CN114641036A

CN114641036A - Load balancing method and device, base station and computer readable storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN114641036A
Application number: CN202011484033.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 李满
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2020-12-16
Filing date: 2020-12-16
Publication date: 2022-06-17
Also published as: WO2022127617A1

Abstract

The invention provides a load balancing method and device, a base station and a computer readable storage medium. The load balancing method comprises the following steps: acquiring load information of each distribution unit DU corresponding to the CU; determining heavy load DU and light load DU from all DUs according to all load information; acquiring the beam coverage of a light load DU and service measurement information from a heavy load DU, and determining an area to be balanced in the beam coverage of the heavy load DU according to the beam coverage of the light load DU and the service measurement information; and sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU and the light load DU, so that the heavy load DU and the light load DU carry out balanced adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy. In the embodiment of the invention, the load balance adjustment among different cells can be realized, thereby improving the communication quality of the cells.

Description

Load balancing method and device, base station and computer readable storage medium

Technical Field

The present invention relates to, but not limited to, the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a load balancing method and apparatus, a base station, and a computer-readable storage medium.

Background

One communication method of the current 5G mobile communication is as follows: the communication is realized by depending on the multi-cell coverage of the cellular network, namely, each cell is provided with a base station, each cell has a corresponding coverage range, and the cell realizes the service processing in the cell under the self-capability condition. In practical use, if the number of users in a continuously covered cell with the same frequency is relatively increased in a certain period of time, the amount of users admitted to a part of cells easily reaches the peak value of the upper limit of users, at this time, the uplink and downlink traffic in the cell will be greatly increased, the load is increased, and the communication quality will be affected for the users in the cell.

Disclosure of Invention

The following is a summary of the subject matter described in detail herein. This summary is not intended to limit the scope of the claims.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a load balancing method and apparatus, a base station, and a computer-readable storage medium, which can implement load balancing adjustment between different cells, thereby improving communication quality of the cells.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a load balancing method applied to a central unit CU, including:

acquiring load information of each distribution unit DU corresponding to the CU;

determining heavy load DU and light load DU from all DUs according to all the load information;

acquiring the beam coverage of the light load DU and the service measurement information from the heavy load DU, and determining a region to be balanced in the beam coverage of the heavy load DU according to the beam coverage of the light load DU and the service measurement information;

and sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU and the light load DU, so that the heavy load DU and the light load DU carry out balancing adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a load balancing method, applied to a first DU, including:

sending load information to a CU, so that the CU determines the first DU as a heavy load DU according to the load information;

sending service measurement information to the CU so that the CU can determine an area to be balanced in a beam coverage range of the first DU according to the service measurement information and the acquired beam coverage range of the light-load DU of the CU;

and acquiring a load balancing strategy from the CU, and performing balance adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy by matching with the light load DU acquired by the load balancing strategy.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a load balancing method, applied to a second DU, including:

sending load information to a CU, so that the CU determines that the second DU is a light load DU according to the load information;

and acquiring a load balancing strategy from the CU, and performing balancing adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in a region to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy by matching with a heavy load DU acquired by the load balancing strategy, wherein the region to be balanced is determined by the CU in a beam coverage range of the heavy load DU according to the service measurement information from the heavy load DU and the beam coverable range from the second DU.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a load balancing apparatus, including: a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, the processor implementing the load balancing method according to the first aspect, or implementing the load balancing method according to the second aspect, or implementing the load balancing method according to the third aspect, when executing the computer program.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a base station, including: the load balancing apparatus according to the fourth aspect.

In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a computer-readable storage medium, which stores computer-executable instructions for executing the load balancing method described above.

