CN112752317B

CN112752317B - Service cell selection method, device, terminal equipment and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN112752317B
Application number: CN202110012686.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 罗梓钰; 周波; 曹涛
Original assignee: Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp Ltd
Current assignee: Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp Ltd
Priority date: 2021-01-06
Filing date: 2021-01-06
Publication date: 2023-04-14
Anticipated expiration: 2041-01-06
Also published as: CN112752317A

Abstract

The embodiment of the application discloses a method and a device for selecting a service cell, terminal equipment and a storage medium. The method is applied to the terminal equipment and comprises the following steps: receiving a cell change instruction issued by network equipment, wherein the cell change instruction is used for instructing the terminal equipment to change a serving cell from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a Long Term Evolution (LTE) target cell; and if the NR target cell with the signal quality larger than or equal to the signal threshold exists, selecting the NR target cell as a serving cell. The method, the device, the terminal equipment and the storage medium for selecting the service cell can improve the condition that the change of the service cell is unreasonable in the terminal equipment and improve the reliability of the change of the service cell.

Description

Service cell selection method, device, terminal equipment and storage medium

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method, an apparatus, a terminal device, and a storage medium for selecting a serving cell.

Background

With the rapid development of communication technologies, 5G (5 th generation mobile networks, fifth generation mobile communication technologies) has gradually entered the life of internet users, and more terminal devices support accessing to 5G networks. The network device may control the UE to change the serving cell according to a network condition of the UE, so that the UE can use a service provided by a better cell. However, currently, the network configuration is still in the initial stage of 5G network construction, and the situation that the network configuration is not mature enough often occurs, and the situation that the serving cell is changed unreasonably occurs.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application discloses a method and a device for selecting a service cell, terminal equipment and a storage medium, which can improve the condition that the change of the service cell is unreasonable in the terminal equipment and improve the reliability of the change of the service cell.

The embodiment of the application discloses a method for selecting a service cell, which is applied to terminal equipment and comprises the following steps:

receiving a cell change instruction issued by network equipment, wherein the cell change instruction is used for instructing the terminal equipment to change a serving cell from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a Long Term Evolution (LTE) target cell;

and if the NR target cell with the signal quality larger than or equal to the signal threshold exists, selecting the NR target cell as a serving cell.

The embodiment of the application discloses a service cell selection device, which is applied to terminal equipment, and the device comprises:

a receiving module, configured to receive a cell change instruction issued by a network device, where the cell change instruction is used to instruct the terminal device to change a serving cell from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a long term evolution LTE target cell;

a selecting module, configured to select an NR target cell as a serving cell if the NR target cell has a signal quality greater than or equal to a signal threshold.

The embodiment of the application discloses a terminal device, which comprises a memory and a processor, wherein a computer program is stored in the memory, and when the computer program is executed by the processor, the processor is enabled to realize the method.

An embodiment of the present application discloses a computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, which, when executed by a processor, implements the method as described above.

The terminal device receives a cell change instruction issued by the network device, wherein the cell change instruction is used for indicating the terminal device to change from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a Long Term Evolution (LTE) target cell, if an NR target cell with signal quality larger than or equal to a signal threshold exists, the NR target cell is selected as the serving cell, and for cross-system cell change from the NR cell to the LTE cell, the terminal device can preferentially select the NR cell as the serving cell, so that the terminal device can be prevented from changing the serving cell to the LTE cell under an unreasonable condition, thereby improving the condition that the terminal device has unreasonable change of the serving cell and improving the reliability of change of the serving cell.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application, the drawings required to be used in the embodiments will be briefly described below, it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present application, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art that other drawings can be obtained according to the drawings without creative efforts.

Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating an application scenario of a method for selecting a serving cell in an embodiment;

fig. 2 is a flow diagram of a method of serving cell selection in one embodiment;

fig. 3 is a flow chart of a method of serving cell selection in another embodiment;

fig. 4 is a flow chart of a method of serving cell selection in another embodiment;

fig. 5 is a block diagram of a serving cell selection apparatus in one embodiment;

fig. 6 is a block diagram of a terminal device in one embodiment.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present application, and not all embodiments. All other embodiments obtained by a person of ordinary skill in the art based on the embodiments in the present application without making any creative effort belong to the protection scope of the present application.

It is to be noted that the terms "comprises" and "comprising" and any variations thereof in the examples and figures of the present application are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusions. For example, a process, method, system, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of steps or elements is not limited to only those steps or elements but may alternatively include other steps or elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus.

Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating an application scenario of a method for selecting a serving cell in an embodiment. As shown in fig. 1, a communication connection is established between the terminal device 10 and the network device, and optionally, the terminal device 10 and the network device may establish a communication connection through communication technologies of fourth generation (4 g), fifth generation, and the like, and a communication connection manner of the terminal device and the network device is not limited in the embodiment of the present application. The network device may include an access network device 20, and one or more core network devices 30 in communication with the access network device 20.

In some embodiments, the terminal device 10 may be referred to as a user device. The terminal device may be a Personal Communication Service (PCS) phone, a cordless phone, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), or the like, and may also be a mobile phone, a Mobile Station (MS), a terminal device (mobile terminal), a notebook computer, or the like, and the terminal device 10 may communicate with one or more core networks through a Radio Access Network (RAN). The terminal equipment 10 may be, for example, a mobile telephone (or so-called "cellular" telephone) or a computer with terminal equipment, etc., and the terminal equipment 10 may also be, for example, a portable, pocket, hand-held, computer-included, or vehicle-mounted mobile device that exchanges voice and/or data with the radio access network. The terminal device 10 may also be a handheld device with a wireless communication function, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, an in-vehicle device, a wearable device, a terminal device in a network evolved in the future, and the like, and the implementation of the present application is not limited.

The access network device 20 may be a long-term evolution (LTE) system, a New Radio (NR) (mobile communication system) system, or an evolved base station (evolved Node B, which may be referred to as eNB or e-NodeB) macro base station, a micro base station (also referred to as a "small base station"), a pico base station, an Access Point (AP), a Transmission Point (TP), or a new generation base station (new generation Node B, nodeB) in an authorized assisted access long-term evolution (LAA-LTE) system.

The Core network device 30 may be a Next Generation Core (NGC) device, an Evolved Packet Core (EPC), or the like.

In the related art, when the signal of the currently accessed 5G NR cell of the terminal device 10 is poor, the network device may issue a cell change instruction to the terminal device 10, so that the terminal device 10 selects the 4G LTE cell with a relatively good signal for access. However, at the present, the network configuration is still in the initial stage of 5G network construction, and the network configuration is often not mature enough, and if the network configuration is wrong or the network device is abnormal, the terminal device 10 changes the serving cell to the LTE cell under an unreasonable condition.

In the embodiment of the present application, a method, an apparatus, a terminal device, and a storage medium are provided for selecting a serving cell, so that for a cross-system cell change from an NR cell to an LTE cell, the terminal device can preferentially select the NR cell as the serving cell, and can avoid that the terminal device changes the serving cell to the LTE cell under an unreasonable condition, thereby improving the situation that the terminal device changes the serving cell unreasonably and improving the reliability of the serving cell change.

As shown in fig. 2, in an embodiment, a serving cell selection method is provided, which is applicable to the terminal device described above, and the method may include the following steps:

step 210, receiving a cell change instruction issued by the network device, where the cell change instruction is used to instruct the terminal device to change the serving cell from the current NR serving cell to the LTE target cell.

A cell, also called a cellular cell, refers to an area covered by a base station or a part of a base station (e.g. a sector antenna, etc.) in a cellular mobile communication system, and a terminal device in the covered area can communicate with the base station through a wireless channel. The serving cell may refer to a cell currently providing a service to the terminal device, and the terminal device may access a corresponding network through the serving cell and perform network communication.

The terminal device may receive a cell change instruction issued by the network device, where the cell change instruction may carry network configuration information, and the network configuration information may include target cell information to be changed. Optionally, the cell information may include, but is not limited to, cell identifiers, cell types, cell priorities, and the like, where the cell identifiers may be used to uniquely identify cells, and may be physical IDs (identities, identity identifiers) of the cells, and the like, and the cell types may include LTE cells, NR cells, and the like, and further, the NR cells may include NR cells under an SA (stand-alone network) architecture and NR cells under an NSA (non-stand-alone network) architecture.

In some embodiments, the cell change instruction may include any of the following:

(1) A cell handover command. When the terminal device is in a connected state, the network device may issue a cell switching instruction to the terminal device, and the terminal device may switch to a new cell according to the cell switching instruction without interrupting a service and provide the service by the new cell, where the connected state refers to a state where the terminal device establishes an RRC connection with the wireless network.

Optionally, after the terminal device establishes an RRC (Radio Resource Control) connection with the network device, the network device may issue a measurement Control instruction to the terminal device, and the terminal device may measure each searched cell according to the measurement Control instruction, where the measurement may include but is not limited to common-frequency measurement, different-frequency measurement, quality measurement, and the like, and send a measurement report to the network device. After receiving the measurement report, the network device may determine whether the terminal device needs to perform cell handover by combining with a preset handover policy or algorithm, and if so, may send a cell handover command to the terminal device.

