CN112514483B

CN112514483B - Communication method and device

Info

Publication number: CN112514483B
Application number: CN201980014034.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 花梦; 吴海; 焦淑蓉
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-06-29
Filing date: 2019-06-29
Publication date: 2023-11-17
Anticipated expiration: 2039-06-29
Also published as: WO2021000120A1; CN112514483A

Abstract

A method and apparatus for communication, wherein the method comprises: receiving first control information, wherein the first control information is used for scheduling a first data channel and indicating N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel; if a first task to be processed exists, the processing time of the first task overlaps with the first time period, and then the pilot frequency carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot frequency symbols in the N groups of pilot frequency symbols is used for carrying out channel estimation on a first data channel to obtain a first channel estimation result; and processing the data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task. By adopting the method, the pilot frequency carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot frequency symbols is used for carrying out channel estimation, so that the time of channel estimation is advanced, and more time is available for processing the first data channel, thereby reducing the retransmission probability and improving the transmission performance.

Description

Communication method and device

Technical Field

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

Background

In a wireless communication system, a network device and a terminal device can perform data transmission through time-frequency resources. When the network device and the terminal device perform data transmission, the network device may send control information to the terminal device through a control channel, such as a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), so as to schedule a data channel, such as a physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH) or a physical uplink shared channel (physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH).

Taking the example of a 5G communication system, the 5G communication system may support multiple service types, such as ultra-high reliability low latency communication (ultra reliability and low latency communication, URLLC) service types and enhanced mobile broadband (enhanced mobile broadband, eMBB) service types, so that the terminal device may need to handle the communication requirements of multiple service types at the same time, such as the terminal device may need to handle the communication requirements of URLLC service types and eMBB service types at the same time. For example, the base station schedules a first PDSCH, where the first PDSCH corresponds to the eMBB service data, and then schedules a second PDSCH, where the second PDSCH corresponds to the URLLC service data; when the processing time of the first PDSCH and the processing time of the second PDSCH collide, considering that the priority of the URLLC service data is higher than the priority of the eMBB service data, the terminal device may process the second PDSCH preferentially, which may cause the first PDSCH to trigger retransmission out of the way, so that the performance of the eMBB service is degraded.

In summary, how to reduce the retransmission probability of PDSCH to improve the performance of PDSCH needs further research.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application aims to provide a communication method which is used for reducing the retransmission probability of a PDSCH and improving the performance of the PDSCH.

The embodiment of the application provides a communication method, which comprises the following steps: receiving first control information, wherein the first control information is used for scheduling a first data channel and indicating N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel; if a first task to be processed exists, carrying out channel estimation on a first data channel by using pilot frequencies carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before a kth group of pilot frequency symbols in the N groups of pilot frequency symbols to obtain a first channel estimation result, wherein k is less than or equal to N and is a positive integer N, k; processing data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task; the processing time of the first task overlaps with a first time period, the starting time of the first time period is the ending time of the k-th group pilot symbols, and the ending time of the first time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

By adopting the method, the pilot frequency carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot frequency symbols is used for carrying out channel estimation, so that the time of channel estimation is advanced, and more time is available for processing the first data channel, thereby reducing the retransmission probability and improving the transmission performance.

In one possible design, when the first task is not present, performing channel estimation on the first data channel by using the kth group of pilot symbols and pilots carried on one or more groups of pilot symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot symbols to obtain a second channel estimation result; and processing the data in the first data channel according to the second channel estimation result.

In this way, when there is a first task to be processed and the pilot frequency (such as DMRS) used for channel estimation is less than the DMRS used for channel estimation when there is no first task, the performance of channel estimation may be reduced, but when decoding the data in the first data channel based on the channel estimation result, the decoding may be successful with a greater probability.

In one possible design, at least one set of pilot symbols is located before the start of the processing time of the first task.

In one possible design, the processing the first task and the processing the data in the first data channel according to the channel estimation result of the first data channel includes: processing the first task in a second time period, and processing data in the first data channel according to a channel estimation result of the first data channel; the starting time of the second time period is the ending time of at least one group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the second time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

In one possible design, the first task to be processed is a second data channel to be processed.

In one possible design, the priority of processing the second data channel is higher than the priority of processing the first data channel.

In one possible design, after receiving the first control information, the method further includes: second control information is received, the second control information being used to schedule a second data channel.

In one possible design, the first time length is less than a first threshold; or, the difference between the first time period and the second time period is smaller than a second threshold; the first duration is a duration between an end time of the first data channel and a start time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel, and the second duration is a duration where the first duration overlaps with a processing time of the first task.

In the embodiment of the present application, the first time length is smaller than the first threshold value, or the difference between the first time length and the second time length is smaller than the second threshold value, which indicates that there may not be enough time to process the data in the first data channel.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, which may be a terminal device, or may also be a semiconductor chip provided in the terminal device. The device has the function of realizing the various possible designs of the first aspect. The functions can be realized by hardware, and can also be realized by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more units or modules corresponding to the functions described above.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, including: a receiver, and a processor coupled to the receiver, the receiver configured to: receiving first control information, wherein the first control information is used for scheduling a first data channel and indicating N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel;

the processor is used for: if a first task to be processed exists, carrying out channel estimation on a first data channel by using pilot frequencies carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before a kth group of pilot frequency symbols in the N groups of pilot frequency symbols to obtain a first channel estimation result, wherein k is less than or equal to N and is a positive integer N, k; processing data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task; the processing time of the first task overlaps with a first time period, the starting time of the first time period is the ending time of the k-th group pilot symbols, and the ending time of the first time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

In one possible design, the processor is further configured to: when the first task does not exist, carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using the kth group of pilot symbols and pilot frequencies carried on one or more groups of pilot symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot symbols to obtain a second channel estimation result; and processing the data in the first data channel according to the second channel estimation result.

In one possible design, the processor is specifically for: processing the first task in a second time period, and processing data in the first data channel according to a channel estimation result of the first data channel; the starting time of the second time period is the ending time of at least one group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the second time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

In one possible design, after the receiver receives the first control information, the receiver is further configured to: second control information is received, the second control information being used to schedule a second data channel.

In a fourth aspect, embodiments of the present application also provide a computer readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed, implement a method in any one of the possible designs of the first aspect described above.

