CN113395717B

CN113395717B - Cell searching method, terminal and ground wireless access network node

Info

Publication number: CN113395717B
Application number: CN202010171257.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 周叶; 孙建成
Original assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Current assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-03-12
Filing date: 2020-03-12
Publication date: 2023-09-08
Anticipated expiration: 2040-03-12
Also published as: CN113395717A

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell searching method, a terminal and a ground wireless access network node, which are applied to the terminal and comprise the following steps: receiving a first message sent by a ground radio access network node, wherein the first message contains first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on pre-configuration information, and the pre-configuration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell; and searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information. The embodiment of the invention saves the resources during the NTN cell search.

Description

Cell searching method, terminal and ground wireless access network node

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a cell search method, a terminal, and a ground radio access network node.

Background

In order to implement global radio access coverage, non-terrestrial network (Non-Terrestrial Network, NTN) architecture is proposed in the industry, which is implemented mainly by using a satellite as a communication base station, or by using the satellite to forward radio communication signals of a terrestrial base station, so as to provide radio access service for a wide area under the satellite. The data throughput of satellites is typically limited relative to terrestrial base stations, and the cost of transmitting unit bits of information is also significantly higher than for terrestrial networks. Therefore, it is considered necessary to consider the cooperation between the non-terrestrial network and the terrestrial network, so that the user terminal uses the terrestrial network in a region where the terrestrial network coverage is suitable, and uses the non-terrestrial network only in a region where the terrestrial network coverage is not suitable. For this reason, it is desirable to support cell reselection or handover between a terrestrial network and a non-terrestrial network.

According to the prior art, before cell reselection and handover, the source cell first maintains a neighbor relation table, and provides the frequency point information of the neighbor cells to the user terminal through broadcasting or dedicated signaling, and the user terminal searches the neighbor cells according to the frequency point information, measures their signals, and then selects the target cell from the neighbor cells by the network or the user terminal according to different situations. However, the typical radius of the non-terrestrial cell is 100km, the typical moving speed relative to the terrestrial is 7km/s, which means that for any geographic coordinate point, the cell covering the point changes approximately every 20s, i.e. the coverage of the non-terrestrial cell is likely to change rapidly with the movement of the satellite, so that for cell reselection or handover from terrestrial to non-terrestrial cell, the common situation is that it changes once for tens of seconds; in this case, if the existing technology based on the neighbor relation table and the frequency point configuration is still used, the terrestrial cell will not only be required to know the coverage condition of the non-terrestrial cell at any time, but also have to update the system information frequently, and reconfigure the measurement configuration of the connected ue, and the ue will consume a lot of resources to listen to the system information update and perform the configuration.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell searching method, a terminal and a ground wireless access network node, which are used for reducing resource waste when searching and measuring non-ground cells.

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell searching method, which is applied to a terminal and comprises the following steps:

receiving a first message sent by a ground radio access network node, wherein the first message contains first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on pre-configuration information, and the pre-configuration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell; and searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information.

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell searching method which is applied to a ground wireless access network node and comprises the following steps:

and sending a first message to the terminal, wherein the first message contains first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, and the preconfiguration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell.

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell searching device, which is applied to a terminal and comprises the following components:

The terminal comprises a receiving module, a receiving module and a transmitting module, wherein the receiving module is used for receiving a first message sent by a ground wireless access network node, the first message comprises first indication information which is used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network NTN cell which covers the terminal based on preconfiguration information, and the preconfiguration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell;

and the searching and measuring module is used for searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information.

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell searching device which is applied to a ground wireless access network node and comprises the following components:

the terminal comprises a sending module, a receiving module and a receiving module, wherein the sending module is used for sending a first message to the terminal, the first message contains first indication information which is used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on pre-configuration information, and the pre-configuration information is used for obtaining the covering condition of the NTN cell.

The embodiment of the invention provides a terminal, which comprises a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and capable of running on the processor, wherein the processor realizes the steps of the method of the terminal side embodiment when executing the program.

The embodiment of the invention provides a ground wireless access network node, which comprises a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and capable of running on the processor, wherein the processor realizes the method steps of the ground wireless access network node side embodiment when executing the program.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of the cell search method.

According to the cell searching method, the terminal and the ground wireless access network node, the terminal receives the first message sent by the ground wireless access network node, the first message contains the first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure the target non-ground network NTN cell of the coverage terminal based on the pre-configuration information, and the pre-configuration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell, so that the terminal can search and measure the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information, the terminal side can search and measure the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal without informing the network side of the system information of the area where the terminal is located, the problem that the coverage terminal needs to update the system information frequently and perform configuration for the terminal connected to the ground cell due to the fact that the coverage condition of the non-ground cell at a certain place is overlapped rapidly in the prior art is avoided, and the problem that the coverage terminal needs to consume a large amount of resources to listen to system information update and perform configuration is avoided.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions of the prior art, the following description will briefly explain the drawings used in the embodiments or the description of the prior art, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention, and other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart illustrating steps of a cell search method applied to a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating steps applied to a terrestrial radio access network node according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating steps of a fifth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a block diagram of a cell search apparatus applied to a terminal in an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a block diagram of a cell search apparatus applied to a terrestrial radio access network node according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a second schematic diagram of a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a terrestrial radio access network node according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

For the purpose of making the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention more apparent, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is apparent that the described embodiments are some embodiments of the present invention, but not all embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the invention.

In order to clearly describe the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, in each embodiment of the present invention, if "first", "second", and the like words are used to distinguish the same item or similar items having substantially the same function and effect, those skilled in the art will understand that the "first", "second", and the like words do not limit the number and execution order.

In a common cellular radio communication mechanism, a ue needs to first search for a cell signal, then read cell broadcast, perform measurement, report a measurement result, and trigger operations such as camping, access, or handover. The search methods of the cells of different systems are also different.

For example, for an initial search of a New Radio (NR) cell, the ue needs to determine a specific search frequency point, a search subcarrier interval, and a search time point according to the frequency band information and the subcarrier interval, and then search for a cell signal on all possible configuration combinations. If the terminal cannot search for any NR cell signal, it may attempt to search for cells of other standards such as evolved universal mobile telecommunications system terrestrial radio access (Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunication System Terrestrial Radio Access, E-UTRA). This process tends to be quite lengthy. In view of this, for all other cases except the initial search of cells, the network will inform the terminal in other ways which frequency points and which configurations can search for nearby cells, and the method mainly includes the following two methods: informing the system, the frequency point, the subcarrier interval and the supported frequency band list of each adjacent cell explicitly or implicitly through system information broadcasting; or the above information is indicated directly for a single user terminal by measurement configuration in dedicated signaling. The above information is typically stored in the network node as part of a neighbor relation table. The methods for network nodes to obtain these information are mainly of two types: one is pre-configuration at network deployment time, and the other is obtained by instructing the user terminal to report the above information by using an automatic neighbor relation (Automatic Neighbour Relation, ANR) mechanism. The two methods need manual intervention of maintainers or consume air interface resources of user terminals, are only suitable for scenes with slower adjacent cell condition changes and less number of possible adjacent cells (such as repeated opening and closing of single adjacent cells), and are not suitable for scenes with faster adjacent cell condition changes and more number of possible adjacent cells (through passage of a plurality of cells) in a non-ground network based on a low-orbit satellite.

