CN114126056A

CN114126056A - Uplink transmission method and device

Info

Publication number: CN114126056A
Application number: CN202010888941.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 胡丹; 曲秉玉; 张旭; 王�锋
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-08-28
Filing date: 2020-08-28
Publication date: 2022-03-01

Abstract

The embodiment of the application provides an uplink transmission method and device, relates to the technical field of communication, and solves the problems that terminal equipment is accessed into two station addresses with different distances from the terminal equipment, and the uplink switching is influenced because the sending time of the terminal equipment to the two station addresses is different. The specific scheme is as follows: sending a first uplink transmission to the first network equipment on the first uplink carrier, and sending a second uplink transmission to the second network equipment on the second uplink carrier; wherein, the uplink is switched in the first time period, and the uplink transmission is not sent in the first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier. The method and the device are used for the process that the terminal equipment sends uplink transmission to the two carriers of the different station addresses.

Description

Uplink transmission method and device

Technical Field

The embodiment of the application relates to the technical field of communication, in particular to an uplink transmission method and device.

Background

In uplink transmission, different terminal devices can perform orthogonal multiple access (orthogonal multiple access) on time-frequency resources, that is, uplink transmissions from different terminal devices in the same cell do not interfere with each other. In order to ensure orthogonality of uplink transmission and avoid interference between terminal devices in an intra-cell (intra-cell), the network device requires signals from the same time domain resource, but the time of arrival of signals of different terminal devices in different frequency domain resources at the network device is basically aligned. The network device can control the time alignment of the uplink signals from different terminal devices to reach the network device by properly controlling the timing advance value of each terminal device.

If the terminal device configures two carriers in a serving cell of a site: a Supplementary Uplink (SUL) carrier and a Normal Uplink (NUL) carrier, where the SUL and the NUL have different frequency bands and different uplink coverage, for example: the SUL frequency band uplink coverage is large, and the NUL frequency band uplink coverage is small. The base station configures the same timing advance value for the two carriers, and the NUL carrier and the SUL carrier share a timing adjustment command. Because the propagation delays of different frequency bands are the same for the same transmission path, the use efficiency of time domain resources is improved. Therefore, the protocol provides that the SUL carrier and the NUL carrier belong to the same timing adjustment group, and the network device simultaneously performs timing adjustment on the SUL carrier and the NUL carrier in one cell by using a timing adjustment command word (TAC). Moreover, when the SUL carrier and the NUL carrier are deployed in the same station, the uplink switching time between the carriers is also fixed and is dependent on the capability of the terminal device.

Although different carriers accessed by the terminal device are deployed at the same site at present, for example, SUL carriers and NUL carriers are deployed at the same site, in future network deployment, in order to save cost, different carriers accessed by the terminal device may also be deployed at different sites, for example, NUL carriers and SUL carriers are deployed at different sites, and one SUL band is used as a supplementary uplink band of a plurality of NUL bands. When different station addresses are deployed, the distances from the two station addresses to the terminal equipment may be different, so that timing advance values issued by the two station addresses for the terminal equipment are also different, and a time difference exists between the SUL carrier and the NUL carrier. For example, when a time difference exists between the SUL carrier and the NUL glass, the uplink switching time reported by the terminal device may not be enough for the terminal device to complete uplink switching, and the uplink switching time actually required by the terminal device is longer than the reported uplink switching time, which may affect the reliability of uplink transmission.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides an uplink transmission method and device, which can solve the problem that uplink switching is influenced because terminal equipment is accessed into two station addresses with different distances from the terminal equipment and the sending time of the terminal equipment to the two station addresses is different.

In order to achieve the above purpose, the embodiment of the present application adopts the following technical solutions:

in a first aspect, an uplink transmission method is provided, where the method is applied to a terminal device or a chip in the terminal device, and the method includes: sending a first uplink transmission to the first network equipment on the first uplink carrier, and sending a second uplink transmission to the second network equipment on the second uplink carrier; wherein, the uplink is switched in the first time period, and the uplink transmission is not sent in the first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier.

Therefore, in the present application, when two carrier bands accessed by a terminal device are deployed at different sites, or the terminal device is accessed to a network device with different carriers, if the terminal device sends uplink transmissions to different network devices respectively, a handover gap for uplink handover is not fixed, and the terminal device does not perform uplink handover according to a handover gap configured on a network side, the terminal device can determine a first time period for handover according to a difference between radio frame boundaries of two uplink carriers and the handover gap configured on the network side, that is, the first time period for uplink handover is adjustable, so that when a distance difference between the terminal device and two sites changes due to movement of the terminal device and a transmission time difference between the two sites also changes, if a fixed handover gap is reserved, uplink handover is started when a previous uplink transmission is not sent on a carrier, the uplink switching failure can be caused, so that the uplink service is interrupted, and the first time period for switching the carriers can be adjusted through the difference between the radio frame boundaries of the two uplink carriers, so that the first time period obtained after adjustment can be changed along with the change of the distance between the current terminal equipment and the two sites, so that the mobility of the terminal equipment can be better supported, and the uplink switching failure can be prevented. Further, when the adjusted first time period is smaller than the configured switching gap, the uplink transmission delay can be reduced, and the uplink capacity can be improved.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; when the first uplink transmission is a previous uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission and the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold. It can be understood that, when the terminal device finishes sending the first uplink transmission, that is, before sending the second uplink transmission, if the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device may not be enough for the terminal device to perform uplink handover, at this time, the terminal device may determine that the first time period is the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold. Therefore, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the terminal equipment can have enough time to complete uplink switching and then send the second uplink transmission by properly prolonging the time for switching between the carriers, so that the success rate of the uplink switching can be improved, and the reliability of the uplink transmission can be improved.

In one possible design, the method further includes: sending a third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier, wherein the third uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission; performing uplink switching in a third time period, and not sending uplink transmission in the third time period; and when the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, the third time period is the difference between the switching gap and the second threshold. It can be understood that, when the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device is sufficient to perform uplink handover, and therefore, the terminal device may use the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold as the third time period for performing uplink handover. Therefore, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is larger, the time for switching between the carriers is properly shortened, so that the third uplink transmission can be sent on the first uplink carrier in advance, thereby reducing the uplink transmission delay and improving the uplink capacity.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; when the first uplink transmission is the next uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission and the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, the first time period is the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold. It can be understood that, if the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, and the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device is sufficient for the terminal device to perform uplink handover, at this time, the terminal device may determine that the first time period is the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold. Thus, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, the time for switching between the carriers is appropriately shortened, so that the first uplink transmission can be started to be sent on the first uplink carrier in advance, thereby reducing the uplink transmission delay and improving the uplink capacity.

In one possible design, the method further includes: sending a fourth uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier, the fourth uplink transmission being a subsequent uplink transmission to the first uplink transmission; and switching uplink in a fourth time period, and not sending uplink transmission in the fourth time period, wherein when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold value, the fourth time period is the sum of the switching gap and the first threshold value. It is to be understood that, when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device may not be sufficient to perform the uplink handover, and therefore, the terminal device may use the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold as the fourth time period for performing the uplink handover. Therefore, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the terminal equipment can have enough time to complete uplink switching and then send the fourth uplink transmission by properly prolonging the time for switching between the carriers, so that the success rate of the uplink switching can be improved, and the reliability of the uplink transmission can be improved.

In one possible design, not sending the uplink transmission for the first time period includes: during the first time period, no uplink transmission is sent on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier. That is, the terminal device may perform the action of not sending the uplink transmission in the first time period.

In one possible design, the method further includes: and sending first indication information to the first network equipment and/or the second network equipment, wherein the first indication information indicates the second time period. For the network device, when the network device calls the terminal device to send the uplink transmission, the time domain resource of the uplink transmission may be determined according to the difference between the radio frame boundaries.

In one possible design, the method further includes: receiving Downlink Control Information (DCI) at a first time, wherein the DCI is used for scheduling second uplink transmission; sending the second uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier comprises: sending a second uplink transmission to the second network device at a second time and on a second uplink carrier; and the difference value between the first time and the second time is not less than a third threshold, and the third threshold is the preparation time before the second uplink transmission is prepared to be sent. Therefore, before the terminal equipment sends the second uplink transmission, the uplink switching can be completed in flexible time, and the preparation before the second uplink transmission is sent can be completed in enough time, so that the success rate of the uplink transmission is improved.

In one possible design, the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier belong to the same serving cell; alternatively, the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are indicated by the SIB 1. For example, the first uplink carrier is a SUL carrier, and the second uplink carrier is a NUL carrier.

In one possible design, before sending the first uplink transmission, the method further includes: acquiring a first timing advance TA and a second TA; the first TA corresponds to a first uplink carrier, and the second TA corresponds to a second uplink carrier; determining the sending timing of the first uplink transmission according to the first TA and the receiving timing of the first downlink carrier, and determining the sending timing of the second uplink transmission according to the second TA and the receiving timing of the first downlink carrier; the second time period is determined according to a difference between the first TA and the second TA. That is, the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier may be determined according to the difference between the first TA and the second TA. When the distances between the terminal equipment and the two station addresses are different, the first TA is different from the second TA, which shows that the frame boundaries of the two uplink carriers have time difference, if the fixed switching time between the carriers is reserved, uplink switching is executed when one uplink transmission is not sent completely, and uplink switching failure is caused. When the difference between the frame boundaries is determined according to the difference between the first TA and the second TA, the switching time between the carriers can be adjusted according to the difference between the frame boundaries, so that the failure of uplink switching can be prevented.

In a second aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, where the communication apparatus includes a terminal device or a chip in the terminal device, and the communication apparatus includes: a sending unit, configured to send a first uplink transmission to a first network device on a first uplink carrier, and send a second uplink transmission to a second network device on a second uplink carrier; a switching unit, configured to perform uplink switching in a first time period, and a sending unit, configured to not send uplink transmission in the first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; when the first uplink transmission is a previous uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission and the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

In a possible design, the sending unit is further configured to send a third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier, where the third uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission; the switching unit is further used for uplink switching in a third time period, and the sending unit is further used for not sending uplink transmission in the third time period; and when the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, the third time period is the difference between the switching gap and the second threshold.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; when the first uplink transmission is the next uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission and the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, the first time period is the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

In a possible design, the sending unit is further configured to send a fourth uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier, where the fourth uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the first uplink transmission; and the switching unit is further configured to perform uplink switching in a fourth time period, and the transmitting unit is further configured to not transmit uplink transmission in the fourth time period, where the fourth time period is the sum of the switching gap and the first threshold when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold.

In one possible design, the sending unit is configured to: during the first time period, no uplink transmission is sent on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier.

In one possible design, the sending unit is further configured to: and sending first indication information to the first network equipment and/or the second network equipment, wherein the first indication information indicates the second time period.

In one possible design, the ue further includes a receiving unit, configured to receive a downlink control information DCI at a first time, where the DCI is used to schedule a second uplink transmission; a sending unit, configured to send a second uplink transmission to the second network device at a second time and on a second uplink carrier; and the difference value between the first time and the second time is not less than a third threshold, and the third threshold is the preparation time before the second uplink transmission is prepared to be sent.

