CN114466416A

CN114466416A - Cell switching method and device

Info

Publication number: CN114466416A
Application number: CN202011250910.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 程运; 李姮; 张一鸣
Original assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Current assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-11-10
Filing date: 2020-11-10
Publication date: 2022-05-10
Anticipated expiration: 2040-11-10
Also published as: CN114466416B

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell switching method and a cell switching device, wherein the cell switching method comprises the following steps: acquiring the switching success rate of each Long Term Evolution (LTE) adjacent cell corresponding to an NR cell under the condition that the voice service is realized by determining that an evolved packet system fallback (EPS fallback) needs to be initiated for a target terminal; determining candidate LTE cells in the LTE adjacent cells according to the switching success rate, and sending a measurement reconfiguration message to a target terminal, wherein the measurement reconfiguration message carries identification information of the candidate LTE cells; receiving a neighbor cell measurement result of the candidate LTE cell which meets the measurement reporting condition and is returned by the target terminal in response to the measurement reconfiguration message; determining a target LTE cell in candidate LTE cells meeting measurement reporting conditions according to a neighbor cell measurement result; and sending a switching command to the target terminal so that the target terminal is switched to the target LTE cell. The embodiment of the invention can reduce the time delay of the voice service and ensure the continuity of the voice service.

Description

Cell switching method and device

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a cell switching method and apparatus.

Background

Two voice access modes are defined in a 5G (5th generation mobile networks, fifth generation mobile communication technology) NR (New Radio, New air interface) system: a VoNR (Voice over NR) mode and an EPS FB (EPS fallback, evolved packet system fallback) mode.

The VoNR mode is a mode in which a 5G access network and a core network provide a voice service based on an IMS (IP multimedia Subsystem), and the EPS fallback mode is a mode in which a terminal falls back to 4G when initiating an IMS call on a 5G network, and the voice service is implemented through the 4G network. When a terminal residing in the NR has a Voice service and the NR cannot provide the VoNR, the network side initiates an EPS fallback procedure, falls back to the LTE (Long Term Evolution), and establishes a Voice over LTE (LTE Voice over LTE) service to provide the Voice service.

Under normal conditions, after triggering the EPS fallback flow, the NR base station selects the LTE cell of the neighbor cell list to switch or redirect, and successfully falls back to the 4G LTE to realize the voice service. However, under an abnormal condition, when NR selects an LTE cell and fails to switch, a blind redirection process is triggered, where the blind redirection process includes issuing a blind redirection LTE frequency point, and the UE performs blind cell search according to an assigned frequency point, measures cell signal strength, and selects a cell access process with the best signal.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell switching method and a cell switching device, which can reduce the probability of failure of EPS fallback due to the abnormality of a target LTE cell, and further reduce the probability of triggering a blind redirection process, thereby reducing the time delay of a voice service, ensuring the continuity of the voice service and improving the user experience.

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell switching method, which is applied to an NR base station and comprises the following steps:

under the condition that the voice service is realized by determining that an evolved packet system fallback EPS fallback needs to be initiated for a target terminal, acquiring the switching success rate of an NR cell corresponding to each long term evolution LTE adjacent cell, wherein the NR cell is a service cell of the NR base station;

determining candidate LTE cells in the LTE adjacent cells according to the switching success rate, and sending a measurement reconfiguration message to the target terminal, wherein the measurement reconfiguration message carries identification information of the candidate LTE cells;

receiving a neighbor cell measurement result of the candidate LTE cell which meets the measurement reporting condition and is returned by the target terminal in response to the measurement reconfiguration message;

determining a target LTE cell in the candidate LTE cells meeting the measurement reporting conditions according to the neighbor cell measurement result;

and sending a switching command to the target terminal so that the target terminal is switched to the target LTE cell.