(2) A cell redirection instruction. The cell redirection is that when the network device sends an RRC connection release message to the terminal device, the connection release message carries target cell information that needs to be redirected, and the terminal device can redirect to the target cell carried in the connection release message according to a cell redirection instruction, and access and reside in the target cell.

Optionally, there may be multiple reasons for the network device to send the cell redirection to the terminal device, for example, when the network device detects that the system load of the current serving cell of the terminal device is too large, and the terminal device needs to be released, a cell redirection instruction may be sent to the terminal device, so that the terminal device is redirected to the target cell, so as to reduce the system load; or when the terminal device cannot complete the change of the serving cell through cell switching in the connected state, the network device may issue a redirection instruction, so that the terminal device may implement the change of the serving cell through redirection, but is not limited thereto.

(3) A cell reselection instruction. When the terminal equipment is in an idle state, the terminal equipment can perform cell reselection and reselect a new cell for residence. The terminal device can select a cell to reside according to the searched reselection priority of each cell, the network device can issue a cell reselection instruction to the terminal device, the cell reselection instruction can refer to an instruction carrying the priority parameter of each cell, and the terminal device can select a proper cell to reside according to the priority parameter of each cell. For example, the terminal device may select a cell with the highest reselection priority for camping, and the like.

If the current serving cell of the terminal device is an NR serving cell and a cell change instruction carrying information of an LTE target cell is received, it may be determined that the cell change instruction is a different-system cell change instruction for changing from the NR cell to the LTE cell, and the terminal device may recognize whether the cell change instruction is reasonable, and if not, may not respond to the cell change instruction, that is, may not change the serving cell to the LTE target cell.

In some embodiments, the fact that the current serving cell of the terminal device is an NR serving cell may refer to the fact that the current serving cell of the terminal device is an NR serving cell under SA networking, so that the terminal device may select the NR serving cell as much as possible under SA networking, and the terminal device is prevented from changing the serving cell to an LTE cell under an unreasonable condition. The cell change instruction may be issued by a network device such as a nodeb, which is not limited herein.

In step 220, it is determined whether there is an NR target cell having a signal quality greater than or equal to the signal threshold, if so, step 230 is performed, and if not, step 240 is performed.

In step 230, an NR target cell having a signal quality greater than or equal to a signal threshold is selected as a serving cell.

When receiving a change instruction of a different system cell from an NR cell to an LTE cell, a terminal device may determine whether or not an NR target cell having a signal quality greater than or equal to a signal threshold exists in surrounding NR cells. If there is an NR target cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, it may be determined that the cell change instruction is an unreasonable change instruction, and the terminal device may select the NR target cell as a serving cell without changing the serving cell to an LTE target cell, access the NR target cell, and provide services by the NR target cell, so that the terminal device may access a 5G NR network as much as possible, and ensure the quality of network services.

As an implementation manner, multiple cells may exist around the terminal device at the same time, in some embodiments, the terminal device may perform cell search in real time or at certain time intervals, and may record cell information of each searched cell in a cell list. When the cell search is performed, the terminal device may also measure the signal quality of each cell, and record the signal quality of each cell in the cell list. When the terminal device receives a different-system cell change instruction sent by the network device to change from the NR cell to the LTE cell, it can be determined whether there is an NR target cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to a signal threshold in the cell list. Further, cell signals of different cell types can be recorded in different cell lists respectively, for example, a searched LTE cell can be recorded in the LTE cell list, a searched NR cell can be recorded in the NR cell list, and when the terminal device receives the inter-system cell change instruction, it can directly determine whether an NR target cell having a signal quality greater than or equal to a signal threshold exists in the NR cell list, so that the determination efficiency can be improved, and the efficiency of serving cell change can be further improved.

Step 240, an LTE target cell is selected as a serving cell.

If no NR target cell with the signal quality larger than or equal to the signal threshold value exists, which indicates that the signal quality of the NR cells around the terminal equipment is poor, the cell change instruction can be determined to be a reasonable change instruction, the terminal equipment can select the LTE target cell indicated by the cell change instruction as a service cell, access the LTE target cell, and the LTE target cell provides service for the terminal equipment.

In the embodiment of the application, the terminal device receives a cell change instruction issued by the network device, where the cell change instruction is used to instruct the terminal device to change a serving cell from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a long term evolution LTE target cell, and if there is an NR target cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to a signal threshold, the NR target cell is selected as the serving cell.