In one possible design, the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier belong to the same serving cell; alternatively, the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are indicated by the SIB 1.

In one possible design, the method further includes acquiring a first timing advance TA and a second timing advance TA; the first TA corresponds to a first uplink carrier, and the second TA corresponds to a second uplink carrier; a determining unit, configured to determine a sending timing of a first uplink transmission according to the first TA and a receiving timing of a first downlink carrier, and determine a sending timing of a second uplink transmission according to the second TA and the receiving timing of the first downlink carrier; the second time period is determined according to a difference between the first TA and the second TA.

In a third aspect, there is provided a communications device comprising at least one processor coupled to a memory, the at least one processor being configured to read and execute a program stored in the memory to cause the device to perform the method of the first aspect or any one of the first aspects.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a chip, coupled to a memory, for reading and executing program instructions stored in the memory to implement the method of the first aspect or any one of the first aspects as described above.

In a fifth aspect, there is provided a computer readable storage medium comprising a program or instructions which, when executed by a processor, is executed as the first aspect or any one of the possible designs of the first aspect.

A sixth aspect provides a computer program product for causing an electronic device to perform the design of the first aspect or any one of the possibilities of the first aspect when the computer program product is run on a computer.

A seventh aspect provides an uplink switching method, where the method is applied to a network device or a chip in the network device, and the method includes: receiving first indication information from the terminal equipment, wherein the first indication information indicates a second time period, and the second time period is the difference between the radio frame boundaries of a second uplink carrier and a first uplink carrier; the first uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the first network equipment by the terminal equipment; the second uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the second network equipment by the terminal equipment; instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, and not expecting to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier or the second uplink carrier in the first time period; the first time period is determined by the switching gap and the second time period, and the switching gap is the uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment. In this application, when the network device receives the difference between the radio frame boundaries determined by the terminal device, and if the terminal device is scheduled to send uplink transmission, the time domain resource of the uplink transmission may be determined according to the difference between the radio frame boundaries, so as to avoid collision with the time domain resource of the uplink transmission sent by the terminal device to another network device. In addition, when two carrier frequency bands accessed by the terminal device are deployed at different sites, when the distance difference between the terminal device and the two sites changes due to the movement of the terminal device and the transmission time difference between the two sites also changes, if a fixed switching gap is reserved, it is easy to start uplink switching when the previous uplink transmission is not transmitted on the carrier, which may cause failure of uplink switching, thereby causing interruption of uplink service. In the application, when the network device instructs the terminal device to perform uplink handover, the terminal device determines that the first time period for uplink handover may change with a difference between frame boundaries of two carriers, and the difference between the frame boundaries changes with a change in a distance between the terminal device and two sites, so that mobility of the terminal device may be better supported, and uplink handover failure may be prevented.

The network device to which the method is applied may be the first network device or the second network device. When applied to a first network device, the first network device may not expect to receive uplink transmissions on the first uplink carrier for a first period of time; when applied to a second network device, the second network device may not expect to receive uplink transmissions on the second uplink carrier for a second time period. It is to be appreciated that the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier can be carriers of different sites. For example, the first uplink carrier is a NUL carrier, and the second uplink carrier is a SUL carrier. Or the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are two carriers configured as carrier aggregation.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, where the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold. Therefore, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the terminal device can complete uplink switching within enough time by properly prolonging the time for switching between the carriers, so that the success rate of uplink switching can be improved, and the reliability of uplink transmission can be improved.

In one possible design, after instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, after not expecting to receive uplink transmissions on the first uplink carrier for a first time period, the method further includes: and instructing the terminal equipment to execute uplink switching, and not expecting to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier in the third time period. For example, after the first network device instructs the terminal device to perform uplink handover, the first network device does not expect to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier in the third time period; the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the third time period is the difference between the switching gap and the second threshold. When the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, the time for switching between the carriers is appropriately shortened, so that the uplink transmission to be sent can be sent on the first uplink carrier in advance, thereby reducing the uplink transmission delay and improving the uplink capacity.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, where the first time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold. Thus, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, the time for switching between the carriers is appropriately shortened, so that the first uplink transmission can be started to be sent on the first uplink carrier in advance, thereby reducing the uplink transmission delay and improving the uplink capacity.

In one possible design, after instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, after not expecting to receive uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier for the first time period, the method further includes: and instructing the terminal equipment to execute uplink switching, and not expecting to receive uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier in the fourth time period. For example, after the second network device instructs the terminal device to perform uplink handover, the second network device does not expect to receive uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier in the fourth time period; the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, and the fourth time period is the sum of the switching gap and the first threshold. It is to be understood that, when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device may not be sufficient to perform the uplink handover, and therefore, the terminal device may use the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold as the fourth time period for performing the uplink handover. Therefore, when the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the terminal equipment can have enough time to complete uplink switching by properly prolonging the time for switching between the carriers, so that the success rate of the uplink switching can be improved, and the reliability of uplink transmission can be improved.

In an eighth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, which includes a network device or a chip in the network device, and includes: a receiving unit, configured to receive first indication information from a terminal device, where the first indication information indicates a second time period, and the second time period is a difference between a radio frame boundary of a second uplink carrier and a radio frame boundary of a first uplink carrier; the first uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the first network equipment by the terminal equipment; the second uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the second network equipment by the terminal equipment; an indicating unit, configured to instruct a terminal device to perform uplink handover, where uplink transmission is not expected to be received on a first uplink carrier or a second uplink carrier in a first time period; the first time period is determined by the switching gap and the second time period, and the switching gap is the uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, where the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

In one possible design, the indication unit is further configured to: instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, without expecting to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier in a third time period; the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the third time period is the difference between the switching gap and the second threshold.

In one possible design, the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, where the first time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

In one possible design, the indication unit is further configured to: instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover without expecting to receive uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier for a fourth time period; the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, and the fourth time period is the sum of the switching gap and the first threshold.

A ninth aspect provides a communications apparatus comprising at least one processor coupled to a memory, the at least one processor being configured to read and execute a program stored in the memory to cause the apparatus to perform the method of any of the preceding seventh or seventh aspects.

A tenth aspect provides a chip, coupled with a memory, for reading and executing program instructions stored in the memory to implement the method of any of the above seventh or seventh aspects.

An eleventh aspect provides a computer readable storage medium comprising a program or instructions which, when executed by a processor, is executed as any one of the possible designs of the seventh or seventh aspects.

A twelfth aspect provides a computer program product for causing an electronic device to perform any one of the possible designs of the seventh or seventh aspects when the computer program product is run on a computer.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an SUL for supplementing uplink coverage according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a cell type including two uplink carriers according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a calculation of an uplink timing advance of a UE according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating an internal radio frequency link handover of a UE according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of sending uplink transmission on

carriers

1 and 2 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of sending uplink transmission on carrier 1 and carrier 2 with a time difference according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic architecture diagram of a mobile communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an uplink transmission method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an uplink transmission method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an uplink transmission method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an uplink transmission method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a schematic network diagram of different site deployment of the NUL and SUL frequency bands according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 13 is a schematic network diagram of different site deployment of the NUL and SUL frequency bands according to the embodiment of the present application;

fig. 14 is a schematic network diagram in a CA scenario or a UMTS EN-DC scenario with different site addresses according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 15 is a schematic diagram illustrating a calculation of a first time period for uplink handover according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 16 is a flowchart illustrating an uplink transmission method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 17 is a schematic diagram illustrating a calculation of a first time period for uplink handover according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 18 is a schematic flowchart of a line transmission method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 19 is a schematic diagram illustrating that time domain overlapping exists in uplink transmission sent on an uplink carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 20 is a schematic diagram illustrating a format of an uplink transmission being modified when time domains overlap according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 21 is a schematic diagram illustrating a time domain resource position modification process when time domains overlap according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 22 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 23 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 24 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

For ease of understanding, examples are given in part to illustrate concepts related to embodiments of the present application. As follows:

SUL: in order to enhance uplink coverage, a New Radio (NR) protocol of a fifth generation mobile communication network (5G) introduces a SUL. The main working frequency band of the 5G NR is C-band 3.5GHz, and compared with the typical frequency band of Long Term Evolution (LTE) 1.8GHz and 700MHz, the working frequency of the 5G NR is higher, the penetration loss and distance loss of uplink signal transmission are larger, and the uplink coverage of the 5G NR is about 14dB smaller than the downlink coverage. Therefore, the success rate of cell edge users accessing the cell is reduced. As shown in fig. 1, in the same site, NUL and NR DL (downlink) correspond to a high frequency division duplexing (TDD), and the coverage of the NUL in the site is small, when a supplemental uplink carrier SUL is deployed for the site, the uplink coverage of the site can be enhanced. The 5G NR defines a completely new cell type for the combination of the SUL carrier and the TDD carrier (NUL carrier), where the cell (TDD + SUL cell) includes one downlink carrier (TDD downlink carrier) and two uplink carriers (TDD uplink carrier and SUL carrier), and the frequency 2 of the SUL carrier is higher than the frequency 1 of the TDD uplink carrier, as shown in fig. 2.

Uplink Timing Advance (TA): a negative offset between the start time of receiving the downlink transmission and the time of sending the uplink transmission may be understood as the sending time of the uplink transmission determined for the terminal device to control the time alignment of the uplink transmissions of different terminal devices to reach the network device. Specifically, an important characteristic of uplink transmission is that different User Equipments (UEs) are orthogonal multiple access (orthogonal multiple access) in time and frequency, i.e. uplink transmissions from different UEs in the same cell do not interfere with each other. In order to ensure orthogonality of uplink transmissions and avoid intra-cell (intra-cell) interference, a base station (gNode B, gNB) requires that signals from different UEs in the same time domain resource (e.g., slot) but in different frequency domain resources (e.g., different Resource Blocks (RBs)) arrive at the gNB with substantially aligned times. Since the gNB can correctly decode uplink data as long as it receives uplink data transmitted by the UE within the time domain indicated by the Cyclic Prefix (CP), uplink synchronization requires that the time when signals from different UEs in the same time domain arrive at the gNB fall within the CP. Wherein, the gNB can control the time when the uplink signals from different UEs arrive at the gNB by properly controlling the timing offset of each UE. For the UE farther from the gNB, due to the larger transmission delay, the UE closer to the gNB is required to transmit the uplink data earlier.

For the gNB, the gNB may determine a timing advance value for each UE by measuring uplink transmissions of the UE. Thus, the gNB can estimate the timing advance value using the uplink transmission as long as the UE has uplink transmission. In theory, any signal (sounding reference signal (SRS)/demodulation reference signal (DMRS)/Channel Quality Indication (CQI),/Acknowledgement (ACK)/non-acknowledgement (NACK)/Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), etc.) transmitted by the UE may be used for measuring the timing advance. For another example, in the random access procedure, the gNB may determine a timing advance value by measuring a received random access preamble (preamble), and issue an initial timing adjustment to the UE through a timing advance command of a Random Access Response (RAR). The timing of the uplink signal arriving at the gNB may vary over time while the UE is in the RRC connected state. The reasons for this may include:

1) the distance between the UE moving at a high speed and the gNB is continuously changed, so that the transmission delay between the UE and the gNB is continuously changed;

2) UE crystal offset causes long-time offset accumulation, and further causes uplink timing errors;

3) UE switches transmission paths;

4) UE movement causes doppler shift.