The embodiment of the invention comprises the following steps: acquiring load information of each distribution unit DU corresponding to the CU; determining heavy load DU and light load DU from all DUs according to all load information; acquiring the beam coverage of a light load DU and service measurement information from a heavy load DU, and determining an area to be balanced in the beam coverage of the heavy load DU according to the beam coverage of the light load DU and the service measurement information; and sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU and the light load DU, so that the heavy load DU and the light load DU carry out balanced adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy. According to the scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention, the CU determines heavy load DUs with relatively large service bearing capacity and light load DUs with relatively small service bearing capacity from all DUs respectively, and also determines the area which needs to carry out service balancing in the beam coverage range of the heavy load DUs, and simultaneously sets corresponding load balancing strategies for the heavy load DUs and the light load DUs, so that the heavy load DUs and the light load DUs can carry out balanced adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategies, and the terminal in the area to be balanced can be switched into the light load DUs from the heavy load DUs, thereby not only reducing the service bearing load in the heavy load DUs, but also providing a stable and reliable communication environment for the switched terminal, therefore, the scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention can realize the load balancing adjustment among different cells, thereby improving the communication quality of the cell.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the example serve to explain the principles of the invention and not to limit the invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system architecture for performing a load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of determining heavy load DU and light load DU in the load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a flowchart of sending a load balancing policy in a load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a flowchart of sending a load balancing policy in a load balancing method according to another embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a flowchart of sending a load balancing policy in a load balancing method according to another embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating adjustment of beam coverage in a load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a flowchart of sending a load balancing policy in a load balancing method according to another embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of determining a to-be-balanced area in the load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating a determination of a to-be-balanced area in the load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 11 is a flowchart of a load balancing method according to another embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 12 is a flowchart of a load balancing method according to another embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of a load balancing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.

It should be noted that although functional blocks are partitioned in a schematic diagram of an apparatus and a logical order is shown in a flowchart, in some cases, the steps shown or described may be performed in a different order than the partitioning of blocks in the apparatus or the order in the flowchart. The terms first, second and the like in the description and in the claims, and the drawings described above, are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order.

The invention provides a load balancing method and a device thereof, a base station and a computer readable storage medium, wherein a CU determines heavy load DUs with relatively large service bearing capacity and light load DUs with relatively small service bearing capacity from all DUs respectively, and also determines an area needing service balancing in a beam coverage range of the heavy load DUs, and meanwhile, the CU sets corresponding load balancing strategies for the heavy load DUs and the light load DUs, so that the heavy load DUs and the light load DUs can carry out balanced adjustment on the connection state of a terminal in a balancing area according to the load balancing strategies, and the terminal in the balancing area can be switched into the light load DU, thereby not only reducing the service bearing load in the heavy load DUs, but also providing a stable and reliable communication environment for the switched terminal, therefore, the scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention can realize load balancing adjustment among different cells, thereby improving the communication quality of the cell.

The embodiments of the present invention will be further explained with reference to the drawings.

As shown in fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system architecture 100 for performing a load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the example of fig. 1, the system architecture 100 includes a Centralized Unit (CU) 110 and a Distributed Unit (DU) 120, where the number of DUs 120 is multiple, and the multiple DUs 120 are all correspondingly connected to the CU110, and the DU120 may include, but is not limited to, a first DU121 and a second DU122, and accordingly, the first DU121 and the second DU122 also correspond to the CU110, and specifically, information interaction between the CU110 and each corresponding DU120 is enabled, so that the CU110 can correspondingly adjust or control a load condition of each DU120 corresponding to the CU110 through the interacted information, thereby enabling load balancing of each DU 120.

In an embodiment, the system architecture 100 may be applied to, but is not limited to, a 5G base station, and for each station in the 5G base station, each station may set the corresponding system architecture 100, that is, a single CU110 and a plurality of DUs 120 corresponding to the CU110 are set, so that the CU110 can perform centralized management on the corresponding DU120, thereby facilitating implementation of sharing of baseband resources in the 5G base station, facilitating implementation of slicing and clouding of wireless access, and also solving a problem of station cooperation under a complex networking condition of the 5G base station.

In an embodiment, the CU110 may be provided in multiple numbers, and each CU110 may correspond to a corresponding number of DUs 120, that is, multiple sets of communication units consisting of CUs 110 and corresponding DUs 120 may be included in the system architecture 100, and for a user, the user may perform communication based on any one communication unit, so as to meet the communication requirement of the user.

In an embodiment, when the plurality of CUs 110 are provided, information interaction may also be performed between different CUs 110, that is, each CU110 may obtain related information sent by any one of the other CUs 110, so as to obtain a current communication status of the DU120 corresponding to the CU110 through the related information sent by the CU110, and since the CU110 and the corresponding DU120 form a communication unit, each communication unit has a capability of obtaining the current communication status of the other communication units in the system architecture 100, which is beneficial to achieve more reasonable communication resource allocation between the communication units, so as to meet a communication requirement of a user under a current condition.

DU120 and CU110 may each include a memory and a processor, respectively, where the memory and the processor may be connected by a bus or other means.