As shown in fig. 3, in an embodiment, another serving cell selection method is provided, which can be applied to the terminal device described above, and the method can include the following steps:

step 302, receiving a cell change instruction issued by the network device, where the cell change instruction is used to instruct the terminal device to change the serving cell from the current NR serving cell to the LTE target cell.

Step 304, determining whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold, if so, performing step 306, and if not, performing step 308.

If the terminal device receives a cell change instruction for instructing the serving cell to change from the NR cell to the LTE cell, the terminal device may first determine whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to a signal quality threshold. If the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold, which indicates that the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is better and can provide a better service for the terminal device, it may be determined that the cell change instruction issued by the network device is an unreasonable change instruction, and the terminal device may continue to use the current NR serving cell as a serving cell without performing a serving cell change.

As a specific embodiment, when the terminal device receives the cell change command, the Signal Quality of the current NR serving cell may be measured, and the Signal Quality may include, but is not limited to, quality parameters such as RSRP (Reference Signal Receiving Power), RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality), RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator), SINR (Signal-to-Interference plus Noise Ratio), and the like.

In some embodiments, the terminal device may employ different strategies to determine whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold. As an embodiment, different parameter thresholds may be set for different quality parameters, and for each quality parameter of the current NR serving cell measured by the terminal device, it may be determined whether the number of quality parameters greater than the corresponding parameter threshold is greater than a set value, for example, if the number of quality parameters greater than the corresponding parameter threshold is greater than 2, 3, and the like, it may be determined that the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold.

As another embodiment, different quality parameters may also be assigned with different weight values, and the terminal device may perform weighting and calculation on each measured quality parameter of the current NR serving cell according to the weight value corresponding to each quality parameter, to obtain the signal quality of the current NR serving cell, and determine whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold.

Optionally, the signal quality threshold may be a value set according to an actual requirement, and the signal quality threshold may also be determined by the terminal device according to a currently performed service, for example, if the currently performed service is a service with a high requirement on signal quality, such as video communication, game playing, and the like, the signal quality threshold may be set to a larger value, and if the currently performed service is a service with a low requirement on signal quality, such as text information transmission, web browsing, and the like, the signal quality threshold may be set to a smaller value.

Further, a plurality of quality classes may be preset, each quality class may correspond to a different signal quality range, and after the terminal device measures the signal quality of the current NR serving cell, the terminal device may determine the quality class corresponding to the current NR serving cell according to the signal quality range to which the measured signal quality belongs. Alternatively, the signal quality threshold may be a level threshold, and it may be determined whether a quality level corresponding to the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the level threshold, and if so, the current NR serving cell may be continuously used as the serving cell.

As a specific embodiment, if the cell change instruction is a cell handover instruction, the terminal device may not disconnect the RRC connection established with the wireless network when receiving the cell handover instruction, and if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold, may continue to use the established RRC connection for data transmission. If the cell change instruction is a cell redirection instruction, the terminal device can firstly release RRC connection established with the wireless network according to the cell redirection instruction, and if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to a signal quality threshold, the terminal device can be accessed to the current NR serving cell again for residing. If the cell change instruction is a cell reselection instruction, and the terminal device is in an idle state, if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold, the terminal device may continue to camp on the current NR serving cell.

Step 306, the current NR serving cell is taken as the NR target cell, and the current NR serving cell is continuously selected as the serving cell.

In step 308, it is determined whether there is an NR neighboring cell having a signal quality greater than or equal to the signal threshold, if yes, go to step 310, and if not, go to step 312.

If the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is less than the signal quality threshold, which indicates that the signal of the current NR serving cell is poor and is not suitable for providing the service for the terminal device, the terminal device may further determine whether there is an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold. If there is an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, the terminal device may use the NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold as an NR target cell, change the serving cell from the current NR serving cell to the NR target cell, access the NR target cell, and provide the terminal device with a service by the NR target cell.

The terminal device may measure the signal quality of each of the NR neighboring cells around and determine whether the measured signal quality of each of the NR neighboring cells is greater than or equal to a signal threshold. It should be noted that the manner of measuring the signal quality of each NR neighboring cell and determining whether the measured signal quality of each NR neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the signal threshold may be the same as the manner of measuring the signal quality of the current NR serving cell by the terminal device and determining whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, and reference may be made to the related description in the foregoing embodiments, and details are not repeated here.

In some embodiments, if there are a plurality of NR neighbor cells whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, the terminal device may select an NR neighbor cell whose signal quality is the greatest as the NR target cell.