Therefore, the gNB needs to send dynamic signaling over time to adjust the timing advance value of the UE.

The determination mode of uplink timing advance: as shown in FIG. 3, the uplink timing advance of the UE is based on the downlink timing advance, and is advanced by N_TAAnd N_TA*offsetThe time of the sum can be expressed as (N)_TA+N_TA*offset)T_c. Wherein N is_TAFor the TA determined by the UE according to the timing adjustment command accumulation sent by the network side, for example, the network side may adjust the transmission timing of the UE through Media Access Control (MAC) layer control signaling. N is a radical of_TA*offsetThe offset of the uplink sending time relative to the downlink receiving time is used for ensuring that the UE in the TDD mode has enough time to complete the switching from the uplink sending to the downlink receiving of the same frequency point. NR and LTE coexist, N_TA*offsetThe configuration of RRC signaling n-TimingAdvanceOffset ensures that the base station can adopt a receiving window to simultaneously receive uplink signals of NR and LTE. If no higher layer signaling is configured, the UE may determine the uplink timing advance according to a default value. Wherein，T_c＝1/(Δf_max·N_f)，N_f＝4096。

If the UE configures two carriers (SUL carriers, NUL carriers) in one serving cell, the two carriers will configure the same N_{TA offset}And the NUL carrier and the SUL carrier share a timing adjustment command (N)_TA). Because the propagation delays of different frequency bands are the same for the same transmission path. This helps to improve the efficiency of use of time domain resources. Therefore, the protocol provides that the SUL carrier and the NUL carrier belong to the same timing adjustment group, and the base station can adopt one TAC and simultaneously perform timing adjustment on the SUL carrier and the NUL carrier in one cell.

And (3) uplink switching: it can be understood as switching between uplink carriers of different frequencies by the terminal device, so as to send uplink transmission on the switched uplink carrier.

Radio frequency chain switching (Tx chain switching/uplink switching): it can be understood as a hardware implementation for the terminal device to perform uplink handover. In order to increase uplink capacity, the UE in the center of the cell is enabled to support UL multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) in the 3.5G frequency band, and the protocol introduces a radio frequency chain switching technology, as shown in fig. 4, each radio frequency chain of the terminal device may include a digital to analog converter (DAC) connected to a modem, a phase-locked loop (pll), a radio frequency module, a Power Amplifier (PA), a transceiver, and the like. For example, one 3.5GHz radio frequency chain may include DAC 0, phase locked loop 0, radio frequency 0, PA0, and transceiver 0, another 3.5GHz radio frequency chain may include DAC 1, phase locked loop 1, radio frequency 1, PA1, and transceiver 1, and a 1.8GHz radio frequency chain may include DAC 1, phase locked loop 1, radio frequency 1, PA2, and transceiver 2. The rf chain in which the transceiver 1 is located and the rf chain in which the transceiver 2 is located may share a power source, and the rf chain in which the transceiver 0 is located is connected to a power source. Referring to fig. 4, after a UE with two radio frequency chains accesses a cell, one radio frequency chain is fixed at 3.5GHz, and the other radio frequency chain can be switched between two frequency bands, namely 3.5GHz and sul1.8ghz. There are thus two states:

the first state: a radio frequency chain is arranged on the 3.5GHz frequency band, and a radio frequency chain is arranged on the SUL1.8GHz frequency band. The UE can send uplink transmission on two frequency bands, but the time domains of the uplink transmission of the two frequency bands are not overlapped;

and a second state: there are two radio frequency chains on the 3.5GHz frequency band, and there are zero radio frequency chains on the SUL1.8GHz frequency band. The UE can only send uplink transmissions on the 3.5GHz band.

When the UE switches from state one to state two, there is a radio frequency chain switching time, including phase locked loop switching, PA, DAC switching, etc. in hardware.

For the handover procedure, first, the UE may report the radio frequency chain handover capability (for example, reported through the uplink txswitching request-r 16 field) to the network device (for example, the gNB), and when the network device determines that the UE has the radio frequency chain handover capability, the network device may configure the uplink transmission handover gap (for example, configured through the uplink txswitching period-r16 field) to the UE. Therein, indicated by the UE capability uplinkTxSwitchingPeriod-r 16. During the uplink transmission switching gap, the UE may perform a switching of the radio frequency chain, i.e., perform a switching from one carrier to another carrier.

Illustratively, the UE sends a first uplink transmission on carrier 1 and a second uplink transmission on carrier 2, as shown in fig. 5. The network device receiving the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission is a network device with the same site, or the network device receiving the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission is the same network device, and the frame boundaries of the carrier 1 and the carrier 2 are aligned, that is, there is no time difference between the carrier 1 and the carrier 2. The first uplink transmission is a previous uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission. In uplink transmission switching gap (N)_Tx1-Tx2) And the UE does not send uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier. The uplink transmission switching gap is reserved for the UE to switch the uplink radio frequency chain.

In the prior art, the SUL carriers and the NUL carriers are deployed in the same station, the uplink coverage of the SUL band is large, the NUL coverage is small, the uplink handover gap is fixed and depends on the capability of the UE, but this is only applicable to the same station, as shown in fig. 5, when the SUL carriers and the NUL carriers are deployed in the same station, the frame boundaries of the carrier 1 and the carrier 2 are aligned, and N is the same as the frame boundary of the carrier 2_Tx1-Tx2Is an uplink handover gap. However, future networksIn network deployment, in order to save cost, the NUL carrier and the SUL carrier may be deployed at different sites. I.e. the frequency band of one low frequency base station is used as the supplementary uplink frequency band of a plurality of high frequency base station frequency bands. However, when different sites are deployed, if the distances from the two base stations to the UE may be different when the UE moves, the timing advance issued by the two base stations for the UE is different. As shown in fig. 6, when the different sites are deployed, the timings of the UEs on the carrier 1 and the carrier 2 are different in advance, the frame boundaries of the carrier 1 and the carrier 2 are not aligned, and there is a time difference between the frame boundaries, and if a fixed uplink switching gap is reserved, the uplink switching is performed when the first uplink transmission is not sent, which may cause uplink switching failure, and further cause service interruption of the UE.

The method and the device aim at the problem that in a different-site deployment scene, when the UE is accessed into two base stations with different positions, two corresponding uplink carriers are asynchronous and uplink switching is affected.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating an architecture of a mobile communication system to which an embodiment of the present application is applied. As shown in fig. 7, the mobile communication system includes a core network device 71, at least two radio access network devices (such as an access network device 721 and an access network device 722 in fig. 7), and at least one terminal device 73. The terminal device 73 is connected to the radio access network device in a wireless manner, and the radio access network device is connected to the core network device 71 in a wireless or wired manner.

In fig. 7, the core network device and the radio access network device may be separate physical devices, or the function of the core network device and the logical function of the radio access network device may be integrated on the same physical device, or a physical device may be integrated with a part of the function of the core network device and a part of the function of the radio access network device. The terminal equipment may be fixed or mobile. Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram, and other network devices, such as a wireless relay device and a wireless backhaul device, may also be included in the mobile communication system, which is not shown in fig. 7. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the number of core network devices, radio access network devices, and terminal devices included in the mobile communication system.

The technical solution of the embodiment of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as a New Radio (NR) system in an LTE system and a 5G mobile communication system, and a future mobile communication system.

The network device in this embodiment may be a wireless access device in the mobile communication system, the terminal device may access the wireless access device in a wireless manner, and the wireless access device may be a base station (NodeB), an evolved NodeB (eNB), a Transmission Reception Point (TRP), a next generation base station (next generation NodeB, gNB) in the 5G mobile communication system, a base station in a future mobile communication system, or an access node in a WiFi system. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the specific technologies and the specific device forms adopted by the radio access network device.

The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be an entity, such as a UE, on the user side for receiving or transmitting signals. The Terminal device may also be referred to as a Terminal (Terminal), a UE, a Mobile Station (MS), a Mobile Terminal (MT), and the like. The terminal device may be a mobile phone (mobile phone), a tablet computer (Pad), a computer with a wireless transceiving function, a Virtual Reality (VR) terminal device, an Augmented Reality (AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), a wireless terminal in self-driving (self-driving), a wireless terminal in remote surgery (remote medical supply), a wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal in transportation safety (transportation safety), a wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), a wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), and the like. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the specific technology and the specific device form adopted by the terminal device.

The wireless access network equipment and the terminal equipment can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, and are handheld or vehicle-mounted; can also be deployed on the water surface; it may also be deployed on airborne airplanes, drones, balloons, and satellites. The embodiment of the application does not limit the application scenarios of the wireless access network device and the terminal device.

In order to solve the problem that uplink timing advance sent by the UE to two base stations is different to affect uplink handover by applying the mobile communication system, the present application provides an uplink transmission method, where the method is applied to a terminal device or a chip in the terminal device, and the method may include: sending a first uplink transmission to the first network equipment on the first uplink carrier, and sending a second uplink transmission to the second network equipment on the second uplink carrier; wherein, the uplink is switched in the first time period, and the uplink transmission is not sent in the first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier. That is to say, in this application, when the terminal device accesses a network device of different carriers, if the terminal device is to send an uplink transmission to the different network device, the first time period for uplink handover is not fixed, and the terminal device does not perform uplink handover according to a handover gap configured on the network side, the terminal device may determine the first time period according to a difference between radio frame boundaries of two uplink carriers and the handover gap configured on the network side, that is, the first time period for uplink handover is adjustable, so that when the terminal device sends an uplink handover to two network devices, the terminal device may perform uplink handover according to the adjusted handover gap, so as to improve a success rate of uplink handover.

An uplink transmission method provided in an embodiment of the present application may be applied to a terminal device or a chip in the terminal device, as shown in fig. 8, where the method includes:

s81: the terminal equipment is accessed to first network equipment and second network equipment, the first network equipment configures a first uplink carrier for the terminal equipment, and the second network equipment configures a second uplink carrier for the terminal equipment.

In some embodiments, the frequency band in which the first uplink carrier configured by the first network device and the second uplink carrier configured by the second network device operate are different. For example, the first uplink carrier is a high frequency carrier and the second uplink carrier is a low frequency carrier, or the first uplink carrier is a low frequency carrier and the second uplink carrier is a high frequency carrier. Or, the first uplink carrier is a NUL carrier, and the second uplink carrier is a SUL carrier. Or the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are two carriers configured as carrier aggregation.

In some embodiments, the subcarrier spacing of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier may also be different. For example, the subcarrier spacing of the first uplink carrier is 15kHz, and the subcarrier spacing of the second uplink carrier is 30 kHz.