The embodiment of the invention provides a cell switching device, which is applied to an NR base station, and comprises:

a handover success rate obtaining module, configured to obtain a handover success rate of an NR cell corresponding to each long term evolution LTE neighbor cell when it is determined that an evolved packet system fallback EPS fallback needs to be initiated for a target terminal to implement a voice service, where the NR cell is a serving cell of the NR base station;

a candidate cell determining module, configured to determine a candidate LTE cell in the LTE neighboring cells according to the handover success rate, and send a measurement reconfiguration message to the target terminal, where the measurement reconfiguration message carries identification information of the candidate LTE cell;

a measurement result receiving module, configured to receive a neighboring cell measurement result of the candidate LTE cell that satisfies the measurement reporting condition and is returned by the target terminal in response to the measurement reconfiguration message;

the target cell determining module is used for determining a target LTE cell in the candidate LTE cells meeting the measurement reporting conditions according to the neighbor cell measurement result;

and a handover command sending module, configured to send a handover command to the target terminal, so that the target terminal is handed over to the target LTE cell.

The embodiment of the invention has the following advantages:

the embodiment of the invention improves the scheme of selecting the target LTE cell in the EPS fallback flow based on measurement switching. After determining that an EPS fallback needs to be initiated for a target terminal to realize a voice service and before triggering the target terminal to execute measurement, acquiring a handover success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to an NR cell, and screening candidate LTE cells with higher handover success rates to participate in the measurement, wherein the finally determined target LTE cell also has a higher handover success rate, so that the probability of failure in switching the LTE cells in an EPS fallback flow can be reduced, and further the probability of triggering a blind redirection flow can be reduced, thereby ensuring the continuity of the voice service, reducing the time delay of the voice service, improving the call quality and improving the user experience.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments of the present invention will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art that other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive labor.

Fig. 1 shows a EPS fallback flow diagram based on measurement handover;

FIG. 2 illustrates a blind redirection flow diagram;

fig. 3 shows a flow chart of an embodiment of a cell switching method of the present invention;

fig. 4 shows a schematic flow chart of the NR base station screening candidate LTE cells for measurement in an EPS fallback process according to the present invention;

fig. 5 shows a schematic statistical flow chart of the number of handover preparation times N1 and the number of handover success times N2 of an LTE neighboring cell corresponding to an NR cell according to the present invention;

fig. 6 shows a block diagram of a cell switching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 shows a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device provided by the present invention.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are some, not all, embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

For the 5G terminal, the processes of attachment, registration and the like are carried out after the terminal is started, and the terminal enters an idle state after IMS registration is carried out. And then, when the idle terminal has the calling/called voice service, triggering the session establishment process of the IMS domain and the 5G system, such as sending Invite signaling to the IMS and the like. After the Invite is signaled to the IMS, the IMS indicates the core network (5G), and the core network (5G) initiates a PDU SESSION MODIFY REQUEST (Protocol Data Unit; SESSION; PDU SESSION modification REQUEST) to the base station (5G) to establish a bearer (QoS flow) for the IMS voice. The base station (5G) determines to use the VoNR or trigger the EPS fallback to implement the voice service according to the UE capability, the AMF (Access and Mobility management function) indication, the network configuration (whether there is a network interface between the 5G network and the 4G network), the radio condition (radio environment information), and the like. If the EPS fallback is decided to be initiated, the terminal is requested to measure the report, and PDU SESSION MODIFY REQUEST is rejected to inform the core network (5G) that IMS voice fallback is required.

Referring to fig. 1, an EPS fallback flow diagram based on measurement handover is shown. The flow shown in FIG. 1 is illustrated as follows:

a1, UE (User Equipment/User/terminal) initiates a voice Service Request (Service Request).

A2, UE and gsnodeb (NR base station) complete RRC (Radio Resource Control) connection establishment.

A3, gNodeB transparently transmits Service Request to 5GC (5G Core Network ) through INITIAL UE MESSAGE. The 5G core network mainly includes AMF (Access and Mobility Management Function), SMF (Session Management Function), and UPF (User Plane Function).

A4, UE and 5GC complete the authentication and NAS (Non-access stratum) encryption negotiation flow.

A5, gNodeB receives INITIAL CONTEXT SETUP REQUEST to establish UE CONTEXT and IMS signaling load.

A6, gNodeB completes the security algorithm configuration of the air interface AS (Access stratum) and the UE capability query process.

A7, gNodeB sends INITIAL CONTEXT SETUP RESPONSE to indicate that the INITIAL CONTEXT establishment is completed.

