CN115474243A

CN115474243A - Communication method, device and system

Info

Publication number: CN115474243A
Application number: CN202110651340.0A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 罗海燕; 彭文杰
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2021-06-10
Filing date: 2021-06-10
Publication date: 2022-12-13
Also published as: WO2022257823A1

Abstract

The application provides a communication method, a device and a system, wherein the method comprises the following steps: and the first network node acquires and broadcasts or sends second information used for indicating the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node to the second access network equipment, so that the terminal equipment positioned in the coverage range of the network node can identify the cell supporting the PC5 interface and select the cell when the cell is selected. In addition, after receiving the second information, the second access device may obtain first information in response to the second information, and send the first information to the first access network device, so that the first access network device broadcasts the first information, where the first information includes identification information of the first cell and first indication information indicating that the first cell is a cell supporting the PC5 interface, so that the terminal device residing in the cell of the first access network device can identify the first cell supporting the PC5 interface, and further select the first cell when reselecting the cell.

Description

Communication method, device and system

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a communication method, apparatus, and system.

Background

In a conventional cellular network, communication between terminals is achieved by relay of access network equipment. In proximity service (ProSe) communication, for example, device to device (D2D), machine to machine (M2M), and vehicle to internet (V2X), terminals may directly communicate with each other through a Sidelink (SL), and an interface of a terminal device corresponding to the sidelink may be referred to as a PC5 interface. As shown in fig. 1, a terminal 1 and a terminal 3, and a terminal 4 and a terminal 5 communicate through a sidelink, the terminal 1 and the terminal 2 communicate through a relay of an access network device, for example, the terminal 1 sends data to the access network device through a Uu interface, and the access network device forwards the data from the terminal 1 to the terminal 2 through the Uu interface.

In order to improve network performance, such as network coverage, the following solutions are proposed: communication between the terminal and the access network equipment is facilitated using an intermediate node that communicates with the terminal over a sidelink. In the above solution, there are some implementation details that need to be discussed.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a communication method, a communication device and a communication system, which enable terminal equipment to possibly select and reside a PC5 cell during cell selection or reselection under the scene that the network node assists communication between a terminal and access network equipment and manages the PC5 cell.

In a first aspect, a communication method is provided, which may be performed by a first network node, or may be performed by a component of the first network node, such as a processor, a chip, or a system of chips of the first network node, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the first network node. The method comprises the following steps: and acquiring and sending second information, wherein the second information is used for indicating the cell which supports the PC5 interface and is managed by the first network node.

Based on the scheme, the receiver of the second information can know that the first network node is the network node supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the PC5 interface and managed by the first network node, so that the subsequent processing is performed according to the second information. For example, when the receiver of the second information is a terminal device within the coverage of the first network node, the terminal device is enabled to sense a cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node, so that the terminal device is enabled to possibly select the cell supporting the PC5 interface and camp on the cell during cell selection.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain embodiments of the first aspect, the sending the second information includes: and sending the second information to the second access network equipment, wherein the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network equipment.

Based on the embodiment, the second access network device can know that the first network node is a network node supporting the PC5 interface and a cell supporting the PC5 interface and managed by the first network node.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain embodiments of the first aspect, sending the second information includes: the second information is broadcast over the PC5 interface.

Based on the embodiment, the terminal device located in the coverage area of the first network node is enabled to sense the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain embodiments of the first aspect, the method further comprises: broadcasting a second offset value for use in the determination of the cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev, and/or the cell selection received signal quality value Squal, for the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

Based on the embodiment, the terminal device in the coverage area of the first network node can consider the cell supporting the PC5 interface when performing cell selection, and perform the correlation calculation corresponding to the cell supporting the PC5 interface according to the second offset value, thereby solving the cell selection problem when the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the Uu interface coexist.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain embodiments of the first aspect, the second information includes identification information of the cell and second indication information, and the second indication information indicates that the first network node is a network node supporting a PC5 interface; or the second information includes the identification information of the cell and third indication information corresponding to the identification information of the cell, and the third indication information indicates that the cell is a cell supporting the PC5 interface.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain embodiments of the first aspect, the method further comprises: and sending the associated information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface, wherein the associated information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface comprises a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

Based on the embodiment, the terminal device receiving the association information of the first cell may subsequently establish a connection with the first network node using the association information of the first cell, so as to access the first cell.

In a second aspect, a communication method is provided, which may be executed by a second access network device, or may be executed by a component of the second access network device, such as a processor, a chip, or a chip system of the second access network device, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the second access network device. The method comprises the following steps: and acquiring and sending first information, wherein the first information comprises identification information and first indication information of the first cell, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

Based on the scheme, the second access network device sends the first information, so that a receiver of the first information can know that the first cell is a cell supporting the PC5 interface, and subsequent operation is performed according to the first information. For example, when the receiver of the first information is the first access network device, the first access network device may broadcast the first information, so that the terminal device in the coverage area of the first access network device may reselect to the first cell.

With reference to the second aspect, in some embodiments of the second aspect, sending the first information includes: and sending the first information to the first access network equipment and/or the third terminal equipment.

Based on this embodiment, by sending the first information to the first access network device, the first access network device can acquire the cell supporting the PC5 interface under the network node managed by the second access network device, so that the first access network device can configure the relevant information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface to the terminal device located in the coverage area of the first access network device, so as to implement the relevant operation of the terminal device on the cell supporting the PC5 interface, such as cell reselection or cell measurement.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain embodiments of the second aspect, the obtaining the first information includes: receiving second information from a first network node, wherein the second information is used for indicating a cell which is managed by the first network node and supports a PC5 interface, and the first network node is a network node managed by a second access network device; in response to the second information, first information is acquired.

With reference to the second aspect, in some embodiments of the second aspect, the second information includes identification information of the cell and second indication information, and the second indication information indicates that the first network node is a network node supporting a PC5 interface; or the second information includes the identification information of the cell and third indication information corresponding to the identification information of the cell, and the third indication information indicates that the cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain embodiments of the second aspect, the method further comprises: the method comprises receiving association information of a first cell from a first network node and transmitting the association information of the first cell. The association information of the first cell includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell, and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell.

