA to be performed cyclically for 4 beams in this example. For example, the predetermined order may be B1, B2, B3, B4, but the order is not limiting and may be any order that cycles through four beams, such as B2, B3, B1, B4, or B4, B2, B1, B3. Assuming that the predetermined order is B1, B2, B3, B4, the CCA unit 4001 first performs a first CCA iteration on beam B1, assuming that this CCA passes, the T value is decremented to 7, and the CCA unit 4001 performs a next CCA iteration on the next beam B2, assuming that this CCA fails, the T value remains unchanged (i.e., T ═ 7) and performs the next CCA iteration on the next beam in the order (i.e., B3), and so on, until T ═ 0, wherein after CCA is performed on beam B4, the next iteration will perform CCA again on beam B1, and loop therewith. Finally, when T is 0, i.e., CCA is successfully performed T times (8 times in this example), the CCA unit 4001 may control the processing circuit 400 to select a beam to transmit data based on the result of the directional CCA.

The operation flow of the second example of the directional CCA has been explained with reference to fig. 7. By cyclically performing a clear channel assessment for each of the plurality of beams during the further CCA, each beam may be considered fairly and statistics of the clear conditions of the respective beams may be collected comprehensively during the further CCA to facilitate subsequent beam selection for transmission.

Next, the operation flow 80 of the third example of the directional CCA will be described in detail with reference to fig. 8.

In fig. 8, operations S800, S802, S804, and S810 correspond to operations S500, S502, S504, and S510 in fig. 5, and have a similar process procedure to the corresponding operations in fig. 5, and details of these operations are omitted here.

When it is determined in step S806 that the initial CCA is not passed, a further CCA is performed as in S808. Specifically, first, the number T may be determined within a predetermined range. Similar to the first example, the T value may be randomly selected within the range.

Subsequently, during the CCA iterative procedure explained with reference to operation S508 of fig. 5, all or part of the plurality of beams for which directional CCA is performed are sequentially CCA-performed at each iteration, and when the CCA of more than a predetermined threshold number of beams passes, the current CCA is considered to pass. In other words, CCA iteration is performed in units of a group including a plurality of beams for which directional CCA is to be performed. In each iteration, one or more beams of the plurality of beams are respectively CCA-ed, and if CCAs of more than a predetermined threshold number of beams pass during a current CCA, the current CCA is considered to pass. The predetermined threshold number may be any one of the following values: one, half the number of beams that perform CCA in one iteration, and the number of beams that perform CCA in one iteration. In particular, during each group-wise CCA iteration, S of the plurality of beams (S being less than or equal to the number of the plurality of beams) may be randomly selected for CCA in turn. In particular, if it is determined that a predetermined threshold number of beams have passed the CCA and there are still beams for which CCA has not been performed among the S beams selected at this time during one group-wise CCA iteration, the next group-wise CCA iteration may be directly performed without CCA for the remaining beams.

If the current CCA in group units passes (i.e., a predetermined number or more of CCAs pass in the group-unit CCA iteration), the T value is decremented by 1 and the next iteration in group units is performed if the T value is not 0, otherwise the next iteration is performed directly without decrementing the T value. When the value of T is 0 (that is, CCA in units of groups is successfully performed T times), a beam is selected for transmission based on the result of directional CCA.

For example, assuming that directional CCA is performed for 4 beams (B1, B2, B3, B4), during a process in which an initial CCA is not passed and further CCA is performed, according to the third example as shown in fig. 8, the CCA unit 4001 first selects a random number T within a predetermined range, for example, T ═ 3.

Subsequently, the CCA unit 4001 performs CCA iteration in units of a group including the 4 beams. For example, in each iteration, the CCA unit 4001 randomly selects two beams of the plurality of beams to perform CCA once, and assumes that when CCA of more than one beam passes, it is considered that the current CCA iteration passes (i.e., the above-described predetermined threshold number is one). For example, in the first iteration, the CCA unit 4001 randomly selects beams B1 and B4 for CCA. Assuming that the CCA for beam B1 is passed, the group-wise CCA is passed this time may be determined directly and the value of T is decremented directly to 2 without any more CCA for beam B4. Subsequently, the CCA unit 4001 randomly selects beams B2 and B4 to perform CCA in units of groups next time. Assuming that neither beam for beams B2 or B4 passes, the value of T remains unchanged (i.e., T ═ 2) and the next CCA iteration in groups continues, and so on until T ═ 0. Finally, when T is 0, i.e., CCA in units of a group is successfully performed T times (3 times in this example), the CCA unit 4001 may control the processing circuit 400 to select a beam to transmit data based on the result of the directional CCA.

The operation flow of the third example of the directional CCA has been explained with reference to fig. 8. By iteratively evaluating the idle channels by taking the group as a unit, each beam can be considered fairly, and the statistical information of the idle state of each beam can be collected comprehensively, so that the beams can be selected for transmission in the following process. Furthermore, by adjusting the predetermined threshold number for determining whether the iteration in units of groups is successful, the severity of the CCA may be flexibly controlled, e.g., the higher the predetermined threshold number, the more stringent the CCA, and thus possibly the longer the waiting time for transmission. For example, the severity of CCA may be flexibly adjusted based on the severity of contention for the unlicensed band or the importance of the content to be transmitted in order to appropriately adjust the transmission latency.

Operation of CCA result processing unit 4002 of electronic device according to the first embodiment

As briefly introduced above with reference to fig. 4, the CCA result processing unit 4002 is configured to perform some processing on the result of the directional CCA, for example, determining a beam that can be used for transmission and controlling the communication unit to inform the beam that can be used for transmission.

Specifically, according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the transmission beam determination module of the CCA result processing unit 4002 may be configured to determine a beam passing through the initial CCA as a beam to be transmitted.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the transmission beam determination module of the CCA result processing unit 4002 may be further configured to, during a further CCA, count performance of channel occupancy of each beam, and determine a beam that can perform transmission according to a result of the counting. For example, the transmit beam determination unit may be configured to count the total number of times that each beam has a CCA success or a CCA failure during further CCA, and determine a beam that is statistically clear in channel as the beam to be transmitted. In other words, the beam having the highest total number of CCA passes or the lowest total number of CCA failures during a further CCA may be determined as the beam to be transmitted. In this case, the maximum total number of passes of the CCA or the total number of failures of the CCA may indicate that there are fewer users or less traffic in the beam direction. Therefore, according to the statistical result, the beam direction with a relatively idle channel can be estimated, and the beam in the direction is used for transmitting. Alternatively, a plurality of beams that are statistically clear and available for transmission may be determined based on the statistical result of the directional CCA, so that the sender and the receiver select a beam to transmit through subsequent negotiation.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the transmission beam determination module may be further configured to directly determine, at the end of the further CCA, a beam that last passed through the CCA (i.e., a beam such that T is decremented to 0) as the beam to be transmitted. This configuration may simplify operations at the electronic device and ensure with greater probability that the on-beam channel to be transmitted is free.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the transmission beam determination module may be further configured to simply determine a beam having a better channel quality in the direction as a beam that can be transmitted. For example, a beam with better channel quality determined based on reference information (such as SRS, SSB, or CSI-RS) exchanged between the base station and the terminal device during RRC connection setup may be selected for transmission. Alternatively, a plurality of beams that may be used for transmission may be determined based on the channel quality, such that the sender and receiver select a beam to transmit through subsequent negotiations. The configuration can better ensure the channel quality of the transmitting beam, thereby being beneficial to the successful receiving of the receiving end.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the transmission beam determination module may be further configured to determine the beam to be transmitted in combination with the statistics of the channel occupancy of the respective beams and the channel quality in the respective beam direction. For example, a plurality of beams that are statistically clear and that can be used for transmission may be determined based on the statistical result of the directional CCA, and a beam with the best channel quality may be selected as the beam to be transmitted. Alternatively, a plurality of beams having better channel quality may be determined, and a beam having the highest total number of CCA passes or the lowest total number of CCA failures may be selected as the beam to be transmitted. This configuration may be used to select the beam best suited for transmission by taking into account the channel quality and the degree of idleness of the channel.