In a fifth aspect, embodiments of the present application also provide a computer program product comprising a computer program or instructions which, when executed, implement a method in any one of the possible designs of the first aspect described above.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of one possible communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a coding process of a transport block 1 and a transport block 2 according to an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 3a is an example of PDSCH mapping type A provided by an embodiment of the present application;

FIGS. 3b and 3c are two examples of PDSCH mapping type B provided by embodiments of the present application;

fig. 4a is a schematic diagram of a minimum processing time of a PDSCH in an embodiment of the application;

FIG. 4b is a diagram of network device scheduling PDSCH-1 and PDSCH-2;

FIG. 4c is a diagram of network device scheduling PDSCH-1 and PDSCH-2;

fig. 5 is a schematic flow chart corresponding to a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 6a is a schematic diagram of a first time period according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 6b is a schematic diagram illustrating a situation where there is an overlap between the processing time of the first task and the first time period according to the embodiment of the present application;

FIGS. 6c and 6d are two exemplary diagrams of channel estimation performed in advance according to embodiments of the present application;

fig. 6e, 6f and 6g are three exemplary diagrams for processing a first PDSCH and a first task according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7a is a schematic diagram of a start time of a processing time of a first task being located before an end time of a 1 st group DMRS symbol corresponding to a first PDSCH;

fig. 7b is two exemplary diagrams of a first task provided in an embodiment of the present application, where a start time of a processing time of the first task is located before and after a 2 nd set of DMRS symbols;

FIG. 8 is a possible exemplary block diagram of an apparatus involved in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

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

Fig. 1 illustrates one possible communication system 100 to which embodiments of the present application may be applied. As shown in fig. 1, communication system 100 may include at least one network device 110. The network device 110 is an access device that a terminal device accesses to the mobile communication system in a wireless manner, and may be a base station NodeB, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), a transmission and reception point (transmission reception point, TRP), a next generation NodeB (gNB) in a 5G mobile communication system, a base station in a future mobile communication system, or an access node in a wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) system; the present application may also be a module or unit that performs a function of a base station part, for example, a Central Unit (CU) or a Distributed Unit (DU). Embodiments of the present application are not limited to the specific technology and specific device configuration employed by network device 110.

The communication system 100 also includes one or more terminal devices 120 located within the coverage area of the network device 110. The terminal device 120 is a device with wireless transceiver function, which can be deployed on land, including indoor or outdoor, hand-held, wearable or vehicle-mounted; can also be deployed on the water surface (such as ships, etc.); but may also be deployed in the air (e.g., on aircraft, balloon, satellite, etc.). The terminal device may be a mobile phone, a tablet (Pad), a computer with wireless transceiving function, a Virtual Reality (VR) terminal device, an augmented reality (augmented reality, AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), a wireless terminal in unmanned driving (self driving), a wireless terminal in remote medical (remote medical), a wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal in transportation security (transportation safety), a wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), etc. The embodiment of the application does not limit the application scene. The terminal device may also be sometimes referred to as a User Equipment (UE), a mobile station, a remote station, etc., and the specific technology, device configuration, and name adopted by the terminal device are not limited in the embodiments of the present application.

It should be appreciated that fig. 1 illustrates only one network device 110 and two terminal devices 120 by way of example, and that the communication system 100 may alternatively include multiple network devices 110 and further terminal devices 120 may be included within the coverage area of one network device 110, which is not limited by the embodiments of the present application.

It should be noted that the communication system illustrated above may include communication systems of various radio access technologies, such as a long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) communication system, a 5G communication system, and other possible communication systems.

The system architecture and the service scenario described in the embodiments of the present application are for more clearly describing the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application, and do not constitute a limitation on the technical solution provided by the embodiments of the present application, and those skilled in the art can know that, with the evolution of the communication system architecture and the appearance of the new service scenario, the technical solution provided by the embodiments of the present application is applicable to similar technical problems.

Some communication terms or expressions which are involved in the embodiments of the present application are explained below, and the communication terms or expressions also form a part of the content of the present application. It should be noted that these explanations are for easier understanding of the embodiments of the present application, and should not be construed as limiting the scope of protection claimed by the present application.

(1) Transport Block (TB)

Taking the 5G communication system as an example, there may be 1 or 2 transport blocks for one PDSCH transmission in the 5G communication system, for example, 2 transport blocks for one PDSCH transmission (transport block 1 and transport block 2, respectively). Further, fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of the coding process of the transport block 1 and the transport block 2, and is shown in fig. 2, and includes the following steps (in describing each step, only the transport block 1 is taken as an example for illustration, and the transport block 2 can refer to the process): step 201, performing check (such as cyclic redundancy check (cyclic redundancy check, CRC)) encoding on the transport block 1; step 202, code Block (CB) segmentation is carried out on the transmission block 1 after verification coding, so as to obtain a plurality of CBs; step 203, for each CB of the plurality of CBs (such as CB 1), performing CRC encoding on the CB 1; step 204, performing channel coding on the plurality of CBs after CRC coding; step 205, performing rate matching on the plurality of CBs after channel coding; in step 206, code block concatenation is performed on the CBs after rate matching to obtain one or more Code Block Groups (CBGs), and then one or more CBGs may be transmitted through the PDSCH.

(2)CBG

One CBG contains at least one CB, one CB belonging to and only one CBG. The number of CBGs in each TB may be 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 at maximum depending on the configuration of the higher layer signaling. The number of CBs in a TB is related to the TB size, the larger the TB, the more CBs in the TB. Since the TB size in each PDSCH scheduling is variable, the number of CBs in each PDSCH scheduling may be different. C represents the number of CBs in a TB, then C is likely to be greater than, equal to, or less than N; when C is greater than or equal to N, C CBs can be divided into N CBGs, and each CBG comprises a plurality of CBs; when C is smaller than N, if N CBGs are to be divided, there will be a case where there is no CB in some CBGs, and at this time, C CBs may be divided into only C CBGs, so as to ensure that there is at least one CB in each CBG. Thus, the number of CBGs for one TB is m=min (N, C).

Illustratively, the network device may configure the terminal device to support CBG, such as the network device transmitting downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI) to the terminal device, the DCI including code block group transmission information (code block group transmission information, CBGTI), which may contain N _TB N bits (bit), where N _TB Is the TB number, which can be 1 or 2. If N _TB The first N bits in cbgti correspond to the first TB and the last N bits correspond to the second tb=2. The first M bits of the first N bits are mapped to M CBGs of a first TB one by one in sequence, wherein the first bit is mapped to CBG#0; likewise, the first M bits of the latter N bits are mapped one-to-one onto the M CBGs of the second TB in order.

In the embodiment of the application, the hybrid automatic repeat request (hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ) feedback can be performed on finer granularity by introducing CBG. In LTE, HARQ feedback is performed for a TB, and in a 5G communication system, a terminal device configured with CBGs may perform CBG-level HARQ feedback, where each CBG corresponds to one bit of HARQ feedback information.

(3) Mapping type of PDSCH

In a 5G communication system, PDSCH has two mapping types: a mapping type A (mapping type A) and a mapping type B (mapping type B). The starting symbol S (the first symbol number of the slot is denoted by 0, and so on) and the number of persistent symbols L (counted from the symbol S) of the two types of PDSCH are different, and the positions of demodulation reference signals (de-modulation reference signal, DMRS) are also different. Referring to table 1, the differences between the two types of S and L are given.