In a third aspect, a communication method is provided, where the method may be performed by a first access network device, or may be performed by a component of the first access network device, such as a processor, a chip, or a chip system of the first access network device, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the first access network device. The method comprises the following steps: first information is acquired and broadcast. The first information comprises identification information of the first cell and first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

Based on the scheme, the first access network device obtains and broadcasts the first information, and the terminal device located within the coverage area of the first access network device can perceive the first cell as a cell supporting the PC5 interface, so that the terminal device can branch the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the Uu interface in the cell reselection process, and the terminal device can possibly reselect the cell supporting the PC5 interface in the cell reselection process, thereby solving the cell reselection problem when the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the Uu interface coexist.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain embodiments of the third aspect, obtaining the first information includes: and receiving first information from the second access network equipment, wherein the first cell is a cell managed by the first network node, and the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network equipment.

Based on the embodiment, the first access network device can acquire the cell supporting the PC5 interface, which is managed by the network node managed by the second access network device adjacent to the first access network device, so that the first access network device can broadcast the information, and further, the terminal device in the coverage area of the first access network device can perceive the first cell as the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain embodiments of the third aspect, obtaining the first information includes: first information is received from a first terminal device.

With reference to the third aspect, in some embodiments of the third aspect, receiving first information from a first terminal device includes: a measurement report is received from a first terminal device, the measurement report comprising first information.

Based on the embodiment, the first access network device can identify the first cell supporting the PC5 interface through the measurement result reported by the terminal device, so that the first information can be broadcasted, and the terminal device in the coverage area of the first access network device can perceive the first cell as the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain embodiments of the third aspect, the method further comprises: broadcasting a first offset value for determination of at least one of the signal quality level Rn of the first cell, the cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev, or the cell selection received signal quality value Squal.

Based on the embodiment, when performing cell reselection, the terminal device located in the coverage area of the first network node can consider the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and perform the relevant calculation corresponding to the cell supporting the PC5 interface according to the first offset value, so that the terminal device is likely to reselect to the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

With reference to the third aspect, in certain embodiments of the third aspect, the method further comprises: the first access network equipment sends the measurement configuration information of the first cell to the second terminal equipment, wherein the measurement configuration information comprises measurement object configuration information and/or reporting configuration information.

Based on the embodiment, the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the network node can be measured and configured, and the terminal device can measure and report the cell supporting the PC5 interface, so that the access network device can know the quality and other conditions of the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and the access network device can perform mobility management more accurately.

With reference to the third aspect, in some embodiments of the third aspect, the measurement object configuration information includes identification information of the first cell and information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the first cell.

Based on the embodiment, the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell can be indicated to the terminal device, so that the terminal device can measure the resource of the resource pool, for example, measure the reference signal sent by the first network node on the resource of the resource pool, and then report the measurement result.

With reference to the third aspect, in some embodiments of the third aspect, the reporting configuration information includes a measurement signal type on a PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell, and/or a measurement trigger quantity of the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell.

Based on the embodiment, the type of the signal that the terminal device needs to measure can be indicated to the terminal device, for example, when the measurement signal type includes the DMRS, the terminal device may measure the quality of the DMRS transmitted by the first network node on the resource of the resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

In a fourth aspect, a communication method is provided, which may be executed by an access network device, or may be executed by a component of the access network device, such as a processor, a chip, or a chip system of the access network device, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the access network device. The method comprises the following steps: and determining and sending measurement configuration information of a first cell to the terminal equipment, wherein the measurement configuration information comprises measurement object configuration information and/or reporting configuration information, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface. A measurement result of a first cell from a terminal device is received.

Based on the scheme, under the scene of introducing the network node supporting the PC5 interface, the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the network node can be measured and configured, and the terminal device can measure and report the cell supporting the PC5 interface, so that the access network device can know the quality and other conditions of the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and the access network device can accurately perform mobility management.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some embodiments of the fourth aspect, the measurement object configuration information includes identification information of the first cell and information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

Based on the embodiment, the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell can be indicated to the terminal device, so that the terminal device can measure on the resource of the resource pool, for example, measure a reference signal sent by the first network node on the resource of the resource pool, and then report the measurement result.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some embodiments of the fourth aspect, the reporting configuration information includes a measurement signal type on a PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell, and/or a measurement trigger quantity of the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some embodiments of the fourth aspect, the measurement result of the first cell is a measurement result of cell granularity; alternatively, the measurement result of the first cell is a measurement result of beam granularity.

Based on the embodiment, the terminal equipment can report the measurement results of different granularities according to the reporting configuration, and the flexibility is improved.

In a fifth aspect, a communication method is provided, which may be performed by a first network node, or may be performed by a component of the first network node, such as a processor, a chip, or a system of chips of the first network node, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the first network node. The method comprises the following steps: receiving first request information from terminal equipment, wherein the first request information is used for requesting to access a first cell managed by a first network node, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; responding to the first request information, and distributing a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI (radio network temporary identifier) under a first cell for the terminal equipment; and sending the C-RNTI to the terminal equipment.

Based on the scheme, the terminal equipment requests the first network node to access the first cell through the PC5 interface, the first network node allocates the C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the first cell for the terminal equipment, so that the terminal equipment can access the first cell, and the initial access after the network node is introduced is realized. In addition, the first network node allocates a C-RNTI in the first cell to the terminal device, and if connection failure occurs subsequently, when the terminal device reestablishes the RRC to the access network device, the terminal device may carry the cell identifier of the first cell and the C-RNTI in the RRC reestablishment message, so that the access network device during RRC reestablishment can identify the terminal device, and the first network node providing service for the terminal device or the second access network device managing the network node before RRC reestablishment, thereby requesting the context of the terminal device from the first network node or the second access network device to complete the RRC reestablishment process.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in some embodiments of the fifth aspect, the first request information includes identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in some embodiments of the fifth aspect, the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, or an identifier of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in some embodiments of the fifth aspect, receiving the first request information from the terminal device includes: and receiving first request information from the terminal equipment on resources in a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

Based on the above three embodiments, the terminal device carries the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell in the first request information, or sends the first request information on the resource of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, and under the condition that the first request information does not carry the longer identification information of the first cell, the first network node can also identify the cell that the terminal device wants to access, so that signaling overhead can be saved.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain embodiments of the fifth aspect, the method further comprises: and receiving a first Radio Resource Control (RRC) message from the terminal equipment, and sending the first RRC message to the second access network equipment. The first RRC message is used for requesting to establish, reestablish or recover RRC connection; the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in certain embodiments of the fifth aspect, the method further comprises: and receiving a second RRC message from the second access network equipment, and sending the second RRC message to the terminal equipment. The second RRC message is a response message to the first RRC message.