S82: the terminal device sends a first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

When the first network device schedules the terminal device to send the first uplink transmission, the terminal device sends the first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

Correspondingly, the first network device receives a first uplink transmission sent on the first uplink carrier from the terminal device.

S83: in a first time period, the terminal device executes uplink transmission switching from a first uplink carrier to a second uplink carrier, the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal device, and the second time period is a difference between a radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier and a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier.

If the terminal device further receives an indication that the second network device schedules the second uplink transmission, the terminal device needs to switch from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier before sending the second uplink transmission. Before performing carrier switching, the terminal device needs to determine uplink switching time for inter-carrier switching. Considering that there is a time difference between the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier, which may affect uplink handover failure, at this time, the first time period needs to be determined again according to the difference between the radio frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier and the handover gap reported by the capability of the terminal device, so as to complete uplink handover in the first time period.

For example, when there is a time difference between carriers, a handover gap reported according to the capability of the terminal device may not be enough for the terminal device to complete uplink handover, and therefore, the first time period determined by the terminal device is longer than the handover gap, so that the terminal device can smoothly perform uplink handover within the first time period.

S84: after the first time period, the terminal device sends a second uplink transmission on a second uplink carrier to the second network device.

Accordingly, after the first time period, the second network device receives a second uplink transmission from the terminal device sent on a second uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, the terminal device does not send uplink transmissions during the first time period. For example, in the first time period, the terminal device does not send uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier. Accordingly, the second network device and the first network device also do not expect to receive the uplink transmission of the terminal device during the first time period.

In some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, the first time period being a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

This is to consider that, when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, the handover gap reported by the terminal device may not be enough for the terminal device to complete uplink handover, and therefore, the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold may be used as the uplink handover time at that time.

In some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, the first time period being a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

This is to consider that, when the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, it indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, and the duration of the handover gap reported by the terminal device is sufficient for the terminal device to perform uplink handover, and at this time, the terminal device may use the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold as the uplink handover time.

In some embodiments, the terminal device may further perform uplink transmission switching from the second uplink carrier to the first uplink carrier. The method may further comprise:

s85: and in a third time period, the terminal equipment executes uplink transmission switching from the second uplink carrier to the first uplink carrier, the third time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment, and the second time period is the difference between the radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, the terminal device does not send uplink transmissions during the third time period. For example, in the third time period, the terminal device does not send uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier. Accordingly, the first network device and the second network device do not expect the terminal device to send uplink transmission in the third time period.

The third time period is determined in a similar manner as the first time period.

In some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the third time period is a sum of the handover gap and the second threshold.

In some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, and the third time period is the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

S86: after a third time period, the terminal device sends a third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

Correspondingly, the first network device receives a third uplink transmission sent on the first uplink carrier from the terminal device.

Before sending the first uplink transmission, the terminal device sends first indication information to the first network device and/or the second network device, wherein the first indication information indicates a second time period, and the second time period is a difference between a second uplink carrier and a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier. In this way, for the network device side, data scheduling may be performed on the terminal device according to the second time period, and a suitable time-frequency resource may be configured for uplink transmission of the terminal device.

Therefore, in the present application, when two carrier frequency bands accessed by a terminal device are deployed at different sites, if the terminal device sends uplink transmissions to different network devices, respectively, a handover gap for uplink handover is not fixed, and the terminal device does not perform uplink handover according to the handover gap configured on the network side, the terminal device may determine a first time period for handover according to a difference between radio frame boundaries of the two uplink carriers and the handover gap configured on the network side, that is, the first time period for uplink handover is adjustable. That is, the first time period for switching the carriers can be adjusted according to the difference between the radio frame boundaries of the two uplink carriers, so that the first time period obtained after adjustment can be changed along with the change of the distance between the current terminal equipment and the two station addresses, thereby better supporting the mobility of the terminal equipment and preventing uplink switching failure.

Corresponding to the terminal device side, the present application provides an uplink switching method, as shown in fig. 9, where the method may be applied to a network device or a chip in the network device, and the method includes:

s91: the first network equipment configures a first uplink carrier for the terminal equipment.

When the terminal device is to access the first network device, the first network device may configure the terminal device with a first uplink carrier suitable for the terminal device capability. The first uplink carrier may be a high frequency carrier or a low frequency carrier.

S92: the first network equipment acquires first indication information sent by the terminal equipment, the first indication information indicates a second time period, the second time period is a difference between a second uplink carrier and a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the second network equipment by the terminal equipment.

Correspondingly, the terminal device sends the first indication information to the first network device.

If the terminal equipment is accessed to the first network equipment and is also accessed to the second network equipment, the second network equipment configures a second uplink carrier for the terminal equipment, and the working frequency of the second uplink carrier is different from that of the first uplink carrier. When there is a time difference between the radio frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier, in order to prevent the terminal device from failing to perform uplink handover according to the handover gap reported by the capability of the terminal device, the terminal device may send a second time period to the first network device, where the second time period indicates the difference between the radio frame boundaries, and the terminal device may further refer to the second time period when determining the uplink handover time. For the first network device, when the terminal device is scheduled to send uplink transmission, a suitable time-frequency resource may be configured for the terminal device with reference to the second time period, so as to receive the uplink transmission sent by the terminal device on the time-frequency resource.

In some embodiments, the first uplink carrier is a NUL carrier and the second uplink carrier is a SUL carrier. Or the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are two carriers configured as carrier aggregation.

S93: the first network device receives a first uplink transmission sent by the terminal device on a first uplink carrier.

Correspondingly, the terminal device sends a first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

S94: the first network device instructs the terminal device to perform an uplink handover, the first network device not expecting to receive uplink transmissions on the first uplink carrier for the first time period.

Accordingly, the terminal device performs uplink handover in the first time period, and does not send uplink transmission in the first time period.

In some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, the first time period being a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold. The principle of which can be seen in the above description of S84.

In some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, the first time period being a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold. The principle of which can be seen in the above description of S84.

The beneficial effects that can be achieved by the method of the first network device side described in this embodiment can be referred to the description of the terminal device side, and are not described herein again.

Corresponding to the terminal device side, the present application provides an uplink switching method, as shown in fig. 10, where the method may be applied to a network device or a chip in the network device, and the method includes:

s11: and the second network equipment configures a second uplink carrier for the terminal equipment.

Similar to S91, the second uplink carrier may be a high frequency carrier or a low frequency carrier.

S12: the second network equipment acquires first indication information sent by the terminal equipment, the first indication information indicates a second time period, the second time period is the difference between the radio frame boundaries of a second uplink carrier and a first uplink carrier, and the first uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the first network equipment by the terminal equipment.

Accordingly, the terminal device may transmit the first indication information to the second network device.

The implementation of S12 can be found in S92 described above.

S13: the second network device instructs the terminal device to perform an uplink handover, the second network device not expecting to receive uplink transmissions on the second uplink carrier within the first time period.

Correspondingly, the terminal equipment executes uplink switching in the first time period. The uplink switching may be, for example, switching the terminal device from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier, so that the terminal device does not send uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier in the first time period, and the second network device does not expect to receive uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier naturally.

Similar to S84, in some embodiments, the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, the first time period being a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

S14: and the second network equipment receives the second uplink transmission sent by the terminal equipment on the second uplink carrier.

Accordingly, the terminal device may send a second uplink transmission on a second uplink carrier to the second network device.

The beneficial effects that can be achieved by the method of the second network device side described in this embodiment can be referred to the description of the terminal device side, and are not described herein again.

The following describes embodiments of the present application with respect to the uplink transmission method provided in the present application.

Example one

An embodiment of the present application provides an uplink transmission method, as shown in fig. 11, the method includes:

901. the terminal equipment is accessed to the first network equipment and the second network equipment.

In some embodiments, in order to save cost and improve uplink capacity at the same time, in future network deployment, NUL and SUL frequency bands are deployed at different sites, as shown in fig. 12, a terminal device is simultaneously accessed to a base station a and a base station B, and the terminal device may use two uplink frequency bands to transmit uplink transmission. The UE sends uplink transmission to the base station a through the NUL carrier, and the UE sends uplink transmission to the base station B through the SUL carrier. Or, the frequency band of one low frequency base station is used as a supplementary uplink frequency band of multiple high frequency base station frequency bands, as shown in fig. 13, at least one terminal device may send uplink transmission to multiple base stations a through different NUL carriers, and the at least one terminal device may also send uplink transmission to a base station B through a SUL carrier. The SUL carrier is a supplemental uplink carrier to the plurality of NUL carriers. However, if the distances from the base station a and the base station B to the terminal device are different and the transmission paths are different, the timing advance (packet) issued by the base station a and the base station B for the terminal device is sent by the base station a and the base station BDraw N_TAAnd/or N_{TA_offset}) And also different.

Optionally, the base station a and the base station B operate in two different frequency bands, and the operating frequency band of the base station a is higher than that of the base station B. I.e. the frequency of the carrier a corresponding to base station a is higher than the frequency of the carrier corresponding to base station B. In other words, carrier a is a high frequency carrier and carrier b is a low frequency carrier. The combination of the operating frequency bands of the base station B and the base station a includes but is not limited to: 1.8GHz and 3.5GHz, 1.8GHz and 2.6GHz, 1.8GHz and 2.3GHz, 1.8GHz and 2.1GHz, 1.8GHz and 700MHz, 1.8GHz and 4.9GHz, 2.3GHz and 4.9GHz, 2.6GHz and 4.9GHz, 3.5GHz and 4.9 GHz.

According to the example of fig. 9 and fig. 10, the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier belong to the same serving cell, or the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are indicated by a System Information Block (SIB) 1, that is, the same SIB.

In some embodiments, the present application may also be applicable to a Carrier Aggregation (CA) scenario and an Evolved UMTS (Universal Mobile telecommunications System) Terrestrial Radio Access-new air interface dual connection (EN-DC) scenario. Under the scene of different site CA, the frequency spectrum resources of the same frequency band or different frequency bands of the two base stations can be aggregated for the terminal equipment to use, and the speed of the terminal equipment is improved. Under the evolved UMTS EN-DC scene, the connection between the terminal equipment and two base stations is kept, the cell coverage can be enhanced, and the coverage problem of users at the edge of the cell is solved.

In these two scenarios, as shown in fig. 14, the terminal device may access to the base station a and the base station B at the same time, and send a first uplink transmission to the base station a through the carrier a, and send a second uplink transmission to the base station B through the carrier B, and the base station a may also send a first downlink transmission to the terminal device through the carrier c, and the base station B may also send a second downlink transmission to the terminal device through the carrier d.

Therefore, applying the network architecture shown in fig. 12, 13 or 14, the terminal device may send uplink transmission on the carrier a and the carrier B respectively corresponding to the base station a and the base station B.

In some embodiments, the base station a may be a first network device, and the base station B may be a second network device; or, the base station a is a second network device, and the base station B is a first network device.

Correspondingly, the carrier a may be a first uplink carrier mentioned below, and the carrier b may be a second uplink carrier mentioned below; alternatively, the carrier a may be a second uplink carrier mentioned below, and the carrier b may be a first uplink carrier mentioned below.