Table 1: two types of S and L

As can be seen from table 1, in the conventional cyclic prefix (normal cyclic prefix, NCP) (extended cyclic prefix (extended cyclic prefix, ECP) and the like): the starting symbol of mapping type a may be the first 4 symbols {0,1,2,3}, and the number of persistent symbols may be {3, …,14}; the starting symbol of the mapping type B may be the first 13 symbols {0, …,12}, and the number of persistent symbols may be {2,4,7}.

Fig. 3a is an example of PDSCH mapping type A, and referring to fig. 3a, the initial symbol of the PDSCH is symbol 2 and the number of persistent symbols is 11. Fig. 3b and 3c are two examples of PDSCH mapping type B, and referring to fig. 3b, the initial symbol of the PDSCH is symbol 4 and the number of persistent symbols is 2; referring to fig. 3c, the initial symbol of the PDSCH is symbol 8 and the number of persistent symbols is 4.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the number of the start symbol of the slot is described as 0, and in other possible embodiments, the number of the start symbol may also be other values, such as 1, which is not limited in particular. Based on this, the 1 st symbol in the embodiment of the present application is symbol 0, the 2 nd symbol is symbol 1, and so on.

(4) DMRS symbol

PDSCH may correspond to one or more sets of DMRS symbols, where the DMRS symbols have two modes, single symbol (single symbol) mode and double symbol (double symbol) mode, respectively. Taking a plurality of sets of DMRS symbols corresponding to PDSCH as an example, in a single symbol mode, each set of DMRS symbols can be understood as one symbol, a plurality of sets of DMRS symbols can be understood as a plurality of DMRS symbols, and the plurality of sets of DMRS symbols are discontinuous symbols; in the dual symbol mode, each set of DMRS symbols may include 2 consecutive symbols, and two adjacent sets of DMRS symbols in the multiple sets of DMRS symbols are discontinuous.

See table 2 for an example of DMRS positions (DMRS positions) in single symbol mode.

Table 2: DMRS position in single symbol mode

See table 3 for an example of DMRS locations in dual symbol mode.

Table 3: DMRS position in dual symbol mode

In tables 2 and 3, l ₀ Representing the position of the first DMRS symbol, for mapping type a, if DMRS-AdditionalPosition is pos3, l ₀ =3, otherwise l ₀ =2; for mapping type B, l ₀ =0. Wherein dmrs-addition position is a high-level parameter, and may be configured as pos0, pos1, pos2, and pos3, where pos0 may be simply described as 0, that is, 0 located below dmrs-addition position in table 2 and table 3, and pos1 may be simply described as 1, that is, 1 located below dmrs-addition position in table 2 and table 3, and pos2 and pos3 are similar, and are not repeated. When not configured, dmrs-AdditionalPosition defaults to pos2.

For mapping type A, l _d Is the duration from the first symbol of the slot to the last symbol of the PDSCH; for mapping type B, l _d Is the duration between the starting time and the ending time of the PDSCH. In tables 2 and 3, the configurations noted for black occurrences may occur for multiple sets of DMRS symbols.

(5) Processing time of PDSCH

In the embodiment of the present application, the processing of the PDSCH by the terminal device may include performing channel estimation by the terminal device according to the DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol corresponding to the PDSCH, processing (including demodulation and decoding) the code block of the PDSCH according to the channel estimation result, and so on. Accordingly, the processing time of the PDSCH may include a duration from when channel estimation starts to when HARQ feedback corresponding to the PDSCH starts. For example, when the terminal device performs channel estimation using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the previous a group corresponding to the PDSCH, the starting time of the processing time of the PDSCH is the ending time of the DMRS symbol of the previous a group, and the ending time of the processing time of the PDSCH is the starting time of HARQ feedback corresponding to the PDSCH.

Referring to fig. 4a, the first uplink symbol of the PUCCH carrying HARQ feedback information should start no earlier than symbol L ₁ Wherein L is ₁ Defined as the start of Cyclic Prefix (CP) later than the PDSCH corresponding to HARQ feedback information T after the last symbol (i.e. end time of PDSCH) _proc,1 ＝(N ₁ +d _1,1 )(2048+144)·κ2 ^-μ ·T _C The first uplink symbol of (i.e., T) _proc,1 Is the minimum processing time corresponding to PDSCH. Wherein, (2048+144) & kappa 2 ^-μ ·T _c Corresponding to one symbol length when the subcarrier spacing sequence number is μ, μmay be determined according to the subcarrier spacing sequence number of the PUCCH and/or the subcarrier spacing sequence number of the PDSCH, which may be referred to in detail in the prior art. μ corresponds to a subcarrier spacing of Δf=2 ^μ ·15[kHz]，T _c ＝1/(Δf _max ·N _f )，Δf _max ＝480·10 ³ Hz，N _f =4096, κ=64. Thus T is _proc,1 Namely (N) ₁ +d _1,1 ) A symbol length. Wherein d _1,1 Related to the duration of PDSCH, N ₁ Related to the subcarrier spacing and the processing power of the terminal equipment, see table 4 for N ₁ One example of a value.

Table 4: n (N) ₁ One example of a value

As can be seen from Table 4, N of column 2 ₁ Take the value of N of 1 st row ₁ The value is large, that is, the processing time reserved for the PDSCH when the PDSCH corresponds to a plurality of sets of DMRS symbols is longer than the processing time reserved for the PDSCH when the PDSCH corresponds to a set of DMRS symbols. This is because, when there are multiple DMRS symbols, channel estimation is required according to DMRS carried on the multiple DMRS symbols in order to improve the performance of channel estimation, so that CB needs to be demodulated and decoded after receiving the multiple DMRS symbols and performing channel estimation, that is, PDSCH is processed when PDSCH corresponds to multiple DMRS symbols later than PDSCH corresponds to one DMRS symbol, thus N of column 2 ₁ Take the value of N of 1 st row ₁ The value is large.

(6) The first, second, etc. numbers related to the embodiments of the present application are merely for convenience of description and are not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments of the present application, nor represent the sequence. "and/or", describes an association relationship of an association object, and indicates that there may be three relationships, for example, a and/or B, and may indicate: a exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone. "at least one" means one or more. At least two means two or more. "at least one," "any one," or the like, refers to any combination of these items, including any combination of single item(s) or plural items(s). For example, at least one of a, b, or c (species ) may represent: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, wherein a, b, c may be single or plural.

In the communication system 100 illustrated in fig. 1, the network device 110 may transmit control information, such as downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI), to the terminal device 120 through the PDCCH, which may be used to schedule the PDSCH.

In one example (referred to as example 1), referring to fig. 4b, network device 110 sends DCI-1 to terminal device 120, DCI-1 for scheduling PDSCH-1, wherein PDSCH-1 corresponds to 4 sets of DMRS symbols; accordingly, the terminal device 120 processes the PDSCH-1 according to the DCI-1, specifically, after receiving 3 sets of DMRS symbols, that is, at the time ta1, the terminal device 120 performs channel estimation according to the DMRS carried on the 3 sets of DMRS symbols, further processes the code block of the PDSCH-1 according to the channel estimation result, and feeds back the HARQ-ACK to the network device 110 when the HARQ feedback time (time ta 2) corresponding to the PDSCH-1 arrives. The duration between the time ta1 and the time ta2 is the processing time of the PDSCH-1.