In a sixth aspect, a communication method is provided, which may be executed by a terminal device, or may be executed by a component of the terminal device, such as a processor, a chip, or a system of chips of the terminal device, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the terminal device. The method comprises the following steps: sending first request information to a first network node, wherein the first request information is used for requesting to access a first cell managed by the first network node, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; and receiving a radio network temporary identity C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the first cell from the first network node.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain embodiments of the sixth aspect, the method further comprises: and receiving first information, wherein the first information comprises identification information of the first cell and first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in certain embodiments of the sixth aspect, the method further comprises: and receiving the associated information of the first cell, wherein the associated information of the first cell comprises a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some embodiments of the sixth aspect, the first request information includes identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some embodiments of the sixth aspect, the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, or an identifier of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in some embodiments of the sixth aspect, the association information of the first cell includes information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell; sending a first request message to a first network node, comprising: and sending first request information to the first network node on the resource in the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

For technical effects brought by the method in the sixth aspect and any embodiment thereof, reference may be made to the technical effects brought by the corresponding method in the fifth aspect, and details are not repeated here.

In a seventh aspect, a communication method is provided, where the method may be executed by a third access network device, or may be executed by a component of the third access network device, such as a processor, a chip, or a chip system of the third access network device, or may be implemented by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the third access network device. The method comprises the following steps: determining a target cell, wherein the target cell is a cell which supports a PC5 interface and is managed by a second network node; sending second request information to the target equipment, wherein the second request information is used for requesting the terminal equipment to be connected to the target cell; receiving response information from the target equipment, wherein the response information is used for indicating to accept the terminal equipment; and sending a Radio Resource Control (RRC) reconfiguration message to the terminal equipment, wherein the RRC reconfiguration message is used for indicating the terminal equipment to initiate a process of establishing the PC5 interface connection with the second network node.

Based on the scheme, the terminal equipment can be connected to the target network node from the source network node, so that mobility management after the network node is introduced is realized.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some embodiments of the seventh aspect, the target device is a fourth access network device, and the second network node is a network node managed by the fourth access network device; the second request information includes identification information of the target cell; the response information comprises the identification information of the target cell, a layer two identification corresponding to the identification information of the target cell and a cell radio network temporary identification C-RNTI of the terminal equipment under the target cell.

Based on the embodiment, the second network node is a network node managed by the fourth access network device, and the target network node is not a network node managed by the source access network device, so that switching of the terminal device between different network nodes managed by different access network devices can be realized.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some implementations of the seventh aspect, the second request information is handover request information.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in certain embodiments of the seventh aspect, the target device is a second network node; the second request information includes identification information of the target cell; the response information comprises a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell and the C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the target cell.

Based on the embodiment, the third access network device sends the second request information to the second network node, so that the second network node is a network node managed by the third access network device, that is, the terminal device can be switched between different network nodes managed by the same access network device.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some embodiments of the seventh aspect, the RRC reconfiguration message includes the identity information of the target cell, a layer two identity corresponding to the identity information of the target cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell.

Based on the embodiment, the terminal device can be enabled to establish a unicast connection with the second network node according to the RRC reconfiguration message.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some implementations of the seventh aspect, the second response information further includes PC5 configuration information, and the PC5 configuration information is used to establish a PC5 interface connection between the terminal device and the second network node.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in some embodiments of the seventh aspect, the RRC reconfiguration message further includes PC5 configuration information. Based on the embodiment, when the terminal device and the second network node establish the PC5 interface connection, communication can be performed based on the PC5 configuration.

In an eighth aspect, a communications device is provided for implementing the various methods described above. The communication device includes corresponding modules, units, or means (means) for implementing the above methods, and the modules, units, or means may be implemented by hardware, software, or by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more modules or units corresponding to the above functions. The communication device may be the terminal device in the above aspect, or a device including the terminal device, or a device included in the terminal device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be the access network device in the above aspect, or a device including the access network device, or a device included in the access network device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be a network node in the above aspect, or a device including the above network node, or a device included in the above network node, such as a chip.

In some possible designs, the communication device may include a transceiver module. Further, a processing module can be included. The transceiver module, which may also be referred to as a transceiver unit, is configured to implement the transmitting and/or receiving functions in any of the above aspects and any possible implementation manners. The transceiver module may be formed by a transceiver circuit, a transceiver or a communication interface. The processing module may be configured to implement the processing function in any of the above aspects and any possible implementation manner thereof.

In some possible designs, the transceiver module includes a transmitting module and a receiving module, which are respectively used for implementing the transmitting and receiving functions in any one of the above aspects and any possible implementation manner thereof.

In a ninth aspect, there is provided a communication apparatus comprising: a processor and a memory; the memory is used for storing computer instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the communication apparatus to execute the method according to any one of the above aspects, where the communication apparatus may be the terminal device in the above aspect, or an apparatus including the terminal device, or an apparatus included in the terminal device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be the access network device in the above aspect, or a device including the access network device, or a device included in the access network device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be a network node in the above aspect, or a device including the above network node, or a device included in the above network node, such as a chip.

In a tenth aspect, there is provided a communication apparatus comprising: a processor and a communication interface; the communication interface is used for communicating with a module outside the communication device; the processor is configured to execute a computer program or instructions to cause the communication device to perform the method of any of the above aspects. The communication device may be the terminal device in the above aspect, or a device including the terminal device, or a device included in the terminal device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be the access network device in the above aspect, or a device including the access network device, or a device included in the access network device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be a network node in the above aspect, or a device including the above network node, or a device included in the above network node, such as a chip.