In the embodiments of the present application, the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier.

902. The terminal equipment sends first indication information to first network equipment and/or second network equipment, the first indication information indicates a second time period, the second time period is the difference between the radio frame boundaries of a second uplink carrier and a first uplink carrier, the first network equipment configures the first uplink carrier for the terminal equipment, and the second network equipment configures the second uplink carrier for the terminal equipment. Or the first network device configures the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier for the terminal device. Or, the second network device configures the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier for the terminal device.

It can be understood that the uplink transmission timing of the terminal device is advanced by N with the downlink reception timing as a reference_TAAnd N_{TA offset}Time of sum. The terminal device sends uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier by taking downlink receiving time corresponding to the first network device as a reference, and the terminal device sends uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier by taking downlink receiving time corresponding to the second network device as a reference. Meanwhile, because the distance and the transmission path from the terminal equipment to the first network equipment and the second network equipment are different, N indicated by the two network equipment respectively_TAAnd/or N_{TA offset}May be different. Therefore, the terminal equipment performs uplink switching in the configured switching gap (namely uplink transmission is switched from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier, or uplink transmission is switched from the second uplink carrierThe carrier is switched to the first uplink carrier, or the uplink carrier is switched from the first uplink carrier to a state of being concurrent on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier, or the uplink carrier is switched from the state of being concurrent on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier to being transmitted only on the first uplink carrier, etc.) there may be a handover failure, for example, when the terminal device has not completed uplink handover within the configured handover gap, the second uplink transmission has already started to be transmitted, and the second uplink transmission has not been successfully transmitted on the carrier to be switched to.

As shown in fig. 5 and 6, the time domain resource corresponding to each minimum box in fig. 5 and 6 is a time slot. FIG. 5 shows that NUL carriers and SUL carriers deployed in the same station are based on the same downlink reception timing, and N is_TAAnd N_{TA offset}Are the same, there is no time difference between the radio frame boundaries of the two uplink carriers. Fig. 6 shows NUL carriers and SUL carriers deployed by different stations due to different downlink receiving timings and/or N_TA、N_{TA offset}In contrast, there is a time difference between the radio frame boundaries of the NUL carrier and the SUL carrier.

Therefore, when the first TA of the first uplink carrier configured by the first network device for the terminal device is different from the second TA of the second uplink carrier configured by the second network device for the terminal device, the terminal device may determine the second time period according to a difference between the first TA and the second TA. The second time period is equivalent to a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier. In this way, for the terminal device, when determining the uplink switching time period, the terminal device may no longer determine according to only the configured switching gap, and may also determine the uplink switching time period with reference to the second time period. For the network device, when the network device calls the terminal device to send the uplink transmission, the time domain resource of the uplink transmission may be determined according to the difference between the radio frame boundaries.

In some embodiments, the terminal device may obtain the first TA and the second TA, determine the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier according to the frame boundaries of the first TA and the first downlink carrier, and determine the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier according to the frame boundaries of the second TA and the second downlink carrier, thereby determining the difference between the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier and the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier. The first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier belong to the same serving cell, or the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are configured by an SIB 1.

In some embodiments, in the different-site CA scenario or the evolved UMTS EN-DC scenario, the manner in which the terminal device determines the second time period may be: and determining according to the radio frame boundary of the second downlink carrier and the first downlink carrier, and the first TA and the second TA. The first downlink carrier is a downlink carrier corresponding to the first uplink carrier, and the second downlink carrier is a downlink carrier corresponding to the second uplink carrier. The terminal equipment determines the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier according to the first TA and the frame boundary of the first downlink carrier, and determines the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier according to the second TA and the frame boundary of the second downlink carrier, so as to determine the difference between the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier and the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier.

It should be noted that, the difference between radio frame boundaries in the embodiment of the present application may be understood as a time difference between two uplink carriers. The boundary may be a boundary of a slot (slot) or a boundary of a subframe (subframe).

After the frame boundary difference between the two uplink carriers is determined, in the following embodiments, the terminal device sends a first uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier, and sends a second uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier, where the uplink radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier is prior to the uplink radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, the uplink frame boundary time difference between the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is t1, the first network device receives the first uplink transmission, the second network device receives the second uplink transmission, and the first network device and the second network device are different sites. Thus, the method further comprises:

903. the terminal device sends a first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, if the terminal device receives Downlink Control Information (DCI) sent by the first network device, the DCI is used to schedule the first uplink transmission, the first uplink transmission is sent on the first uplink carrier, that is, the terminal device sends the first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

If the first TA corresponds to the first uplink carrier, the terminal device may determine the sending timing of the first uplink transmission according to the first TA and the receiving timing of the first downlink carrier.

After determining the transmission timing of the first uplink transmission, the terminal device may transmit the first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier according to the transmission timing of the first uplink transmission.

904. The terminal device determines a first time period for uplink handover, the uplink handover including a handover from a first uplink carrier to a second uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, if the terminal device receives DCI sent by the second network device at the first time, the DCI is used to schedule the second uplink transmission, and the second uplink transmission needs to be sent on the second uplink carrier, the terminal device first performs uplink switching to send the second uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier. It is to be appreciated that the second uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission to the first uplink transmission. Before sending the second uplink transmission, the terminal device needs to determine a first time period for uplink handover.

This first time period may be understood as a time duration or as a gap (gap).

In some embodiments, if the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, and the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device may not be enough for the terminal device to perform uplink handover, at this time, the terminal device may determine that the first time period is the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

The terminal device is required to be able to smoothly perform uplink handover, and the second time period is required to be less than or equal to the first threshold. This is to consider that the second time period, which is the difference between the frame boundaries, cannot be too long, which may result in the terminal device not being able to complete an uplink handover between two uplink carriers if the second time period is too long.

Illustratively, as shown in (a) of fig. 15, t1 denotes a second period, t2 denotes a first period, N_Tx1-Tx2Indicating a switching gap and n1 indicating a first threshold. When t1 is not more than N1, t2 is not more than N_Tx1-Tx2+n1。

In some embodiments, the first threshold may be predefined or configured by higher layer parameters.

905. The terminal equipment executes uplink switching in the first time period and does not send uplink transmission in the first time period.

Namely, the terminal equipment is switched from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier in the first time period.

906. The terminal device sends a second uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, when the second TA corresponds to the second uplink carrier, the terminal device may determine the sending timing of the second uplink transmission according to the second TA and the receiving timing of the second downlink carrier, and the terminal device sends the second uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier after the uplink handover according to the sending timing of the second uplink transmission.

In some embodiments, the terminal device may send a second uplink transmission to the second network device at a second time instant and on a second uplink carrier. Wherein, a difference between the first time determined in step 904 and the second time in step 906 is greater than or equal to a third threshold, and the third threshold is a preparation time before the terminal device prepares to send the second uplink transmission.

For example, the third threshold may be a preparation process time (PUSCH preparation process time) of the second uplink transmission; or, the third threshold may be a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) processing time (PDSCH processing time); alternatively, the third threshold may be a calculation time of Channel State Information (CSI), that is, aperiodic CSI triggered by DCI is carried on PUSCH. For example, the preparation time T of the second uplink transmission_proc,2Can be expressed as:

T_proc，2＝max((N₂+d_2，1+d₂)(2048+144)·κ2^-μ·T_C+T_ext+T_switch，d_2,2)

the value of N2 is determined according to the UE capability and the subcarrier spacing μ, as shown in tables 1 and 2. If the first symbol allocated to PUSCH contains only a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS), then d₂，₁Not more than 0, otherwise d _2，11 is ═ 1; k is a constant and k is 64; d of PUSCH with larger priority index if the PUSCH with larger priority index overlaps with PUCCH with lower priority index₂The value is determined according to the value reported by the UE, otherwise d₂＝0。T_c＝1/(Δf_max·N_f)，Δf_max＝480·10³Hz；N_f＝4096；T_switchIndicating a handover gap. If partial Bandwidth part (BWP) handover is triggered by scheduling DCI, d_2,2Equal to the BWP switching time, otherwise d_2,2＝0。T_extIs related to shared spectrum channel access.

Table 1 PUSCH preparation time for PUSCH timing capability 1

μ	N2
			0	10
1	12
		2	23
3	36

Table 2 PUSCH preparation time for PUSCH timing capability 2

μ	N2
			0	5
1	5.5
		2	11 (frequency range 1)

After the terminal device finishes sending the second uplink transmission, if the terminal device further receives DCI sent by the first network device, and the DCI at this time is used for scheduling a third uplink transmission, the third uplink transmission is sent on the first uplink carrier, so that the terminal device determines that the second uplink carrier needs to be switched to the first uplink carrier again, and sends the third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier. The third uplink transmission is the next uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission. Therefore, the terminal device first determines a third time period for uplink handover, and therefore, the method further includes:

907. the terminal device determines a third time period for uplink handover, the uplink handover including handover from the second uplink carrier to the first uplink carrier. In some embodiments, when the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device is sufficient to perform uplink handover, and therefore, the terminal device may use the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold as the third time period for performing uplink handover.

Illustratively, as shown in (b) of fig. 15, t1 denotes a second period, t3 denotes a third period, N_Tx1-Tx2Indicating a switching gap and n2 indicating a second threshold. When t1 is more than or equal to N2, t3 is equal to N_Tx1-Tx2-n2。

In some embodiments, the second threshold may be predefined or configured by higher layer parameters.

In some embodiments, the value of the second threshold may be a positive number greater than or equal to 0.

908. And the terminal equipment executes uplink switching in the third time period and does not send uplink transmission in the third time period.

That is, the terminal device switches from the second uplink carrier to the first uplink carrier within the third time period.

909. The terminal device sends a third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

A specific implementation manner of step 909 may be seen in step 906, that is, an implementation manner of the terminal device sending the third uplink transmission is similar to an implementation manner of the terminal device sending the second uplink transmission.

Therefore, in the uplink transmission method provided by the application, when the two carrier frequency bands accessed by the terminal equipment are deployed at different sites, the mobility can be better supported by adjusting the reserved time for carrier switching, and uplink service interruption caused by uplink switching failure can be prevented. Furthermore, the uplink transmission delay can be reduced, and the uplink capacity can be improved.

The above embodiment is described by taking an example that the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and the terminal device first transmits the first uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier. In the following second embodiment, the frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, but the terminal device first transmits the second uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier.

Example two

An embodiment of the present application provides an uplink transmission method, as shown in fig. 16, the method includes:

131. the terminal equipment is accessed to the first network equipment and the second network equipment.

See step 901 for an implementation of step 131.

132. The terminal equipment sends first indication information to first network equipment and/or second network equipment, the first indication information indicates a second time period, the second time period is the difference between the radio frame boundaries of a second uplink carrier and a first uplink carrier, the first network equipment configures the first uplink carrier for the terminal equipment, and the second network equipment configures the second uplink carrier for the terminal equipment. Or the first network device configures the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier for the terminal device. Or, the second network device configures the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier for the terminal device.

An implementation of step 132 may be seen in step 902.