The memory, which is a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, may be used to store non-transitory software programs as well as non-transitory computer executable programs. Further, the memory may include high speed random access memory, and may also include non-transitory memory, such as at least one disk storage device, flash memory device, or other non-transitory solid state storage device. In some embodiments, the memory optionally includes memory located remotely from the processor, and these remote memories may be connected to the processor through a network. Examples of such networks include, but are not limited to, the internet, intranets, local area networks, mobile communication networks, and combinations thereof.

The system architecture 100 and the application scenario described in the embodiment of the present invention are for more clearly illustrating the technical solution of the embodiment of the present invention, and do not constitute a limitation to the technical solution provided in the embodiment of the present invention, and it is known to those skilled in the art that along with the evolution of the system architecture 100 and the appearance of a new application scenario, the technical solution provided in the embodiment of the present invention is also applicable to similar technical problems.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the system architecture 100 shown in FIG. 1 does not constitute a limitation on embodiments of the invention, and may include more or fewer components than those shown, or some of the components may be combined, or a different arrangement of components.

In the system architecture 100 shown in fig. 1, the DU120 or CU110 may invoke its stored load balancing program respectively to execute the load balancing method.

Based on the structure of the system architecture 100, various embodiments of the load balancing method of the present invention are proposed.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a load balancing method according to an embodiment of the present invention, which can be applied to the CU in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, and includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S100, acquiring load information of each DU corresponding to the CU, wherein the load information is used for representing the current service bearing state of the DU;

step S200, determining heavy load DU and light load DU from all DUs according to all load information;

step S300, acquiring the beam coverage of the light load DU and the service measurement information from the heavy load DU, and determining the area to be balanced in the beam coverage of the heavy load DU according to the beam coverage of the light load DU and the service measurement information;

step S400, sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU and the light load DU, so that the heavy load DU and the light load DU can carry out balancing adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy.

In one embodiment, a CU determines a heavy-load DU with a relatively large traffic capacity and a light-load DU with a relatively small traffic capacity from all DUs, and the CU also determines the area where traffic balancing is needed within the beam coverage of the heavy-loaded DU, meanwhile, the CU also sets corresponding load balancing strategies for the heavy load DU and the light load DU, so that the heavy load DU and the light load DU can carry out balanced adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategies, thereby, the terminal in the area to be balanced can be switched from the heavy load DU to the light load DU, thereby not only reducing the service bearing load in the heavy load DU, meanwhile, a stable and reliable communication environment can be provided for the switched terminal, so that the scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention can realize load balance adjustment among different cells, thereby improving the communication quality of the cells.

It should be noted that "heavy load" or "light load" is not used to limit the load of the DU to be heavy or light, but is merely used as a comparative adverb to describe the relative load degree of the DU, that is, to indicate that the heavy load DU is heavier than the light load DU, or that the light load DU is lighter than the light load DU, as for the actual load of the heavy load DU and the light load DU, which can be obtained according to the actual situation, in this embodiment, the actual load is not described in a limiting manner, and for the purpose of avoiding ambiguity, this description is provided here.

It should be noted that the beam coverage of the light-duty DU is different from the beam coverage of the light-duty DU, wherein the beam coverage represents the theoretically maximum coverage of the beam of the light-duty DU, and the beam coverage represents the actual coverage of the beam of the light-duty DU under the current conditions.

In an embodiment, the load information is used to indicate a current traffic bearer state of the DU, where the traffic bearer state may be, but is not limited to, characterized by the following traffic bearer parameters: the number of all terminals in the coverage area of the current beam of the DU, the current throughput of the DU, or other relevant parameters that may be used to characterize the current service bearer state of the DU, for example, relevant parameters that affect the access of the terminal to the coverage area of the current beam of the DU, relevant parameters that affect the current throughput of the DU, and the like, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In an embodiment, the service bearing parameters of all DUs can be obtained through the load information, and the heavy-load DU and the light-load DU can be determined based on the service bearing parameters, specifically, as shown in fig. 3, step S200 includes, but is not limited to:

step S210, obtaining the service bearing parameters of all DUs according to all load information, determining that the first service DU is a heavy load DU from all DUs, and determining that the second service DU is a light load DU, wherein the service bearing parameter of the first service DU is greater than or equal to a first threshold, and the service bearing parameter of the second service DU is less than a second threshold.

In an embodiment, by setting the first threshold and the second threshold and comparing the size of the service bearing parameter with the first threshold and the second threshold, the section in which the service bearing parameter is located relative to the first threshold and the second threshold can be determined, so that the DU corresponding to the located section can be determined to be a heavy-load DU or a light-load DU.