In an eleventh aspect, a communication apparatus is provided, including: at least one processor; the processor is configured to execute a computer program or instructions stored in the memory to cause the communication device to perform the method of any of the above aspects. The memory may be coupled to the processor or may be independent of the processor. The communication device may be the terminal device in the above aspect, or a device including the terminal device, or a device included in the terminal device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be the access network device in the above aspect, or a device including the access network device, or a device included in the access network device, such as a chip; alternatively, the communication device may be a network node in the above aspect, or a device including the above network node, or a device included in the above network node, such as a chip.

In a twelfth aspect, there is provided a computer readable storage medium having stored therein a computer program or instructions which, when run on a communication device, causes the communication device to perform the method of any of the above aspects.

In a thirteenth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any of the above aspects.

In a fourteenth aspect, a communication device (which may be a chip or a system of chips, for example) is provided, which comprises a processor for implementing the functionality referred to in any of the above aspects.

In some possible designs, the communication device includes a memory for storing necessary program instructions and data.

In some possible designs, the apparatus may be a chip system, and may be composed of a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices.

It is to be understood that, when the communication device provided in any one of the eighth to fourteenth aspects is a chip, the above-mentioned transmitting operation/function may be understood as outputting information, and the above-mentioned receiving operation/function may be understood as inputting information.

For technical effects brought by any one of the design manners in the eighth aspect to the fourteenth aspect, reference may be made to the technical effects brought by different design manners in the first aspect to the seventh aspect, and details are not repeated herein.

A fifteenth aspect provides a communication system comprising an access network device, a network node, and a terminal device as described in the previous aspects.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication scenario provided in the present application;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an architecture of a centralized Unit-distributed Unit (CU-DU) according to the present application;

fig. 3a is a schematic diagram of a control plane protocol stack under a CU-DU architecture according to the present application;

fig. 3b is a schematic diagram of a user plane protocol stack under a CU-DU architecture according to the present application;

fig. 4 is a schematic view of another communication scenario provided by the present application;

fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication system provided in the present application;

fig. 6a is a schematic diagram of a control plane protocol stack corresponding to a communication system including a network node according to the present application;

fig. 6b is a schematic diagram of a user plane protocol stack corresponding to a communication system including a network node according to the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of another communication system provided in the present application;

fig. 8a is a schematic structural diagram of another communication system provided in the present application;

fig. 8b is a schematic structural diagram of another communication system provided in the present application;

fig. 8c is a schematic structural diagram of another communication system provided in the present application;

fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device provided in the present application;

fig. 10 is a first flowchart illustrating a communication method provided in the present application;

fig. 11 is a second flowchart illustrating a communication method according to the present application;

fig. 12 is a third flowchart illustrating a communication method according to the present application;

fig. 13 is a fourth flowchart illustrating a communication method according to the present application;

fig. 14 is a flowchart illustrating a communication method according to a fifth embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 15 is a sixth flowchart illustrating a communication method according to the present application;

fig. 16 is a seventh flowchart illustrating a communication method according to the present application;

fig. 17 is a schematic flowchart eight of a communication method provided in the present application;

fig. 18 is a flowchart illustrating a communication method provided in the present application;

fig. 19 is a schematic flowchart ten of a communication method provided in the present application;

fig. 20 is a schematic structural diagram of an access network device provided in the present application;

fig. 21 is a schematic structural diagram of a first network node provided in the present application;

fig. 22 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device provided in the present application;

fig. 23 is a schematic structural diagram of another communication device provided in the present application.

Detailed Description

In the description of the present application, a "/" indicates a relationship in which the objects associated before and after are an "or", for example, a/B may indicate a or B; in the present application, "and/or" is only an association relationship describing an associated object, and means that there may be three relationships, for example, a and/or B, and may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone, wherein A and B can be singular or plural.

In the description of the present application, "plurality" means two or more than two unless otherwise specified. "at least one of the following" or similar expressions refer to any combination of these items, including any combination of the singular or plural. For example, at least one of a, b, or c, may represent: a, b, c, a and b, a and c, b and c, or a and b and c, wherein a, b and c can be single or multiple.

In addition, in order to facilitate clear description of technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, in the embodiments of the present application, words such as "first" and "second" are used to distinguish identical items or similar items with substantially identical functions and actions. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the terms "first," "second," and the like do not denote any order or importance, but rather the terms "first," "second," and the like do not denote any order or importance. Also, in the embodiments of the present application, words such as "exemplary" or "for example" are used to mean serving as examples, illustrations or illustrations. Any embodiment or design described herein as "exemplary" or "e.g.," is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. Rather, use of the word "exemplary" or "such as" is intended to present relevant concepts in a concrete fashion for ease of understanding.

It should be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present application. Thus, the various embodiments are not necessarily referring to the same embodiments throughout the specification. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. It should be understood that, in the various embodiments of the present application, the sequence numbers of the processes do not mean the execution sequence, and the execution sequence of the processes should be determined by the functions and the inherent logic of the processes, and should not constitute any limitation to the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

It should be understood that "\ 8230am" and "if" in this application refer to corresponding processing under certain objective conditions, are not time-limited, require no judgment action for implementation, and do not imply any limitation.

It can be understood that some optional features in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented independently without depending on other features in some scenarios, for example, a scheme based on which the optional features are currently implemented, so as to solve corresponding technical problems and achieve corresponding effects, or may be combined with other features according to requirements in some scenarios. Correspondingly, the devices provided in the embodiments of the present application may also implement these features or functions accordingly, which are not described herein again.

In this application, the same or similar parts between the respective embodiments may be referred to each other unless otherwise specified. In the embodiments and the implementation methods/implementation methods in the embodiments in the present application, unless otherwise specified or conflicting in logic, terms and/or descriptions between different embodiments and between various implementation methods/implementation methods in various embodiments have consistency and can be mutually cited, and technical features in different embodiments and various implementation methods/implementation methods in various embodiments can be combined to form new embodiments, implementation methods, or implementation methods according to the inherent logic relationships thereof. The embodiments of the present application described below do not limit the scope of the present application.

To facilitate understanding of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, a brief description of the related art of the present application is first given as follows.