A8, the UE initiates a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) INVITE message to the 5GC to request establishment of a voice Session.

A9, gNodeB receives PDU SESSION RESOURCE MODIFY REQUEST message, instructing gNodeB to set up 5QI ═ 1 voice dedicated bearer.

A10, gNodeB sends out different system B1 event measurement and receives the adjacent cell measurement result reported by UE, and gNodeB determines the target LTE cell according to the adjacent cell measurement result. The B1 event measurement includes the following messages:

gNodeB to UE: RRC Reconfiguration includes neighbor measurement configuration.

UE to gNodeB: RRC Reconfiguration Complete.

Ue to gsnodeb: and reporting the measurement result of the neighboring cell by the UE.

A11, gNodeB replies a rejection PDU session modification to 5GC and instructs IMS Voice Fallback.

A12, gNodeB sends switching request to 5GC according to switch parameter configuration and UE capability judgment.

A13, 5GC forwards UE context information to EPC (Evolved Packet Core, 4G Core network). The EPC mainly includes network elements such as MME (Mobility Management Entity, mobile Management node function), SGW (Serving GateWay), PGW (PDN GateWay), and the like.

A14, EPC initiates handover request to eNodeB (LTE base station).

A15, EPC receives the switching request response of eNodeB.

A16, EPC forwards handover request success response message of eNodeB to 5 GC.

A17, 5GC initiates a handover command to the gsnodeb.

A18, gsnodeb sends a handover command (mobility fromnrcommr command instead) to the UE.

A19, the UE is switched to the target LTE cell.

A20, eNodeB informs that the EPC is successfully switched to 4G.

A21, 5GC requires the gsnodeb to release the UE context.

A22, initiating a TAU (Tracking Area Update) flow between the UE and the EPC.

A23, EPC triggers the establishment of voice specific bearer QCI ═ 1.

The above steps a12 to a21 are a complete and normal signaling flow for switching the terminal from the NR cell to the LTE cell. When any step is abnormal, for example, the failure of the terminal accessing the target LTE cell or the transmission failure between the target LTE cell and the MME may cause the failure of the EPS fallback procedure, a blind redirection procedure may be triggered, referring to fig. 2, which is a schematic diagram of the blind redirection procedure. As shown in fig. 2, the blind redirection flow is illustrated as follows:

b1, NR base station sends context release request to 5GC, carrying EPS fallback caused by IMS voice.

B2, 5GC informs NR base station to release UE context.

And B3, the NR base station selects an LTE frequency point to issue according to the coverage condition of the LTE cell and the NR cell and the priority of the LTE frequency point.

B4, the NR base station sends RRC Release redirection information to the UE, and the LTE frequency point is carried.

B5, the UE searches the cell on the LTE specified by the LTE frequency point and selects the cell with the strongest signal.

B6, accessing the UE in the cell with the strongest signal, and performing the VoLTE process.

The blind search process in the step B5 takes a long time, which may even be several minutes in an extreme case, and increases the time delay of the voice service, thereby affecting the continuity of the voice service and the user experience. Therefore, the scheme for selecting the target LTE cell in the EPS fallback flow based on measurement switching is optimized, so that the probability of failure of the EPS fallback due to the target LTE cell is reduced, the probability of triggering the blind redirection flow is further reduced, the continuity of voice services can be guaranteed, the time delay of the voice services is reduced, the call quality is improved, and the user experience is improved.

Referring to fig. 3, a flowchart of an embodiment of a cell handover method according to the present invention is shown, where the method is applied to an NR base station, and specifically may include:

step 101, under the condition that it is determined that an evolved packet system fallback (EPS fallback) needs to be initiated for a target terminal to implement a voice service, acquiring a handover success rate of an NR cell corresponding to each Long Term Evolution (LTE) neighboring cell, wherein the NR cell is a serving cell of the NR base station;

step 102, determining candidate LTE cells in the LTE adjacent cells according to the switching success rate, and sending a measurement reconfiguration message to the target terminal, wherein the measurement reconfiguration message carries identification information of the candidate LTE cells;

103, receiving a neighbor cell measurement result of the candidate LTE cell which meets the measurement reporting condition and is returned by the target terminal in response to the measurement reconfiguration message;

104, determining a target LTE cell in the candidate LTE cells meeting the measurement reporting conditions according to the neighbor cell measurement result;

and 105, sending a switching command to the target terminal so that the target terminal is switched to the target LTE cell.