In an embodiment, specific values of the first threshold and the second threshold may be set according to different service bearer parameters, for example, when the service bearer parameter is the number of all terminals in the current beam coverage of the DU, the first threshold and the second threshold may be set as a number-of-terminals threshold, and similarly, when the service bearer parameter is the current throughput of the DU, the first threshold and the second threshold may be set as throughput thresholds, and so on, when the service bearer parameter is other related parameters, the first threshold and the second threshold may also be set accordingly, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In an embodiment, the first threshold and the second threshold may be the same value or different values; for the second case, there is obviously a threshold interval as a buffer between the first threshold and the second threshold, and accordingly, it may be determined that the traffic bearing parameters of the DUs in the threshold interval are between the traffic bearing parameters of the first traffic DU and the second traffic DU, and therefore, the part of the DUs is neither heavy-load DU nor light-load DU, and it is understood that, since specific values of the first threshold and the second threshold may be set variably, the corresponding values may also be set according to actual network conditions to determine the attribution thereof, for example, the specific values of the first threshold and the second threshold are changed to re-determine the part of the DUs as heavy-load DU or light-load DU, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In an embodiment, the area to be balanced is defined based on the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, and is used to indicate an area that needs to be load balanced within the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, and correspondingly, there may be an area that does not need to be load balanced within the beam coverage of the heavy load DU; only for the specific distribution of the area to be equalized within the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, it may belong to any part of the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, for example, the beam coverage of the heavy load is divided into a first area, a second area and a third area, where the third area is at the edge of the beam coverage, and the area to be equalized may be in the first area, the second area or the third area, it is noted that the specific distribution, shape and size of the first area, the second area and the third area may be set according to actual situations, and there may be multiple areas of the area to be equalized within the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In an embodiment, a load balancing policy may be formulated by a CU and sent to a corresponding DU, so that the corresponding DU can perform balancing adjustment on a connection state of a terminal in a region to be balanced according to the load balancing policy, where the load balancing policy may be sent in a manner of related information, for example, sending positioning information of the region to be balanced, or sending terminal information in the region to be balanced, or sending prompt information, where the prompt information is used to indicate that the CU has confirmed the heavy load DU and the light load DU, so as to prompt the heavy load DU and the light load DU to perform balancing adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the region to be balanced according to the load balancing policy under a current condition, or send related information obtained according to a current actual situation, and the present embodiment is not limited.

In an embodiment, the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced refers to whether the terminal in the area to be balanced is accessed to the heavy load DU, specifically, when the terminal is within the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, the terminal can perform communication under the condition of the heavy load DU, that is, is accessed to the heavy load DU.

As shown in fig. 4, step S400 includes, but is not limited to:

step S410, sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU, so that the heavy load DU releases the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy;

step S420, sending the load balancing policy to the light load DU, so that the light load DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy.

In an embodiment, by releasing the heavy load DU from the terminal in the area to be balanced, the service load borne by the area to be balanced can be reduced, so that the overall throughput performance of the heavy load DU is improved, and meanwhile, the light load DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced, that is, the light load DU is used for bearing the service load of the heavy load DU, so that the service load of the heavy load DU can be reduced, and a stable and reliable communication environment can be provided for the switched terminal.

As shown in fig. 5, in another embodiment, step S410 includes, but is not limited to:

step S411, sending a load balancing policy to the heavy load DU, so that the heavy load DU adjusts the beam coverage of the heavy load DU according to the load balancing policy to exclude the area to be balanced, and the heavy load DU releases the terminal in the area to be balanced.

In an embodiment, when the terminal is within the beam coverage of the heavy load DU, the terminal can perform communication under the condition of the heavy load DU, that is, access to the heavy load DU, so that the beam coverage of the heavy load DU can be adjusted so that the adjusted beam coverage does not include the area to be equalized, in this case, the terminal in the area to be equalized cannot receive the relevant beam sent by the heavy load DU for communication, that is, the terminal in the area to be equalized is already released by the heavy load DU at this time, and therefore does not access to the heavy load DU, which can be seen that the service burden of the area to be equalized is reduced in this way.

Similar to the above embodiment, as shown in fig. 6, step S420 includes, but is not limited to:

step S421, sending a load balancing policy to the light load DU, so that the light load DU adjusts the beam coverage of the light load DU according to the load balancing policy to include the area to be balanced, and the light load DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced.