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the CCA result indication module of the CCA result processing unit 4002 may be configured to determine information related to the directional CCA of the beam and control the communication unit to notify the receiving electronic device of the information related to the directional CCA of the beam. The information related to the directional CCA of the beam may include an indication of a beam that can transmit and a beam that cannot transmit, and accordingly, notifying the receiving electronic device of the information related to the directional CCA of the beam may include notifying the receiving electronic device of the beam that can transmit and the beam that cannot transmit, which are determined based on a result of the directional CCA. As will be described in detail below with reference to fig. 9.

As shown in fig. 9, the CCA result indication module may be configured to indicate a beam capable of transmission and a beam incapable of transmission in the form of a bitmap. For example, with reference to the beams determined by the transmit beam determination module that may be used for transmission, the CCA result indication module may generate a bitmap indicating the beams that may be used for transmission (i.e., beams that pass through directional CCA) and the beams that may not be used for transmission (i.e., beams that do not pass through directional CCA). As shown in fig. 9, 8 beams may be subject to directional CCA, and the transmit beam determination module determines the second beam from the left as a beam that may be used for transmission (shown by the solid line, and the other beams, i.e., beams that are not determined by the transmit beam determination module to be available for transmission, are shown by the dashed line). As further shown in fig. 9, an 8-bit bitmap may be generated, where 0 represents a beam that is not available for transmission and 1 represents a beam that is available for transmission, and for this example, the generated bitmap may be "01000000".

Although fig. 9 shows a case where directional CCA is performed for 8 beams, the number of beams is not limited thereto. For example, less than 8 beams may be subject to directional CCA, and an 8-bit bitmap may be generated based on the results of CCA. In this case, 1 denotes a beam available for transmission, 0 denotes a beam unavailable for transmission, and the beam not involved is denoted by a reserved bit (R). Alternatively, the reserved bit (R) may also be replaced by 0, in which case 0 may represent either a beam determined to be unavailable for transmission or an uninvolved beam. The bitmap with fixed length is adopted without considering the number of the wave beams for directional CCA, so that the receiving party can conveniently read the received bitmap, and the calculation of the receiving party is simplified.

Furthermore, as explained above with reference to the transmit beam determination module, a plurality of beams available for transmission may be determined, in which case the generated bitmap may comprise a plurality of bits having a value of 1, e.g. "01011000". The CCA result indication module may control the communication unit to inform the receiving device of beams that may be used for transmission based on the generated bitmap, for the receiving device to prepare the beams for reception (in case only one beam that may be used for transmission is indicated), or for both devices to perform subsequent negotiations to determine a beam to transmit (in case multiple beams that may be used for transmission are indicated).

According to the first embodiment of the present disclosure, the CCA result indication module of the CCA result processing unit 4002 may be configured to control a relevant unit (e.g., a communication unit) in the electronic device 40 to notify the receiving electronic device of information related to the directional CCA of the beam in a dynamic or semi-static manner. For example, the communication unit may be controlled based on the generated bitmap to inform the receiving electronic device in a dynamic or semi-static manner about beams that may be used for transmission and beams that may not be used for transmission and/or beams that are not involved.

According to the present disclosure, the dynamic manner may include dynamically designating a beam passing through the directional CCA and a beam not passing through the directional CCA using the control information. For example, the control information may be control information of a physical layer, such as Uplink Control Information (UCI) for an uplink and Downlink Control Information (DCI) for a downlink. For example, the CCA result indication module may be configured to control the communication unit to transmit the generated bitmap to the receiving electronic device with such control information to indicate beams that may be used for transmission and beams that may not be used for transmission and/or beams that are not involved.

According to the present disclosure, the static manner may include utilizing the MAC CE to activate a beam through the CCA. For example, for the downlink, the CCA result indication module may be configured to control to activate a Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) state (TCI state) corresponding to a beam that may be used for transmission with the MAC CE based on the generated bitmap. Also for example, for the uplink, the CCA result indication module may be configured to control to activate spatial relationship information (SpatialRelationInfo) corresponding to beams that may be used for transmission with the MAC CE based on the generated bitmap. The TCI status and spatialRelationInfo are described in further detail below. It is noted that the process of activating beams with MAC CE is performed by the base station, whether for uplink or downlink. Thus, in case of a directional CCA by a terminal device, the terminal device may first send the generated bitmap indicating beams that may be used for transmission and beams that may not be used for transmission and/or beams not involved to the base station, and then be activated by the base station according to the received bitmap.

Configuring operation of multiple beams to be directional CCA according to a first embodiment

The operation of directional CCA for multiple beams and some of the operations performed after completion of directional CCA (e.g., determining and informing beams that may be used for transmission and initializing channel occupancy time) have been described above with reference to fig. 4-9. According to the present disclosure, a plurality of beams may also be preset before starting directional CCA for the plurality of beams. According to the present disclosure, considering the directional CCA is performed after the terminal device enters the RRC connected state, accordingly, the plurality of beams for which the directional CCA is performed may be pre-configured through RRC signaling or may be pre-configured through RRC signaling and activated through the MAC CE. It is noted that this process of beam pre-setting is implemented by the base station, whether for uplink or downlink. In other words, whether for uplink or downlink, a plurality of beams to be subjected to the directional CCA are pre-configured by the base station through RRC signaling for beam setting for one or more channels between the base station and the terminal device. However, it should be understood that in case of directional CCA where the terminal device wants to transmit, there is also a pre-set procedure of multiple beams, and this pre-set procedure is implemented by the base station side based on signaling interaction between the base station and the terminal device.

Next, the downlink will be described first with reference to fig. 10.

As explained above, in the present disclosure, it is considered that the directional CCA is performed after the terminal device enters the RRC connected state. Some reference signals, such as channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS), Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSB), etc., are transmitted between the base station and the terminal device, and may be transmitted through directional beams. Therefore, during RRC connection, the terminal device may have measured some downlink reference signals with spatial directivity and may receive a new channel or signal using a reception beam that previously received the downlink reference signals. According to the present disclosure, a plurality of beams to be subjected to directional CCA may be set in advance based on the beam directions that have been measured in the RRC connection procedure.

Specifically, beam setting may be performed by means of a transmission configuration indication state (TCI state). The TCI status is an RRC parameter, which may include an index (index) of a downlink reference signal, such as a CSI-RS resource index or an SSB index. One or more downlink reference signals may be associated with a corresponding quasi co-location (QCL) type through a TCI state information element (TCI state information element), where the quasi co-location type d (type d) may represent quasi co-location in a spatial direction. That is, when a certain downlink reference signal is associated with quasi-co-location of Type D by using the TCI status information element, it may be indicated by an index of the downlink reference signal contained in the TCI status information element that a new channel or signal can be received with the beam direction of the reference signal indicated by the index. In other words, each TCI state may correspond to a beam direction. Multiple TCI states may be configured through RRC signaling to preset multiple beams to be subject to directional CCA.

FIG. 10 is a diagram of a TCI status information element. As shown in fig. 10, the reference signal index may be associated with the quasi-co-located type using "CHOICE" and "estimated" to set the beam by configuring the TCI state.

According to the present disclosure, a plurality of TCI states may be configured for a channel or signal between a base station and a terminal device. In case more than 8 TCI states are configured, 8 of them may be further activated with the MAC CE. In this case, directional CCA would be done for the 8 beams activated with MAC CE.

Beam setting may be performed for a plurality of channels between the base station and the terminal device. For the downlink, the plurality of channels may include a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) and a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH). In particular, multiple TCI states may be configured for both PDCCH and PDSCH. This configuration is particularly advantageous for PDCCH. Specifically, the base station needs to notify the terminal device of the CORESET indicating the time-frequency resources occupied by the PDCCH. Conventionally, only one beam is activated for one CORESET, so in the case of clear channel assessment for this one beam only, it is likely that CORESET cannot be transmitted in that direction because clear channel assessment is not passed. According to the present disclosure, a plurality of beams may be configured and activated in advance for CORESET, so that directional CCA may be performed for the plurality of beams, and a beam through the directional CCA is selected to transmit CORESET. Therefore, the chances of successful CORESET transmission are increased to facilitate subsequent communication.

Next, the uplink will be explained with reference to fig. 11a, 11 b.