The cell switching method provided by the embodiment of the invention improves the scheme of selecting the target LTE cell in the EPS fallback flow based on measurement switching. The method is applicable to NR base stations (i.e. 5G base stations).

The target terminal refers to a terminal which currently resides in an NR cell and needs to perform voice service. And the NR cell is a service cell of the NR base station. Specifically, when the NR base station receives a PDU SESSION MODIFY REQUEST message sent by the core network AMF, it may determine whether a QosFlow with 5QI equal to 1 exists in the message, and if so, it indicates that the terminal needs to perform a voice service. Where 5QI is a scalar used to index a 5G QoS characteristic.

When a target terminal residing in an NR cell has a voice service and an NR base station cannot provide VoNR, an EPS fallback procedure needs to be initiated for the target terminal to fall back to LTE, and the VoLTE is established to implement the voice service.

Further, the interoperation switch of the NR base station is turned on and the interoperation type is configured to be switched based on the measurement. That is, if it is determined that the EPS fallback procedure needs to be initiated, at this time, a B1 measurement event needs to be triggered, a frequency point and a cell list of an LTE neighbor cell are configured, and a measurement reconfiguration message is sent to a target terminal to notify the target terminal to perform measurement. The B1 event, i.e., the inter-system neighbor signal is stronger than the absolute threshold.

The target LTE cell is a target cell in an EPS fallback flow, and the NR cell is a source cell. That is, the target terminal is switched from the NR cell to the target LTE cell through the EPS fallback procedure. In order to reduce the probability of failure of the EPS fallback due to improper selection of the target LTE cell, in the embodiment of the present invention, under the condition that it is determined that the EPS fallback needs to be initiated for the target terminal to implement the voice service, the handover success rate of each LTE neighbor cell corresponding to the NR cell is obtained, so as to screen the target LTE cell with a higher handover success rate.

In one example, for a certain NR base station, assume that denoted as gNB1, a target terminal UE1 resides in an NR cell covered by the NR base station. When the target terminal UE1 has voice service and the NR base station gNB1 cannot provide VoNR, an EPS fallback needs to be initiated for the target terminal UE1 to implement the voice service. It is assumed that the LTE neighboring cells of the NR Cell include cells 1 to 8, and corresponding PCIs (Physical Cell identifiers) are 50, 60, 51, 52, 61, 62, 66, and 55, respectively. Then, the handover success rates Psucc of the NR cells respectively corresponding to the LTE neighbor cells are obtained, and it is assumed that the obtaining results are shown in table 1. The FREQ is a frequency point of an LTE adjacent cell.

TABLE 1

LTE neighbor cell	PCI	FREQ	Psucc
				cell1	50	23500	0.86
cell2	60	23600	0.75
				cell3	51	23500	0.94
cell4	52	23500	0.88
				cell5	61	23600	0.96
cell6	62	23600	0.72
				cell7	66	23600	0.90
cell8	55	23500	0.83

And then, determining candidate LTE cells in the LTE adjacent cells according to the obtained switching success rate, and sending a measurement reconfiguration message to the target terminal to inform the target terminal of measurement, wherein the measurement reconfiguration message carries identification information of the candidate LTE cells.

Specifically, the LTE neighbor cells in table 1 may be sorted in the order from high to low in the handover success rate, the obtained sorting result is shown in table 2, and the LTE neighbor cell n before sorting is selected as the candidate LTE cell. n is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and it is understood that n can be set according to actual needs, for example, n can be 5, 6, 10, and the like. Assuming n is 6, in this example, the candidate LTE cells may be determined to include: cell5, cell3, cell7, cell4, cell1, and cell8, where the corresponding PCIs are: 61. 51, 66, 52, 50, 55.