In particular, according to the prior art, in order to support measurement of a non-terrestrial cell by a user terminal residing in or connected to the terrestrial cell in order to reselect or handover to the non-terrestrial cell, the terrestrial cell typically has to consume a lot of air interface resources to continuously update its broadcasted system information, to continuously reconfigure the measurement configuration for each user terminal connected to the cell, and the user terminal will also consume a lot of resources to listen to the system information update and perform the configuration.

In view of the above drawbacks, the present invention provides the following embodiments:

as shown in fig. 1, a flowchart of steps of a cell search method applied to a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps:

step 101: and receiving a first message sent by the ground radio access network node.

Specifically, the first message includes first indication information, which is used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell of the coverage terminal based on preconfiguration information, where the preconfiguration information is used to obtain the coverage condition of the NTN cell.

Here, the preconfiguration information may be ephemeris information or the like.

Specifically, by setting the preconfiguration information for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell, when the terminal receives the first message, the terminal can search and measure the target NTN cell covering the terminal through the first indication information in the first message based on the preconfiguration information, so that the problem that the terminal needs to waste a large amount of resources to receive system information updating and executing configuration is avoided, and the problem that the terminal needs to consume a large amount of air interface resources to continuously update the broadcasted system information and continuously reconfigure the measurement configuration for each terminal connected to the cell when the terminal is resided in or connected to the ground cell to measure the NTN cell so as to reselect or switch to the NTN cell is avoided.

Step 102: searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the preconfiguration information.

In this step, specifically, after the terminal receives the first message sent by the ground radio access network node, the terminal may search and measure the target NTN cell based on the preconfigured information, so that it is achieved that the terminal may search and measure the target NTN cell based on the preconfigured information without network notification.

In this way, in the embodiment, the terminal receives the first message sent by the ground radio access network node, and the first message includes the first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure the target non-ground network NTN cell of the coverage terminal based on the preconfiguration information, and the preconfiguration information is used for obtaining the coverage condition of the NTN cell, so that the terminal can search and measure the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal based on the preconfiguration information, and the terminal side can search and measure the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal without informing the network side of the system information of the area where the terminal is located, thereby avoiding the problem that the coverage terminal is required to frequently update the system information and reconfigure the measurement for the terminal connected to the ground cell due to the coverage condition of the non-ground cell at a certain place in the prior art, and avoiding the problem that the terminal is required to consume a large amount of resource to listen to system information update and perform configuration.

Specifically, in this embodiment, when receiving the first message sent by the ground radio access network node, the terminal may receive a system information broadcast sent by the ground radio access network node, where the system information broadcast includes the first message; or receiving the special signaling sent by the ground wireless access network node, wherein the special signaling comprises the first message. This enables the terminal to receive the first message in different ways.

In addition, specifically, in this embodiment, when the terminal searches and measures the target NTN cell based on the preconfiguration information, the terminal may determine the target NTN cell covering the terminal according to the geographic location information of the terminal itself, obtain the frequency point information and/or the physical cell identification information of the target NTN cell based on the preconfiguration information, and then search and measure the target NTN cell based on the frequency point information and/or the physical cell identification information of the target NTN cell.

The terminal can determine the target NTN cell capable of covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information such as ephemeris and the like and combining with geographic position information of the terminal, further determine information such as frequency points and/or physical cell identifiers of the target NTN cell, and then search and measure the target NTN cell aiming at the corresponding cell frequency points and/or physical cell identifiers.

In addition, in this embodiment, the first message may further include other information to assist the terminal in searching and measuring the target NTN cell; specifically, the other information included in the first message may be any one of the following:

first, the first message further includes a non-terrestrial network radio access technology identifier (NTN RAT ID for short), so as to instruct the terminal to search for NTN cells belonging to the NTN RAT ID.

In particular, the same site may have multiple non-terrestrial networks covered, where each non-terrestrial network may be assigned a specific identification, such as an NTN RAT ID, in order to distinguish between these non-terrestrial networks.

At this time, the first message includes the NTN RAT ID to instruct the terminal to search for the NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT ID, so that when the terminal receives the first message, the terminal can search for the NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT ID based on the NTN RAT ID, thereby reducing the search range of the target NTN cell covering the terminal.

And secondly, the first message also comprises a measurement interval so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval.

In particular, in some scenarios, due to the limited capabilities of the user terminal, it is not possible to measure the signal of the neighbor cell while transmitting data normally with the network. For this case, the network should configure it with a periodically occurring empty window period, called the "Measurement Gap". During the measurement interval, the network will not transmit data with the user terminal (neither transmit nor receive data) so that the user terminal can use this time to measure the neighbor cell's signal.

At this time, the first message includes the measurement interval to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval, so that the terminal searches and measures the target NTN cell in the measurement interval when receiving the first message.

Thirdly, the first message also contains a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied.

Specifically, the first message includes the cell search condition, so that when the terminal receives the first message, the terminal searches and measures the target NTN cell only when the cell search condition is satisfied.

Specifically, the cell search condition includes at least one of the following conditions:

the signal quality of the current serving cell is lower than or equal to a first preset quality threshold;

the signal intensity of the current serving cell is lower than or equal to a first preset intensity threshold value;

all the measured cell signal quality is lower than or equal to a second preset quality threshold;

all the measured cell signal intensities are lower than or equal to a second preset intensity threshold value;

the terminal is located in the beam direction corresponding to the synchronous signal block mark in the current service cell.

Fourth, the first message further includes a cell search condition and a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval when the terminal meets the cell search condition.

Specifically, the first message includes the cell search condition and the measurement interval, so that when the terminal receives the first message, the terminal searches and measures the target NTN cell in the measurement interval only when the cell search condition is met.

It should be noted that the content of the cell search condition is the same as the cell search condition described in the foregoing, and will not be described in detail herein.

In addition, when the first message includes the cell search condition and the measurement interval, the terminal may further send a second message to the ground radio access network node when it is detected that the cell search condition is satisfied after receiving the first message sent by the ground radio access network node, where the second message includes second indication information that the terminal satisfies the cell search condition, or includes information that enables the ground radio access network node to determine that the terminal satisfies the cell search condition.

In addition, after the terminal sends the second message to the ground radio access network node, when the terminal detects that the cell search condition is no longer met, a third message may be sent to the ground radio access network node, where the third message includes third indication information that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition, or includes information that enables the ground radio access network node to determine that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition.