In other embodiments, if there are a plurality of NR neighboring cells whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, the terminal device may also select the NR neighboring cell whose signal stability is the best as the NR target cell. The terminal device may obtain the historical signal quality of each NR neighbor cell obtained by the last N measurements, where N may be a positive integer, and N may be set according to actual requirements, for example, 3 times, 4 times, or 5 times, but is not limited thereto. The terminal device may calculate the signal stability of each NR neighbor cell from the N historical signal qualities of each NR neighbor cell, and the signal stability may be determined by the variation amounts of the N historical signal qualities of the NR neighbor cells. For example, the maximum historical signal quality of the N historical signal qualities of the NR neighboring cells may be subtracted from the minimum historical signal quality to obtain a variation, and the larger the variation, the worse the signal stability, and the smaller the variation, the better the signal stability, etc. It should be noted that other manners may also be used to determine the signal stability of each NR neighboring cell, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto.

In step 310, an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to a signal threshold is taken as an NR target cell, and the NR target cell is selected as a serving cell.

Step 312, select the LTE target cell as the serving cell.

If the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is less than the current NR serving cell and there is no NR neighboring cell with a signal quality greater than or equal to a signal threshold as an NR target cell, it may be stated that there is no NR neighboring cell with a better signal around the terminal device, and the terminal device may select an LTE target cell as the serving cell according to a cell change instruction issued by the network device, change the serving cell from the current NR serving cell to the LTE target cell, access the LTE target cell, and provide a service for the terminal device by the LTE target cell.

In the embodiment of the present application, when the terminal device receives the cell change instruction, it is preferentially determined whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold, so that the time for determining whether the NR target cell exists can be shortened, the selection efficiency of the serving cell can be improved, and the power consumption generated by the terminal device measurement can be reduced.

As shown in fig. 4, in some embodiments, another serving cell selection method is provided, which is applicable to the terminal device described above, and the method may include the following steps:

step 402, receiving a cell change instruction issued by the network device, where the cell change instruction is used to instruct the terminal device to change the serving cell from the current NR serving cell to the LTE target cell.

In step 404, it is determined whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold, if yes, step 406 is performed, and if no, step 410 is performed.

The descriptions of steps 402-404 can refer to the descriptions of steps 302-304, which are not repeated herein.

Step 406, determining whether the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell reaches a number threshold, if not, performing step 408, and if so, performing step 414.

The terminal device may further determine whether the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell reaches the number threshold after determining that the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold. If the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell reaches the number threshold, it may be said that, when the network device sends a cell change instruction to the terminal device for multiple times to change from the current NR serving cell to the LTE cell, the terminal device continues to select the current NR serving cell as the serving cell without performing the serving cell change. In order to avoid that the network device frequently sends a cell change instruction for changing from the current NR serving cell to the LTE cell, and the terminal device falls into a cycle of receiving the cell change instruction and re-accessing the current NR serving cell, when the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell reaches the number threshold, the terminal device may change the serving cell to the LTE target cell directly according to the cell change instruction.

As an embodiment, the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell does not reach the number threshold may include: the number of times the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell within a certain period of time does not reach the number-of-times threshold. The certain time period may be set according to actual requirements, for example, 10 minutes, 7 minutes, and the like, and is not limited herein. The terminal device may count the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell in a certain time period, and determine whether the number of times reaches a number-of-times threshold, and if the number of times does not reach the number-of-times threshold, may continue to use the current NR serving cell as a serving cell, and add 1 to the number of times, and update the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell in a certain time period.

As another embodiment, the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell does not reach the number threshold may include: the number of times the current NR serving cell is continuously selected as a serving cell does not reach the number-of-times threshold. The terminal device may obtain the number of times that the current NR serving cell is continuously selected as the serving cell, and determine whether the number of times reaches a number threshold, and if not, may continue to use the current NR serving cell as the serving cell, and add 1 to the number of times, and update the number of times that the current NR serving cell is continuously selected as the serving cell. If the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is less than the quality threshold, the terminal device may select an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold as the serving cell, or select an LTE target cell as the serving cell, and may zero out the number of times to facilitate the next resumption of statistics.

Optionally, the number threshold may be set according to actual requirements, may be adjusted according to different network conditions, or may be set differently for different types of cell change instructions. For example, when the cell change instruction is a cell handover instruction, the threshold value of the number of times may be set to a smaller value, for example, 2 times, so as to reduce the influence of the serving cell change on the service; when the cell change instruction is a cell redirection instruction, the threshold value of the number of times can be set to a larger value, for example, 4 times, 5 times, and the like, so that the terminal device can select the current NR serving cell to access as much as possible, and the situation that the serving cell is unreasonably changed to the LTE cell is avoided. Therefore, the method can adapt to different network scenes and fit different requirements of users on the network.