As explained above, in the present disclosure, it is considered that the directional CCA is performed after the terminal device enters the RRC connected state. Similar to the downlink, some reference signals, such as Sounding Reference Signals (SRS), are also transmitted between the uplink base station and the terminal device, and these reference signals may be transmitted through a directional beam. Therefore, during RRC connection, the base station may have measured some uplink reference signals with spatial directivity, and may receive a new channel or signal using a reception beam that previously received the uplink reference signal. According to the present disclosure, a plurality of beams to be subjected to directional CCA may be set in advance based on the beam directions that have been measured in the RRC connection procedure.

Specifically, beam setting may be performed by transmitting spatial relationship information (spatialrelalationinfo). Similar to the TCI state for the downlink, a beam for the uplink may be configured by configuring spatialrelalationinfo as an RRC parameter. In other words, each SpatialRelationInfo state may correspond to a beam direction. A plurality of beams to be subjected to the directional CCA may be preset by configuring a plurality of spatialrelalationlnfo through RRC signaling. Specifically, for a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), a beam may be configured using a PUCCH-spatialrelalationinfo information element as shown in fig. 11 a; for the SRS, the beam can be configured using the SRS-spatialRelationInfo information element as shown in FIG. 11 b; and for Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), the beam may be the same as the beam configured for SRS, i.e., the beam is configured indirectly with SRS-SpatialRelationInfo information element.

According to the present disclosure, a plurality of spatialrelalationinfo may be configured for a channel or signal between a terminal device and a base station. In the case where more than 8 SpatialRelationInfo are configured, 8 SpatialRelationInfo among them may be further activated by the MAC CE. In this case, directional CCA would be done for the 8 beams activated with MAC CE.

Beam setting may be performed for a plurality of channels between the base station and the terminal device. For the uplink, the plurality of channels may include a (PUCCH) and a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH.

The respective units of the electronic apparatus 40 according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure and the operation thereof have been described above. Next, a conceptual operation flow 120 of the electronic apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure will be explained with reference to fig. 12.

The conceptual operational flow starts at step S1200. First, at step S1202, the electronic device sets in advance a plurality of beams on which directional CCA is to be performed. As described above, the plurality of beams are pre-configured through RRC signaling or pre-configured through RRC signaling and activated through the MAC CE. The configuration of the uplink and downlink has been described above and will not be described herein.

Subsequently, the electronic device starts directional CCA for the configured plurality of beams. At step S1204, the electronic device first performs an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams. As described above, the beam for performing the initial CCA may be the most appropriate beam, i.e., the beam with better channel quality in the direction, or may be a beam randomly selected from the plurality of beams, or may be a predetermined beam as described above.

Next, at S1206, it is determined whether the initial CCA passes, and if the initial CCA passes, the operation proceeds directly to step S1210, otherwise, the electronic device performs further CCA on one or more beams of the multiple beams at step S1208. For example, any of the three examples described above may be employed for further CCA.

Subsequently, at S1210, the electronic device may process the result of the CCA. For example, as described above, the electronic device may determine one or more beams that may be used for transmission and inform the receiving electronic device of the one or more beams via a bitmap. For example, as described above, the electronic device may determine the beams that may be used for transmission based on statistics during further CCA and/or channel quality in each beam direction. Where multiple beams are determined to be available for transmission, the operational flow 120 may also include an optional step (not shown) of negotiating with the receiving electronic device to determine a beam to transmit. Alternatively, the electronic device may also determine a beam passing through the initial CCA or a beam finally passing through the CCA during a further CCA as a beam to transmit at S1210.

Next, optionally, at S1212, the electronic device to transmit initializes a channel occupancy time of the directivity in the determined beam direction to transmit. Subsequently, at S1214, the electronic device may transmit in the determined beam direction. The flow ends at S1216.

The above operational flow merely illustrates the operation of the electronic device according to the first embodiment of the present disclosure in an exemplary manner, and the illustrated operation may be performed by the electronic device according to the present disclosure in a different order or in parallel. For example, after determining the beam to be transmitted, the electronic device may initialize the directional channel occupation time and notify the receiving electronic device of the beam to be transmitted.

Having briefly introduced the structure and operation of an electronic device according to a first embodiment of the present disclosure, the structure and operation of an electronic device according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure will be described in detail below.

Structure of electronic apparatus according to second embodiment

A conceptual configuration of an electronic apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present disclosure will be explained below with reference to fig. 13.

Similar to the first embodiment, the electronic device may be implemented as a device to perform directional CCA, and thus may be a device or a terminal device on the base station side to perform transmission. In the case of being implemented as a device on the base station side or a terminal device, the specific implementation manner of the electronic device is the same as that in the first embodiment, and is not described here again.

As shown in fig. 13, an electronic device may include processing circuitry 1300. The processing circuit 1300 may be configured to communicate using an unlicensed frequency band; and performing directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA, wherein the plurality of beams are performed with the directional CCA by: and performing CCA on the directions of the plurality of beams in sequence, and when CCAs of a preset threshold number of beams pass, not performing CCA on the rest beams in the plurality of beams.

The processing circuit 1300 may be in the form of a general purpose processor or a special purpose processing circuit, such as an ASIC. For example, the processing circuit 1300 can be constructed by a circuit (hardware) or a central processing device such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU). Further, the processing circuit 1300 may carry thereon a program (software) for causing an electric circuit (hardware) or a central processing apparatus to operate. The program can be stored in a memory (such as arranged in the memory 1301) or an external storage medium connected from the outside, and downloaded via a network (such as the internet).

According to a second embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing circuit 1300 may include a CCA unit 13001 to perform directional Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) for multiple beams. Although fig. 13 does not show sub-modules/sub-units of the CCA unit, in an implementation, the CCA unit may include various modules/sub-units to implement the respective operations. For example, the CCA unit may include a CCA order determination module that determines in which order to CCA respective beams, a calculation module that performs an operation flow of CCA, and the like. The detailed operation of the CCA unit 13001 will be explained below with reference to fig. 14.

According to the second embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing circuit 1300 may include a CCA result processing unit 13002 that processes the result of the directional CCA. Similar to the first embodiment, the CCA result processing unit may include various modules/sub-units to implement various operations described herein related to processing the results of the directional CCA. For example, the CCA result processing unit may include a transmit beam determination module configured to determine which beam may be used for transmission based on the result of the directional CCA. The CCA result processing unit may further include a CCA result indication module configured to perform an operation related to indicating information related to directional CCA, so as to cause the communication unit 1302 of the electronic device 130 to notify, based on such indication, another electronic device communicating with the electronic device 130 of information related to directional CCA of the beam. Alternatively, the CCA result processing unit 13002 may also include more or fewer modules. The detailed operation of the CCA result processing unit 13002 will be described below.

According to the second embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing circuit 1300 may further include a Channel Occupancy Time (COT) configuration unit 13003 similar to the first embodiment. The COT configuration unit 13003 may be configured to configure (i.e., initialize) a directional channel occupancy time in the direction of a beam to be transmitted, which is determined by the transmission beam determination unit 13002. According to the present disclosure, initializing the COT of directivity based on the result of the directional CCA can prevent occupying channel resources on other beams. Further, according to the present disclosure, since the COT of directivity is initialized for a beam through directional CCA, it is possible to appropriately initialize a COT longer than the conventional COT, so that in the case where continuous transmission is required (for example, for a base station, a PDSCH is transmitted after a PDCCH is transmitted, or for a terminal device, a PUSCH is transmitted after a PUCCH is transmitted), it is prevented that CCA is required to be performed again due to too short COT time between two transmissions, thereby avoiding inappropriate waiting time between continuous transmissions.

Further, the processing circuit 1300 may also include an interface circuit (not shown) for interfacing between the units.

Further, optionally, the electronic device 130 may further include a memory 1301 and a communication unit 1302. Further, the electronic device 130 may also include other components not shown, such as radio frequency links, baseband processing units, network interfaces, processors, controllers, and so forth. Processing circuitry 1300 may be associated with memory 1301 and/or communication unit 1302. For example, the processing circuit 1300 may be directly or indirectly (e.g., with other components possibly interposed) connected to the memory 1301 for accessing data. Also for example, the processing circuit 1300 may be directly or indirectly connected to the communication unit 1302 to transmit radio signals via the communication unit 1302 and to receive radio signals via the communication unit 4132.