For example, if the cell search condition is "the signal quality of the current serving cell is lower than or equal to the first preset quality threshold", the information that enables the terrestrial radio access network node to determine that the terminal satisfies the cell search condition may be a measurement report, and the measurement report includes the signal quality information of the current serving cell, where the terrestrial radio access network node may determine, when receiving the first message, whether the condition that "the signal quality of the current serving cell is lower than or equal to the first preset quality threshold" is satisfied according to the signal quality information of the current serving cell. Then, the terrestrial radio access network node may stop transmitting data with the terminal in the measurement interval when it is determined that the above cell search condition is satisfied, and the terminal starts searching for and measuring the target NTN cell. Of course, when the terminal detects that the cell search condition is no longer satisfied at a certain moment, the terminal can send a third message to the ground radio access network node, and stop searching the target NTN cell; the terrestrial radio access network node may then determine from the third message that the terminal no longer fulfils the cell search condition described above and resume transmitting data with the terminal during the measurement interval.

Fifthly, the first message also contains a cell reselection condition to instruct the terminal to reselect the resident cell to the target NTN cell when the target NTN cell obtained by measurement meets the cell reselection condition.

Specifically, the terminal can perform cell reselection based on the first message by including the cell reselection condition in the first message.

Of course, when the first message includes the cell reselection condition, after receiving the first message sent by the ground radio access network node, the terminal may also reselect the resident cell to the target NTN cell when searching and measuring to obtain the target NTN cell and detecting to obtain that the target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition. This enables the terminal to perform cell reselection with the target NTN cell as the target cell when searching and measuring the target NTN cell and the target NTN cell satisfies the cell reselection condition.

In addition, specifically, the cell reselection conditions are: the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset quality threshold; or the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset strength threshold.

That is, when the target NTN cell satisfies that the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to the third preset quality threshold or the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to the third preset strength threshold, the terminal may reselect the camping cell to the target NTN cell.

And sixthly, the first message also comprises a measurement result reporting condition so as to instruct the terminal to report the measurement result when the measurement result reporting condition is met.

Specifically, the first message includes a measurement result reporting condition, so that the terminal can report the measurement result when the measurement result reporting condition is met.

Of course, when the first message includes a measurement result reporting condition, after the terminal receives the first message sent by the ground radio access network node, the terminal may also search and measure to obtain the target NTN cell, and when it detects that the measurement result reporting condition is met, send a fourth message to the ground radio access network node, where the fourth message includes a measurement result, and the measurement result includes a Cell Global Identifier (CGI) of the target NTN cell. This enables reporting of measurement results under specific conditions.

In addition, specifically, the measurement result reporting condition is: the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a fourth preset quality threshold; or, the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to the fourth preset strength threshold.

In this way, when the terminal in the embodiment receives the first message sent by the ground radio access network, based on the preconfiguration information for obtaining the coverage condition of the NTN cell, the target NTN cell is searched and measured, so that the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal can be searched and measured without informing by a network side, the problem that the coverage terminal needs to frequently update system information and reconfigure and measure for the terminal connected to the ground cell due to the coverage condition of a non-ground cell at a certain place in the prior art is avoided, and the problem that the terminal consumes a large amount of resources to listen to the system information update and perform configuration is avoided.

In addition, as shown in fig. 2, a flowchart of steps of a cell search method applied to a terrestrial radio access network node in an embodiment of the present invention is shown, where the method includes the following steps:

step 201: and sending the first message to the terminal.

Specifically, the first message includes first indication information, which is used for indicating the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal based on the preconfiguration information, where the preconfiguration information is used for obtaining the coverage condition of the NTN cell.

In addition, specifically, when the ground radio access network node sends a first message to the terminal, the first message can be sent to the terminal through system information broadcasting; or, the first message is sent to the terminal through dedicated signaling.

In this way, the ground radio access network node sends the first message to the terminal, and the first message contains the first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal based on the pre-configuration information, so that the terminal can search and measure the target NTN cell of the coverage terminal directly based on the pre-configuration information when receiving the first message, the terminal side can search and measure the target NTN cell without informing information such as system information and measurement configuration and the like by a network, and the problem that the coverage situation of a non-ground cell at a certain place is rapidly overlapped, and the coverage terminal needs to frequently update system information and reconfigure measurement for the terminal connected to the ground cell in the prior art is avoided.

Further, in this embodiment, the first message may further include other information to assist the terminal in searching and measuring the target NTN cell; specifically, the other information included in the first message may be any one of the following:

It should be noted that, for the NTN RAT ID, reference may be made to the corresponding description of the terminal side embodiment, and no further description is given here.

It should be noted that, for the measurement interval, reference may be made to the corresponding description of the terminal side embodiment, and no further description is given here.

In addition, it should be noted that, for a specific description of the cell search condition, reference may be made to a corresponding description of the terminal side embodiment, and no further description is given here.

In addition, when the first message contains the cell search condition and the measurement interval, the ground radio access network node can also receive a second message sent by the terminal when the terminal detects that the cell search condition is met after the first message is sent to the terminal, wherein the second message contains second indication information that the terminal meets the cell search condition or contains information enabling the ground radio access network node to judge that the terminal meets the cell search condition; the data transmission within the measurement interval is then stopped based on the second message.

In addition, specifically, after stopping data transmission in the measurement interval based on the second message, a third message sent by the terminal when the terminal no longer satisfies the cell search condition is received, where the third message includes third indication information that the terminal no longer satisfies the cell search condition, or includes information that enables the ground radio access network node to determine that the terminal no longer satisfies the cell search condition; the data transmission within the measurement interval is then restarted based on the third message.

It should be noted that, for the specific description of the item, reference may be made to the corresponding content on the terminal side, and detailed description will not be repeated here.

Specifically, the cell reselection conditions are: the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset quality threshold; or the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset strength threshold.

It should be noted that, the specific content of the cell reselection may be referred to the corresponding content of the terminal side, and will not be described in detail herein.

Specifically, when the first message includes a measurement result reporting condition, the ground radio access network node may further receive a fourth message sent by the terminal when the measurement result reporting condition is met after sending the first message to the terminal, where the fourth message includes a measurement result, and the measurement result includes a CGI of the target NTN cell that is searched and measured.

It should be noted that, the specific content reported for the measurement result in the item may be referred to the corresponding content on the terminal side, and will not be described in detail herein.

In this way, by including one or more of the above six items in the first message, the auxiliary terminal searches and measures the target NTN cell, and reselects the NTN cell and reports the measurement result.

In this way, the ground radio access network in this embodiment sends the first message to the terminal, so that the terminal can search and measure the target NTN cell based on the preconfigured information for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell, which realizes that the terminal can search and measure the target NTN cell covered by the terminal without informing from the network side, and avoids the problem in the prior art that the coverage cell of the non-ground cell needs to be frequently updated and the terminal connected to the ground cell is reconfigured and measured due to the coverage condition of the non-ground cell in a certain place, and avoids the problem that the terminal will consume a large amount of resources to listen to the update and perform configuration of the system information.

The above embodiments are specifically described below by way of specific embodiments.