TABLE 2

The NR base station, after determining the candidate LTE cells, may assemble a measurement reconfiguration message and send the measurement reconfiguration message to the target terminal to inform the target terminal to perform measurements, which refer to inter-system B1 event measurements. The embodiment of the invention takes the identification information of the selected candidate LTE cell as an element under measObjectEutra in the measurement reconfiguration message, and specifically, the frequency point and the PCI corresponding to the candidate LTE cell can be sent to the target terminal through the cell measObjectEUTRA- > cell ToAddModListEUTRAN of the following reconfiguration message. And after receiving the measurement reconfiguration message sent by the NR base station, the target terminal performs B1 measurement, and reports the neighbor cell measurement result of the candidate LTE cell meeting the B1 measurement report condition to the NR base station. The condition that B1 measurement report is satisfied indicates that the quality of the inter-system adjacent cell is higher than a certain threshold, and the candidate LTE cell satisfying the condition is reported. Referring to fig. 4, a schematic flow diagram illustrating a process of screening candidate LTE cells for measurement in an EPS fallback process by an NR base station according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown. Wherein, rrcreconconfiguration is a measurement reconfiguration message, and MeasurementReport is a neighbor measurement result reported by the terminal.

The measurement result of the neighboring cell may include a Physical cell identifier of the neighboring cell, a cell SSB (Synchronization Signal and PBCH block, Synchronization Signal and PBCH (Physical Broadcast Channel) block), or a CSI-RS (Channel State Information-Reference Signal) Signal measurement value. Among the candidate LTE cells satisfying the B1 measurement report condition, the target LTE cell is determined according to the RSRP (Reference Signal Receiving Power) measurement value of the candidate LTE cell, for example, the candidate LTE cell with the best Reference Signal measurement value may be determined as the target LTE cell.

After determining the target LTE cell, the NR base station transmits a handover command (MobilityFromNRCommand) to the target terminal to cause the target terminal to handover to the target LTE cell. It should be noted that, for the EPS fallback based on measurement handover, the voice traffic and the data traffic (if existing) of the terminal are handed over to the LTE side together.

After determining that the EPS fallback needs to be initiated for the target terminal to realize the voice service and before triggering the target terminal to execute the B1 measurement, the embodiment of the invention screens the candidate LTE cell with higher handover success rate to participate in the B1 measurement, so that the finally determined target LTE cell also has higher handover success rate, the probability of failure in switching the LTE cell in the EPS fallback flow can be reduced, and further the probability of triggering the blind redirection flow can be reduced, thereby ensuring the continuity of the voice service, reducing the time delay of the voice service, improving the call quality and improving the user experience.

In an optional embodiment of the present invention, before the obtaining, in step 101, the handover success rate of each long term evolution LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell, the method further includes:

step S11, for each LTE adjacent cell of the NR cells, counting the switching preparation times of the LTE adjacent cell at a first moment, and counting the switching success times of the LTE adjacent cell at a second moment; the first time is a certain time after the NR base station successfully sends a handover request message to a core network, and the second time is a certain time after the NR base station receives a release terminal context command sent by the core network;

step S12, calculating the switching success rate of the NR cell corresponding to the LTE adjacent cell according to the switching preparation times and the switching success times of the LTE adjacent cell counted in the preset time;

and step S13, recording the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR base station.

In order to reduce the probability of failure of EPS fallback due to failure of access of a terminal to a target LTE cell or transmission failure between the target LTE cell and an MME, an embodiment of the present invention pre-counts and stores a handover success rate of an NR base station for handing over the terminal from the NR cell to each LTE neighbor cell, so as to record the handover success rate of the NR base station corresponding to each LTE neighbor cell.

Specifically, in the embodiment of the present invention, a statistical time (a first time) of the handover preparation times of each LTE neighboring cell and a statistical time (a second time) of the handover success times of each LTE neighboring cell need to be determined, and according to the handover preparation times of each LTE neighboring cell counted at the first time and the handover success times of each LTE neighboring cell counted at the second time, the handover success rate Psucc of each LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR base station may be calculated.

Further, before counting the number of times of handover preparation of the LTE neighboring cell at the first time and counting the number of times of handover success of the LTE neighboring cell at the second time, the method may further include: initializing the switching preparation times and the switching success times;

the counting the number of times of preparation for switching the LTE adjacent cell at the first time and the number of times of success for switching the LTE adjacent cell at the second time includes:

for the LTE adjacent cell, after the NR base station successfully sends a switching request message to a core network, the switching preparation times of the LTE adjacent cell are accumulated once, and after the NR base station receives a terminal context releasing command sent by the core network, the switching success times of the LTE adjacent cell are accumulated once.