The memory 1301 may store various information to be used by the processing circuit 1300 or generated by the processing circuit 1300 (e.g., information related to directional CCA, a threshold to be used during performance of directional CCA, etc.), programs and data for operation of the electronic device 130, data to be transmitted by the communication unit 1302, and so on. The memory 1301 is depicted with dashed lines because it may also be located within the processing circuit 1300 or external to the electronic device 130. The memory 1301 may be volatile memory and/or non-volatile memory. For example, memory 1301 may include, but is not limited to, Random Access Memory (RAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), flash memory.

The communication unit 1302 may be configured to communicate with an electronic device at the other end of the communication (e.g., a recipient electronic device) under control of the processing circuit 1300. In one example, the communication unit 1302 may be implemented as a transmitter or transceiver including communication components such as an antenna array and/or a radio frequency link. In one implementation, the communication unit 1302 may transmit on a beam determined based on the result of the directional CCA. In one implementation, the communication unit 1302 can transmit information of beams that can be used for transmission to a receiving electronic device.

Although the processing circuit 1300 is shown in fig. 13 as being separate from the communication unit 1302, the processing circuit 1300 may also be implemented to include the communication unit 1302. Further, the processing circuit 1300 may also be implemented to include one or more other components in the electronic device 130, or the processing circuit 1300 may be implemented as the electronic device 130 itself. In actual implementation, the processing circuit 1300 may be implemented as a chip (such as an integrated circuit module comprising a single wafer), a hardware component, or a complete product.

Each detailed operation performed by the electronic apparatus 130 will be described below.

A conceptual operation flow of the CCA unit of the electronic device according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure will be explained first with reference to fig. 14.

As shown in fig. 14, the operational flow 140 begins at S1400 when the electronic device is in an idle state, i.e., no data needs to be transmitted. When it is determined at S1402 that data needs to be transmitted, the operation flow proceeds to S1404. In S1404, the CCA unit performs CCA for directions of the plurality of beams in sequence, and does not perform CCA for remaining beams of the plurality of beams after the CCA for a predetermined threshold number of beams has passed.

Similar to the first embodiment, in the second embodiment, the term "CCA" denotes a clear channel assessment with directivity for a specific beam direction. Furthermore, the expression "CCA through" is intended to express that the channel is clear in a particular beam direction, i.e. to indicate that the energy on the channel in the direction of the beam for which CCA is performed is less than a predetermined threshold within a predetermined time period (e.g. 34 μ β). Hereinafter, "CCA pass" or "CCA success" both mean similar meanings, and these terms are not repeatedly explained.

Unlike the first embodiment, in the second embodiment, the initial CCA and the further CCA are not divided, but the CCAs are sequentially performed for a plurality of beams. According to the second embodiment, the CCA unit may perform CCA on the directions of the plurality of beams in sequence according to a predetermined order, where the order enables preferentially performing CCA on a beam with better channel quality in the direction. As shown in fig. 14, beams 1, 2 … … M may be M beams with channel quality from high to low. For example, the beam quality of the beam direction may be determined from a reference signal transmitted between the base station and the terminal device, and the CCA may be performed for each beam in the order of the channel quality from high to low. For example, for the uplink, the channel quality of a beam may be determined from a channel Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) of the terminal device. For another example, for the downlink, the channel quality of the beam may be determined according to a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or channel state information reference information (CSI-RS) of the base station. By performing CCA in the order related to the channel quality, the CCA unit may preferentially perform CCA for a direction having a better channel quality, so that, when the CCA passes in the direction, a beam having a better channel quality may be used to transmit, thereby improving the communication quality accordingly.

Alternatively, the CCA unit may perform CCA for a plurality of beams in sequence in a random order. Such a random order may be employed, for example, where it is difficult for the transmitting party to determine the channel quality of the individual beams, or the channel qualities of the individual beams are similar.

According to a second embodiment, the CCA unit may determine a threshold number in advance, and when the CCAs of the beams of the predetermined threshold number pass, no CCA is performed on the remaining beams. Assuming that directional CCA is performed for S beams, as shown in fig. 14, when a predetermined threshold number of beams have passed CCA after CCA is performed for M (M < ═ S) beams, the remaining S-M beams may not be CCA performed any more, and one beam may be selected from among the beams that have passed CCA for transmission (S1406). Preferably, the predetermined threshold number may be 1. Therefore, as long as one beam passes through the CCA in the beam direction, the beam can be directly used for transmitting, so that the transmission waiting time can be effectively reduced, and the communication efficiency is improved.

The operation of the CCA result processing unit of the electronic device according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure will be described below.

Similar to the first embodiment, the CCA result processing unit 13002 is configured to perform some processing on the result of the directional CCA, for example, to determine a beam that can be used for transmission and to control the communication unit to notify the beam that can be used for transmission.

Specifically, according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure, in the case where the above-described predetermined threshold number is equal to 1, the transmission beam determination module of the CCA result processing unit 13002 may be configured to determine, as a beam to be used for transmission, a beam by CCA. In a case where the number of the predetermined thresholds is greater than 1, the CCA result processing unit 13002 may determine, as a beam that can perform transmission, a beam that has a better channel quality in the direction among the beams that have passed through the CCA. For example, a beam with better channel quality determined based on reference information (such as SRS, SSB, or CSI-RS) exchanged between the base station and the terminal device during RRC connection setup may be selected for transmission. Alternatively, a plurality of beams that may be used for transmission may be determined based on the channel quality, such that the sender and receiver select a beam to transmit through subsequent negotiations. The configuration can better ensure the channel quality of the transmitting beam, thereby being beneficial to the successful receiving of the receiving end.

Similar to the first embodiment, according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure, the CCA result indication module of the CCA result processing unit 13002 may be configured to determine information related to the directional CCA of the beam and control the communication unit to notify the receiving electronic device of the information related to the directional CCA of the beam. The information related to the directional CCA of the beam may include an indication of a beam that can transmit and a beam that cannot transmit, and accordingly, notifying the receiving electronic device of the information related to the directional CCA of the beam may include notifying the receiving electronic device of the beam that can transmit and the beam that cannot transmit, which are determined based on a result of the directional CCA.

Similar to the first embodiment, the CCA result indication module may also be configured to indicate the beams that can transmit and the beams that cannot transmit in the form of a bitmap. For example, with reference to the beams that may be used for transmission determined by the transmit beam determination module, the CCA result indication module may generate an 8-bit bitmap indicating the beams that may be used for transmission (i.e., beams that pass directional CCA) and the beams that may not be used for transmission (i.e., beams that do not pass directional CCA), where 1 denotes a beam that is available for transmission, 0 denotes a beam that is not available for transmission, and a reserved bit (R) denotes an unaddressed beam (e.g., when CCA of a beam for which a predetermined threshold has passed after CCA is performed on M beams of S beams, there are S-M unaddressed beams, as described above). Alternatively, the reserved bit (R) may also be replaced by 0, in which case 0 may represent either a beam determined to be unavailable for transmission or an uninvolved beam. The bitmap with fixed length is adopted without considering the number of the wave beams for directional CCA, so that the receiving party can conveniently read the received bitmap, and the calculation of the receiving party is simplified.

Similar to the first embodiment, the CCA result indication module according to the second embodiment may control the communication unit to notify the receiving device of beams available for transmission based on the generated bitmap, so that the receiving device prepares the beams for reception (in case that only one beam available for transmission is indicated), or so that both parties perform subsequent negotiation to determine a beam to be transmitted (in case that a plurality of beams available for transmission are indicated).

Similar to the first embodiment, the CCA result indication module according to the second embodiment may be configured to control a relevant unit (e.g., a communication unit) in the electronic device 130 to notify the receiving electronic device of information related to the directional CCA of the beam in a dynamic or semi-static manner. For example, the communication unit may be controlled based on the generated bitmap to inform the receiving electronic device in a dynamic or semi-static manner about beams that may be used for transmission and beams that may not be used for transmission and/or beams that are not involved. The specific notification manner of the dynamic state and the semi-static state is the same as that of the first embodiment, and is not described herein again.