In yet another example (referred to as example 2), referring to fig. 4c, the network device transmits DCI-1, DCI-1 for scheduling PDSCH-1 (PDSCH-1 corresponds to 4 sets of DMRS symbols), and DCI-2, DCI-2 for scheduling PDSCH-2 (PDSCH-2 corresponds to 1 set of DMRS symbols) to the terminal device, wherein the priority of PDSCH-2 is higher than PDSCH-1 (or the priority of terminal device processing PDSCH-2 is higher than terminal device processing PDSCH-1). Accordingly, the terminal device processes the PDSCH-1 according to the DCI-1 and processes the PDSCH-2 according to the DCI-2, specifically, after receiving 3 sets of DMRS symbols of the PDSCH-1, the terminal device performs channel estimation according to DMRS carried on the 3 sets of DMRS symbols at time ta1, further processes a code block of the PDSCH-1 according to a channel estimation result, when the time arrives at time tb1, the terminal device needs to interrupt the processing of the PDSCH-1 and starts to process the PDSCH-2, that is, the terminal device performs channel estimation according to DMRS carried on 1 set of DMRS symbols of the PDSCH-2 at time tb1, further processes a code block of the PDSCH-1 according to a channel estimation result, after the processing is completed (for example, time tb 2), may feed back HARQ-ACK corresponding to the PDSCH-2 to the network device, and continue to process the code block of the PDSCH-1. In this case, since the terminal device interrupts the processing of PDSCH-1 during the period of time tb1 to tb2, the processing time of PDSCH-1 is reduced, so that when ta2 is reached, the terminal device may not complete the processing of the code block of PDSCH-1, and thus may trigger retransmission.

As can be seen from the above examples 1 and 2, in example 1, since the network device only schedules PDSCH-1 and does not schedule PDSCH-2, the terminal device only needs to process PDSCH-1 within the processing time of PDSCH-1, that is, the processing time of PDSCH-1 can be used to process PDSCH-1 entirely; in example 2, the network device schedules PDSCH-1 and PDSCH-2, and the processing times of PDSCH-1 and PDSCH-2 overlap (or the processing times of PDSCH-1 and PDSCH-2 collide), so that the terminal device needs to process PDSCH-1 and PDSCH-2 in the processing time of PDSCH-1, so that the processing time of PDSCH-1 by the terminal device is reduced, and the code blocks in PDSCH-1 are retransmitted because of the processing time being less than that of the processing time.

Based on this, the embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, which is applicable to the scenario described in the above example 2, and can reduce the retransmission probability of PDSCH and improve the performance of PDSCH. Briefly, in the scenario described in example 2, it may not be possible to process PDSCH-1 due to the presence of high priority tasks (i.e., prioritizing PDSCH-2); to solve this problem, it may be considered to prolong the processing time of PDSCH-1, for example, PDSCH-1 may be processed in advance, for example, channel estimation may be performed according to DMRS carried on 2 sets of DMRS symbols after 2 sets of DMRS symbols corresponding to PDSCH-1 are received, or channel estimation may be performed according to DMRS carried on 1 set of DMRS symbols after 1 set of DMRS symbols corresponding to PDSCH-1 are received. By adopting the method, the performance of channel estimation is possibly reduced due to the fact that fewer DMRS are used for channel estimation, but the decoding success can still be realized by the larger probability when the code block is decoded based on the channel estimation result, compared with the case that the code block of the PDSCH-1 is not processed, the embodiment of the application has more time to process the PDSCH-1, thereby reducing the retransmission probability of the PDSCH and improving the performance of the PDSCH.

The following specifically describes a communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application.

The communication method according to the embodiment of the present application may be performed by the terminal device 120 in fig. 1, and the following description will be given mainly by way of example of the terminal device 120.

Terminal device 120 is configured to support multiple sets of pilot symbols. The pilot symbol refers to a symbol occupied by a pilot, or may be described as a symbol for carrying a pilot, which is understood that, for a pilot symbol, the pilot may occupy one or more Resource Elements (REs) corresponding to the pilot symbol. A pilot (which may also be referred to as a pilot signal) refers to a signal transmitted for measurement or monitoring purposes, such as may include a signal transmitted for channel estimation purposes, in one example, the pilot may be a DMRS, and when the pilot is a DMRS, a pilot symbol refers to a DMRS symbol.

There may be a variety of implementations in which terminal device 120 is configured to support multiple sets of DMRS symbols. For example, if the terminal device 120 receives DMRS-addition position (DMRS-addition position=pos 1 or DMRS-addition position=pos 3 configured by the network device 110), it may determine that the DMRS-addition position is configured to support multiple sets of DMRS symbols; for another example, if the terminal device does not receive the DMRS-additional position configured by the network device 110 (where the DMRS-additional position defaults to pos 2), it may be determined to be configured to support multiple sets of DMRS symbols.

Fig. 5 is a flow chart corresponding to a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application. The network device involved in the flow may be the network device 110 in fig. 1, and the terminal device may be the terminal device 120 in fig. 1. It will be appreciated that the functions of the network device may also be implemented by a chip applied to the network device, or by other means to support the network device, and the functions of the terminal device may also be implemented by a chip applied to the terminal device, or by other means to support the terminal device.

As shown in fig. 5, the process includes:

in step 501, the network device sends first control information to the terminal device, where the first control information is used to schedule the first data channel and indicate N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel. Hereinafter, the first PDSCH is taken as a first data channel, and the pilot symbols are DMRS symbols as examples.

Accordingly, in step 502, the terminal device receives the first control information.

Here, the first control information may be DCI, which may indicate a time unit and/or a Resource Block (RB) to which the first PDSCH is mapped. For example, the DCI may further include DMRS configuration information, such as a mapping type, a symbol pattern, and the like of the DMRS, so that the terminal device may determine N sets of DMRS symbols corresponding to the first PDSCH according to the first control information.

For example, after receiving the first control information, the terminal device may process the first PDSCH according to the first control information, for example, perform channel estimation on the first PDSCH and process data in the first PDSCH according to a channel estimation result, which may be described in step 503 and step 504.

In step 503, if there is a first task to be processed, the terminal device performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH by using DMRS carried on at least one set of DMRS symbols located before the kth set of DMRS symbols in the N sets of DMRS symbols to obtain a first channel estimation result, where each N, k is a positive integer, and k is less than or equal to N.

In the embodiment of the present application, when the first task does not exist, the terminal device performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH using the kth group of DMRS symbols and one or more groups (where the groups refer to two groups or more) of DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols located before the kth group of DMRS symbols, so as to obtain a second channel estimation result.