In an embodiment, after determining the light-load DU, the terminal in the area to be balanced may receive the relevant beam sent by the light-load DU for communication by adjusting the beam coverage of the light-load DU so that the adjusted beam coverage includes the area to be balanced, that is, the terminal in the area to be balanced is already accessed by the light-load DU, which may be seen in this way to bear the traffic load of the heavy-load DU, thereby reducing the traffic load of the heavy-load DU.

It should be noted that the beam coverage in each of the above embodiments is related to a characteristic parameter of the beam itself, where the characteristic parameter may be, but is not limited to, a beam direction angle, a beam downward inclination angle, a beam envelope, a beam power, and the like, and when the beam coverage is adjusted, the beam coverage may be implemented by adjusting any one or more parameters of the beam coverage, that is, only the adjusted beam coverage satisfies a relevant requirement, and a person skilled in the art may select to change the corresponding characteristic parameter of the beam according to an actual situation to implement the adjustment, which is not limited in this embodiment.

To further illustrate the principles of the above embodiments, examples are given below for illustration.

Example one:

as shown in fig. 7, the coverage area of the original beam of the heavy-load DU (corresponding to the area a) is distributed in a triangular shape, and the edge area (corresponding to the area a1) is the area to be equalized, at this time, the coverage area of the original beam of the corresponding light load (corresponding to the area B) does not include the area a 1; when the beam coverage of the heavy-load DU and the light-load DU is adjusted accordingly, the current beam coverage of the heavy-load DU (corresponding to the area a ') does not include the area a1, i.e. the terminal in the area a1 is released, and at this time, the beam coverage of the corresponding light-load DU (corresponding to the area B') includes the area a1, i.e. the terminal in the area a1 is accessed.

As shown in fig. 8, in the case that the number of the light load DU is plural, step S420 includes, but is not limited to:

step S422, determining target DUs in all light load DUs according to the areas to be balanced and the beam coverage range of each light load DU;

step S423, sending the load balancing policy to the target DU, so that the target DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy.

In an embodiment, when the number of the light load DUs is multiple, that is, when there may exist light load DUs that can access terminals in multiple areas to be balanced, the target DU may be determined in all the light load DUs through the areas to be balanced and the beam coverage range of each light load DU, that is, whether the beam coverage range of the light load DU can cover the areas to be balanced is determined through the areas to be balanced and the beam coverage range of each light load DU, so that the light load DU in which the beam coverage range can cover the areas to be balanced is determined as the target DU, and therefore, the light load DU that can access the terminals in the areas to be balanced that meets the condition can be accurately and reliably found out from the multiple light load DUs in the above manner, which is beneficial to improving the adjustment effect of load balancing.

In an embodiment, the number of the determined target DUs may be multiple, that is, there are multiple light-load DUs that can access the terminal in the area to be equalized.

As shown in fig. 9, in another embodiment, in the case that the traffic measurement information includes beam information and measurement report information, step S300 includes, but is not limited to:

step S310, determining the position information of all terminals within the beam coverage range of the heavy-load DU according to the beam information and the measurement report information;

step S320, determining a region to be equalized from the beam coverage range of the heavy load DU according to the beam coverage range of the light load DU and the location information of all terminals, wherein the terminals in the region to be equalized are within the beam coverage range of the light load DU.

In an embodiment, by determining a corresponding terminal covered in a beam coverage range of a light-load DU, a region to be balanced can be determined from the beam coverage range of the heavy-load DU through the corresponding terminal, and since all terminals in the region to be balanced can be taken over by the light-load DU, the light-load DU can reduce a service bearing load of the region to be balanced, thereby reducing the service bearing load of the heavy-load DU as a whole.

In an embodiment, by acquiring location information of all terminals in the beam coverage area of the heavy load DU and summarizing all location information, all terminals in the beam coverage area of the heavy load DU can be determined, and further, a target area to be balanced that meets the actual network operation requirements can be determined according to the number of terminals in the area to be balanced, specifically, if the number of terminals in the area to be balanced is less than or equal to the third threshold, a corresponding area in which the number of terminals in the area to be balanced is less than or equal to the third threshold can be determined as the target area to be balanced, it can be understood that, because the area to be balanced is too large in actual application, for example, more than 80% of terminals in the heavy load DU are included in the area to be balanced, although theoretically, all the terminals can be taken over by the light load DU, but if all the terminals are released from the heavy load DU, it may cause a situation that the heavy-load DU cannot complete normal communication service, which obviously does not meet the actual requirement, and therefore, the third threshold is set to screen out a part of the regions to be balanced to achieve load balancing, so that the above situation can be avoided, and the communication quality of the cell is further improved.