In some embodiments, when the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell reaches the number threshold, step 410 may also be performed, and the terminal device determines whether there is an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, and if so, may access the NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold as the NR target cell.

As another embodiment, the terminal device may also perform step 406 first, and then perform step 404 when the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell does not reach the threshold number, so as to avoid unnecessary signal quality measurement, improve the efficiency of serving cell change, and reduce power consumption of the terminal device caused by the signal quality measurement.

Step 408, the current NR serving cell is taken as the NR target cell, and the current NR serving cell is continuously selected as the serving cell.

In step 410, it is determined whether there is an NR neighbor cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, if so, step 412 is performed, and if not, step 414 is performed.

In step 412, the NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold is taken as an NR target cell, and the NR target cell is selected as a serving cell.

Step 414, select the LTE target cell as the serving cell.

In the embodiment of the present application, when the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell does not reach the number threshold and the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the quality threshold, the current NR serving cell is continued to be the serving cell, so that it is possible to avoid that the network device frequently sends a cell change instruction to change from the current NR serving cell to the LTE cell, which causes the terminal device to fall into a cycle of receiving the cell change instruction and re-accessing the current NR serving cell, thereby improving network stability.

As shown in fig. 5, in an embodiment, a serving cell selection apparatus 500 is provided, which is applied to the terminal device described above. The serving cell selection apparatus 500 may include a receiving module 510 and a selecting module 520.

A receiving module 510, configured to receive a cell change instruction issued by a network device, where the cell change instruction is used to instruct a terminal device to change a serving cell from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a long term evolution LTE target cell.

In one embodiment, the cell change instruction comprises any one of a cell redirection instruction, a cell handover instruction, and a cell reselection instruction.

A selecting module 520, configured to select an NR target cell as a serving cell if there is an NR target cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to a signal threshold.

In one embodiment, the selecting module 520 is further configured to select the LTE target cell as the serving cell if there is no NR target cell with a signal quality greater than or equal to the signal threshold.

In one embodiment, the selecting module 520 is further configured to take the current NR serving cell as the NR target cell and continue to select the current NR serving cell as the serving cell if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold.

In one embodiment, the selecting module 520 is further configured to, if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is less than the signal quality threshold, take the NR neighboring cell with the signal quality greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold as the NR target cell, and select the NR target cell as the serving cell.

In one embodiment, the selecting module 520 is further configured to select the NR neighboring cell with the largest signal quality as the NR target cell when there are a plurality of NR neighboring cells with signal qualities greater than or equal to the signal threshold if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is less than the signal quality threshold.

In the embodiment of the present application, when the terminal device receives a cell change instruction, it is preferentially determined whether the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to a signal quality threshold, so that the time for determining whether the NR target cell exists can be shortened, the selection efficiency of the serving cell can be improved, and the power consumption generated by the terminal device measurement can be reduced.

In one embodiment, the selecting module 520 is further configured to regard the current NR serving cell as the NR target cell if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to the signal quality threshold and the number of times the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell does not reach the number threshold.

In one embodiment, the selecting module 520 is further configured to, if the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as the serving cell reaches a number threshold, regard an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold as an NR target cell, and select the NR target cell as the serving cell.

Fig. 6 is a block diagram of a terminal device in one embodiment. As shown in fig. 6, the terminal device may include: a radio frequency module 610, a memory 620, an input unit 630, a display unit 640, a sensor 650, an audio circuit 660, a WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) module 670, a processor 680, and a power supply 690. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the terminal device configuration shown in fig. 6 does not constitute a limitation of the terminal device, and that the terminal device may include more or fewer components than shown, or combine certain components, or a different arrangement of components.

The rf module 610 may be configured to receive and transmit signals during information transmission and reception or during a call, and in particular, receive downlink information of a base station and then process the downlink information to the processor 680; in addition, the data for designing uplink is transmitted to the base station. Generally, the rf module 610 includes, but is not limited to, an antenna, at least one amplifier, a transceiver, a coupler, a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), a duplexer, and the like. In addition, the radio frequency module 610 may also communicate with a network and other devices through wireless communication. The wireless communication may use any communication standard or protocol, including but not limited to global system for mobile communications (GSM), general Packet Radio Service (GPRS), code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), long term evolution (lte), email, short Message Service (SMS), etc.