For example, when the first task does not exist, the DMRS used by the terminal device to perform channel estimation on the first PDSCH is the DMRS carried on the j (j is a positive integer) group of DMRS symbols in the N groups of DMRS symbols, where the k-th group of DMRS symbols is the last group of DMRS symbols in the j groups of DMRS symbols. Referring to fig. 6a, the first PDSCH corresponds to 4 sets of DMRS symbols, the kth set of DMRS symbols may be the 3 rd set of DMRS symbols, that is, when the first task does not exist, the terminal device may perform channel estimation on the first PDSCH using DMRS carried on the 1 st set of DMRS symbols, the 2 nd set of DMRS symbols, and the 3 rd set of DMRS symbols (or, the 1 st set of DMRS symbols and the 3 rd set of DMRS symbols) after receiving the 3 rd set of DMRS symbols, that is, the processing time of the first PDSCH is a duration between time Ta1 and time Ta 2; and since the first task does not exist, the terminal device may process the first PDSCH within the processing time of the first PDSCH. It should be noted that, when the first task does not exist, the terminal device performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH by using the DMRS carried on the 1 st group DMRS symbol, the 2 nd group DMRS symbol, and the 3 rd group DMRS symbol, or performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH by using the DMRS carried on the 1 st group DMRS symbol and the 3 rd group DMRS symbol, depending on implementation of the terminal device, the embodiment of the present application is not limited to this.

For convenience of description, when the first task does not exist, the processing time of the first PDSCH may be defined as a first period, that is, the starting time of the first period is the ending time (i.e., the instant Ta 1) of the kth group of DMRS symbols, and the ending time of the first period is the starting time (i.e., the instant Ta 2) of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first PDSCH.

The first task to be processed may refer to a task in which there is an overlap between the processing time and the first time period, where there may be various situations in which the processing time of the first task (which may be understood as the time that is completely used to process the first task) overlaps with the first time period, and fig. 6b exemplarily shows 3 possible situations. In case 1 in fig. 6b, the time at which the processing time of the first task overlaps with the first period is a period between the time Ta1 and the time Tb 1; in case 2 in fig. 6b, the time at which the processing time of the first task overlaps with the first period is a period of time between the time Tb1 and the time Tb 2; in case 3 in fig. 6b, the time at which the processing time of the first task overlaps with the first period is a period between the time Tb1 and the time Ta 2. Wherein case 1 and case 3 can be understood as partially overlapping cases and case 2 can be understood as fully overlapping cases.

Further, as can be seen from the above description, when the first task does not exist, the terminal device may process the first PDSCH within the processing time of the first PDSCH, or in other words, the processing time of the first PDSCH may be used to process the first PDSCH entirely; when there is a first task to be processed, the time of processing the first PDSCH includes a time other than a time overlapping with the processing time of the first task within the processing time of the first PDSCH (i.e., the first period), that is, the processing time of the first task and the first PDSCH need to be processed within the processing time of the first PDSCH, that is, the processing time of the first PDSCH cannot be used to process the first PDSCH entirely, resulting in a reduction in the processing time of the first PDSCH.

In an embodiment of the present application, in an example, the first task is processed with a higher priority than the first PDSCH, for example, the first task is processed to perform CSI measurement and feedback; in yet another example, the first task to be processed may be a second PDSCH to be processed, where the first PDSCH is a first scheduled PDSCH and the second PDSCH is a second scheduled PDSCH, for example, the network device first sends first control information to the terminal device, where the first control information is used to schedule the first PDSCH, and then sends second control information to the terminal device, where the second control information is used to schedule the second PDSCH; the priority of the PDSCH scheduled later is higher than that of the PDSCH scheduled earlier, that is, the priority of the terminal device processing the second PDSCH is higher than that of the first PDSCH. In yet another example, the first task to be processed may be a third PDSCH to be processed, where the third PDSCH has a higher priority than the first PDSCH, such as the third PDSCH corresponding to URLLC traffic data and the first PDSCH corresponding to eMBB traffic data.

As can be seen from the situation illustrated in fig. 6b, when there is a first task to be processed, since the terminal device needs to process the first task within the time when the overlapping occurs, so that the time for processing the first PDSCH is reduced, and the terminal device may not process the code blocks in the first PDSCH in the first time period, the method for prolonging the time for processing the first PDSCH is provided in the embodiment of the present application, that is, the DMRS carried on at least one DMRS symbol located before the kth DMRS symbol is used for performing channel estimation. For convenience of description, the extended processing time of the first PDSCH in the embodiment of the present application may be referred to as a second period.

Taking case 2 in fig. 6b as an example, for example, as shown in fig. 6c, the DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group may be used for channel estimation, where the starting time of the processing time of the first PDSCH by the terminal device is the ending time (i.e. the instant Ta 0) of the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group, that is, after the method is adopted, the processing time (i.e. the second time period) of the first PDSCH is a duration between the instant Ta0 and the instant Ta 2; as shown in fig. 6d, for example, the DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group and the DMRS symbol of the 2 nd group may be used for channel estimation, where the starting time of the processing time of the first PDSCH by the terminal device is the ending time (i.e. the time Ta0 ') of the DMRS symbol of the 2 nd group, that is, after the method is adopted, the processing time (i.e. the second time period) of the first PDSCH is a duration between the time Ta0' and the time Ta 2. As can be seen from fig. 6c and 6d, the second period of time is significantly longer than the first period of time. It should be noted that, when the first task to be processed exists, the terminal device performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH by using the DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols of the 1 st group and the DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols of the 2 nd group, or performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH by using only the DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols of the 1 st group, which depends on implementation of the terminal device, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited.

For example, when there is a first task to be processed, if the terminal device determines that there is still enough time to process the first PDSCH, channel estimation may be performed as in the case when there is no first task. There are various implementations in which the terminal device determines whether there is enough time to process the first PDSCH.

In one possible implementation manner, the terminal device may determine whether the first time length is less than a first threshold, and if yes, the terminal device may perform channel estimation by using the method in step 503; if not, the terminal device may perform channel estimation according to the situation when the first task does not exist. The first threshold may be set by those skilled in the art according to actual needs and experience, for example, the first threshold is 26 symbols.

In yet another possible implementation manner, the terminal device may determine whether the difference between the first duration and the second duration is smaller than the second threshold, and if yes, the terminal device may perform channel estimation by using the method in step 503; if not, the terminal device may perform channel estimation according to the situation when the first task does not exist. The first duration is a duration between an end time of the first PDSCH and a start time of HARQ feedback corresponding to the first PDSCH, and the second duration is a duration where the first duration overlaps with a processing time of the first task. The second threshold may be set by those skilled in the art according to actual needs and experience, for example, the second threshold is 13 symbols.

Illustratively, the above method further comprises:

in step 504, the terminal device processes the data in the first PDSCH according to the first channel estimation result, and processes the first task. For example, the terminal device may process data in the first PDSCH according to the first channel estimation result and process the first task in the second period.