133. The terminal device sends a second uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, if the terminal device receives DCI sent by the network device, the DCI being used to schedule a second uplink transmission, the terminal device sends the second uplink transmission to the second network device on a second uplink carrier.

If the second TA corresponds to the second uplink carrier, the terminal device may determine the sending timing of the second uplink transmission according to the second TA and the receiving timing of the second downlink carrier.

After determining the transmission timing of the second uplink transmission, the terminal device may transmit the second uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier according to the transmission timing of the second uplink transmission.

134. The terminal device determines a first time period for uplink handover, the uplink handover including a handover from a second uplink carrier to a first uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, if the terminal device receives DCI sent by the first network device at a first time, the DCI is used to schedule a first uplink transmission, and the first uplink transmission needs to be sent on a first uplink carrier, the terminal device first performs uplink switching to send the first uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier. It is to be appreciated that the first uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission to the second uplink transmission. Before sending the first uplink transmission, the terminal device needs to determine a first time period for uplink handover.

In some embodiments, if the second time period is greater than or equal to the second threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is large, and the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device is sufficient for the terminal device to perform uplink handover, at this time, the terminal device may determine that the first time period is the difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

Exemplarily, as shown in (a) of fig. 17, t1 denotes a second period, t2 denotes a first period, N_Tx1-Tx2Indicating a switching gap and n2 indicating a second threshold. When t1 is more than or equal to N2, t2 is equal to N_Tx1-Tx2-n2。

In some embodiments, the second threshold may be predefined or configured by higher layer parameters. The second threshold may be a positive number greater than or equal to 0.

135. The terminal equipment executes uplink switching in the first time period, and does not send uplink transmission in the first time period.

Namely, the terminal equipment is switched from the second uplink carrier to the first uplink carrier in the first time period.

136. The terminal device sends a first uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier.

Step 136 may be implemented in step 906, that is, the terminal device sends the first uplink transmission in a manner similar to the implementation of the terminal device sending the second uplink transmission.

It should be noted that, if, in step 136, the terminal device sends the first uplink transmission to the first network device at the second time and on the first uplink carrier, the difference between the first time in step 134 and the second time in step 136 is greater than or equal to a third threshold, where the third threshold is a preparation time before the terminal device prepares to send the second uplink transmission. The description of the third threshold may be found in step 906.

If the terminal device further receives the DIC sent by the second network device, where the DCI is used to schedule a fourth uplink transmission and the fourth uplink transmission needs to be sent on the second uplink carrier, the terminal device determines that the terminal device needs to switch from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier again to send the fourth uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier to the second network device, and it can be understood that the fourth uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the first uplink transmission. Therefore, the terminal device first determines the fourth time period of the uplink handover, and therefore, the method further includes:

137. the terminal device determines a fourth time period for uplink handover, the uplink handover including handover from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold, which indicates that the difference between the frame boundaries of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is small, the duration of the handover gap configured for the terminal device may not be sufficient to perform the uplink handover, and therefore, the terminal device may use the sum of the handover gap and the first threshold as the fourth time period for performing the uplink handover.

Illustratively, as shown in (b) of fig. 17, t1 denotes a second period, t4 denotes a fourth period, N_Tx1-Tx2Indicating a switching gap and n1 indicating a first threshold. When t1 is not more than N2, t4 is not more than N_Tx1-Tx2+n1。

138. And the terminal equipment performs uplink switching in the fourth time period and does not send uplink transmission in the fourth time period.

That is, the terminal device switches from the first uplink carrier to the second uplink carrier in the fourth time period.

139. The terminal device sends a fourth uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier.

The implementation manner of step 139 may be referred to as step 906, that is, the terminal device sends the fourth uplink transmission in a manner similar to the implementation manner of the terminal device sending the second uplink transmission.

In addition, in the foregoing embodiment, it has been described that the NUL and SUL frequency bands are deployed in different sites, that is, when the frequency band of one low-frequency base station is used as a supplementary uplink frequency band of multiple high-frequency base station frequency bands, distances from two base stations to the UE may be different, and timings issued by the two base stations to the UE are different in advance, in this case, uplink transmissions sent by the UE on the carrier a and the carrier b may overlap in time domain. For example, if the UE transmits at different timings on the two uplink carriers, and uplink transmission of the UE is switched between the NUL carrier and the SUL carrier, time slots of temporally adjacent channels/signals located on different uplink carriers are not aligned, i.e., there is symbol overlap. While the base station is unaware of the overlapping resources of the UE transmitting uplink transmissions to both base stations. Therefore, the reliability of the uplink transmission is affected to some extent. Moreover, when the time domains overlap, the instantaneous transmission power of the UE may be higher than the maximum transmission power configured by the UE, and the UE fails to transmit uplink transmission. Moreover, when the time domains overlap, the UE is also affected to perform the inter-carrier radio frequency chain handover.

In order to solve the problem caused by time domain overlapping, embodiments of the present application provide an uplink transmission method, where a discard order of transmission may be specified for transmission on overlapping time domain resources, that is, uplink transmission to be transmitted on one carrier may be discarded, transmission of an uplink channel/or signal on one carrier is ensured, and uplink capacity is improved. Or, the time domain resource occupied by the channel/signal on one carrier may be changed, thereby avoiding the time domain overlap of uplink transmission on two carriers, ensuring the transmission of the uplink channel/signal on two carriers, and increasing the uplink capacity. The specific implementation can be seen in the following third example.

EXAMPLE III

An embodiment of the present application further provides an uplink transmission method, as shown in fig. 18, where the method includes:

151. the terminal equipment is accessed to the first network equipment and the second network equipment.

The implementation of step 151 may refer to the implementation of step 901.

152. The terminal equipment sends first indication information to the first network equipment and/or the second network equipment, the first indication information indicates time difference, the time difference is the difference between the radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier, the first network equipment configures the first uplink carrier for the terminal equipment, and the second network equipment configures the second uplink carrier for the terminal equipment. Or the first network device configures the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier for the terminal device. Or, the second network device configures the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier for the terminal device.

It can be understood that the uplink transmission timing of the terminal device is advanced by N with the downlink reception timing as a reference_TAAnd N_{TA offset}Time of sum. The terminal device sends uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier by taking downlink receiving time corresponding to the first network device as a reference, and the terminal device sends uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier by taking downlink receiving time corresponding to the second network device as a reference. Meanwhile, because the distance and the transmission path from the terminal equipment to the first network equipment and the second network equipment are different, N indicated by the two network equipment respectively_TAAnd N_{TA offset}May be different. Therefore, uplink transmissions sent by the terminal device on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier may overlap in time domain.

In some embodiments, a time difference between the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier may be regarded as a duration corresponding to a time domain resource in which time domains of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier are overlapped, and the time difference may be a difference between a radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier and a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier.

As shown in FIG. 19, each minimum box in FIG. 19 corresponds toThe domain resource is one slot. Fig. 19 (a) shows that NUL carriers and SUL carriers deployed in the same station are referenced to the same downlink reception timing, and N_TAAnd N_{TA offset}Are the same so there is no time difference between the two uplink carriers. Fig. 19 (b) shows that the NUL carriers and SUL carriers deployed by different stations have different downlink reception timings and/or N_TA、N_{TA offset}Different, there is a time difference of several symbols between two uplink carriers, and there is time domain overlap in uplink transmissions sent on the two uplink carriers.

In some embodiments, the time difference may be indicated in absolute time duration or in a number of symbols corresponding to the difference between radio frame boundaries.

For example, if the subcarrier spacing of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier is different, the absolute time represented by each symbol under the two carriers is different. For example, for a carrier with a subcarrier spacing of 15kHz, 1ms contains 14 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) symbols; the subcarriers are 30kHz apart carriers, 1ms containing 28 OFDM symbols. When the subcarrier intervals of the two carriers are different, the absolute time for reporting the overlapped time domain resources is more accurate.

If the symbol number corresponding to the difference of the wireless frame boundaries is reported, the symbol number corresponding to the low-frequency carrier in the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier can be reported, or the symbol number corresponding to the carrier with smaller subcarrier interval can be reported; or the number of symbols corresponding to high-frequency carriers in the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier may be reported, or the number of symbols corresponding to carriers with larger subcarrier intervals may be reported.

In some embodiments, the network device that the receiving terminal device reports the first indication information may be a leading network device of the first network device and the second network device.

For example, when the network device is a base station, the determination of the leading base station may be a pre-determined appointment of the network device and the terminal device, for example, to which base station the core network is connected, that is, the leading base station. For another example, the base station with higher carrier frequency is the master base station, or the base station with lower carrier frequency is the master base station, wherein the carrier frequency refers to the uplink carrier frequency. For another example, the base station accessed by the terminal device first in time is the leading base station, or the base station accessed by the terminal device later in time is the leading base station. The determination of the leading base station may also be that the network device informs the terminal device which base station is the leading base station by issuing identification information. The identification information may be higher layer parameter configuration information or MAC CE (control element), or physical layer indication information. Or, the terminal device reports the time difference to the first network device and the second network device, for example, the time difference may be reported in the form of a time domain resource symbol number or an absolute time corresponding to the time difference.

153. The terminal device determines that a first uplink transmission to be sent to the first network device occupies a first time-frequency resource on a first uplink carrier, and determines that a second uplink transmission to be sent to the second network device occupies a second time-frequency resource on a second uplink carrier.

In some embodiments, the terminal device may first determine a first TA and a second TA, where the first TA is used to determine a transmission timing of a first uplink transmission to be sent to the first network device on a first carrier, and the second TA is used to determine a transmission timing of a second uplink transmission to be sent to the second network device on a second carrier. In this embodiment, the first uplink transmission is a previous transmission of the second uplink transmission.

After determining a first TA corresponding to the first uplink transmission and a second TA corresponding to the second uplink transmission, the first time-frequency resource occupied by the first uplink transmission may be determined according to the first TA and the content of the first uplink transmission to be transmitted, and the second time-frequency resource occupied by the second uplink transmission may be determined according to the second TA and the content of the second uplink transmission to be transmitted.

Then, step 154 or step 155 or step 156 may be performed.

It should be noted that, before performing step 154 or step 155, the network device receiving the first indication information may indicate to the terminal device to drop the uplink transmission on the overlapped time domain resource or modify the time domain position of the uplink transmission, so that the terminal device may drop the uplink transmission or modify the time domain position of the uplink transmission according to the indication of the network device. Or the terminal equipment directly discards the uplink transmission according to a transmission rule agreed in advance by the network equipment and the terminal equipment, or changes the time domain position of the uplink transmission.

154. And if the time domain resources of the first time frequency resource and the second time frequency resource are partially overlapped, the terminal equipment discards the first uplink transmission or the second uplink transmission.

In some embodiments, when the frequency of the first uplink carrier is higher than the frequency of the second uplink carrier, if the first time-frequency resource partially overlaps with the time-frequency resource of the second time-frequency resource, the terminal device discards the second uplink transmission on the second time-frequency resource.