Further, similar to the first embodiment, according to the second embodiment, before starting the directional CCA for a plurality of beams, the plurality of beams may also be set in advance. According to the second embodiment of the present disclosure, the plurality of beams for which the directional CCA is performed may be pre-configured through RRC signaling or may be pre-configured through RRC signaling and activated through the MAC CE. In the second embodiment, this process of beam pre-setting is implemented by the base station, whether for uplink or downlink. In other words, whether for uplink or downlink, a plurality of beams to be subjected to the directional CCA are pre-configured by the base station through RRC signaling for beam setting for one or more channels between the base station and the terminal device. However, it should be understood that in case of directional CCA where the terminal device wants to transmit, there is also a pre-set procedure of multiple beams, and this pre-set procedure is implemented by the base station side based on signaling interaction between the base station and the terminal device. The procedure for presetting a plurality of beams to be subjected to directional CCA is similar to the procedure described with reference to the first embodiment, and is not described again here.

Having described the respective units of the electronic apparatus 130 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure, i.e., the operation thereof, below, a conceptual operation flow 150 of the electronic apparatus 130 according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure will be described with reference to fig. 15.

The conceptual operational flow begins at step S1500. First, at step S1502, the electronic device 130 sets in advance a plurality of beams on which directional CCA is to be performed. As described above, the plurality of beams are pre-configured through RRC signaling or pre-configured through RRC signaling and activated through the MAC CE. The configuration of the uplink and downlink has been described above and will not be described herein.

Subsequently, the electronic device 130 starts directional CCA on the set plurality of beams at step S1504. As described above, at step S1504, CCAs are sequentially performed for the directions of the plurality of beams, and when the CCAs of a predetermined threshold number of beams pass, the CCAs are not performed for the remaining beams of the plurality of beams.

Subsequently, at S1506, the electronic device may process the result of the CCA. For example, as described above, the electronic device 130 may determine one or more beams that may be used for transmission and inform the receiving electronic device of the one or more beams via a bitmap. For example, as described above, the electronic device 130 may determine the beams that may be used for transmission based on the channel quality in each beam direction. Where multiple beams are determined to be available for transmission, operational flow 150 may also include an optional step (not shown) of negotiating with the receiving electronic device to determine a beam to transmit.

Next, optionally, at S1508, the electronic device 150 initializes a channel occupancy time for the directivity in the determined beam direction to transmit. Subsequently, at S1510, the electronic device 150 may transmit in the determined beam direction. The flow ends at S1512.

The above operational flow merely illustrates the operation of the electronic device according to the second embodiment of the present disclosure in an exemplary manner, and the illustrated operation may be performed by the electronic device according to the present disclosure in a different order or in parallel. For example, the electronic device 130 may initialize the directional channel occupation time and notify the receiving electronic device of the beam to be transmitted after determining the beam to be transmitted.

The aspects of the present disclosure have been described through the first embodiment and the second embodiment. It should be noted that the above embodiments are merely exemplary. The solution of the present disclosure can also be implemented in other ways and still have the advantageous effects obtained by the above-described embodiments.

In addition, it should be understood that the series of processes and apparatuses described above may also be implemented by software and/or firmware. In the case of implementation by software and/or firmware, a program constituting the software is installed from a storage medium or a network to a computer having a dedicated hardware structure, such as a general-purpose personal computer 1600 shown in fig. 16, which is capable of executing various functions and the like when various programs are installed. Fig. 16 is a block diagram showing an example configuration of a personal computer as an information processing apparatus employable in the embodiments of the present disclosure. In one example, the personal computer may correspond to the above-described exemplary terminal device according to the present disclosure.

In fig. 16, a Central Processing Unit (CPU)1601 executes various processes in accordance with a program stored in a Read Only Memory (ROM)1602 or a program loaded from a storage portion 1608 to a Random Access Memory (RAM) 1603. In the RAM 1603, data necessary when the CPU 1601 executes various processes and the like is also stored as necessary.

The CPU 1601, ROM 1602, and RAM 1603 are connected to each other via a bus 1604. An input/output interface 1605 is also connected to the bus 1604.

The following components are connected to the input/output interface 1605: an input portion 1606 including a keyboard, a mouse, and the like; an output part 1607 including a display such as a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), etc., and a speaker, etc.; a storage portion 1608 including a hard disk and the like; and a communication section 1609 including a network interface card such as a LAN card, a modem, or the like. The communication section 1609 performs communication processing via a network such as the internet.

A driver 1610 is also connected to the input/output interface 1605 as needed. A removable medium 1611 such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like is mounted on the drive 1610 as necessary, so that a computer program read out therefrom is installed in the storage portion 1608 as necessary.

In the case where the above-described series of processes is realized by software, a program constituting the software is installed from a network such as the internet or a storage medium such as the removable medium 1611.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that such a storage medium is not limited to the removable medium 1611 shown in fig. 16, in which the program is stored, distributed separately from the apparatus to provide the program to the user. Examples of the removable medium 1611 include a magnetic disk (including a floppy disk (registered trademark)), an optical disk (including a compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM) and a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)), a magneto-optical disk (including a Mini Disk (MD) (registered trademark)), and a semiconductor memory. Alternatively, the storage medium may be the ROM 1602, a hard disk included in the storage section 1608, or the like, in which the program is stored, and is distributed to the user together with the device including them.

The techniques of this disclosure can be applied to a variety of products.

For example, the electronic device (40, 130) according to embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented as or included in various control devices/base stations, while the method as shown in fig. (12, 15) may also be implemented by various control devices/base stations. For example, the electronic device (40, 130) according to embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented as or included in various terminal devices/user equipment, while the method as shown in fig. (12, 15) may also be implemented by various control devices/base stations.

For example, the control devices/base stations mentioned in the present disclosure may be implemented as any type of base station, e.g., evolved node b (gNB), such as macro gNB and small gNB. The small gNB may be a gNB covering a cell smaller than a macro cell, such as a pico gNB, a micro gNB, and a home (femto) gNB. Alternatively, the Base Station may be implemented as any other type of Base Station, such as a NodeB and a Base Transceiver Station (BTS). The base station may include: a main body (also referred to as a base station apparatus) configured to control wireless communication; and one or more Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) disposed at a different place from the main body. In addition, various types of terminals, which will be described below, can each operate as a base station by temporarily or semi-persistently performing a base station function.

For example, the terminal device mentioned in the present disclosure, also referred to as a user device in some examples, may be implemented as a mobile terminal such as a smartphone, a tablet Personal Computer (PC), a notebook PC, a portable game terminal, a portable/cryptographic dog-type mobile router, and a digital camera, or a vehicle-mounted terminal such as a car navigation device. The user equipment may also be implemented as a terminal (also referred to as a Machine Type Communication (MTC) terminal) that performs machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. Further, the user equipment may be a wireless communication module (such as an integrated circuit module including a single chip) mounted on each of the above-described terminals.

Examples according to the present disclosure will be described below with reference to fig. 17 to 20.

[ example relating to base station ]

It should be understood that the term base station in this disclosure has its full breadth of ordinary meaning and includes at least a wireless communication station that is used to facilitate communications as part of a wireless communication system or radio system. Examples of base stations may be for example, but not limited to, the following: the base station may be one or both of a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and a Base Station Controller (BSC) in a GSM system, one or both of a Radio Network Controller (RNC) and a Node B in a WCDMA system, an eNB in LTE and LTE-Advanced systems, or a corresponding network Node in future communication systems (e.g., a gbb, an LTE eNB, etc., as may occur in a 5G communication system). Part of the functions in the base station of the present disclosure may also be implemented as an entity having a control function for communication in the D2D, M2M, and V2V communication scenarios, or as an entity functioning as spectrum coordination in the cognitive radio communication scenario.

First example

Fig. 17 is a block diagram illustrating a first example of a schematic configuration of a gNB to which the technique of the present disclosure can be applied. The gbb 1700 includes multiple antennas 1710 and base station equipment 1720. The base station device 1720 and each antenna 1710 may be connected to each other via an RF cable. In one implementation, the gNB 1700 (or base station device 1720) here may correspond to the electronic device (40, 130) described above.