It should be noted that, for the scenario mentioned above where the first task does not exist, after the terminal device obtains the second channel estimation result, the terminal device may process the data in the first PDSCH according to the second channel estimation result. For example, the terminal device may process data in the first PDSCH according to the second channel estimation result in the first period.

The following mainly describes that the terminal device processes data in the first PDSCH according to the first channel estimation result and processes the first task in the second period.

From the description of the transport blocks above, it is assumed here that the first PDSCH includes 4 CBGs, each containing one CB, e.g., CBG1 including CB1, CBG2 including CB2, CBG3 including CB3, and CBG4 including CB4. As such, in one example, processing data in the first PDSCH may refer to processing some or all of the code blocks in the first PDSCH, that is, processing data in the first PDSCH may be performed in code block units. In yet another example, processing data in the first PDSCH may refer to processing some or all of the modulation symbols in the first PDSCH, that is, processing data in the first PDSCH may be performed in units of modulation symbols, considering that a code block may be mapped to modulation symbols on one or more REs.

The following is a detailed description with reference to fig. 6e to 6 g.

In an example, referring to fig. 6e (corresponding to case 1 in fig. 6 b), after performing channel estimation by using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group, the terminal device may process 4 CBs in the first PDSCH according to the channel estimation result, and assume that the time Tb1 is reached after the CB1 is processed, at this time, the terminal device interrupts the processing of the first PDSCH and starts to process the first task, when the time Tb2 is reached, the terminal device completes the processing of the first task, and may continue to process the PDSCH, that is, process CB2, CB3 and CB4, when the time Ta2 is reached, if the terminal device completes the processing of CB2, CB3 and CB4, HARQ-ACK may be fed back to the network device, where the HARQ-ACK may include 4 bits, and the 4 bits correspond to 4 CBGs (for example, the 1 st bit corresponds to CBG1, the 2 nd bit corresponds to CBG3, and the 4 th bit corresponds to CBG 4), for example, "1" indicates that the processing is successful, and "0" indicates that the processing is unsuccessful-1111; if the terminal device completes processing on CB2 and CB3 and has not completed processing on CB4, the HARQ-ACK may be 1110.

In yet another example, referring to fig. 6f (corresponding to case 2 in fig. 6 b), after performing channel estimation by using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group, the terminal device may process 4 CBs in the first PDSCH according to the channel estimation result, and assume that the time Tb1 is reached after CB1 and CB2 are processed, at this time, the terminal device interrupts the processing of the first PDSCH and starts to process the first task, when the time Tb2 is reached, the terminal device completes the processing of the first task, and may continue to process the PDSCH, that is, process CB3 and CB4, and when the time Ta2 is reached, if the terminal device completes the processing of CB3 and CB4, may feed back HARQ-ACK to the network device, at this time, the HARQ-ACK may be 1111; if the terminal device completes processing on CB3 and has not completed processing on CB4, the HARQ-ACK may be 1110.

In yet another example, referring to fig. 6g (corresponding to case 3 in fig. 6 b), after performing channel estimation using DMRS carried on the 1 st set of DMRS symbols, the terminal device may process 4 CBs in the first PDSCH according to the channel estimation result, and assume that the processing of CB1, CB2, and CB3 is completed and then reaches time Tb1, at this time, the terminal device interrupts the processing of the first PDSCH and starts to process the first task, when reaching time Ta2, the terminal device may feed back HARQ-ACK to the network device, and HARQ-ACK may be 1110, where the terminal device may not complete the processing of the first task until time Tb 2.

It should be noted that: (1) Processing the first task in the second period of time may mean that the processing of the first task is performed in the second period of time, but the processing has not yet been completed (see fig. 6 g), or may mean that the processing of the first task is performed in the second period of time, and the processing is completed (see fig. 6e or 6 f).

(2) The above-mentioned fig. 6e to 6g mainly describe the processing of the data in the first PDSCH in units of code blocks, and in other possible embodiments, the processing of the data in the first PDSCH in units of modulation symbols may also be performed.

When the data in the first PDSCH is processed in units of modulation symbols, for example, for a modulation symbol on a certain RE or a modulation symbol on a plurality of REs (may be a modulation symbol on a plurality of REs located on the same symbol or may also be a modulation symbol on a plurality of REs corresponding to one CB), when the first task is present, the first task may be processed according to a channel estimation result of at least one DMRS symbol before the kth group of DMRS symbols; when the first task does not exist, it may be processed according to the channel estimation result of the j-group DMRS symbols (including the k-th group DMRS symbols).

As can be seen from the above description, in the embodiment of the present application, the processing time of the first PDSCH may be prolonged by performing channel estimation on the first PDSCH in advance. However, if the starting time of the processing time of the first task is before the ending time of the 1 st set of DMRS symbols corresponding to the first PDSCH, as shown in fig. 7a, the terminal device needs to process the first task first, and when the processing of the first task is completed (i.e. time Tb 1), the terminal device can perform channel estimation on the first PDSCH, in this case, the terminal device cannot perform channel estimation on the first PDSCH in advance, so that the processing time of the first PDSCH cannot be prolonged. Based on this, in the embodiment of the present application, at least one set of DMRS symbols is located before the start time of the processing time of the first task, so before the terminal device starts to process the first task, the terminal device may use the DMRS carried on at least one set of DMRS symbols to perform channel estimation, thereby prolonging the processing time of the first PDSCH.

For example, referring to fig. 7b, in example 1 of fig. 7b, the start time of the processing time of the first task is located after the 2 nd set of DMRS symbols, and in example 2 of fig. 7b, the start time of the processing time of the first task is located after the 1 st set of DMRS symbols and before the 2 nd set of DMRS symbols. For example 1, to extend the processing time of the first PDSCH, the terminal device may perform channel estimation using DMRS carried on at least one set of DMRS symbols (i.e., the 1 st set of DMRS symbols, or using the 1 st set of DMRS symbols and the 2 nd set of DMRS symbols) located before the start time of the processing time of the first task. For example 2, to extend the processing time of the first PDSCH, the terminal device may perform channel estimation using DMRS carried on at least one set of DMRS symbols (i.e., the 1 st set of DMRS symbols) located before the start time of the processing time of the first task.

It should be noted that, in the above examples, the terminal device performs channel estimation on the first PDSCH once and processes the code block of the first PDSCH according to the channel estimation result of the time, and in other possible embodiments, the terminal device may also perform channel estimation on the first PDSCH multiple times and process the code block of the first PDSCH according to the channel estimation result multiple times. For the situation that the terminal device performs channel estimation for the first PDSCH for multiple times, if the first task exists, the terminal device may perform channel estimation at least once in advance.