Considering that the frequency domain resources of the high-frequency carrier are rich, the uplink capacity can be increased, and when the uplink channel/signal on the high-frequency carrier (the first uplink carrier) is preferentially transmitted, the uplink capacity is favorably increased.

In some embodiments, when the frequency of the first uplink carrier is higher than the frequency of the second uplink carrier, if the first time-frequency resource partially overlaps with the time-domain resource of the second time-frequency resource, the terminal device discards the first uplink transmission on the first time-frequency resource.

Considering that the low frequency carrier can guarantee the network coverage, when the uplink channel/signal on the low frequency carrier (the second uplink carrier) is preferentially transmitted, it is beneficial to guarantee the network coverage.

For example, the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission may be one of the following channels/signals:

a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH), a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), a Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), and the like.

In some embodiments, the terminal device may discard the uplink transmission with a lower priority in the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission according to the priority order of the uplink transmissions; wherein the priority order comprises: the priority of the PRACH is higher than that of the PUCCH, the priority of the PUCCH is higher than that of the SRS, and the priority of the SRS is higher than that of the PUSCH.

Thus, transmission of the PRACH and the PUCCH can be preferentially guaranteed, so that a random access process of the terminal device is guaranteed, transmission of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) and an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (a/N) carried on the PUCCH is guaranteed, and unnecessary downlink retransmission is reduced.

Alternatively, transmission of Channel State Information (CSI)/Scheduling Request (SR) carried on the PUCCH may be guaranteed. And secondly, the SRS transmission is ensured, and the network equipment can conveniently select the uplink carrier with the best quality to send and transmit according to the channel quality of the two uplink carriers.

For example, if a PUCCH transmitted on one uplink carrier overlaps with an SRS transmitted on another uplink carrier in a time domain, the PUCCH is preferentially transmitted, and the SRS transmitted on the other uplink carrier is discarded; if the SRS transmitted on one uplink carrier and the PUSCH transmitted on the other uplink carrier are overlapped on a time domain, the SRS is preferentially transmitted, and the PUSCH transmitted on the other uplink carrier is discarded; if the PUCCH transmitted on one uplink carrier and the PUSCH transmitted on the other uplink carrier are overlapped on the time domain, the PUCCH is preferentially transmitted, and the PUSCH transmitted on the other uplink carrier is discarded.

In some embodiments, the second uplink carrier is discarded when the first uplink transmission is a PUCCH and the second uplink transmission is a non-PUCCH. Therefore, the transmission reliability of the PUCCH can be ensured, the transmission of the HARQ-A/N loaded on the PUCCH is ensured, and unnecessary downlink retransmission is reduced. Alternatively, transmission of CSI/SR carried on PUCCH can be guaranteed.

In some embodiments, when the first uplink transmission is an SRS and the second uplink transmission is a non-SRS, the second uplink transmission is dropped. Therefore, SRS transmission can be ensured, and as the SRS is used for detecting the uplink channel quality, the network equipment can instruct the terminal equipment to carry out uplink transmission on the carrier wave with better channel quality according to the detection result of the SRS.

155. And if the time domain resources of the first time frequency resource and the second time frequency resource are partially overlapped, the terminal equipment changes the position of the time domain resource occupied by at least one of the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission.

In some embodiments, when only one of the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission is the PUCCH, the format of the PUCCH is changed; when the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission are both PUCCHs, changing the format of the first uplink transmission and/or the second uplink transmission;

and changing the format of the PUCCH into a short format PUCCH instead of a long format PUCCH. That is, the time domain resource occupied by the PUCCH after the modification is smaller than the time domain resource occupied by the PUCCH before the modification.

In the protocol, PUCCH formats 1, 3 and 4 are long format PUCCHs, and occupy 4-14 OFDM symbols in the time domain; PUCCH formats 0 and 2 are short format PUCCH formats and occupy 1-2 OFDM symbols in the time domain. Therefore, when the long format PUCCH overlaps with the signal/channel time domain resource of another carrier on one carrier, the long format PUCCH can be changed to short format PUCCH for transmission.

Therefore, when two carriers are deployed in different stations, the transmission on the PUCCH on one carrier and the transmission on the other different-frequency carrier are overlapped on the time domain, the reliability of PUCCH transmission is ensured, and the condition that the instantaneous transmission power of the UE exceeds the maximum transmission power due to the overlapping of the transmissions on the two carriers is avoided.

Exemplarily, (a) in fig. 20 shows that the uplink transmission transmitted on the NUL carrier is time domain resources occupied by PUCCH format 1, and the uplink transmission transmitted on the SUL carrier is time domain resources occupied by PUCCH format 3, and the time domain resources overlap, so that, referring to (b) in fig. 20, PUCCH format 3 may be modified to PUCCH format 2, and PUCCH format 2 occupies fewer time domain resources. Therefore, the overlapping of time domain resources of PUCCHs on the NUL carrier and the SUL carrier can be avoided, the reliability of PUCCH transmission is ensured, and the condition that the instantaneous transmission power of the UE exceeds the maximum transmission power due to the overlapping of transmission on the two carriers is avoided.

In some embodiments, when only one of the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission is the SRS, the position of the time domain resource occupied by the SRS is changed; and when the first uplink transmission and the second uplink transmission are both SRSs, changing the position of the time domain resource occupied by the first uplink transmission or the second uplink transmission.

The transmission types of the SRS include periodic SRS, semi-static SRS, and aperiodic SRS. Wherein, the aperiodic SRS is dynamically triggered by the DCI, and the semi-static SRS is dynamically triggered by the MAC CE. When the SRS on one carrier overlaps with the transmission time domain of another carrier, and the SRS transmitted on the overlapping resource is a semi-static SRS or a non-periodic SRS, the SRS signal may be transmitted after changing the time domain resource position. When a periodic SRS is transmitted on the overlapping resource, the SRS on the overlapping resource may be discarded.

For example, fig. 21 (a) shows that the uplink transmission transmitted on the NUL carrier is the time domain resource occupied by the SRS1, and the uplink transmission transmitted on the SUL carrier is the time domain resource occupied by the SRS2, and the time domain resources overlap, so referring to fig. 21 (b), the position of the time domain resource occupied by the SRS2 may be changed, and after the change, the time domain resource occupied by the SRS1 does not overlap with the time domain resource occupied by the SRS 2.

156. The terminal equipment indicates the uplink switching capacity for the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier, and when the first uplink transmission is sent before the second uplink transmission in the time domain, the terminal equipment starts to send the second uplink transmission in a first available symbol after the overlapping time domain resource of the first time-frequency resource and the second time-frequency resource. The available symbols may be symbols that do not carry DMRSs.

It can be understood that the terminal device delays the starting position of the second uplink transmission to the first available symbol after the overlapping time domain resource of the first time frequency resource and the second time frequency resource. That is, the second uplink transmission is delayed from being transmitted, so as to avoid time domain overlapping with the first uplink transmission.

In some embodiments, the first available symbol may be the first available symbol after the terminal device has sent the first uplink transmission and has performed the radio frequency chain switching. The radio frequency chain switching may be understood as switching from a first uplink carrier to a second uplink carrier.

For example, when uplink transmission on one uplink carrier is not completed due to a time difference between two asynchronous carriers, namely, a first uplink carrier and a second uplink carrier, the terminal device needs to perform radio frequency chain switching, which may cause uplink transmission failure. Thus, the terminal device may perform a delayed handover radio frequency chain. When the first uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier is completed, the radio frequency chain switching is executed, so that the time for switching the radio frequency chain is delayed, and naturally, the second uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier is also delayed. The first available symbol occupied by the second uplink transmission may be the first available symbol after the completion of the delayed radio frequency chain switching.

The radio frequency chain switching mode may be:

in a first mode, one radio frequency chain of each of a first uplink carrier and a second uplink carrier is switched to two radio frequency chains of the second uplink carrier or 0 radio frequency chains of the first uplink carrier;

the second method comprises the following steps: the two radio frequency chains of the first uplink carrier or 0 radio frequency chains of the second uplink carrier are switched to the radio frequency chains of the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier respectively.

In this way, due to the existence of the asynchronous carrier time difference, the carrier needs to be switched if the first uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier is not completed, if the unfinished transmission on the first uplink carrier is a PUCCH, the terminal device performs switching of the radio frequency chain after completing transmission of the PUCCH, and the terminal device further needs to report the time for delaying switching of the radio frequency chain to the first network device and/or the second network device.

Therefore, according to the embodiment of the application, under the condition that the time domains of uplink channels/signals to be transmitted on two uplink carriers are overlapped, the time domains of uplink transmissions sent to two network devices by the terminal device can be prevented from being overlapped by discarding one uplink transmission, or changing the time domain position of one uplink transmission, or delaying the next uplink transmission, so that the instant transmission power of the terminal device is prevented from being higher than the maximum transmission power of the terminal device, the influence on radio frequency chain switching can be reduced, and the radio frequency chain switching success rate is improved.

It is understood that, in order to implement the above functions, the terminal device includes corresponding hardware and/or software modules for performing the respective functions. The present application is capable of being implemented in hardware or a combination of hardware and computer software in conjunction with the exemplary algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein. Whether a function is performed as hardware or computer software drives 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, with the embodiment described in connection with the particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

In this embodiment, the terminal device may be divided into functional modules according to the above method example, for example, each functional module may be divided corresponding to each function, or two or more functions may be integrated into one processing module. The integrated module may be implemented in the form of hardware. It should be noted that the division of the modules in this embodiment is schematic, and is only a logic function division, and there may be another division manner in actual implementation.

In the case of dividing each functional module by corresponding functions, fig. 22 shows a possible composition diagram of the terminal device 190 in the above embodiment, as shown in fig. 22, the terminal device 190 may include: an access unit 1901, a transmitting unit 1902, a determining unit 1903, and a switching unit 1904.

Among other things, access unit 1901 may be used to support terminal device 190 to perform steps 131 and 151, etc., described above, and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

The sending unit 1902 may be used to support the terminal device 190 in performing the above-described steps 132, 133, 136, 139, 152, etc., and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

Determination unit 1903 may be used to support terminal device 190 in performing steps 134, 137, 153, etc., described above, and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

The switching unit 1904 may be used to support the terminal device 190 in performing the above-described steps 135, 138, etc., and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

Terminal device 190 may also include a discarding unit and a modifying unit, which may be used to support terminal device 190 in performing steps 154, etc., described above, and/or other processes for the techniques described herein; the altering means may be used to enable the terminal device 190 to perform the above-described steps 155, etc., and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

It should be noted that all relevant contents of each step related to the above method embodiment may be referred to the functional description of the corresponding functional module, and are not described herein again.

The terminal device 190 provided in this embodiment is configured to execute the antenna gain adjustment method, so that the same effect as that of the implementation method can be achieved.

In case of an integrated unit, the terminal device may comprise a processing module, a storage module and a communication module. The processing module may be configured to control and manage the actions of the terminal device, and for example, may be configured to support the terminal device to execute the steps executed by the determining unit 1903 and the switching unit 1904. The memory module may be used to support the terminal device in storing program codes and data, etc. The communication module may be configured to support communication of other devices of the terminal device, for example, communication with the wireless access device, and may be configured to support the terminal device to perform the steps performed by the sending unit 1902.