1. Cell selection:

when the terminal device is powered on or a radio link failure occurs, the terminal device executes a cell search process and selects a suitable cell to camp as soon as possible, which is called cell selection. Cell selection can be divided into 4 procedures: frequency sweeping, cell searching, system message solving and residing. The frequency sweeping is to search a cell covered in a network environment where the terminal equipment is located and the power of the cell according to a system and a frequency band supported by the terminal equipment; the cell search is a process of capturing a cell with the best coverage in a network environment according to a frequency sweeping result after the frequency sweeping is finished, performing frame synchronization and time slot synchronization on the cell and acquiring a physical cell Identifier (ID); the system information solving and residing are processes of reading the cell system information after the cell search is finished, measuring the signal intensity and the signal quality of the cell and judging whether the cell meets the residing condition or not.

In the cell selection process, the terminal device evaluates whether a certain cell is a suitable cell according to the S criterion, and once a suitable cell (i.e., a cell satisfying the S criterion) is found, the cell selection process is completed. If the cell is not a suitable cell, the terminal device continues searching until a suitable cell is found and camped.

Specifically, the terminal device may obtain whether the cell meets the S criterion by reading various parameters broadcasted by the cell and calculating.

Wherein satisfying S criteria means S _rxlev > 0 and S _qual Is greater than 0. I.e. the S value of a cell is greater than 0, the cell meets the S criterion, or is a suitable cell or a cell suitable for camping on. S _rxlev And S _qual The following formula (1) and formula (2) are satisfied:

S _rxlev ＝Q _rxlevmeas -(Q _rxlevmin +Q _{rxlevminoffset} )-P _compensation -Qoffset _temp (1)

S _qual ＝Q _qualmeas -(Q _qualmin +Q _{qualminoffset} )-Qoffset _temp (2)

wherein:

S _rxlev is the cell selection received signal strength value (dB).

S _qual Is the cell selection received signal quality value (dB).

Q _rxlevmeas Is a received signal strength value measured by the terminal device, which may be a measured Reference Signal Receiving Power (RSRP) (dBm).

Q _rxlevmin Is the minimum received signal strength required by the cellA value of value indicated in q-RxLevMin of System Information Block (SIB) 1 (dBm).

P _compensation Max (PEMAX-PUMAX, 0) (dB), where PEMAX is a maximum allowed transmission power set by the system when the terminal device accesses the cell; PUMAX is the maximum output power specified according to the terminal class.

Q _{rxlevminoffset} The parameter is effective when a user equipment (PLMN) normally residing in a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN) periodically searches for a high priority PLMN for cell selection evaluation, and the parameter is Q _rxlevmin A certain bias is applied.

Q _qualmeas Is the cell received signal quality value measured by the terminal device, which may be the measured Reference Signal Receiving Quality (RSRQ) (dBm).

Q _qualmin Is the minimum value of the received signal quality, i.e., the threshold, selected by the cell.

Q _{qualminoffset} When residing under VPLMN and periodically searching PLMN with higher priority, S is calculated _qual The required offset value.

Qoffset _temp Is a temporary offset value applied to a certain cell.

2. Cell reselection:

after a terminal device in Radio Resource Control (RRC) IDLE state (RRC _ IDLE) resides in a cell, along with the movement of the terminal device, it may need to change to another cell with higher priority or better signal quality for residence, which is a cell reselection process. Thus, cell selection is the process of finding a suitable cell as soon as possible, and cell reselection is the process of selecting a more suitable cell.

The cell after cell reselection should also be in accordance with the conditions of the suitable cell involved in the cell selection procedure. In addition to this, the execution measurement criteria and reselection criteria are satisfied:

executing a measurement criterion for the terminal device to determine whether to start measuring the cell, specifically including: when the signal condition of the cell is more than a certain threshold, not starting the same frequency measurement or the different frequency measurement with the same priority or the different frequency or different system measurement with low priority, otherwise starting the same frequency measurement or the different frequency measurement with the same priority or the different frequency or different system measurement with low priority. For frequencies or systems with higher priority than the local cell, the terminal device always measures the frequencies or systems.

E.g. S _rxlev > SintraSearchP and S _qual And if the measured value is greater than SIntraSearchQ, not starting the same-frequency measurement, otherwise, starting the same-frequency measurement. S _rxlev SNon IntraSearchP and S _qual If the measurement is greater than SNon IntraSearchQ, the inter-frequency or inter-system measurement with the same priority or low priority is not started, otherwise, the measurement is started.

A reselection criterion, which is used for the terminal device to decide whether to perform cell reselection to a new cell after measurement, specifically includes:

reselection criteria of high-priority inter-frequency or inter-system: the residence time of the terminal equipment in the cell exceeds 1 second, and the target cell meets S within a period of time (TreselectorRAT) _qual ＞Thresh _X,HighQ Or S _qual ＞Thresh _X,HighP . Wherein, when the system message includes the threshServinLowQ parameter, the threshold takes Thresh _X,HighQ Otherwise, take Thresh _X,HighP 。

Reselection criteria for low priority inter-frequency or inter-system: the residence time of the terminal equipment in the cell exceeds 1 second, and the cell meets S within a period of time (TreselectionRAT) _qual ＜Thresh _Serving,LowQ And the target cell satisfies S for a period of time (TreselectionRAT) _qual ＞Thresh _X,LowQ . Or the cell satisfies S within a period of time _qual ＜Thresh _Serving,LowP And the target cell satisfies S for a period of time (TreselectionRAT) _qual ＞Thresh _X,LowP . Wherein, when the system message includes the threshServinLowQ parameter, the threshold takes Thresh _Serving,LowQ And Thresh _X,LowQ Otherwise, take Thresh _Serving,LowP And Thresh _X,LowP 。

Reselection criteria for frequencies or systems of equal priority: based on the Ranking standard for intra-frequency cell reselection. Specifically, the cells satisfying the S criterion may be sorted according to the R value, so as to perform cell reselection according to the sorting result. Wherein, the R value comprises Rs and Rn, and the following formula (3) and formula (4) are satisfied:

Rs＝Q _meas,s +Q _hyst -Q _offsettemp (3)

Rn＝Q _meas,n -Q _offset -Q _offsettemp (4)

wherein:

rs is the signal quality level of the own cell.

Rn is the signal quality level of the neighbor cell.