First embodiment: the ground wireless access network node sends a first message through system information broadcasting:

step 1, a ground wireless access network node broadcasts a first message in a system information broadcast of a ground cell to indicate that the system information broadcast is received, and a terminal with corresponding capability searches and measures an NTN cell covering the terminal according to preconfigured information such as ephemeris and the like. Specifically, when searching and measuring a target NTN cell according to preconfiguration information such as ephemeris, the terminal can obtain the target NTN cell capable of covering the terminal according to the preconfiguration information such as ephemeris and the like and combining with the geographic position of the terminal, so as to obtain information such as a frequency point, a physical cell identifier and the like of the target NTN cell, and then search and measure the NTN cell according to the corresponding cell frequency point, the physical cell identifier.

It should be noted that the first message may further include an NTN RAT ID to instruct the terminal to search for and measure the target NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT.

Of course, the first indication message may also be an NTN RAT ID, so as to directly instruct the terminal to search for and measure the target NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT ID.

And 2, the terminal receives the system information broadcast, searches and measures the target NTN cell according to the information contained in the first message and the preconfigured information such as ephemeris and the like. At this time, if the first message is not included in the system information broadcast, the terminal does not search for and measure the target NTN cell. Furthermore, the terminal may autonomously decide when to initiate measurements for the target NTN cell in particular.

In addition, the terminal may be a terminal connected to the terrestrial cell (i.e., in a radio resource control RRC connected state) or a terminal camping on the terrestrial cell (i.e., not in an RRC connected state). Specifically, if the first message includes an NTN RAT ID, the terminal should search for and measure a target NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT.

Second embodiment: the ground radio access network node sends a first message through dedicated signaling:

Step 1, a ground radio access network node sends a first message to a terminal connected with the ground radio access network node, wherein the first message comprises first indication information to indicate the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell according to preconfiguration information such as ephemeris and the like. Specifically, the specific process of searching for and measuring the target NTN cell by the terminal may refer to the first embodiment, and will not be described herein.

In addition, the first message may further include a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search for and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval.

And step 2, after the terminal receives the first message, searching and measuring the target NTN cell according to the information contained in the first message and the preconfigured information such as ephemeris and the like. At this time, if the terminal does not receive the first message including the information sent by the terrestrial radio access network node, the terminal will not search and measure the target NTN cell. Furthermore, the terminal may autonomously decide when to initiate measurements for the target NTN cell in particular.

Specifically, if the first message includes an NTN RAT ID, the terminal should search for and measure a target NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT. In addition, if the first message further includes a measurement interval, the terminal should search for and measure the target NTN cell within the measurement interval.

Third embodiment: the ground wireless access network node sends a first message through system information broadcasting, and the terminal is instructed to measure under specific conditions:

step 1, a ground wireless access network node broadcasts a first message in the system information broadcast of a cell to indicate that the system information broadcast is received, and a terminal with corresponding capability searches and measures a target NTN cell according to preconfiguration information such as ephemeris and the like. Specifically, the process of searching for and measuring the target NTN cell by the terminal may refer to the first embodiment, and will not be described herein.

In addition, specifically, the first message further includes a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied. The specific content of the cell search condition may be referred to the above-mentioned terminal side embodiment, and will not be described herein.

And 2, the terminal receives the system information broadcast, searches and measures the target NTN cell according to the preconfigured information such as ephemeris and the like when the cell search condition is met according to the information in the first message. Of course, if the above cell search condition is not satisfied, the terminal will not search for and measure the target NTN cell.

It should be noted that the terminal may be a terminal connected to the cell (i.e., in an RRC connected state) or a terminal camping on the cell (i.e., not in an RRC connected state).

Fourth embodiment: the ground wireless access network node sends a first message through a special signaling to inform the terminal of measurement under a specific condition without measurement interval:

step 1, a ground radio access network node sends a first message to a terminal connected with the ground radio access network node, wherein the first message comprises first indication information to indicate the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell according to preconfiguration information such as ephemeris and the like. Specifically, the specific process of searching for and measuring the target NTN cell by the terminal may refer to the first embodiment, and will not be described herein. In addition, the first message further includes a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied. The specific content of the cell search condition may be referred to the above-mentioned terminal side embodiment, and will not be described herein.

And step 2, the terminal receives the first message, and searches and measures the target NTN cell according to the preconfiguration information such as ephemeris and the like when the cell search condition is met. Of course, if the above cell search condition is not satisfied, the terminal will not search for and measure the target NTN cell.

Fifth embodiment: the ground wireless access network node sends a first message through a special signaling to inform the terminal of measuring under a specific condition, and configures a measuring interval:

specifically, referring to fig. 3, the method includes the following steps:

In addition, the first message further includes a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied. The specific content of the cell search condition may be referred to the above-mentioned terminal side embodiment, and will not be described herein.

In addition, the first message further includes a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the NTN cell in the measurement interval. In addition, it should be noted that, after the first message is sent, the terrestrial radio access network node may stop transmitting data with the terminal within the measurement interval, or may stop or restart transmitting data based on the reporting of the terminal in the manner described in steps 3 to 5, step 8, step 10, and step 11.

And step 2, the terminal receives the first message and judges that the cell search condition is met at a certain moment.

Step 3, optionally, the terminal sends a second message to the ground radio access network node, where the second message includes either an indication that the cell search condition is satisfied or information sufficient for the ground radio access network node to infer that the cell search condition is satisfied. For example, if the above-mentioned cell search condition is that the signal quality of the current serving cell is lower (or not higher) than a certain threshold value, the second message may be a measurement report, which includes the signal quality information of the current serving cell, and when the radio access network node receives the second message, it may determine whether the condition that the signal quality of the current serving cell is lower (or not higher) than a certain threshold value is satisfied according to the signal quality information of the current serving cell.

And step 4, optionally, the ground wireless access network node knows that the terminal meets the cell search condition.

Step 5, optionally, the ground radio access network node stops transmitting data with the terminal in the measurement interval.

And 6, the terminal starts searching and measuring the NTN cells in the measurement interval.

And 7, at a certain moment, the terminal judges that the cell search condition is not met.

Step 8, optionally, the terminal sends a third message to the ground radio access network node, where the third message contains either indication information that the cell search condition is no longer satisfied or information sufficient for the ground radio access network node to infer that the cell search condition is no longer satisfied.

And 9, immediately stopping searching and measuring the NTN cell by the terminal.

Step 10, optionally, the ground radio access network node knows that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition.

Step 11, optionally, the terrestrial radio access network node resumes transmitting data with the terminal during the above measurement interval.

A sixth embodiment, the terminal reselects from a terrestrial cell to a target NTN cell:

step 1, the terrestrial radio access network node transmits a system information broadcast including a first message in the manner described in the first embodiment or the third embodiment. In addition, the first message further includes a cell reselection condition targeting the target NTN cell, for example:

the signal quality of the measured NTN cell is above (or not below) a certain threshold; or alternatively

The measured signal strength of the NTN cell is above (or not below) a certain threshold.

Step 2, the terminal starts searching and measuring NTN cells according to the corresponding method described in embodiment one.

And 3, searching and detecting a target NTN cell by the terminal.

And step 4, the terminal judges whether the measured target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition.