For example, when the first task does not exist, the terminal device performs first channel estimation by using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols of the 1 st group and the 2 nd group, and performs second channel estimation by using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols of the 1 st group, the 2 nd group and the 3 rd group; further, in an example, the terminal device may process CB1 and CB2 according to the first channel estimation result and process CB3 and CB4 according to the second channel estimation result, and it is understood that a specific manner in which the terminal device processes the code block of the first PDSCH according to the multiple channel estimation results may be implemented inside the terminal device, which is not limited in particular. Accordingly, when there is a first task to be processed, the terminal device may perform the first channel estimation in advance, for example, may perform the first channel estimation by using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group; alternatively, the second channel estimation may be performed in advance, for example, the second channel estimation may be performed using DMRS carried on DMRS symbols of the 1 st and 2 nd groups; or, the terminal device performs the first channel estimation in advance and performs the second channel estimation in advance, for example, the terminal device performs the first channel estimation using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbol of the 1 st group and performs the second channel estimation using DMRS carried on the DMRS symbols of the 1 st and 2 nd groups.

The scheme provided by the embodiment of the application is mainly introduced from the interaction point of the network equipment and the terminal equipment. It will be appreciated that in order to achieve the above-described functionality, the terminal device may comprise corresponding hardware structures and/or software modules performing the respective functionality. Those of skill in the art will readily appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as hardware or combinations of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is implemented as hardware or computer software driven hardware depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

In the case of integrated units (modules), fig. 8 shows a possible exemplary block diagram of the apparatus involved in an embodiment of the application, which apparatus 800 may be in the form of software. The apparatus 800 may include: a processing unit 802 and a communication unit 803. The processing unit 802 is used for controlling and managing the actions of the apparatus 800. The communication unit 803 is used to support communication of the apparatus 800 with other network entities. Alternatively, the communication unit 803, also referred to as a transceiver unit, may comprise a receiving unit and/or a transmitting unit for performing receiving and transmitting operations, respectively. The apparatus 800 may further comprise a storage unit 801 for storing program code and/or data of the apparatus 800.

Wherein the processing unit 802 may be a processor or controller that may implement or execute the various exemplary logic blocks, modules and circuits described in connection with the present disclosure. The communication unit 803 may be a communication interface, or may also be a receiver and/or a transmitter, or may also be a transceiver circuit, where the communication interface is generally called, and in a specific implementation, the communication interface may include multiple interfaces. The storage unit 801 may be a memory.

The apparatus 800 may be a terminal device in any of the above embodiments, or may also be a semiconductor chip provided in the terminal device. The processing unit 802 may support the apparatus 800 to perform the actions of the terminal device in the examples of the methods above. Alternatively, the processing unit 802 mainly performs terminal internal actions in the method example, and the communication unit 803 may support communication between the apparatus 800 and a network device. For example, the processing unit 802 is configured to perform channel estimation, such as step 503 in fig. 5; the communication unit 802 is configured to perform, for example, step 502 in fig. 5.

Specifically, in one embodiment, the communication unit 803 is configured to receive first control information, where the first control information is used to schedule the first data channel and indicate N sets of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel;

The processing unit 802 is configured to perform channel estimation on the first data channel by using pilots carried on at least one set of pilot symbols located before a kth set of pilot symbols in the N sets of pilot symbols if there is a first task to be processed, so as to obtain a first channel estimation result, where N, k is a positive integer, and k is less than or equal to N; processing data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task; the processing time of the first task overlaps with a first time period, the starting time of the first time period is the ending time of the kth group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the first time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

In one possible design, the processing unit 802 is further configured to: when the first task does not exist, carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using the kth group of pilot symbols and pilot frequencies carried on one or more groups of pilot symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot symbols to obtain a second channel estimation result; and processing the data in the first data channel according to the second channel estimation result.

In one possible design, processing unit 802 is specifically configured to: processing the first task in a second time period, and processing data in the first data channel according to a channel estimation result of the first data channel; the starting time of the second time period is the ending time of at least one group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the second time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

In one possible design, the communication unit 803 is further configured to receive second control information after receiving the first control information, where the second control information is used to schedule the second data channel.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the division of the units (modules) is schematic, which is merely a logic function division, and other division manners may be implemented in actual practice. The functional modules in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing module, or each module may exist alone physically, or two or more modules may be integrated into one module. The integrated modules may be implemented in hardware or in software functional modules.

The integrated modules, if implemented in the form of software functional modules and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application may be essentially or a part contributing to the prior art or all or part of the technical solution may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, including several instructions to cause a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor (processor) to perform all or part of the steps of the method described in the embodiments of the present application. The storage medium may be a variety of media such as a memory that can store program codes.

Fig. 9 shows a schematic diagram of an apparatus 900 comprising a processor 910, a memory 920 and a receiver 930. In one example, the apparatus 900 may implement the functions of the apparatus 800 illustrated in fig. 8, specifically, the functions of the communication unit 803 illustrated in fig. 8 may be implemented by a receiver, the functions of the processing unit 802 may be implemented by a processor, and the functions of the storage unit 801 may be implemented by a memory. In yet another example, the apparatus 900 may be a terminal device in the above method embodiment, and the apparatus 900 may be configured to implement the method corresponding to the terminal device described in the above method embodiment, and specifically may refer to the description in the above method embodiment.

Fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 1000 according to an embodiment of the present application. For convenience of explanation, fig. 10 shows only major components of the terminal device. As shown in fig. 10, terminal device 1000 includes a processor, memory, a transceiver (including a receiver and a transmitter), and input-output means. The terminal device 1000 may be applied in the system architecture shown in fig. 1, and performs the functions of the terminal device in the above-described method embodiment.

The processor is mainly used for processing the communication protocol and the communication data, controlling the whole terminal device, executing the software program, processing the data of the software program, for example, for controlling the terminal device to execute the actions described in the above method embodiments. The memory is mainly used for storing software programs and data. The transceiver is mainly used for converting baseband signals and radio frequency signals, processing radio frequency signals, and receiving and transmitting radio frequency signals in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. Input and output devices, such as touch screens, display screens, keyboards, etc., are mainly used for receiving data input by a user and outputting data to the user.

When the terminal device is started, the processor can read the software program in the storage unit, interpret and execute the instructions of the software program, and process the data of the software program. When data is required to be transmitted wirelessly, the processor carries out baseband processing on the data to be transmitted and then outputs a baseband signal to the radio frequency circuit, and the radio frequency circuit carries out radio frequency processing on the baseband signal and then transmits the radio frequency signal outwards in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. When data is sent to the terminal equipment, the radio frequency circuit receives a radio frequency signal through the antenna, converts the radio frequency signal into a baseband signal, and outputs the baseband signal to the processor, and the processor converts the baseband signal into data and processes the data.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that for ease of illustration, only one memory and processor is shown in fig. 10. In an actual terminal device, there may be multiple processors and memories. The memory may also be referred to as a storage medium or storage device, etc., and embodiments of the present application are not limited in this respect.