The processing module may be a processor or a controller. Which may implement or perform the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits described in connection with the disclosure. A processor may also be a combination of computing functions, e.g., a combination of one or more microprocessors, a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and a microprocessor, or the like. The storage module may be a memory. The communication module may specifically be a radio frequency circuit, a bluetooth chip, a Wi-Fi chip, or other devices that interact with other electronic devices.

In an embodiment, when the processing module is a processor, the storage module is a memory, and the communication module is a transceiver, the terminal device according to this embodiment may be the terminal device 200 having the structure shown in fig. 23.

The embodiment of the application also provides a terminal device, which comprises one or more processors and one or more memories. The one or more memories are coupled to the one or more processors and the one or more memories are configured to store computer program code comprising computer instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the terminal device to perform the associated method steps described above to implement the uplink transmission method in the above-described embodiments.

An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium, where a computer instruction is stored in the computer storage medium, and when the computer instruction runs on an electronic device, the electronic device is caused to execute the above related method steps to implement the uplink transmission method in the above embodiment.

Embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product, which when running on a computer, causes the computer to execute the above related steps, so as to implement the uplink transmission method executed by the terminal device in the above embodiments.

In addition, embodiments of the present application also provide an apparatus, which may be specifically a chip, a component or a module, and may include a processor and a memory connected to each other; when the device runs, the processor can execute the computer execution instruction stored in the memory, so that the chip can execute the uplink transmission method executed by the terminal equipment in the above method embodiments.

The terminal device, the computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product, or the chip provided in this embodiment are all configured to execute the corresponding method provided above, so that the beneficial effects achieved by the terminal device, the computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product, or the chip may refer to the beneficial effects in the corresponding method provided above, and are not described herein again.

In the case of dividing each functional module by corresponding functions, fig. 24 shows a schematic diagram of a possible composition of the network device 240 involved in the above embodiment, where the network device 240 may be the first network device or the second network device. As shown in fig. 24, the network device 240 may include: a configuration unit 2403, a receiving unit 2401 and an indicating unit 2402.

Among other things, configuration unit 2403 may be used to support network device 240 in performing the above-described S91 and S11, etc., and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

The receiving unit 2401 may be used to support the network device 240 to perform the above-described S92, S93, S12, S13, S14, and/or the like, and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

The indicating unit 2402 may be used to support the network device 240 to perform the above-described S94 and S13, etc., and/or other processes for the techniques described herein.

The network device 240 provided in this embodiment is configured to execute the uplink transmission method, so that the same effect as that of the implementation method can be achieved.

In case of an integrated unit, the network device may comprise a processing module, a storage module and a communication module. The processing module may be configured to control and manage an action of the network device, for example, may be configured to support the network device to perform the steps performed by the configuration unit 2403. The memory module may be used to support network devices for storing program code, data, and the like. The communication module may be configured to support communication of other devices of the network device, for example, communication with the terminal device, and may be configured to support the network device to perform the steps performed by the receiving unit 2401 and the instructing unit 2402.

The processing module may be a processor or a controller. Which may implement or perform the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits described in connection with the disclosure. A processor may also be a combination of computing functions, e.g., comprising one or more microprocessors, a DSP and a microprocessor, or the like. The storage module may be a memory. The communication module may specifically be a radio frequency circuit, a bluetooth chip, a Wi-Fi chip, or other devices that interact with other electronic devices.

In one embodiment, when the processing module is a processor, the storage module is a memory, and the communication module is a transceiver, the network device 240 according to this embodiment may have a structure similar to the terminal device 200 having the structure shown in fig. 23.

Embodiments of the present application also provide a network device, which includes one or more processors and one or more memories. The one or more memories are coupled to the one or more processors and the one or more memories are configured to store computer program code comprising computer instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the network device to perform the associated method steps described above to implement the upstream transmission method in the above-described embodiments.

An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium, where a computer instruction is stored in the computer storage medium, and when the computer instruction runs on a network device, the network device executes the above related method steps to implement the uplink transmission method in the above embodiment.

Embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product, which when running on a computer, causes the computer to execute the above related steps to implement the uplink transmission method of the network device row in the above embodiments.

In addition, embodiments of the present application also provide an apparatus, which may be specifically a chip, a component or a module, and may include a processor and a memory connected to each other; when the device runs, the processor can execute the computer execution instructions stored in the memory, so that the chip can execute the uplink transmission method executed by the network equipment in the above method embodiments.

The network device, the computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product, or the chip provided in this embodiment are all configured to execute the corresponding method provided above, so that the beneficial effects achieved by the network device, the computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product, or the chip may refer to the beneficial effects in the corresponding method provided above, and are not described herein again.

Another embodiment of the present application provides a system, which may include the network device and the at least one terminal device, and may be configured to implement the uplink transmission method.

Through the description of the above embodiments, those skilled in the art will understand that, for convenience and simplicity of description, only the division of the above functional modules is used as an example, and in practical applications, the above function distribution may be completed by different functional modules as needed, that is, the internal structure of the device may be divided into different functional modules to complete all or part of the above described functions.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described embodiments of the apparatus are merely illustrative, and for example, a module or a unit may be divided into only one logic function, and may be implemented in other ways, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another apparatus, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

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

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

The integrated unit, if implemented in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application may be essentially or partially contributed to by the prior art, or all or part of the technical solutions may be embodied in the form of a software product, where the software product is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions to enable a device (which may be a single chip, a chip, or the like) or a processor (processor) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods of the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. An uplink transmission method is applied to a terminal device or a chip in the terminal device, and the method comprises the following steps:

sending a first uplink transmission to the first network equipment on the first uplink carrier, and sending a second uplink transmission to the second network equipment on the second uplink carrier; wherein,

performing uplink switching in a first time period, and not sending uplink transmission in the first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; the first uplink transmission is a previous uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, and the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

sending a third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier, where the third uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission;

performing uplink switching in a third time period, and not sending uplink transmission in the third time period; wherein the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the third time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; the first uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission, the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the first time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

sending a fourth uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier, the fourth uplink transmission being a subsequent uplink transmission to the first uplink transmission;

switching uplink for a fourth time period, and not sending uplink transmission for the fourth time period, wherein the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, and the fourth time period is the sum of the switching gap and the first threshold.

6. The method of any of claims 1-5, wherein not sending uplink transmissions during the first time period comprises:

and not sending uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier in the first time period.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the method further comprises:

sending first indication information to the first network device and/or the second network device, wherein the first indication information indicates the second time period.

8. An uplink transmission method, applied to a network device or a chip in the network device, includes:

receiving first indication information from terminal equipment, wherein the first indication information indicates a second time period, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of a second uplink carrier and a first uplink carrier; the first uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the first network equipment by the terminal equipment; the second uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to second network equipment by the terminal equipment;

instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, without expecting to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier or the second uplink carrier for a first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and the second time period, and the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein a radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and wherein the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, and wherein the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein after instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, after not expecting to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier for a first time period, the method further comprises:

instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, without expecting to receive uplink transmission on the first uplink carrier for a third time period;

wherein the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the third time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes a radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and wherein the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and wherein the first time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein after instructing the terminal device to perform uplink handover, after not expecting to receive uplink transmission on the second uplink carrier for a first time period, the method further comprises:

instructing the terminal device to perform an uplink handover without expecting to receive uplink transmissions on the second uplink carrier for a fourth time period;

wherein the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, and the fourth time period is a sum of the switching gap and the first threshold.

13. A communication apparatus, characterized in that the communication apparatus includes a terminal device or a chip in a terminal device, the communication apparatus comprising:

a sending unit, configured to send a first uplink transmission to a first network device on a first uplink carrier, and send a second uplink transmission to a second network device on a second uplink carrier;

a switching unit, configured to perform uplink switching in a first time period, and the sending unit is configured to not send uplink transmission in the first time period;

the first time period is determined by a switching gap and a second time period, the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by terminal equipment, and the second time period is a difference between radio frame boundaries of the second uplink carrier and the first uplink carrier.

14. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; the first uplink transmission is a previous uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission, and the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, and the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

15. The communications apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the sending unit is further configured to send a third uplink transmission to the first network device on the first uplink carrier, where the third uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission;

the switching unit is further configured to perform uplink switching in a third time period, and the sending unit is further configured to not send uplink transmission in the third time period; and when the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, the third time period is the difference between the switching gap and the second threshold.

16. The communications apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein the radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes the radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier; the first uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the second uplink transmission, the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the first time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

17. The communications apparatus of claim 16, wherein the sending unit is further configured to send a fourth uplink transmission to the second network device on the second uplink carrier, and the fourth uplink transmission is a subsequent uplink transmission of the first uplink transmission;

the switching unit is further configured to perform uplink switching in a fourth time period, and the sending unit is further configured to not send uplink transmission in the fourth time period, where the fourth time period is the sum of the switching gap and the first threshold when the second time period is less than or equal to the first threshold.

18. The communication device according to any one of claims 13 to 17, wherein the transmitting unit is configured to:

19. The communication device according to any one of claims 13 to 18, wherein the sending unit is further configured to:

20. A communication apparatus, wherein the communication apparatus includes a network device or a chip in the network device, the communication apparatus comprising:

a receiving unit, configured to receive first indication information from a terminal device, where the first indication information indicates a second time period, and the second time period is a difference between a radio frame boundary of a second uplink carrier and a radio frame boundary of a first uplink carrier; the first uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to the first network equipment by the terminal equipment; the second uplink carrier is a carrier used for sending uplink transmission to second network equipment by the terminal equipment;

an indicating unit, configured to instruct the terminal device to perform uplink handover, where uplink transmission is not expected to be received on the first uplink carrier or the second uplink carrier in a first time period; the first time period is determined by a switching gap and the second time period, and the switching gap is uplink switching time reported by the terminal equipment.

21. The communications apparatus of claim 20, wherein a radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier precedes a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier, and wherein the second time period is less than or equal to a first threshold, and wherein the first time period is a sum of the handover gap and the first threshold.

22. The communications apparatus of claim 21, wherein the indication unit is further configured to:

23. The communications apparatus of claim 20, wherein a radio frame boundary of the first uplink carrier precedes a radio frame boundary of the second uplink carrier, and wherein the second time period is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and wherein the first time period is a difference between the handover gap and the second threshold.

24. The communications apparatus of claim 23, wherein the indication unit is further configured to:

25. A computer-readable storage medium comprising a program or instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes the method of any one of claims 1 to 7 to be performed.

26. A computer program product, characterized in that it causes an electronic device to perform the method according to any of claims 1 to 7, when the computer program product is run on a computer.

27. A computer-readable storage medium comprising a program or instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes the method of any one of claims 8 to 12 to be performed.

28. A computer program product, characterized in that it causes an electronic device to perform the method according to any of claims 8 to 12 when the computer program product is run on a computer.