Each of the antennas 1710 includes a single or multiple antenna elements (such as multiple antenna elements included in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna), and is used for the base station apparatus 1720 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 17, the gbb 1700 may include multiple antennas 1710. For example, the multiple antennas 1710 may be compatible with multiple frequency bands used by the gNB 1700.

The base station device 1720 includes a controller 1721, a memory 1722, a network interface 1723, and a wireless communication interface 1725.

The controller 1721 may be, for example, a CPU or a DSP, and operates various functions of higher layers of the base station apparatus 1720. For example, the controller 1721 generates data packets from data in signals processed by the wireless communication interface 1725 and communicates the generated packets via the network interface 1723. The controller 1721 may bundle data from the plurality of baseband processors to generate a bundle packet and deliver the generated bundle packet. The controller 1721 may have a logic function to perform control as follows: such as radio resource control, radio bearer control, mobility management, admission control and scheduling. This control may be performed in connection with a nearby gNB or core network node. The memory 1722 includes a RAM and a ROM, and stores programs executed by the controller 1721 and various types of control data (such as a terminal list, transmission power data, and scheduling data).

The network interface 1723 is a communication interface for connecting the base station device 1720 to a core network 1724. Controller 1721 may communicate with a core network node or another gNB via network interface 1723. In this case, the gNB 1700 and the core network node or other gnbs may be connected to each other through logical interfaces such as an S1 interface and an X2 interface. Network interface 1723 may also be a wired communication interface or a wireless communication interface for a wireless backhaul. If the network interface 1723 is a wireless communication interface, the network interface 1723 may use a higher frequency band for wireless communication than the frequency band used by the wireless communication interface 1725.

The wireless communication interface 1725 supports any cellular communication scheme, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced, and provides wireless connectivity to terminals located in the cell of the gNB 1700 via the antenna 1710. The wireless communication interface 1725 may generally include, for example, a baseband (BB) processor 1726 and RF circuitry 1727. The BB processor 1726 may perform, for example, encoding/decoding, modulation/demodulation, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and perform various types of signal processing of layers such as L1, Medium Access Control (MAC), Radio Link Control (RLC), and Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP). The BB processor 1726 may have a part or all of the above-described logic functions in place of the controller 1721. The BB processor 1726 may be a memory storing a communication control program, or a module including a processor and associated circuitry configured to execute programs. The update program may cause the function of the BB processor 1726 to change. The module may be a card or blade that is inserted into a slot of the base station device 1720. Alternatively, the module may be a chip mounted on a card or blade. Meanwhile, the RF circuit 1727 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, and transmits and receives a wireless signal via the antenna 1710. Although fig. 17 shows an example in which one RF circuit 1727 is connected to one antenna 1710, the present disclosure is not limited to this illustration, and one RF circuit 1727 may be connected to a plurality of antennas 1710 at the same time.

As shown in fig. 17, the wireless communication interface 1725 may include a plurality of BB processors 1726. For example, the plurality of BB processors 1726 may be compatible with the plurality of frequency bands used by the gNB 1700. As shown in fig. 16, wireless communication interface 1725 may include a plurality of RF circuits 1727. For example, the plurality of RF circuits 1727 may be compatible with a plurality of antenna elements. Although fig. 16 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 1725 includes a plurality of BB processors 1726 and a plurality of RF circuits 1727, the wireless communication interface 1725 may also include a single BB processor 1726 or a single RF circuit 1727.

Second example

Fig. 18 is a block diagram showing a second example of a schematic configuration of a gNB to which the technique of the present disclosure can be applied. The gNB 1830 includes multiple antennas 1840, base station apparatus 1850, and RRH 1860. The RRH 1860 and each antenna 1840 may be connected to each other via an RF cable. The base station apparatus 1850 and the RRH 1860 may be connected to each other via a high-speed line such as an optical fiber cable. In one implementation, the gbb 1830 (or the base station apparatus 1850) herein may correspond to the electronic apparatus (40, 130) described above.

Each of the antennas 1840 includes a single or multiple antenna elements (such as multiple antenna elements included in a MIMO antenna) and is used for the RRH 1860 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 18, a gNB 1830 may include multiple antennas 1840. For example, the plurality of antennas 1840 may be compatible with the plurality of frequency bands used by the gNB 1830.

Base station apparatus 1850 includes a controller 1851, memory 1852, a network interface 1853, a wireless communication interface 1855, and a connection interface 1857. The controller 1851, the memory 1852, and the network interface 1853 are the same as the controller 1721, the memory 1722, and the network interface 1723 described with reference to fig. 17.

Wireless communication interface 1855 supports any cellular communication scheme (such as LTE and LTE-advanced) and provides wireless communication via RRH 1860 and antenna 1840 to terminals located in a sector corresponding to RRH 1860. Wireless communication interface 1855 may generally include, for example, BB processor 1856. BB processor 1856 is the same as BB processor 1726 described with reference to fig. 17, except that BB processor 1856 is connected to RF circuitry 1864 of RRH 1860 via connection interface 1857. As shown in fig. 18, wireless communication interface 1855 may include multiple BB processors 1856. For example, the plurality of BB processors 1856 may be compatible with the plurality of frequency bands used by the gbb 1830. Although fig. 18 shows an example in which wireless communication interface 1855 includes multiple BB processors 1856, wireless communication interface 1855 may also include a single BB processor 1856.

Connection interface 1857 is an interface used to connect base station apparatus 1850 (wireless communication interface 1855) to an RRH 1860. Connection interface 1857 may also be a communication module for communicating on the above-described high-speed lines connecting base station apparatus 1850 (wireless communication interface 1855) to an RRH 1860.

RRH 1860 includes a connection interface 1861 and a wireless communication interface 1863.

Connection interface 1861 is an interface for connecting RRH 1860 (wireless communication interface 1863) to base station apparatus 1850. Connection interface 1861 may also be a communication module for communication in the above-described high-speed line.

Wireless communication interface 1863 transmits and receives wireless signals via antenna 1840. Wireless communication interface 1863 may generally include, for example, RF circuitry 1864. RF circuitry 1864 may include, for example, mixers, filters, and amplifiers, and transmits and receives wireless signals via antenna 1840. Although fig. 18 illustrates an example where one RF circuit 1864 is connected with one antenna 1840, the present disclosure is not limited to this illustration, and one RF circuit 1864 may simultaneously connect multiple antennas 1840.

As shown in fig. 18, wireless communication interface 1863 may include a plurality of RF circuits 1864. For example, multiple RF circuits 1864 may support multiple antenna elements. Although fig. 18 illustrates an example in which wireless communication interface 1863 includes multiple RF circuits 1864, wireless communication interface 1863 may also include a single RF circuit 1864.

[ examples relating to user equipments ]

First example

Fig. 19 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a smartphone 1900 to which the technique of the present disclosure can be applied. The smart phone 1900 includes a processor 1901, a memory 1902, a storage device 1903, an external connection interface 1904, a camera 1906, a sensor 1907, a microphone 1908, an input device 1909, a display device 1910, a speaker 1911, a wireless communication interface 1912, one or more antenna switches 1915, one or more antennas 1916, a bus 1917, a battery 1918, and an auxiliary controller 1919. In one implementation, the smart phone 1900 (or the processor 1901) herein may correspond to the electronic device (40, 130) described above.

The processor 1901 may be, for example, a CPU or a system on a chip (SoC), and controls functions of an application layer and another layer of the smartphone 1900. The memory 1902 includes a RAM and a ROM, and stores data and programs executed by the processor 1901. The storage 1903 may include storage media such as a semiconductor memory and a hard disk. The external connection interface 1904 is an interface for connecting an external device such as a memory card and a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device to the smartphone 1900.