As an alternative implementation manner, the processor may include a baseband processor, which is mainly used for processing the communication protocol and the communication data, and a central processor, which is mainly used for controlling the whole terminal device, executing a software program, and processing the data of the software program. The processor in fig. 10 integrates the functions of a baseband processor and a central processing unit, and those skilled in the art will appreciate that the baseband processor and the central processing unit may be separate processors, interconnected by bus technology, etc. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the terminal device may include multiple baseband processors to accommodate different network formats, and that the terminal device may include multiple central processors to enhance its processing capabilities, and that the various components of the terminal device may be connected by various buses. The baseband processor may also be referred to as a baseband processing circuit or baseband processing chip. The central processing unit may also be expressed as a central processing circuit or a central processing chip. The function of processing the communication protocol and the communication data may be built in the processor, or may be stored in the storage unit in the form of a software program, which is executed by the processor to realize the baseband processing function.

The terminal device 1000 shown in fig. 10 is capable of carrying out the various processes involving the terminal device in the embodiment of the method illustrated in fig. 5. The operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the terminal device 1000 are respectively for implementing the respective flows in the above-described method embodiments. Reference is specifically made to the description of the above method embodiments, and detailed descriptions are omitted here as appropriate to avoid redundancy.

In implementation, each step in the method provided in the present embodiment may be implemented by an integrated logic circuit of hardware in a processor or an instruction in a software form. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be embodied directly in a hardware processor for execution, or in a combination of hardware and software modules in the processor for execution.

It should be noted that the processor in the embodiments of the present application may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capability. In implementation, the steps of the above method embodiments may be implemented by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or instructions in software form. The processor may be a general purpose central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), general purpose processor, digital signal processing (digital signal processing, DSP), application specific integrated circuit (application specific integrated circuits, ASIC), field programmable gate array (field programmable gate array, FPGA) or other programmable logic device, transistor logic device, hardware components, or any combination thereof; combinations of computing functions may also be implemented, for example, including one or more microprocessor combinations, a combination of DSP and microprocessor, and the like. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

It will be appreciated that the memory or storage units in embodiments of the application may be volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or may include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. The nonvolatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically Erasable EPROM (EEPROM), or a flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (random access memory, RAM) which acts as an external cache. By way of example, and not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as Static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct memory bus RAM (DR RAM). It should be noted that the memory of the systems and methods described herein is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

In the above embodiments, it may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer programs or instructions. When the computer program or instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, the processes or functions described in the embodiments of the present application are performed in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable apparatus. The computer program or instructions may be stored in or transmitted across a computer-readable storage medium. The computer readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server that integrates one or more available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium, e.g., floppy disk, hard disk, tape; but also optical media such as DVD; but also semiconductor media such as Solid State Disks (SSDs).

The various illustrative logical blocks and circuits described in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be implemented or performed with a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the general purpose processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a digital signal processor and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a digital signal processor core, or any other similar configuration.

The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in a software unit executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. The software elements may be stored in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. In an example, a storage medium may be coupled to the processor such that the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC, which may reside in a terminal device. In the alternative, the processor and the storage medium may reside in different components in a terminal device.

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

Although the embodiments of the present application have been described in connection with specific features, it will be apparent that various modifications and combinations thereof can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the embodiments of the application. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are merely exemplary of embodiments of the application as defined in the appended claims and are to be considered as covering any and all modifications, variations, combinations, or equivalents of the embodiments of the application.

Claims

1. A method of communication, the method comprising:

receiving first control information, wherein the first control information is used for scheduling a first data channel and indicating N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel;

if a first task to be processed exists, carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using pilot frequencies carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before a kth group of pilot frequency symbols in the N groups of pilot frequency symbols to obtain a first channel estimation result, wherein N, k is a positive integer, and k is less than or equal to N;

processing data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task;

the processing time of the first task overlaps with a first time period, the starting time of the first time period is the ending time of the kth group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the first time period is the starting time of the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

when the first task does not exist, carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using the kth group of pilot symbols and pilot frequencies carried on one or more groups of pilot symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot symbols to obtain a second channel estimation result;

and processing the data in the first data channel according to the second channel estimation result.

3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the at least one set of pilot symbols is located before a start instant of a processing time of the first task.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the first task and processing the data in the first data channel based on the channel estimation result of the first data channel comprises:

processing the first task in a second time period, and processing data in the first data channel according to a channel estimation result of the first data channel;

the starting time of the second time period is the ending time of the at least one group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the second time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

5. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the first task to be processed is a second data channel to be processed.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein:

the priority of processing the second data channel is higher than the priority of processing the first data channel.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein after the receiving the first control information, the method further comprises:

and receiving second control information, wherein the second control information is used for scheduling the second data channel.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that:

the first time length is less than a first threshold; or, the difference between the first time period and the second time period is smaller than a second threshold;

the first duration is a duration between an end time of the first data channel and a start time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel, and the second duration is a duration where the first duration overlaps with a processing time of the first task.

9. A communication device, the device comprising:

the communication unit is used for receiving first control information, wherein the first control information is used for scheduling a first data channel and indicating N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel;

The processing unit is used for carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using pilot frequencies carried on at least one group of pilot symbols before a kth group of pilot symbols in the N groups of pilot symbols if a first task to be processed exists, N, k is a positive integer, and k is less than or equal to N; processing data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task;

the processing time of the first task overlaps with a first time period, the starting time of the first time period is the ending time of the kth group of pilot symbols, and the ending time of the first time period is the starting time of the HARQ feedback corresponding to the first data channel.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processing unit is further configured to:

when the first task does not exist, carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using the kth group of pilot symbols and pilot frequencies carried on one or more groups of pilot symbols positioned before the kth group of pilot symbols to obtain a second channel estimation result; and processing the data in the first data channel according to the second channel estimation result.

11. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein:

12. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the processing unit is specifically configured to:

13. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein:

the first task to be processed is a second data channel to be processed.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13, wherein:

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein after the communication unit receives the first control information, the communication unit is further configured to: and receiving second control information, wherein the second control information is used for scheduling the second data channel.

16. The apparatus according to any one of claims 9 to 15, wherein:

17. A communication device, the communication device comprising: a receiver, and a processor coupled to the receiver, the receiver to: receiving first control information, wherein the first control information is used for scheduling a first data channel and indicating N groups of pilot symbols corresponding to the first data channel;

the processor is configured to: if a first task to be processed exists, carrying out channel estimation on the first data channel by using pilot frequencies carried on at least one group of pilot frequency symbols positioned before a kth group of pilot frequency symbols in the N groups of pilot frequency symbols to obtain a first channel estimation result, wherein N, k is a positive integer, and k is less than or equal to N; processing data in the first data channel according to the first channel estimation result, and processing the first task;

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the processor is further configured to:

19. The apparatus according to claim 17, wherein:

20. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the processor is specifically configured to:

21. The apparatus according to claim 17, wherein:

the first task to be processed is a second data channel to be processed.

22. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein:

23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein after the receiver receives the first control information, the receiver is further configured to: second control information is received, the second control information being used to indicate the second data channel.

24. The apparatus according to any one of claims 17 to 23, wherein:

25. A computer readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed, implement the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.