And step 5, if the terminal meets the cell reselection condition, the terminal executes cell reselection with the target NTN cell as a target.

In a seventh embodiment, the terminal reports the NTN cell measurement result to the ground radio access network node:

step 1, the radio access network node sends a system information broadcast or a dedicated signaling to the user terminal, including the first message, in a manner described in any of the embodiments one to five. Optionally, the first message may further include a measurement report condition of NTN cell measurement, for example:

And 3, searching and detecting a target NTN cell by the terminal.

And 4, if the first message described in the step 1 contains a measurement result reporting condition, the terminal judges whether the measured NTN cell meets the measurement result reporting condition.

And step 5, if the terminal meets the measurement result reporting condition, the terminal sends a fourth message to the ground radio access network node, wherein the fourth message comprises the measurement result of the NTN cell, and the measurement result comprises the CGI of the NTN cell.

In addition, as shown in fig. 4, a block diagram of a cell search apparatus applied to a terminal in an embodiment of the present invention includes:

a receiving module 401, configured to receive a first message sent by a terrestrial radio access network node, where the first message includes first indication information, and is configured to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network NTN cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, where the preconfiguration information is used to obtain a coverage situation of the NTN cell;

the search measurement module 402 is configured to search and measure the target NTN cell based on the preconfiguration information.

Optionally, the first message further includes a non-terrestrial network radio access technology identifier NTN RAT ID, so as to instruct the terminal to search for an NTN cell belonging to the NTN RAT ID.

Optionally, the first message further includes a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval.

It should be noted that, the apparatus in the above embodiment can implement all the method steps of the terminal side method embodiment, and can achieve the same technical effects, and will not be described herein again.

In addition, as shown in fig. 5, a block diagram of a cell search apparatus applied to a terrestrial radio access network node according to an embodiment of the present invention includes:

a sending module 501, configured to send a first message to a terminal, where the first message includes first indication information, and is configured to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network NTN cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, where the preconfiguration information is used to obtain a coverage situation of the NTN cell.

It should be noted that, the device in the above embodiment can implement all the method steps of the method embodiment at the access node side of the ground wireless network, and can achieve the same technical effects, and will not be described herein again.

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 6, the terminal 600 may include: at least one processor 601, memory 602, at least one network interface 604, and other user interfaces 603. The various components in terminal 600 are coupled together by a bus system 605. It is understood that the bus system 605 is used to enable connected communications between these components. The bus system 605 includes a power bus, a control bus, and a status signal bus in addition to a data bus. But for clarity of illustration the various buses are labeled as bus system 605 in fig. 6.

The user interface 603 may include, among other things, a display, a keyboard, or a pointing device, such as a mouse, a trackball (trackball), a touch pad, or a touch screen.

It is to be appreciated that the memory 602 in embodiments of the invention may be either 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 (Double Data Rate SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SLDRAM), and Direct RAM (DRRAM). The memory 602 of the systems and methods described in the various embodiments of the invention is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

In some implementations, the memory 602 stores elements, executable modules or data structures, or a subset thereof, or an extended set thereof, such as: an operating system 6021 and application programs 6022.

The operating system 6021 includes various system programs, such as a framework layer, a core library layer, a driver layer, and the like, for implementing various basic services and processing hardware-based tasks. The application 6022 includes various application programs such as a Media Player (Media Player), a Browser (Browser), and the like for realizing various application services. The program for implementing the method of the embodiment of the present invention may be included in the application 6022.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the processor 601 is configured to call a computer program or an instruction stored in the memory 602, specifically, a computer program or an instruction stored in the application 6022:

receiving a first message sent by a ground radio access network node, wherein the first message contains first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on pre-configuration information, and the pre-configuration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell;

And searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information.

The method disclosed in the above embodiment of the present invention may be applied to the processor 601 or implemented by the processor 601. The processor 601 may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capabilities. In implementation, the steps of the above method may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware in the processor 601 or instructions in the form of software. The processor 601 may be a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (Digital Signal Processor, DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (Application Specific Integrated Circuit, ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware components. The disclosed methods, steps, and logic blocks in the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present invention may be embodied directly in the execution of a hardware decoding processor, or in the execution of a combination of hardware and software modules in a decoding processor. The software modules may be located in a random access memory, flash memory, read only memory, programmable read only memory, or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, etc. as well known in the art. The storage medium is located in a memory 602, and the processor 601 reads information in the memory 602 and performs the steps of the above method in combination with its hardware.

It is to be understood that the embodiments described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, or a combination thereof. For a hardware implementation, the processing units may be implemented within one or more application specific integrated circuits (Application Specific Integrated Circuits, ASIC), digital signal processors (Digital Signal Processing, DSP), digital signal processing devices (DSP devices, DSPD), programmable logic devices (Programmable Logic Device, PLD), field programmable gate arrays (Field-Programmable Gate Array, FPGA), general purpose processors, controllers, microcontrollers, microprocessors, other electronic units designed to perform the functions described herein, or a combination thereof.

For a software implementation, the techniques described may be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the functions described in embodiments of the application. The software codes may be stored in a memory and executed by a processor. The memory may be implemented within the processor or external to the processor.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 601 is further configured to: receiving a system information broadcast sent by the ground wireless access network node, wherein the system information broadcast comprises the first message; or receiving a special signaling sent by the ground wireless access network node, wherein the special signaling contains the first message.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 601 is further configured to: determining a target NTN cell covering the terminal according to the pre-configuration information and the geographic position information of the terminal; acquiring frequency point information and/or physical cell identification information of the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information; searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the frequency point information and/or the physical cell identification information of the target NTN cell.

Optionally, the first message further includes a cell search condition, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied.

Optionally, the first message further includes a cell search condition and a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval when the cell search condition is satisfied.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 601 is further configured to: and when the condition of the cell search is detected to be met, sending a second message to a ground wireless access network node, wherein the second message contains second indication information that the terminal meets the condition of the cell search or contains information enabling the ground wireless access network node to judge that the terminal meets the condition of the cell search.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 601 is further configured to: and when the condition that the cell searching condition is no longer met is detected, sending a third message to the ground wireless access network node, wherein the third message contains third indication information that the terminal no longer meets the cell searching condition or contains information enabling the ground wireless access network node to judge that the terminal no longer meets the cell searching condition.

Optionally, the cell search condition includes at least one of the following conditions: the signal quality of the current serving cell is lower than or equal to a first preset quality threshold; the signal intensity of the current serving cell is lower than or equal to a first preset intensity threshold value; all the measured cell signal quality is lower than or equal to a second preset quality threshold; all the measured cell signal intensities are lower than or equal to a second preset intensity threshold value; the terminal is positioned in the beam direction corresponding to the synchronous signal block identifier in the current service cell.

Optionally, the first message further includes a cell reselection condition, so as to instruct the terminal to reselect a resident cell to the target NTN cell when the measured target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 601 is further configured to: and reselecting the resident cell to the target NTN cell when searching and measuring to obtain the target NTN cell and detecting that the target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition.