Q _meas,s The signal reception quality of the local cell measured by the terminal device.

Q _hyst Is the hysteresis value for the R criterion.

Q _meas,n Is the neighbor cell signal reception quality measured by the terminal device.

Q _offset Is the offset value of the R criterion.

Q _offsettemp Is the temporary offset value that the R-criteria applies to a particular cell.

3. Measurement configuration:

after the terminal device accesses the network, the base station may perform measurement configuration for the terminal device, so that the terminal device performs measurement and reporting according to the measurement configuration.

For example, in the fifth generation (the 5th generation,5 g) mobile communication system, the measurement configuration may include a measurement object configuration, a reporting configuration, and a measurement identity (MeasId). Different measurement object configurations are distinguished by a measurement object identifier (MeasObjectId), different reporting configurations are distinguished by a reporting configuration identifier (reportConfigId), and a mapping relationship exists among the measurement identifier, the measurement object identifier, and the reporting configuration identifier.

The measurement object configuration may include a measurement object configuration of the Uu interface (e.g., measObjectNR or measObjectEURTA), and may also include a measurement object configuration of the sidelink (e.g., measObjectNR-SL).

The measurement object configuration of the sidelink mainly includes configuration of a sidelink resource pool, and is used for reporting Channel Busy Ratios (CBRs) of different sidelink resource pools by the terminal device, so that the base station can decide the sidelink resource pools which can be used when the terminal device communicates through the sidelink.

The reporting configuration may include a reporting configuration of the Uu interface (e.g., a reportConfigNR, and may also include a reporting configuration of a sidelink (e.g., reportConfigNR-SL). The reporting configuration of the Uu interface may be used to configure a measurement signal type on the Uu interface, which may be, for example, a synchronization signal and a physical broadcast channel block (SSB) or a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), PBCH refers to a Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH), and may also be used to configure a signal quality type, which may be, for example, a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), a Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ), or a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), and to trigger reporting.

And the terminal equipment reports the measurement result to the base station after measuring according to the measurement configuration, wherein the measurement result is reported according to the measurement identifier, and the measurement result can be a cell granularity measurement result (CellResults) or a beam granularity measurement result (rsIndexresults). When the granularity is cell, the measurement result may include RSRP, RSRQ, or SINR corresponding to the cell identifier. When the beam is used as the granularity, the measurement result can comprise RSRP, RSRQ or SINR corresponding to SSB-Index or CSI-RS-Index.

4. Auto Neighbor Relation (ANR) procedure:

generally, a frequency point may be configured in the measurement object configuration (for example, the measObjectNR includes ARFCN-value nr), after receiving the measurement object configuration, the terminal device may perform cell search on the frequency point, and after searching for a cell, may obtain a Physical Cell Identity (PCI) of the cell, for example, obtain the PCI of the cell through obtaining a Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS) and a Secondary Synchronization Signal (SSS) of the cell, and report the PCI and a corresponding measurement result to the base station.

When the base station receives the measurement result reported by the terminal device and finds that the measurement result includes the PCI unknown by the base station, the base station may send the measurement configuration to the terminal device again, and the reportType included in the measurement configuration is set to be reportCGI. The ReportCGI carries a PCI unknown to the base station, so that the terminal device can read a Cell Global Identity (CGI) corresponding to the PCI.

And after receiving the measurement configuration issued again by the base station, the terminal equipment reads the system message broadcasted by the cell of the PCI identifier to obtain the CGI of the cell and reports the CGI to the base station. After receiving the CGI, the base station may determine a base station that manages the CGI, and thereby establish a connection with the base station that manages the CGI.

5. Centralized Unit (CU) -Distributed Unit (DU) architecture:

in a 5G system, a base station is called a next generation node B (gdnodeb or gNB). As shown in fig. 2, the gNB may be composed of a centralized unit (or referred to as a central unit) CU and a distributed unit DU. That is, the function of the gNB in the original access network is split, part of the function of the gNB is deployed on the CU, and the rest of the function is deployed on the DU.

Wherein, CU represents that the gNB is connected with a 5G core network (5G core network, 5gc) through an NG interface, and also represents that the gNB is connected with other gnbs through an Xn interface. In addition, the dual link operation may also be performed on behalf of the gNB through an X2 interface and an evolved Node B (eNB or eNodeB) connection. A CU may be denoted as a gNB-CU and a DU may be denoted as a gNB-DU.

Wherein, a plurality of DUs can share one CU to form one base station, which can save cost and is easy for network expansion. In a Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing (i.e., RAN sharing) scenario, one DU may also connect multiple CUs (not shown in fig. 2). The CU and the DU may be connected via an interface, for example, an F1 interface. CUs and DUs may be physically separate or may be deployed together.

CU and DU can be understood as a division of the gNB from a logical functional point of view. For example, CUs and DUs may be partitioned according to protocol layers of the wireless network. In one design, the functions of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol layer, a Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) protocol layer, and a packet data convergence layer (PDCP) protocol layer are provided in a CU, and the functions of a Radio Link Control (RLC) protocol layer, a Media Access Control (MAC) protocol layer, a Physical (PHY) protocol layer, and the like are provided in a DU.

It is to be understood that the division of CU and DU processing functions according to such protocol layers is merely an example, and may be performed in other manners.

For example, in one design, a CU or DU may be partitioned to have more protocol layer functionality. For example, a CU or DU may also be divided into partial processing functions with protocol layers. For example, a part of the functions of the RLC layer and the functions of the protocol layers above the RLC layer are provided in the CU, and the remaining functions of the RLC layer and the functions of the protocol layers below the RLC layer are provided in the DU. In another design, the functions of a CU or DU may also be divided according to traffic type or other system requirements. For example, dividing by time delay, setting the function that processing time needs to meet the time delay requirement in DU, and setting the function that does not need to meet the time delay requirement in CU. In yet another design, a CU may also have one or more functions of a core network. One or more CUs may be centrally located or separately located. For example, CUs may be located on the network side to facilitate centralized management. The DU may have multiple rf functions, or may have a remote rf function.