In an embodiment, beam information and Measurement Report information may be obtained by the heavy-load DU from all terminals, specifically, the heavy-load DU can obtain, for all terminals within the coverage of the beam after issuing the corresponding beam, the beam information and the Measurement Report information thereof, where the beam information is used to confirm whether the terminal corresponds to the corresponding beam issued by the heavy-load DU, and the Measurement Report (MR) information may be obtained by measuring a traffic channel where the terminal is located, so as to evaluate a current network condition of the location where the terminal is located.

In an embodiment, the specific values of the third threshold may be respectively set according to different areas to be balanced, which is not limited in this embodiment, for example, since the service loads between the areas to be balanced may be different, the third threshold may be respectively determined according to the specific service load values of the areas to be balanced, where the specific service load values may be determined according to actual situations, and are not described herein again to avoid redundancy.

Example two:

referring to fig. 10, the beam coverage areas of the heavy load DU are distributed in a rectangular shape, and the number of all terminals in the beam coverage area of the heavy load DU is determined to be 100, where the location information of 10 terminals is the same, and thus the first area corresponding to the location information is determined by the 10 terminals, and similarly, the location information of another 30 terminals is also the same (but different from the location information of the 10 terminals), and a second area is determined based on this, and so on, and the location information of the remaining 60 terminals is the same, and a third area is determined based on this; further, which area is determined to be an area to be equalized according to the second threshold, for example, when the second threshold is set to 50, it may be determined that the third area is the area to be equalized, or when the second threshold is set to 25, it may be determined that both the second area and the third area are the areas to be equalized; meanwhile, it can also be seen that the area to be equalized is not necessarily an area with a relatively large coverage, i.e. the coverage has no direct relation with the number of terminals in the area, for example, as shown in fig. 10, although the second area is smaller than the coverage of the first area, the number of terminals in the second area is greater than the number of terminals in the first area, and therefore, the second area is more likely to be determined as the area to be equalized.

As shown in fig. 11, another embodiment of the present invention further provides a load balancing method, which can be applied to the first DU in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, and the method includes, but is not limited to:

step S500, sending load information to the CU, so that the CU determines the first DU as a heavy load DU according to the load information, wherein the load information is used for representing the current service bearing state of the first DU;

step S600, sending service measurement information to a CU (control Unit) so that the CU can determine a region to be balanced in a beam coverage range of a first DU according to the service measurement information and the obtained beam coverage range of the light-load DU by the CU;

and step S700, acquiring a load balancing strategy from the CU, and performing balance adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy by matching with the light load DU acquired from the load balancing strategy.

In an embodiment, when the first DU is determined to be a heavy load DU, the CU is enabled to determine, according to the service measurement information and the beam coverable range of the light load DU acquired by the CU, an area that needs to be subjected to service balancing within the beam coverage range of the first DU by sending the service measurement information to the CU, and meanwhile, a corresponding load balancing policy is set for the first DU, so that the first DU and the corresponding light load DU can perform balancing adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy, and thus the terminal in the area to be balanced can be switched from within the first DU to within the light load DU, which can both reduce the service bearing load in the first DU and provide a stable and reliable communication environment for the terminal after switching, and therefore, the solution provided by the embodiment of the present invention can implement load balancing adjustment between different cells, thereby improving the communication quality of the cell.

In another embodiment, the step S700 of "performing balance adjustment on the connection states of the terminals in the to-be-balanced area according to the load balancing policy" includes but is not limited to:

and step S710, releasing the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy.

In an embodiment, the first DU releases the terminal in the area to be balanced, which may reduce the service load carried by the area to be balanced, thereby improving the overall throughput performance of the first DU and further improving the overall communication quality of the cell.

In another embodiment, step S710 includes, but is not limited to:

step S711 adjusts a beam coverage of the first DU according to the load balancing policy, where the adjusted beam coverage does not include the area to be balanced.

In an embodiment, by adjusting the beam coverage of the first DU so that the adjusted beam coverage does not include the area to be equalized, in this case, the terminal in the area to be equalized cannot receive the relevant beam sent by the first DU for communication, that is, the terminal in the area to be equalized is already released by the first DU and is not accessed into the first DU, it can be seen that the traffic burden of the area to be equalized is reduced in this way.