Optionally, the cell reselection condition is: the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset quality threshold; or the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset strength threshold.

Optionally, the first message further includes a measurement result reporting condition, so as to instruct the terminal to report the measurement result when the measurement result reporting condition is satisfied.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 601 is further configured to: and when searching and measuring to obtain a target NTN cell and detecting that the measurement result reporting condition is met, sending a fourth message to the ground wireless access network node, wherein the fourth message contains the measurement result, and the measurement result contains a cell global identifier CGI of the target NTN cell.

Optionally, the measurement report condition includes: the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a fourth preset quality threshold; or, the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to the fourth preset strength threshold.

The terminal provided by the embodiment of the invention can realize each process realized by the terminal in the previous embodiment, and in order to avoid repetition, the description is omitted here.

Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal according to another embodiment of the present invention, where the terminal in fig. 7 may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a personal digital assistant (Personal Digital Assistant, PDA), an electronic reader, a handheld game machine, a Point of Sales (POS), a vehicle-mounted electronic device (vehicle-mounted computer), or the like. As shown in fig. 7, the mobile terminal includes a Radio Frequency (RF) circuit 710, a memory 720, an input unit 730, a display unit 740, a processor 760, audio circuits 770, wiFi (Wireless Fidelity) modules 780, and a power supply 790. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the handset construction shown in fig. 7 is not limiting of the handset and may include more or fewer components than shown, or may combine certain components, or split certain components, or a different arrangement of components.

The input unit 730 may be used to receive numeric or character information input by a user and to generate signal inputs related to user settings and function control of the mobile terminal. Specifically, in the embodiment of the present invention, the input unit 730 may include a touch panel 7301. The touch panel 7301, also referred to as a touch screen, may collect touch operations on or near the user (e.g., operations of the user on the touch panel 7301 using any suitable object or accessory such as a finger, a stylus, etc.), and drive the corresponding connection device according to a predetermined program. Alternatively, the touch panel 7301 may include two parts, a touch detecting device and a touch controller. The touch detection device detects the touch azimuth 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 detection device and converts it into touch point coordinates, which are then sent to the processor 760, and can receive commands from the processor 760 and execute them. In addition, the touch panel 7301 may be implemented in various types such as resistive, capacitive, infrared, and surface acoustic waves. The input unit 730 may include other input devices 7302 in addition to the touch panel 7301, and the other input devices 7302 may be used to receive input numerical or character information and generate key signal inputs related to user settings and function control of the mobile terminal. In particular, other input devices 7302 may include, but are not limited to, one or more of a physical keyboard, function keys (e.g., volume control keys, switch keys, etc.), a trackball, a mouse, a joystick, a light mouse (a light mouse is a touch-sensitive surface that does not display visual output, or an extension of a touch-sensitive surface formed by a touch screen), and the like.

Among them, the display unit 740 may be used to display information input by a user or provided to the user and various menu interfaces of the mobile terminal. The display unit 740 may include a display panel 7401. The display panel 7401 may be configured in the form of a liquid crystal display (Liquid Crystal Display, LCD), an organic light-Emitting Diode (OLED), or the like.

It should be noted that touch panel 7301 may overlay display panel 7401 to form a touch display that, upon detecting a touch operation thereon or thereabout, is communicated to processor 760 to determine the type of touch event, and processor 760 then provides a corresponding visual output on the touch display based on the type of touch event.

The touch display screen comprises an application program interface display area and a common control display area. The arrangement modes of the application program interface display area and the common control display area are not limited, and can be up-down arrangement, left-right arrangement and the like, and the arrangement modes of the two display areas can be distinguished. The application interface display area may be used to display an interface of an application. Each interface may contain at least one application's icon and/or interface elements such as a widget desktop control. The application interface display area may be an empty interface that does not contain any content. The common control display area is used for displaying controls with higher use rate, such as application icons including setting buttons, interface numbers, scroll bars, phone book icons and the like.

The RF circuit 710 may be configured to receive and transmit information or receive and transmit signals during a call, and in particular, receive downlink information on the network side and process the downlink information with the processor 760; in addition, the data of the design uplink is sent to the network side. Typically, the RF circuitry 710 includes, but is not limited to, an antenna, at least one amplifier, a transceiver, a coupler, a low noise amplifier (Low Noise Amplifier, LNA), a duplexer, and the like. In addition, the RF circuitry 710 may also communicate with networks and other devices via wireless communications. The wireless communication may use any communication standard or protocol including, but not limited to, global system for mobile communications (Global System of Mobilecommunication, GSM), general packet radio service (General Packet Radio Service, GPRS), code division multiple access (Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA), wideband code division multiple access (Wideband CodeDivision Multiple Access, WCDMA), long term evolution (Long Term Evolution, LTE), email, short message service (Short Messaging Service, SMS), and the like.

The memory 720 is used to store software programs and modules, and the processor 760 performs various functional applications and data processing of the mobile terminal by executing the software programs and modules stored in the memory 720. The memory 720 may mainly include a storage program area and a storage data area, wherein the storage program area may store an operating system, application programs required for 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, phonebooks, etc.) created according to the use of the mobile terminal, etc. In addition, memory 720 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.

Wherein the processor 760 is a control center of the mobile terminal, connects various parts of the entire mobile phone using various interfaces and lines, and performs various functions of the mobile terminal and processes data by running or executing software programs and/or modules stored in the first memory 7201 and calling data stored in the second memory 7202, thereby performing overall monitoring of the mobile terminal. In the alternative, processor 760 may include one or more processing units.

In the embodiment of the present invention, by calling a software program and/or a module stored in the first memory 7201 and/or data stored in the second memory 7202, the processor 760 is configured to receive a first message sent by a terrestrial radio access network node, where the first message includes first indication information, which is used to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network NTN cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, where the preconfiguration information is used to obtain coverage situations of the NTN cell; and searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information.

It should be noted that, the terminal provided in the embodiment of the present invention can implement each process implemented by the terminal in the foregoing embodiment, and in order to avoid repetition, a description is omitted here.

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a terrestrial radio access network node according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 8, the base station 800 may include at least one processor 801, a memory 802, at least one other user interface 803, and a transceiver 804. The various components in the terrestrial radio access network node 800 are coupled together by a bus system 805. It is appreciated that the bus system 905 is employed to enable connected communications between these components. The bus system 805 includes a power bus, a control bus, and a status signal bus in addition to the data bus. The various buses are labeled in fig. 8 as a bus system 805, which may include any number of interconnected buses and bridges, with the one or more processors, as represented by processor 801, and the various circuits of the memory, as represented by memory 802, being linked together for clarity. The bus system may also link together various other circuits such as peripheral devices, voltage regulators, power management circuits, etc., all as are well known in the art and, therefore, further description of embodiments of the present invention will not be provided. The bus interface provides an interface. The transceiver 804 may be a number of elements, i.e. include a transmitter and a receiver, providing a means for communicating with various other apparatus over a transmission medium. The user interface 803 may also be an interface capable of interfacing with an inscribed desired device for a different user device, including but not limited to a keypad, display, speaker, microphone, joystick, etc.