Further, the functionality of a CU may be implemented by one entity or by different entities, for example, a CU may be composed of a CU control plane (CU-CP) and a CU user plane (CU-UP), which may be understood as partitioning a CU from the perspective of logical functionality. The CU-CP and the CU-UP may be divided according to protocol layers of a wireless network, for example, functions of a PDCP protocol layer corresponding to an RRC protocol layer and a Signaling Radio Bearer (SRB) are set in the CU-CP, and a function of a PDCP protocol layer corresponding to a Data Radio Bearer (DRB) is set in the CU-UP. In addition, the functions of the SDAP protocol layer may also be located in the CU-UP.

The functions of the RRC layer, the SDAP layer, and the sub-PDCP layer are set in the CU, and when the functions of the RLC layer, the MAC layer, and the PHY layer are set in the DU, the control plane protocol stack and the user plane protocol stack of the CU-DU architecture are shown in fig. 3a and fig. 3b, respectively.

Referring to an interface control plane protocol stack of F1 shown in fig. 3a, an RLC layer, an MAC layer, and a PHY layer of a Uu air interface are provided between a terminal device and a DU, an F1 interface is established between the DU and a CU, and the DU helps the terminal device and the CU to interact with an RRC message encapsulated by the Uu air interface PDCP via an F1 application protocol (F1 AP). In addition, stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), internet Protocol (IP) layer, layer two (layer 2, L2), and layer one (layer 1, L1) protocol stacks are provided between the DU and the CU.

Referring to the F1 interface user plane protocol stack shown in fig. 3b, the RLC, MAC, and PHY layers of the Uu air interface are provided between the terminal device and the DU, the F1 interface is established between the DU and the CU, and the DU helps the terminal device and the CU to interact with a data packet encapsulated by the Uu air interface PDCP or SDAP through a user plane (GTP-U) tunnel of a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunnel protocol (GPRS tunnel protocol) of the F1 interface. In addition, there are User Datagram Protocol (UDP), IP layer, layer two (layer 2, L2), and layer one (layer 1, L1) protocol stacks between the DU and the CU.

For example, layer one in this application refers to a PHY layer, and layer two refers to a MAC layer, an RLC layer, or a PDCP layer.

6. Roadside unit (RSU), RSU-like node:

the RSU is a roadside unit of a cellular vehicle networking (C-V2X) system, and is responsible for receiving real-time traffic information such as road condition information sent by traffic lights and application servers, and dynamically broadcasting the real-time traffic information to related vehicles, thereby avoiding or reducing traffic accidents and improving traffic efficiency. The communication between the terminal equipment and the RSU adopts a PC5/sidelink side link technology, and the communication between the RSU and the base station is realized and is not standardized.

In the future wireless technology (e.g., 3 GPP-oriented partnership project (Release, R) version 18), low-cost RSU-like nodes supporting flexible configuration are proposed to improve network coverage, especially for indoor scenarios. As shown in fig. 4, the terminal device accesses the RSU-like node through the PC5/sidelink, and then the RSU-like node helps the terminal device to finally access the gNB through a wired interface between itself and the base station (e.g., gNB). Namely, the RSU-like node is different from the conventional RSU in that the terminal device accesses the gNB through the RSU-like node.

In a scenario similar to that shown in fig. 4, where an intermediate node is used to assist a terminal device in communicating with a base station, there are implementation details that need to be discussed, such as camping issues, measurement configuration issues, initial access issues, and mobility issues during cell selection or reselection. Based on this, the present application provides a communication method that can provide some solutions to the above-mentioned problems.

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present application.

The technical solution of the embodiment of the present application may be applied to various communication systems, which may be 3GPP communication systems, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and also may be 5G mobile communication systems, new Radio (NR) systems, or vehicle to equipment (V2X) systems, and may also be applied to systems in which LTE and 5G are mixed, or device to device (D2D) communication systems, machine to machine (M2M) communication systems, internet of things (IoT), and other next generation communication systems or future evolution communication systems. But also can be applied to non-3 GPP communication system without limitation.

The technical solution of the embodiment of the present application may be applied to various communication scenarios, for example, may be applied to one or more of the following communication scenarios: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC), machine Type Communication (MTC), massive Machine Type Communication (MTC), D2D, V2X, and IoT, among other communication scenarios.

The communication system and the communication scenario applicable to the present application are only examples, and the communication system and the communication scenario applicable to the present application are not limited thereto, and are described herein in a unified manner, and will not be described again below.

Referring to fig. 5, a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application is provided. The communication system comprises at least one access network device, at least one terminal device, and at least one network node.

The terminal equipment and the network node are connected through a PC5 interface. The network node is managed by the access network device, and the network node and the access network device are connected through a network interface. The network interface may be a wired interface, for example, an F1 interface. The terminal device may access the access network device through a network node.

In the present application, the PC5 interface may also be referred to as a "side-chain interface" or a "direct communication interface", and may be replaced with each other.

Illustratively, taking the interface between the network node and the access network device as an F1 interface as an example, the control plane protocol stack among the terminal device, the network node, and the access network device may be as shown in fig. 6a, and the user plane protocol stack may be as shown in fig. 6 b.

Referring to the control plane protocol stack as shown in fig. 6a, there are PHY, MAC and RLC protocol stacks of the PC5 interface between the terminal device and the network node. PDCP and RRC protocol stacks with a Uu interface between a terminal device and an access network device. The network node and the access network equipment realize control plane communication through L1, L2, IP, SCTP and F1AP protocol stacks of wired interfaces.

Referring to the user plane protocol stack shown in fig. 6b, there are PHY, MAC, and RLC protocol stacks of the PC5 interface between the terminal device and the network node. PDCP and SDAP protocol stacks with Uu ports are arranged between the terminal equipment and the access network equipment. The network node and the access network equipment realize user plane communication through L1, L2, IP, UDP and GTP-U protocol stacks of wired ports.

From the foregoing, the network node provided in this application may be understood as an RSU-like node supporting an F1 interface, or as a DU supporting a PC5 interface. From the perspective that the network node is understood as a DU supporting the PC5 interface, the network node of the present application may also be referred to as a DU (DU like) like node.