Specifically, in the embodiment of the present invention, before counting the handover success rate of each LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell, the handover preparation times and the handover success times of each neighboring cell are initialized first, for example, the handover preparation times and the handover success times of each neighboring cell may be initialized to a certain initial value, such as both of them are initialized to 0.

The NR base station may determine that the NR base station is ready to switch a terminal from the NR cell to an LTE neighboring cell, and may accumulate the HANDOVER preparation times of the LTE neighboring cell once. For example, for the LTE neighbor cell5, assuming that the current handover preparation time is 7, the accumulated handover preparation time of the LTE neighbor cell5 is 8.

When the NR base station receives the terminal CONTEXT RELEASE COMMAND sent by the core network, it indicates that the NR base station has determined that a certain terminal is successfully switched from the NR cell to a certain LTE neighboring cell, and the number of successful switching times of the LTE neighboring cell may be accumulated once. For example, for the LTE neighboring cell5, assuming that the current handover success number is 5, when the NR base station receives a release terminal context command sent by the core network, which indicates that the NR base station has successfully handed over a terminal from the NR cell to the LTE neighboring cell5, the handover success number of the LTE neighboring cell5 is accumulated once, and the accumulated handover success number of the LTE neighboring cell5 is 6.

Referring to fig. 5, a schematic diagram of a statistical flow of the number of handover preparation times N1 and the number of handover success times N2 of an LTE neighboring cell corresponding to an NR cell according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown. As shown in fig. 5, for the LTE neighbor cell, the initial values of N1 and N2 are both 0, N1 accumulates once after the NR base station successfully sends a HANDOVER request message to the AMF once, and N2 accumulates once when the HANDOVER is successful, that is, after the NR base station receives a UE CONTEXT RELEASE COMMAND message sent by the AMF. For the LTE neighbor cell, the handover success rate Psucc of the NR base station for the cell is N2/N1 (the LTE neighbor cell whose handover preparation number N1 is 0 does not participate in the statistics). And similarly, the switching success rate of the NR cell corresponding to other LTE adjacent cells can be calculated. For example, the handover success rates of three LTE neighbor cells corresponding to an NR cell with a PCI of 20 within a preset time are counted, and the data is shown in table 3. The preset time can be selected according to actual needs, such as the past week, month, and the like.

TABLE 3

In an optional embodiment of the present invention, the obtaining, in step 101, a handover success rate of each long term evolution LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell includes:

acquiring the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR cell by inquiring historical records; alternatively, the first and second electrodes may be,

and acquiring the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR cell by calculating the historical EPS fallback operation data of the NR base station in real time.

It should be noted that, the embodiment of the present invention does not limit the specific manner of obtaining the handover success rate of each LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell. For example, in an EPS fallback flow initiated by an NR base station each time, the number of times of handover preparation of a certain LTE neighboring cell is counted at a first time, the number of times of handover success of the certain LTE neighboring cell is counted at a second time, and the handover success rate of each LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell is calculated and stored according to the counted number of times of handover preparation and number of times of handover success of each LTE neighboring cell within a preset time. Or, when the NR base station initiates EPS fallback, historical EPS fallback operation data of the NR base station may be obtained, and the handover success rate of each LTE neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell is obtained through real-time calculation according to the historical EPS fallback operation data of the NR base station. The real-time calculation process is the same as the calculation method in the pre-statistical process, and is not described herein again.

In order to more rapidly acquire the handover success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR cell. The first mode is preferably adopted in the embodiment of the present invention.

In summary, the embodiment of the present invention improves the scheme for selecting the target LTE cell in the EPS fallback procedure based on measurement handover. After determining that an EPS fallback needs to be initiated for a target terminal to realize a voice service and before triggering the target terminal to execute measurement, acquiring a handover success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to an NR cell, and screening candidate LTE cells with higher handover success rates to participate in the measurement, wherein the finally determined target LTE cell also has a higher handover success rate, so that the probability of failure in switching the LTE cells in an EPS fallback flow can be reduced, and further the probability of triggering a blind redirection flow can be reduced, thereby ensuring the continuity of the voice service, reducing the time delay of the voice service, improving the call quality and improving the user experience.