It will be appreciated that the memory 802 in embodiments of the invention can be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or can 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 (Double Data Rate SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SLDRAM), and Direct RAM (DRRAM). The memory 802 of the systems and methods described in the various embodiments of the invention is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

The processor 801 is responsible for managing the bus system and general processing, and the memory 802 may store computer programs or instructions that the processor 801 uses in performing operations, and in particular the processor 801 may be used to: and sending a first message to the terminal, wherein the first message contains first indication information for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, and the preconfiguration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell.

The method disclosed in the above embodiment of the present invention may be applied to the processor 801 or implemented by the processor 801. The processor 801 may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capabilities. In implementation, the steps of the above method may be performed by integrated logic circuitry in hardware in the processor 801 or by instructions in software. The processor 801 described above may be a general purpose processor, digital signal processor (Digital Signal Processor, DSP), application specific integrated circuit (Application Specific Integrated Circuit, ASIC), off-the-shelf programmable gate array (Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware components. The disclosed methods, steps, and logic blocks in the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present invention may be embodied directly in the execution of a hardware decoding processor, or in the execution of a combination of hardware and software modules in a decoding processor. The software modules may be located in a random access memory, flash memory, read only memory, programmable read only memory, or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, etc. as well known in the art. The storage medium is located in a memory 802, and the processor 801 reads information in the memory 802 and, in combination with its hardware, performs the steps of the above method.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 801 is further configured to: transmitting the first message to the terminal through system information broadcasting; or sending the first message to the terminal through dedicated signaling.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the first message further includes a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the first message further includes a cell search condition, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell when the cell search condition is met.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the first message further includes a cell search condition and a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval when the cell search condition is met.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 801 is further configured to: receiving a second message sent by the terminal when the terminal is detected to meet the cell search condition, wherein the second message contains second indication information that the terminal meets the cell search condition or contains information enabling a ground radio access network node to judge that the terminal meets the cell search condition; and stopping data transmission in the measurement interval based on the second message.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the processor 801 is further configured to: receiving a third message sent by the terminal when the terminal is detected to no longer meet the cell search condition, wherein the third message contains third indication information that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition or information that enables a ground radio access network node to judge that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition; and restarting data transmission in the measurement interval based on the third message.

The base station provided by the embodiment of the present invention can implement each process implemented by the base station in the foregoing embodiment, and in order to avoid repetition, the same contents will not be described in detail here.

The scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention is mainly described from the point of view of the ground radio access network node. It should be understood that, in order to implement the above-mentioned functions, the embodiments of the present invention include corresponding hardware structures and/or software modules that perform the respective functions. 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 invention.

The embodiment of the invention can divide the functional modules of the ground wireless access network node and the like according to the method example, for example, each functional module can be divided corresponding to each function, and two or more functions can be integrated in one processing module. The integrated modules may be implemented in hardware or in software functional modules.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present invention, the division of the modules is schematic, which is merely a logic function division, and other division manners may be implemented in actual implementation.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, only the above-described division of the functional modules is illustrated, and in practical application, the above-described functional allocation may be performed by different functional modules according to needs, i.e. the internal structure of the apparatus is divided into different functional modules to perform all or part of the functions described above. The specific working processes of the above-described systems, devices and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, which are not described herein.

In the several embodiments provided by the present invention, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other manners. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, e.g., the division of the modules or units is merely a logical functional division, and there may be additional divisions when actually implemented, e.g., multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not performed. Alternatively, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed with each other may be an indirect coupling or communication connection via some interfaces, devices, or units.

The units described as separate units may or may not be physically separate, and units shown 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 may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

In addition, each functional unit in the embodiments of the present invention may be integrated in one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units may be integrated in one unit. The integrated units described above may be implemented in the form of software functional units.

The integrated units, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as stand-alone products, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. With such understanding, all or part of the technical solution may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, comprising instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor to perform all or part of the steps of the methods described in the embodiments of the invention. The computer storage medium is a non-transitory (english) medium comprising: flash memory, removable hard disk, read-only memory, random access memory, magnetic or optical disk, and the like.

On the other hand, the embodiment of the present invention further provides a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, where the computer program when executed by a processor implements the method steps provided in the foregoing embodiments and can achieve the same technical effects, and no further description is given here.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are only for illustrating the technical solution of the present invention, and are not limiting; although the invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that: the technical scheme described in the foregoing embodiments can be modified or some technical features thereof can be replaced by equivalents; such modifications and substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. A cell search method, applied to a terminal, comprising:

receiving a first message sent by a ground radio access network node, wherein the first message contains first indication information used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, the preconfiguration information is used for obtaining the covering condition of the NTN cell, and the preconfiguration information contains ephemeris information; the first message also contains a non-terrestrial network radio access technology identifier (NTN RAT ID) for instructing the terminal to search for NTN cells belonging to the NTN RAT ID;

and searching and measuring a target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information and the NTN RAT ID.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the first message sent by the terrestrial radio access network node comprises:

receiving a system information broadcast sent by the ground wireless access network node, wherein the system information broadcast comprises the first message; or alternatively, the process may be performed,

and receiving a special signaling sent by the ground wireless access network node, wherein the special signaling comprises the first message.

3. The cell search method according to claim 1, wherein the searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the preconfiguration information includes:

determining a target NTN cell covering the terminal according to the pre-configuration information and the geographic position information of the terminal;

acquiring frequency point information and/or physical cell identification information of the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information;

searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the frequency point information and/or the physical cell identification information of the target NTN cell.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first message further includes a measurement interval to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first message further includes a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first message further includes a cell search condition and a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell in the measurement interval when the cell search condition is satisfied.

7. The method of cell search according to claim 6, wherein after receiving the first message sent by the terrestrial radio access network node, further comprising:

and when the condition of the cell search is detected to be met, sending a second message to a ground wireless access network node, wherein the second message contains second indication information that the terminal meets the condition of the cell search or contains information enabling the ground wireless access network node to judge that the terminal meets the condition of the cell search.

8. The cell search method of claim 7, further comprising, after sending the second message to the terrestrial radio access network node:

and when the condition that the cell searching condition is no longer met is detected, sending a third message to the ground wireless access network node, wherein the third message contains third indication information that the terminal no longer meets the cell searching condition or contains information enabling the ground wireless access network node to judge that the terminal no longer meets the cell searching condition.

9. The cell search method according to any one of claims 5 to 8, wherein the cell search condition includes at least one of:

the terminal is positioned in the beam direction corresponding to the synchronous signal block identifier in the current service cell.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first message further includes a cell reselection condition to instruct the terminal to reselect a camping cell to the target NTN cell when the measured target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein after receiving the first message sent by the terrestrial radio access network node, further comprising:

and reselecting the resident cell to the target NTN cell when searching and measuring to obtain the target NTN cell and detecting that the target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition.

12. The cell search method according to claim 10 or 11, wherein the cell reselection condition is:

The signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset quality threshold; or alternatively, the process may be performed,

the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a third preset strength threshold.