The memory 620 may be used to store software programs and modules, and the processor 680 may execute various functional applications of the terminal device and data processing by operating the software programs and modules stored in the memory 620. The memory 620 may mainly include a storage program area and a storage data area, wherein the storage program area may store an operating system, an application program required by at least one function (such as a sound playing function, an image playing function, etc.), and the like; the storage data area may store data (such as audio data, a phonebook, etc.) created according to the use of the terminal device, and the like. Further, the memory 620 may include high speed random access memory, and may also include non-volatile memory, such as at least one magnetic disk storage device, flash memory device, or other volatile solid state storage device.

The input unit 630 may be used to receive input numeric or character information and generate key signal inputs related to user settings and function control of the terminal device. Specifically, the input unit 630 may include a touch panel 632 and other input devices 634. The touch panel 632, also referred to as a touch screen, can collect touch operations of a user (e.g., operations of the user on the touch panel 632 or near the touch panel 632 by using a finger, a stylus, or any other suitable object or accessory) thereon or nearby, and drive the corresponding connection device according to a preset program. Alternatively, the touch panel 632 may include two parts, a touch detection device and a touch controller. The touch detection device detects the touch direction of a user, detects a signal brought by touch operation and transmits the signal to the touch controller; the touch controller receives touch information from the touch sensing device, converts the touch information into touch point coordinates, sends the touch point coordinates to the processor 680, and can receive and execute commands sent by the processor 680. In addition, the touch panel 632 can be implemented by various types, such as resistive, capacitive, infrared, and surface acoustic wave. The input unit 630 may include other input devices 634 in addition to the touch panel 632. In particular, other input devices 634 may include, but are not limited to, one or more of a physical keyboard, function keys (such as volume control keys, switch keys, etc.), a trackball, a mouse, a joystick, and the like.

The display unit 640 may be used to display information input by a user or information provided to the user and various menus of the terminal device. The display unit 640 may include a display panel 642, and optionally, the display panel 642 may be configured in the form of a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), an organic light-Emitting diode (OLED), or the like. Further, the touch panel 632 may cover the display panel 642, and when the touch panel 632 detects a touch operation on or near the touch panel, the touch panel is transmitted to the processor 680 to determine the type of the touch event, and then the processor 680 provides a corresponding visual output on the display panel 642 according to the type of the touch event. Although in fig. 6, the touch panel 632 and the display panel 642 are two separate components to implement the input and output functions of the terminal device, in some embodiments, the touch panel 632 and the display panel 642 may be integrated to implement the input and output functions of the terminal device.

The terminal device may also include at least one sensor 650, such as a light sensor, motion sensor, and other sensors. Specifically, the light sensor may include an ambient light sensor that may adjust the brightness of the display panel 642 according to the brightness of ambient light, and a proximity sensor that may turn off the display panel 642 and/or a backlight when the terminal device is moved to the ear. As one of the motion sensors, the accelerometer sensor can detect the magnitude of acceleration in each direction (generally, three axes), detect the magnitude and direction of gravity when stationary, and can be used for applications (such as horizontal and vertical screen switching, related games, magnetometer attitude calibration) for recognizing the attitude of the terminal device, and related functions (such as pedometer and tapping) for vibration recognition; as for other sensors such as a gyroscope, a barometer, a hygrometer, a thermometer, and an infrared sensor, which can be configured in the terminal device, detailed description is omitted here.

Audio circuitry 660, speaker 662, and microphone 664 may provide an audio interface between a user and a terminal device. The audio circuit 660 may transmit the electrical signal converted from the received audio data to the speaker 662, and convert the electrical signal into an audio signal and output the audio signal through the speaker 662; on the other hand, the microphone 664 converts the collected sound signal into an electrical signal, converts the electrical signal into audio data after being received by the audio circuit 660, and then outputs the audio data to the processor 680 for processing, and then sends the audio data to, for example, another terminal device through the radio frequency module 610, or outputs the audio data to the memory 620 for further processing.

WiFi belongs to short-distance wireless transmission technology, and the terminal equipment can help a user to send and receive e-mails, browse webpages, access streaming media and the like through the WiFi module 670, and provides wireless broadband internet access for the user.

The processor 680 is a control center of the terminal device, connects various parts of the entire terminal device using various interfaces and lines, and performs various functions of the terminal device and processes data by running or executing software programs and/or modules stored in the memory 620 and calling data stored in the memory 620, thereby monitoring the terminal device as a whole. Optionally, processor 680 may include one or more processing units; preferably, the processor 680 may integrate an application processor, which mainly handles operating systems, user interfaces, application programs, etc., and a modem processor, which mainly handles wireless communications. It will be appreciated that the modem processor described above may not be integrated into processor 680.