The image pickup device 1906 includes an image sensor such as a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) and a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS), and generates a captured image. The sensors 1907 may include a set of sensors such as a measurement sensor, a gyro sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, and an acceleration sensor. The microphone 1908 converts sound input to the smartphone 1900 into an audio signal. The input device 1909 includes, for example, a touch sensor, a keypad, a keyboard, a button, or a switch configured to detect a touch on the screen of the display device 1910, and receives an operation or information input from a user. The display device 1910 includes a screen such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display, and displays an output image of the smart phone 1900. The speaker 1911 converts an audio signal output from the smartphone 1900 into sound.

The wireless communication interface 1912 supports any cellular communication scheme (such as LTE and LTE-advanced) and performs wireless communication. The wireless communication interface 1912 may generally include, for example, a BB processor 1913 and RF circuitry 1914. The BB processor 1913 may perform, for example, encoding/decoding, modulation/demodulation, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and perform various types of signal processing for wireless communication. Meanwhile, the RF circuit 1914 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, and transmits and receives a wireless signal via the antenna 1916. The wireless communication interface 1912 may be one chip module on which the BB processor 1913 and the RF circuit 1914 are integrated. As shown in fig. 19, the wireless communication interface 1912 may include a plurality of BB processors 1913 and a plurality of RF circuits 1914. Although fig. 19 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 1912 includes multiple BB processors 1913 and multiple RF circuits 1914, the wireless communication interface 1912 may also include a single BB processor 1913 or a single RF circuit 1914.

Further, the wireless communication interface 1912 may support another type of wireless communication scheme, such as a short-range wireless communication scheme, a near field communication scheme, and a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) scheme, in addition to the cellular communication scheme. In this case, the wireless communication interface 1912 may include a BB processor 1913 and RF circuits 1914 for each wireless communication scheme.

Each of the antenna switches 1915 switches a connection destination of the antenna 1916 between a plurality of circuits (for example, circuits for different wireless communication schemes) included in the wireless communication interface 1912.

Each of the antennas 1916 includes a single or multiple antenna elements (such as multiple antenna elements included in a MIMO antenna) and is used for wireless communication interface 1912 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 19, the smart phone 1900 may include multiple antennas 1916. Although fig. 19 shows an example in which the smart phone 1900 includes multiple antennas 1916, the smart phone 1900 may also include a single antenna 1916.

Further, the smart phone 1900 may include an antenna 1916 for each wireless communication scheme. In this case, the antenna switch 1915 may be omitted from the configuration of the smartphone 1900.

The bus 1917 connects the processor 1901, the memory 1902, the storage device 1903, the external connection interface 1904, the image pickup device 1906, the sensor 1907, the microphone 1908, the input device 1909, the display device 1910, the speaker 1911, the wireless communication interface 1912, and the auxiliary controller 1919 to each other. The battery 1918 provides power to the various blocks of the smartphone 1900 shown in fig. 18 via a feed line, which is partially shown in the figure as a dashed line. The auxiliary controller 1919 operates the minimum necessary functions of the smartphone 1900, for example, in a sleep mode.

Second example

Fig. 20 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a car navigation device 2020 to which the technique of the present disclosure can be applied. The car navigation device 2020 includes a processor 2021, memory 2022, a Global Positioning System (GPS) module 2024, sensors 2025, a data interface 2026, a content player 2027, a storage medium interface 2028, an input device 2029, a display device 2030, a speaker 2031, a wireless communication interface 2033, one or more antenna switches 2036, one or more antennas 2037, and a battery 2038. In one implementation, the car navigation device 2020 (or the processor 2021) herein may correspond to the electronic device (40, 130) described above.

The processor 2021 may be, for example, a CPU or a SoC, and controls the navigation function and further functions of the car navigation device 2020. The memory 2022 includes a RAM and a ROM, and stores data and programs executed by the processor 2021.

The GPS module 2024 measures the position (such as latitude, longitude, and altitude) of the car navigation device 2020 using GPS signals received from GPS satellites. The sensors 2025 may include a set of sensors, such as a gyroscope sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, and an air pressure sensor. The data interface 2026 is connected to, for example, the in-vehicle network 2041 via a terminal not shown, and acquires data generated by the vehicle (such as vehicle speed data).

The content player 2027 reproduces content stored in a storage medium (such as a CD and a DVD) inserted into the storage medium interface 2028. The input device 2029 includes, for example, a touch sensor, a button, or a switch configured to detect a touch on the screen of the display device 2030, and receives an operation or information input from a user. The display device 2030 includes a screen such as an LCD or OLED display, and displays an image of a navigation function or reproduced content. The speaker 2031 outputs sound of the navigation function or reproduced content.

The wireless communication interface 2033 supports any cellular communication scheme (such as LTE and LTE-advanced) and performs wireless communication. The wireless communication interface 2033 may generally include, for example, a BB processor 2034 and RF circuitry 2035. The BB processor 2034 may perform, for example, encoding/decoding, modulation/demodulation, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and perform various types of signal processing for wireless communication. Meanwhile, the RF circuit 2035 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, and transmits and receives a wireless signal via the antenna 2037. The wireless communication interface 2033 may also be one chip module on which the BB processor 2034 and the RF circuit 2035 are integrated. As shown in fig. 20, the wireless communication interface 2033 may include a plurality of BB processors 2034 and a plurality of RF circuits 2035. Although fig. 20 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 2033 includes a plurality of BB processors 2034 and a plurality of RF circuits 2035, the wireless communication interface 2033 may also include a single BB processor 2034 or a single RF circuit 2035.

Further, the wireless communication interface 2033 may support another type of wireless communication scheme, such as a short-range wireless communication scheme, a near field communication scheme, and a wireless LAN scheme, in addition to the cellular communication scheme. In this case, the wireless communication interface 2033 may include a BB processor 2034 and an RF circuit 2035 for each wireless communication scheme.

Each of the antenna switches 2036 switches the connection destination of the antenna 2037 between a plurality of circuits (such as circuits for different wireless communication schemes) included in the wireless communication interface 2033.

Each of the antennas 2037 includes a single or multiple antenna elements (such as multiple antenna elements included in a MIMO antenna), and is used for the wireless communication interface 2033 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 20, the car navigation device 2020 may include a plurality of antennas 2037. Although fig. 20 shows an example in which the car navigation device 2020 includes a plurality of antennas 2037, the car navigation device 2020 may include a single antenna 2037.

Further, the car navigation device 2020 may include an antenna 2037 for each wireless communication scheme. In this case, the antenna switch 2036 may be omitted from the configuration of the car navigation apparatus 2020.

The battery 2038 supplies power to the respective blocks of the car navigation device 2020 shown in fig. 20 via a feed line, which is partially shown as a broken line in the drawing. The battery 2038 accumulates electric power supplied from the vehicle.

The techniques of this disclosure may also be implemented as an in-vehicle system (or vehicle) 2040 including one or more blocks of a car navigation device 2020, an in-vehicle network 2041, and a vehicle module 2042. The vehicle module 2042 generates vehicle data (such as vehicle speed, engine speed, and failure information), and outputs the generated data to the on-vehicle network 2041.

The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are described above with reference to the drawings, but the present disclosure is of course not limited to the above examples. Various changes and modifications within the scope of the appended claims may be made by those skilled in the art, and it should be understood that these changes and modifications naturally will fall within the technical scope of the present disclosure.

It should be understood that machine-executable instructions in a machine-readable storage medium or program product according to embodiments of the disclosure may be configured to perform operations corresponding to the above-described apparatus and method embodiments. Embodiments of the machine-readable storage medium or program product will be apparent to those skilled in the art when the above apparatus and method embodiments are referenced and, therefore, will not be described repeatedly. Machine-readable storage media and program products for carrying or including the machine-executable instructions described above are also within the scope of the present disclosure. Such storage media may include, but is not limited to, floppy disks, optical disks, magneto-optical disks, memory cards, memory sticks, and the like.

In addition, it should be understood that the series of processes and apparatuses described above may also be implemented by software and/or firmware. In the case of implementation by software and/or firmware, respective programs constituting the respective software are stored in a storage medium of the relevant device (for example, in the memory 1301 of the electronic device 40 shown in fig. 4 or the electronic device 130 shown in fig. 13), and when the programs are executed, various functions can be executed.