13. The cell search method according to claim 1, wherein the first message further includes a measurement report condition to instruct the terminal to report the measurement result when the measurement report condition is satisfied.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein after receiving the first message sent by the terrestrial radio access network node, further comprising:

and when searching and measuring to obtain a target NTN cell and detecting that the measurement result reporting condition is met, sending a fourth message to the ground wireless access network node, wherein the fourth message contains the measurement result, and the measurement result contains a cell global identifier CGI of the target NTN cell.

15. The cell search method according to claim 13 or 14, wherein the measurement report condition includes:

the signal quality of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a fourth preset quality threshold; or alternatively, the process may be performed,

the signal strength of the NTN cell is higher than or equal to a fourth preset strength threshold.

16. A cell search method applied to a ground radio access network node, comprising:

a first message is sent to a terminal, wherein the first message contains first indication information used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, the preconfiguration information is used for obtaining the coverage condition of the NTN cell, and the preconfiguration information contains ephemeris information;

the first message further includes an NTN radio access technology identifier (NTN radio) to instruct the terminal to search for an NTN cell belonging to the NTN radio.

17. The method of cell search according to claim 16, wherein the sending the first message to the terminal comprises:

transmitting the first message to the terminal through system information broadcasting; or alternatively, the process may be performed,

and sending the first message to the terminal through special signaling.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the first message further includes a measurement interval for instructing the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell in the measurement interval.

19. The method according to claim 16, wherein the first message further includes a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied.

20. The method according to claim 16, wherein the first message further includes a cell search condition and a measurement interval, so as to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell in the measurement interval when the cell search condition is satisfied.

21. The method for cell search according to claim 20, further comprising, after the sending the first message to the terminal:

receiving a second message sent by the terminal when the terminal is detected to meet the cell search condition, wherein the second message contains second indication information that the terminal meets the cell search condition or contains information enabling a ground radio access network node to judge that the terminal meets the cell search condition;

and stopping data transmission in the measurement interval based on the second message.

22. The cell search method of claim 21, wherein the stopping the data transmission within the measurement interval based on the second message further comprises:

receiving a third message sent by the terminal when the terminal is detected to no longer meet the cell search condition, wherein the third message contains third indication information that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition or information that enables a ground radio access network node to judge that the terminal no longer meets the cell search condition;

And restarting data transmission in the measurement interval based on the third message.

23. The cell search method according to any one of claims 19 to 22, wherein the cell search condition includes at least one of:

24. The method according to claim 16, wherein the first message further includes a cell reselection condition to instruct the terminal to reselect a camping cell to the target NTN cell when the measured target NTN cell meets the cell reselection condition.

25. The cell search method of claim 24, wherein the cell reselection condition is:

26. The cell search method according to claim 16, wherein the first message further includes a measurement report condition to instruct the terminal to report the measurement when the measurement report condition is satisfied.

27. The cell search method of claim 26, further comprising, after sending the first message to the terminal:

and receiving a fourth message sent by the terminal when the measurement result reporting condition is met, wherein the fourth message comprises the measurement result, and the measurement result comprises a cell global identifier CGI of the target NTN cell obtained by searching and measuring.

28. The cell search method according to claim 26 or 27, wherein the measurement report condition is:

29. A cell search apparatus applied to a terminal, comprising:

The terminal comprises a receiving module, a receiving module and a receiving module, wherein the receiving module is used for receiving a first message sent by a ground wireless access network node, the first message comprises first indication information which is used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell which covers the terminal based on preconfiguration information, the preconfiguration information is used for acquiring the coverage condition of the NTN cell, and the preconfiguration information comprises ephemeris information; the first message also contains a non-terrestrial network radio access technology identifier (NTN RAT ID) so as to instruct the terminal to search for NTN cells belonging to the NTN RAT ID;

and the searching and measuring module is used for searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information and the NTN RAT ID.

30. A cell search apparatus for use in a terrestrial radio access network node, comprising:

the terminal comprises a sending module, a receiving module and a receiving module, wherein the sending module is used for sending a first message to the terminal, the first message contains first indication information and is used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, the preconfiguration information is used for obtaining the covering condition of the NTN cell, and the preconfiguration information contains ephemeris information;

The first message further includes a non-terrestrial network radio access technology identifier NTN RAT ID, so as to instruct the terminal to search for NTN cells belonging to the NTN RAT ID.

31. A terminal comprising a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, characterized in that the processor implements the following steps when executing the computer program:

receiving a first message sent by a ground radio access network node, wherein the first message contains first indication information used for indicating the terminal to search and measure a target non-ground network (NTN) cell covering the terminal based on preconfiguration information, the preconfiguration information is used for obtaining the covering condition of the NTN cell, and the preconfiguration information contains ephemeris information; the first message also contains a non-terrestrial network radio access technology identifier (NTN RAT ID) so as to instruct the terminal to search for NTN cells belonging to the NTN RAT ID; and searching and measuring a target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information and the NTN RAT ID.

32. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the receiving the first message sent by the terrestrial radio access network node comprises:

33. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the searching and measuring the target NTN cell based on the pre-configuration information comprises:

34. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the first message further includes a measurement interval to instruct the terminal to search and measure the target NTN cell within the measurement interval.

35. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the first message further includes a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied.

36. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the first message further includes a cell search condition and a measurement interval to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell within the measurement interval when the cell search condition is satisfied.

37. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the first message further includes a cell reselection condition to instruct the terminal to reselect a camping cell to a target NTN cell when the measurement results in the target NTN cell meeting the cell reselection condition.

38. The terminal of claim 31, wherein the first message further includes a measurement report condition to instruct the terminal to report the measurement when the measurement report condition is satisfied.

39. A terrestrial radio access network node comprising a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and operable on the processor, wherein the processor when executing the computer program performs the steps of:

40. The terrestrial radio access network node of claim 39, wherein the sending the first message to the terminal comprises:

and sending the first message to the terminal through special signaling.

41. The terrestrial radio access network node of claim 39, wherein the first message further comprises a measurement interval for instructing the terminal to search for and measure the target NTN cell within the measurement interval.

42. The terrestrial radio access network node of claim 39, wherein the first message further comprises a cell search condition to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell when the cell search condition is satisfied.

43. The terrestrial radio access network node of claim 39, wherein the first message further comprises a cell search condition and a measurement interval, to instruct the terminal to search and measure a target NTN cell within the measurement interval when the cell search condition is satisfied.

44. The terrestrial radio access network node of claim 39, wherein the first message further comprises a cell reselection condition to instruct the terminal to reselect a camping cell to a target NTN cell when the measurement results in the target NTN cell satisfying the cell reselection condition.

45. The terrestrial radio access network node of claim 39, wherein the first message further comprises a measurement report condition, so as to instruct the terminal to report the measurement result when the measurement report condition is satisfied.

46. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, having stored thereon a computer program, characterized in that the computer program when executed by a processor implements the steps of the method according to any of claims 1 to 15 or the steps of the method according to any of claims 16 to 28.