The terminal device also includes a power supply 690 (e.g., a battery) for powering the various components, which may preferably be logically coupled to the processor 680 via a power management system, such that functions such as managing charging, discharging, and power consumption may be performed via the power management system. Although not shown, the terminal device may further include a camera, a bluetooth module, and the like, which are not described herein.

In one embodiment, computer programs stored in memory 620, when executed by processor 680, cause processor 680 to implement the methods as described in the various embodiments above.

The embodiment of the application discloses a computer readable storage medium, which stores a computer program, wherein the computer program realizes the method described in the above embodiments when being executed by a processor.

Embodiments of the present application disclose a computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a computer program, and the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the method as described in the embodiments above.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that all or part of the processes of the methods of the embodiments described above can be implemented by a computer program, which can be stored in a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, and can include the processes of the embodiments of the methods described above when the program is executed. The storage medium may be a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), or the like.

Any reference to memory, storage, database, or other medium as used herein may include non-volatile and/or volatile memory. Suitable non-volatile memory can include read-only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), electrically Programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically Erasable Programmable ROM (EEPROM), or flash memory. Volatile memory can include Random Access Memory (RAM), which acts as external cache memory. By way of illustration and not limitation, RAM is available in a variety of forms such as Static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchronous Link (SLDRAM), rambus (Rambus) direct RAM (RDRAM), direct bused dynamic RAM (DRDRAM), and Rambus Dynamic RAM (RDRAM).

It should be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present application. Thus, the appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment" or "in an embodiment" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. Those skilled in the art should also appreciate that the embodiments described in this specification are all alternative embodiments and that the acts and modules involved are not necessarily required for this application.

In various embodiments of the present application, it should be understood that the size of the serial number of each process described above does not mean that the execution sequence is necessarily sequential, and the execution sequence of each process should be determined by its function and inherent logic, and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

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

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit. The integrated unit can be realized in a form of hardware, and can also be realized in a form of a software functional unit.

The integrated units, if implemented as software functional units and sold or used as separate products, may be stored in a computer accessible memory. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application, which is a part of or contributes to the prior art in essence, or all or part of the technical solution, may be embodied in the form of a software product, stored in a memory, including several requests for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a network device, or the like, and may specifically be a processor in the computer device) to execute part or all of the steps of the above-described method of the embodiments of the present application.

The foregoing describes in detail a serving cell selection method, an apparatus, a terminal device, and a storage medium disclosed in the embodiments of the present application, and a specific example is applied in the present application to explain the principles and embodiments of the present application. Meanwhile, for a person skilled in the art, according to the idea of the present application, there may be variations in the specific embodiments and the application scope, and in summary, the content of the present specification should not be construed as a limitation to the present application.

Claims

1. A method for selecting a serving cell is applied to a terminal device, and the method comprises the following steps:

receiving a cell change instruction issued by network equipment, wherein the cell change instruction is used for instructing the terminal equipment to change a serving cell from a current new air interface NR serving cell to a long term evolution LTE target cell;

and if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to a signal quality threshold value and the frequency of selecting the current NR serving cell as a serving cell does not reach a frequency threshold value, taking the current NR serving cell as an NR target cell.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell a number of times that does not reach a number threshold, comprising:

the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell within a certain time period does not reach a number threshold; or

The current NR serving cell is continuously selected as a serving cell a number of times that does not reach a number threshold.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is smaller than a signal quality threshold, taking an NR neighboring cell of which the signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold as an NR target cell, and selecting the NR target cell as a serving cell; and/or

If the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell reaches a number threshold, an NR neighboring cell whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold is taken as an NR target cell, and the NR target cell is selected as a serving cell.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the regarding the NR neighbor cell having the signal quality greater than or equal to the signal threshold as the NR target cell comprises:

if there are a plurality of NR neighbor cells whose signal quality is greater than or equal to the signal threshold, the NR neighbor cell whose signal quality is the greatest is selected as the NR target cell.

5. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising:

and if the NR target cell with the signal quality larger than or equal to the signal threshold does not exist, selecting the LTE target cell as a serving cell.

6. The method according to any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the cell change instruction comprises any of a cell redirection instruction, a cell handover instruction and a cell reselection instruction.

7. A device for selecting a serving cell, the device being applied to a terminal device, the device comprising:

a selecting module, configured to, if the signal quality of the current NR serving cell is greater than or equal to a signal quality threshold and the number of times that the current NR serving cell is selected as a serving cell does not reach a number threshold, take the current NR serving cell as an NR target cell.

8. A terminal device comprising a memory and a processor, the memory having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to carry out the method of any one of claims 1 to 6.

9. A computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored which, when being executed by a processor, carries out the method according to any one of claims 1 to 6.