For example, a plurality of functions included in one unit may be implemented by separate devices in the above embodiments. Alternatively, a plurality of functions implemented by a plurality of units in the above embodiments may be implemented by separate devices, respectively. In addition, one of the above functions may be implemented by a plurality of units. Needless to say, such a configuration is included in the technical scope of the present disclosure.

In this specification, the steps described in the flowcharts include not only the processing performed in time series in the described order but also the processing performed in parallel or individually without necessarily being performed in time series. Further, even in the steps processed in time series, needless to say, the order can be changed as appropriate.

Although the present disclosure and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the appended claims. Also, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, of the embodiments of the present disclosure are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising an … …" does not exclude the presence of other identical elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

Further, the present disclosure may also have a configuration as follows:

(1) an electronic device for a wireless communication system, comprising:

a processing circuit configured to:

communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and

performing a directional clear channel assessment, CCA, on a plurality of beams, selecting a beam to transmit based on a result of the directional CCA,

wherein the plurality of beams are subject to a directional CCA by:

performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams;

selecting a beam passing the initial CCA to transmit under the condition that the initial CCA passes; and

in the event that the initial CCA fails, performing a further CCA for one or more of the plurality of beams.

(2) The electronic apparatus according to (1), wherein,

the beam on which the initial CCA is performed is the most appropriate beam or a predetermined beam.

(3) The electronic apparatus according to (1) or (2),

wherein, the most suitable beam represents the beam with better channel quality in the direction; and

the predetermined beam means a beam activated by an RRC configured beam or by a control element MAC CE of a medium access control layer in a radio resource control configuration RRC connection setup procedure.

(4) The electronic apparatus according to (1), wherein,

further CCAs include:

-determining a number T within a predetermined range;

-performing CCA iteratively as follows: decreasing T by 1 on a current CCA pass, otherwise continuing CCA without changing T until T equals 0, wherein CCA is performed for one or more of the plurality of beams in each iteration.

(5) The electronic apparatus according to (4), wherein,

the number T is randomly selected within the predetermined range, and

at each iteration, a randomly selected one of the plurality of beams is CCA performed, and the result of the CCA of the beam is taken as the CCA result of the iteration.

(6) The electronic apparatus according to (4), wherein,

the number T is a product of the number of the plurality of beams and a value randomly selected from the predetermined range, and

at each iteration, performing CCA on one of the plurality of beams selected according to a predetermined sequence, and taking the result of the CCA of the beam as the CCA result of the iteration, wherein the predetermined sequence enables the plurality of beams to be performed with CCA sequentially in a circulating manner.

(7) The electronic apparatus according to (4), wherein,

the number T is randomly selected within the predetermined range, and

at each iteration, all or some of the plurality of beams are sequentially CCA-processed, and when the CCA of more than a predetermined threshold number of beams is passed, the current CCA is considered passed.

(8) The electronic apparatus according to (7), wherein,

the predetermined threshold number is any one of the following values: one, half the number of beams that perform CCA in one iteration, and the number of beams that perform CCA in one iteration.

(9) The electronic device according to any one of (1) to (8), wherein,

by directional CCA is meant that the energy in the direction of the beam for which directional CCA is performed is less than a predetermined threshold.

(10) The electronic device of any of (4) - (8), wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

after the further CCA is over, selecting any one of the following beams to transmit:

during the further CCA, passing a beam with a maximum total number of CCAs or a minimum total number of CCA failures;

the final beam passing through the CCA; and

the beam with better channel quality in this direction.

(11) The electronic device according to any one of (1) to (10), wherein,

performing the directional CCA on a receive beam corresponding to a transmit beam direction.

(12) The electronic apparatus according to (1), wherein,

the plurality of beams are pre-configured through radio resource control signaling, or,

the plurality of beams are pre-configured by radio resource control signaling and activated by a control element, MAC CE, of a medium access control layer.

(13) The electronic device of claim (12),

pre-configuring the plurality of beams via radio resource control signaling comprises:

-beam-setting, by the electronic device and a device acting as a base station of the other electronic device, one or more channels between the electronic device and the other electronic device by radio resource control signaling.

(14) The electronic device according to (13), wherein,

for the downlink, performing beam setting comprises configuring a plurality of Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) states, wherein each TCI state corresponds to one beam; or

For the uplink, performing beam setting includes configuring a plurality of spatial relationship information spatialrelalationlnfo, where each spatialrelalationlnfo corresponds to a beam.

(15) The electronic device of claim (14),

the one or more channels include one or more of: a physical downlink control channel PDCCH, a physical downlink shared channel PDSCH, a physical uplink control channel PUCCH and a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH.

(16) The electronic apparatus according to (1), wherein,

the directional channel occupancy time is initialized in the direction of the beam to be transmitted, determined based on the result of the directional CCA.

(17) The electronic apparatus according to (1), wherein,

the processing circuit is further configured to notify another electronic device of information related to the directional CCA of the beam.

(18) The electronic device of (17), wherein,

notifying the other electronic device of the information related to the directional CCA of the beam includes notifying the other electronic device of a beam that is capable of transmission and a beam that is not capable of transmission, which are determined based on a result of the directional CCA.

(19) The electronic device of (18), wherein,

the beams that can be transmitted and the beams that cannot be transmitted are indicated in the form of a bitmap.

(20) The electronic apparatus according to (18) or (19), wherein,

informing the other electronic device of information related to the directional CCA of the beam in a dynamic or semi-static manner, wherein,

the dynamic mode comprises the steps of utilizing control information to dynamically designate beams capable of being transmitted and beams incapable of being transmitted; and

the semi-static approach involves activating a beam capable of transmitting using a control element of the medium access control layer.

(21) A method for a wireless communication system, comprising:

a processing circuit configured to:

communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and

wherein the plurality of beams are subject to a directional CCA by:

performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams;

(22) An electronic device for a wireless communication system, comprising:

communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and

wherein the plurality of beams are subject to a directional CCA by:

and performing CCA on the directions of the plurality of beams in sequence, and when CCAs of a preset threshold number of beams pass, not performing CCA on the rest beams in the plurality of beams.

(23) The electronic device as recited in (22), wherein

And sequentially performing CCA on the directions of the beams according to a predetermined sequence, wherein the sequence is used for performing CCA on the beams with good channel quality in the direction preferentially.

(24) The electronic apparatus according to (22) or (23), wherein

The predetermined threshold number is 1.

(25) The electronic apparatus according to (22) or (23), wherein

When the predetermined threshold number is greater than 1, a beam having a better channel quality is selected from among the beams passing through the CCA to transmit.

(26) The electronic device according to any one of (22) to (25), wherein,

(27) The electronic device of any of (22) - (26), wherein,

(28) The electronic device of (22), wherein,

(29) The electronic device of (28), wherein,

(30) The electronic device of (29), wherein,

(31) The electronic device of (30), wherein,

(32) The electronic device of (22), wherein,

(33) The electronic device of (22), wherein,

(34) The electronic device of (33), wherein,

(35) The electronic device of (34), wherein,

(36) The electronic apparatus according to (34) or (35), wherein,

(37) A method for a wireless communication system, comprising:

communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and

wherein the plurality of beams are subject to a directional CCA by:

(38) A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing executable instructions that when executed perform the method of (21) or (37).

(39) An apparatus, comprising:

a processor for processing the received data, wherein the processor is used for processing the received data,

a storage device storing executable instructions that, when executed, implement the method of (21) or (37).

Claims

1. An electronic device for a wireless communication system, comprising:

a processing circuit configured to:

communicating using an unlicensed frequency band; and

wherein the plurality of beams are subject to a directional CCA by:

performing an initial CCA on one of the plurality of beams;

2. The electronic device of claim 1,

3. The electronic device of claim 1 or 2,

4. The electronic device of claim 1,

further CCAs include:

-determining a number T within a predetermined range;

5. The electronic device of claim 4,

the number T is randomly selected within the predetermined range, and

6. The electronic device of claim 4,

7. The electronic device of claim 4,

the number T is randomly selected within the predetermined range, and

8. The electronic device of claim 7,

9. The electronic device of any one of claims 1-8,

10. The electronic device of any one of claims 4-8, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

the final beam passing through the CCA; and

the beam with better channel quality in this direction.