Since the load balancing method in each embodiment described above and the load balancing method in the embodiment shown in fig. 2 to 10 belong to the same inventive concept, the specific implementation of the load balancing method in each embodiment described above may refer to the specific implementation of the load balancing method in the embodiment shown in fig. 2 to 10, and in order to avoid redundancy, the specific implementation of the load balancing method in each embodiment described above is not described herein again.

As shown in fig. 12, another embodiment of the present invention further provides a load balancing method, which can be applied to the second DU in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, and the method includes, but is not limited to:

step S800, sending load information to the CU, so that the CU determines that the second DU is a light load DU according to the load information, wherein the load information is used for representing the current service bearing state of the second DU;

and step S900, acquiring a load balancing strategy from the CU, and performing balancing adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the region to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy by matching with the heavy load DU acquired by the load balancing strategy, wherein the region to be balanced is determined by the CU in the beam coverage range of the heavy load DU according to the service measurement information from the heavy load DU and the beam coverable range from the second DU.

In an embodiment, when the second DU is determined to be a light-load DU, the second DU and the corresponding heavy-load DU can perform balance adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to a load balancing policy, so that the terminal in the area to be balanced can be switched from the heavy-load DU into the second DU, which can reduce the service bearing load in the heavy-load DU and can provide a stable and reliable communication environment for the switched terminal.

In another embodiment, the "performing balance adjustment on the connection state of the terminal in the to-be-balanced region according to the load balancing policy" in step S900 includes, but is not limited to:

step S910, accessing the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy.

In an embodiment, by accessing the terminal in the area to be balanced, that is, using the second DU to bear the service load of the heavy-load DU, the service load of the heavy-load DU can be reduced, and it is also ensured that a stable and reliable communication environment is provided for the terminal after handover.

In another embodiment, step S910 includes, but is not limited to:

step S911, adjusting a beam coverage of the second DU according to the load balancing policy, where the adjusted beam coverage includes a region to be balanced.

In an embodiment, by adjusting the beam coverage of the second DU so that the adjusted beam coverage includes the area to be balanced, in this case, the terminal in the area to be balanced may receive the relevant beam sent by the second DU for communication, that is, the terminal in the area to be balanced is already accessed by the second DU at this time, it can bear the traffic load of the heavy DU in this way, and thus the traffic load of the heavy DU can be reduced.

In addition, as shown in fig. 13, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a load balancing apparatus 200, where the load balancing apparatus 200 includes: memory 210, processor 220, and computer programs stored on memory 210 and executable on processor 220.

The processor 220 and the memory 210 may be connected by a bus or other means.

It should be noted that the load balancing apparatus 200 in this embodiment may be applied to the system architecture in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the nodes in this embodiment can form a part of the system architecture in the embodiment shown in fig. 1, and these embodiments all belong to the same inventive concept, so these embodiments have the same implementation principle and technical effect, and are not described in detail here.

Non-transitory software programs and instructions required to implement the load balancing method of the above-described embodiment are stored in the memory 210, and when executed by the processor 220, perform the load balancing method of the above-described embodiment, for example, perform the method steps S100 to S400 in fig. 2, the method step S210 in fig. 3, the method steps S410 to S420 in fig. 4, the method step S411 in fig. 5, the method step S421 in fig. 6, the method steps S422 to S423 in fig. 8, the method steps S310 to S320 in fig. 9, the method steps S500 to S700 in fig. 11, the method steps S800 to S900 in fig. 12, the method step S710, the method step S711, the method step S910, or the method step S911 described above.

In addition, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a base station, including: a load balancing apparatus as described above.

Since the base station in this embodiment and the load balancing apparatus in the above embodiments belong to the same inventive concept, the specific implementation of the base station in this embodiment may refer to the specific implementation of the load balancing apparatus in the above embodiments, and in order to avoid redundancy, the specific implementation of the base station in this embodiment is not described herein again.

The above-described embodiments of the apparatus are merely illustrative, wherein the units illustrated as separate components may or may not be physically separate, i.e. may be located in one place, or may also be distributed over a plurality of network elements. Some or all of the modules may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the present embodiment.