It should be noted that, for simplicity of description, the method embodiments are described as a series of acts or combination of acts, but those skilled in the art will recognize that the present invention is not limited by the illustrated order of acts, as some steps may occur in other orders or concurrently in accordance with the embodiments of the present invention. Further, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the embodiments described in the specification are presently preferred and that no particular act is required to implement the invention.

Device embodiment

Referring to fig. 6, a block diagram of a cell switching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown, and the apparatus is applied to an NR base station, and specifically may include:

a handover success rate obtaining module 601, configured to obtain a handover success rate of an NR cell corresponding to each long term evolution LTE neighbor cell when it is determined that an evolved packet system fallback EPS fallback needs to be initiated for a target terminal to implement a voice service, where the NR cell is a serving cell of the NR base station;

a candidate cell determining module 602, configured to determine a candidate LTE cell in the LTE neighboring cells according to the handover success rate, and send a measurement reconfiguration message to the target terminal, where the measurement reconfiguration message carries identification information of the candidate LTE cell;

a measurement result receiving module 603, configured to receive a neighboring cell measurement result of the candidate LTE cell that meets the measurement report condition and is returned by the target terminal in response to the measurement reconfiguration message;

a target cell determining module 604, configured to determine a target LTE cell from the candidate LTE cells that satisfy the measurement reporting condition according to the neighboring cell measurement result;

a handover command sending module 605, configured to send a handover command to the target terminal, so that the target terminal is handed over to the target LTE cell.

Optionally, the apparatus further comprises:

the frequency counting module is used for counting the switching preparation frequency of each LTE adjacent cell of the NR cell at a first moment and counting the switching success frequency of the LTE adjacent cell at a second moment; the first time is a certain time after the NR base station successfully sends a handover request message to a core network, and the second time is a certain time after the NR base station receives a release terminal context command sent by the core network;

the success rate calculation module is used for calculating the switching success rate of the NR cell corresponding to the LTE adjacent cell according to the switching preparation times and the switching success times of the LTE adjacent cell counted in the preset time;

and the success rate recording module is used for recording the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR base station.

Optionally, the apparatus further comprises:

the initialization module is used for initializing the switching preparation times and the switching success times;

the number of times counting module is specifically configured to, for the LTE neighboring cell, accumulate the number of times of handover preparation for the LTE neighboring cell once after the NR base station successfully sends the handover request message to the core network, and accumulate the number of times of handover success for the LTE neighboring cell once after the NR base station receives the release terminal context command sent by the core network.

Optionally, the handover success rate obtaining module includes:

the first acquisition submodule is used for acquiring the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR cell through inquiring historical records; alternatively, the first and second electrodes may be,

and the second obtaining submodule is used for obtaining the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR cell by calculating the historical EPS fallback operation data of the NR base station in real time.

Optionally, the interoperation switch of the NR base station is turned on and the interoperation type is configured to switch based on the measurement.

For the device embodiment, since it is basically similar to the method embodiment, the description is simple, and for the relevant points, refer to the partial description of the method embodiment.

The embodiments in the present specification are described in a progressive manner, each embodiment focuses on differences from other embodiments, and the same and similar parts among the embodiments are referred to each other.

With regard to the apparatus in the above-described embodiment, the specific manner in which each module performs the operation has been described in detail in the embodiment related to the method, and will not be elaborated here.

An embodiment of the present disclosure also provides an electronic device, referring to fig. 7, including: a processor 701, a memory 702, and a computer program 7021 stored on and executable on said memory, said processor implementing the cell handover method of the foregoing embodiments when executing said programs.

Embodiments of the present disclosure also provide a processor-readable storage medium, where instructions, when executed by a processor of an electronic device, enable the electronic device to perform the cell handover method of the foregoing embodiments.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer, virtual machine, or other apparatus. Various general purpose systems may also be used with the teachings herein. The required structure for constructing such a system will be apparent from the description above. In addition, embodiments of the present disclosure are not directed to any particular programming language. It is appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the embodiments of the present disclosure as described herein, and any descriptions of specific languages are provided above to disclose the best modes of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

In the description provided herein, numerous specific details are set forth. However, it is understood that embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known methods, structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure an understanding of this description.

Similarly, it should be appreciated that in the foregoing description of exemplary embodiments of the disclosure, various features of the embodiments of the disclosure are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of one or more of the various inventive aspects. However, the disclosed method should not be interpreted as reflecting an intention that: that is, claimed embodiments of the disclosure require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the detailed description are hereby expressly incorporated into this detailed description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of an embodiment of this disclosure.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the modules in the device in an embodiment may be adaptively changed and disposed in one or more devices different from the embodiment. The modules or units or components of the embodiments may be combined into one module or unit or component, and furthermore they may be divided into a plurality of sub-modules or sub-units or sub-components. All of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), and all of the processes or elements of any method or apparatus so disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or processes or elements are mutually exclusive. Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise.

The various component embodiments of the disclosure may be implemented in hardware, or in software modules running on one or more processors, or in a combination thereof. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that a microprocessor or Digital Signal Processor (DSP) may be used in practice to implement some or all of the functions of some or all of the components in a sequencing device according to embodiments of the present disclosure. Embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented as an apparatus or device program for performing a portion or all of the methods described herein. Such programs implementing embodiments of the present disclosure may be stored on a computer readable medium or may be in the form of one or more signals. Such a signal may be downloaded from an internet website or provided on a carrier signal or in any other form.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit embodiments of the disclosure, and that those skilled in the art will be able to design alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. The word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of elements or steps not listed in a claim. The word "a" or "an" preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements. Embodiments of the disclosure may be implemented by means of hardware comprising several distinct elements, and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the unit claims enumerating several means, several of these means may be embodied by one and the same item of hardware. The usage of the words first, second and third, etcetera do not indicate any ordering. These words may be interpreted as names.

It is clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

The above description is only for the purpose of illustrating the preferred embodiments of the present disclosure and is not to be construed as limiting the embodiments of the present disclosure, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements and the like that are made within the spirit and principle of the embodiments of the present disclosure are intended to be included within the scope of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

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

Claims

1. A cell switching method is applied to a new air interface NR base station, and the method comprises the following steps:

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein before the obtaining the handover success rate of the NR cell corresponding to each long term evolution, LTE, neighbor cell, the method further comprises:

for each LTE adjacent cell of the NR cells, counting the switching preparation times of the LTE adjacent cell at a first moment, and counting the switching success times of the LTE adjacent cell at a second moment; the first time is a certain time after the NR base station successfully sends a handover request message to a core network, and the second time is a certain time after the NR base station receives a release terminal context command sent by the core network;

calculating the switching success rate of the NR cell corresponding to the LTE adjacent cell according to the switching preparation times and the switching success times of the LTE adjacent cell counted in preset time;

and recording the switching success rate of each LTE adjacent cell corresponding to the NR base station.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein before counting the number of handover preparations of the LTE neighbor cell at the first time and counting the number of handover successes of the LTE neighbor cell at the second time, the method further comprises:

initializing the switching preparation times and the switching success times;

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the handover success rate of each Long Term Evolution (LTE) neighboring cell corresponding to the NR cell comprises:

5. The method according to any of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the interoperation switches of the NR base stations are turned on and the interoperation type is configured to switch based on a measurement.

6. A cell handover apparatus, applied to an NR base station, the apparatus comprising:

7. The apparatus of claim 6, further comprising:

8. The apparatus of claim 7, further comprising:

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the handover success rate obtaining module comprises:

10. The apparatus according to any of claims 6 to 9, characterized in that the interoperation switch of the NR base station is turned on and the interoperation type is configured to switch based on a measurement.

11. An electronic device, comprising: processor, memory and computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, characterized in that the processor when executing the program implements a cell handover method according to any of claims 1-5.

12. A processor-readable storage medium having instructions which, when executed by a processor of an electronic device, enable the electronic device to perform the cell handover method of any one of claims 1-5.