Furthermore, an embodiment of the present invention provides a computer-readable storage medium, where the computer-readable storage medium stores computer-executable instructions, which are executed by a processor or a controller, for example, by a processor in the node embodiment, and enable the processor to execute the load balancing method in the node embodiment, for example, to execute the method steps S100 to S400 in fig. 2, the method step S210 in fig. 3, the method steps S410 to S420 in fig. 4, the method step S411 in fig. 5, the method step S421 in fig. 6, the method steps S422 to S423 in fig. 8, the method steps S310 to S320 in fig. 9, the method steps S500 to S700 in fig. 11, the method steps S800 to S900 in fig. 12, the method step S710, the method step S711, the method step S910, or the method step S911 described above.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or some of the steps, systems, and methods disclosed above may be implemented as software, firmware, hardware, and suitable combinations thereof. Some or all of the physical components may be implemented as software executed by a processor, such as a central processing unit, digital signal processor, or microprocessor, or as hardware, or as an integrated circuit, such as an application specific integrated circuit. Such software may be distributed on computer readable media, which may include computer storage media (or non-transitory media) and communication media (or transitory media). The term computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data, as is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, Digital Versatile Disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by a computer. In addition, communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media as known to those skilled in the art.

While the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the foregoing and various other changes, omissions and deviations in the form and detail thereof may be made without departing from the scope of this invention.

Claims

1. A load balancing method is applied to a Central Unit (CU), and comprises the following steps:

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the sending a load balancing policy to the heavy-load DU and the light-load DU to enable the heavy-load DU and the light-load DU to perform balancing adjustment on the connection status of the terminals in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy comprises:

sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU, so that the heavy load DU releases the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy;

and the number of the first and second groups,

and sending the load balancing strategy to the light load DU, so that the light load DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the sending a load balancing policy to the heavy load DU to enable the heavy load DU to release the terminals in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy comprises:

sending a load balancing strategy to the heavy load DU, so that the heavy load DU adjusts the beam coverage of the heavy load DU according to the load balancing strategy to exclude the area to be balanced, and the heavy load DU releases the terminal in the area to be balanced;

and the number of the first and second groups,

the sending the load balancing policy to the light load DU to enable the light load DU to access the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy includes:

and sending a load balancing strategy to the light load DU, so that the light load DU adjusts the beam coverage of the light load DU according to the load balancing strategy to include the area to be balanced, and the light load DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the number of the light load DUs is multiple, and the sending the load balancing policy to the light load DUs to enable the light load DUs to access the terminals in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy comprises:

determining target DUs in all the light load DUs according to the areas to be balanced and the beam coverage range of each light load DU;

and sending the load balancing strategy to the target DU, so that the target DU is accessed to the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing strategy.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining heavy-loaded DUs and light-loaded DUs from all of the DUs according to all of the load information comprises:

and acquiring service bearing parameters of all the DUs according to all the load information, determining a first service DU as a heavy load DU and determining a second service DU as a light load DU from all the DUs, wherein the service bearing parameters of the first service DU are greater than or equal to a first threshold value, and the service bearing parameters of the second service DU are less than a second threshold value.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the traffic measurement information comprises beam information and measurement report information; the determining a region to be equalized within the beam coverage range of the heavy-load DU according to the beam coverage range of the light-load DU and the service measurement information includes:

determining the position information of all terminals within the beam coverage range of the heavy-load DU according to the beam information and the measurement report information;

and determining the area to be balanced from the beam coverage range of the heavy load DU according to the beam coverage range of the light load DU and the position information of all the terminals, wherein the terminals in the area to be balanced are positioned in the beam coverage range of the light load DU.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the number of terminals in the area to be equalized is less than or equal to a third threshold.

8. A load balancing method applied to a first DU comprises the following steps:

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the performing balance adjustment on the connection status of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy comprises:

and adjusting the beam coverage range according to the load balancing strategy, wherein the adjusted beam coverage range does not comprise the area to be balanced.

10. A load balancing method applied to a second DU comprises the following steps:

sending load information to a CU (Unit), so that the CU determines that the second DU is a light load DU according to the load information;

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the performing balance adjustment on the connection status of the terminal in the area to be balanced according to the load balancing policy comprises:

and adjusting the beam coverage range according to the load balancing strategy, wherein the adjusted beam coverage range comprises the area to be balanced.

12. A load balancing apparatus comprising a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, wherein the processor implements the load balancing method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, or implements the load balancing method according to any one of claims 8 to 9, or implements the load balancing method according to any one of claims 10 to 11 when executing the computer program.

13. A base station, comprising: the load balancing apparatus of claim 12.

14. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing the load balancing method of any one of claims 1 to 7, or performing the load balancing method of any one of claims 8 to 9, or performing the load balancing method of any one of claims 10 to 11.