In addition, the network node of the present application may manage one or more independent cells, each cell having an independent cell identity. The cell identifier may be one or more of PCI, CGI, new radio cell global identifier (NR CGI). Illustratively, the cell identifier may be configured by an Operation Administration and Maintenance (OAM) device. Of course, the OAM device may also configure other information of the cell to the network node, such as working frequency point, coverage, etc. The cells managed by the network node include cells supporting the PC5 interface. Further, a cell supporting the Uu interface can be included.

The terminal equipment is accessed to the cell supporting the PC5 interface through the PC5 interface, and is accessed to the cell supporting the Uu interface through the Uu interface.

In some embodiments, a cell supporting a PC5 interface may also be referred to as a PC5 cell, or a PC 5-capable cell, or a PC5 interface-based cell. Similarly, a cell supporting the Uu interface is also referred to as a Uu cell, or a cell having Uu capability, or a cell based on the Uu interface. And may be interchanged with one another and are not specifically limited in this application.

In one particular example, as shown in fig. 7, the communication system may include a first access network device 701, a second access network device 702, and a first network node 703. The first network node 703 is managed by the second access network device 702, or the first network node 703 is a network node managed by the second access network device.

Illustratively, the communication between the first network node 703 and the second access network device 702 is via a wired interface (e.g., F1 interface or W1 interface). The second access network device 702 and the first access network device 701 communicate with each other via an interface (for example, an Xn interface or an X2 interface) between the access network devices (the Xn interface is taken as an example in fig. 7 for explanation).

Optionally, the communication system may further include: a first terminal device 704 and a second terminal device 705 which communicate with the first access network device 701 through a Uu port; a third terminal device 706 communicating with the second access network device 702 over the Uu port; a fourth terminal device 707 capable of communicating with the first network node 703 over a PC5 interface, located within the coverage area of the first network node 703.

In another specific example, as shown in fig. 8a, the communication system may include a third access network device 801, a second network node 802, a third network node 803, and a fourth access network device 804. The second network node 802 is a network node managed by the fourth access network device 804, and the third network node 803 is a network node managed by the third access network device 801.

In yet another specific example, as shown in fig. 8b, the communication system may comprise a third access network device 801, a second network node 802, and a third network node 803. The second network node 802 and the third network node 803 are both network nodes managed by the third access network device 801.

In yet another specific example, as shown in fig. 8c, the communication system may comprise a third access network device 801 and a third network node 803. The third network node 803 is a network node managed by the third access network device 801. The third network node manages a plurality of cells supporting the PC5 interface.

Optionally, the communication system shown in fig. 8a or fig. 8b or fig. 8c may further comprise a terminal device 805 accessing the third access network device 801 through the third network node 803.

In some embodiments, the terminal device referred to in the present application may be a device for implementing a communication function. A terminal device may also be referred to as a User Equipment (UE), a terminal, an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a Mobile Station (MS), a remote station, a remote terminal, a Mobile Terminal (MT), a user terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment. The terminal device may be, for example, a wireless terminal or a wired terminal in an IoT, V2X, D2D, M2M, 5G network, or a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) for future evolution. The wireless terminal can refer to a device with a wireless transceiving function, which can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, handheld or vehicle-mounted; can also be deployed on the water surface (such as a ship and the like); and may also be deployed in the air (e.g., airplanes, balloons, satellites, etc.).

By way of example, the terminal device 30 may be a drone, an IoT device (e.g., a sensor, an electric meter, a water meter, etc.), a V2X device, a Station (ST) in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), a cellular phone, a cordless phone, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL) station, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device, a handheld device with wireless communication capability, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device (also referred to as a wearable smart device), a tablet computer or a computer with wireless transceiving capability, a virtual reality (virtual reality, VR) terminal, wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), wireless terminal in self driving (self driving), wireless terminal in remote medical (remote medical), wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), wireless terminal in transportation safety (transportation safety), wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), vehicle-mounted terminal, vehicle with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication capability, smart net-linked vehicle, UAV with drone-to-drone (U2U) communication capability, and so on. The terminal may be mobile or fixed, and the present application is not limited thereto.

In some embodiments, the access network device according to the present application is a device for accessing a terminal device to a wireless network, and may be an evolved Node B (eNB or eNodeB) in an LTE or an evolved LTE system (LTE-Advanced, LTE-a), such as a traditional macro base station eNB and a micro base station eNB in a heterogeneous network scenario; or may be a gNB in a 5G system; or may be a Transmission Reception Point (TRP); or may be a base station in a PLMN for future evolution; or may be a broadband network service gateway (BNG), a convergence switch, or a non-3 GPP access device; or may be a wireless controller in a Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN); or may be an access node (AP) in a WiFi system; or may be a wireless relay node or a wireless backhaul node; or may be a device implementing a base station function in IoT, a device implementing a base station function in V2X, a device implementing a base station function in D2D, or a device implementing a base station function in M2M, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present invention. For example, the base station in the embodiment of the present application may include various forms of base stations, for example: macro base stations, micro base stations (also referred to as small stations), relay stations, access points, and the like, which are not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present application.

In some embodiments, the access network device referred to in this application may also refer to a Central Unit (CU), which may refer to the related description of the CU in fig. 2 and is not described herein again.

It should be noted that the communication system described in the embodiment of the present application is for more clearly illustrating the technical solution of the embodiment of the present application, and does not constitute a limitation to the technical solution provided in the embodiment of the present application, and as a person having ordinary skill in the art knows that along with the evolution of a network architecture and the appearance of a new service scenario, the technical solution provided in the embodiment of the present application is also applicable to similar technical problems.

The related functions of the terminal device, the access network device, or the network node related to the present application may be implemented by one device, or may be implemented by multiple devices together, or may be implemented by one or more functional modules in one device, or may be one or more chips, or may be a System On Chip (SOC) or a chip system, where the chip system may be formed by a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices, and this is not particularly limited in this embodiment of the present application.

It is to be understood that the above functions may be network elements in a hardware device, or may be software functions running on dedicated hardware, or a combination of hardware and software, or virtualized functions instantiated on a platform (e.g., a cloud platform).

For example, the related functions of the terminal device, the access network device, or the network node related to the present application may be implemented by the communication apparatus 900 in fig. 9. Fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 900 according to an embodiment of the present application. The communication device 900 includes one or more processors 901, a communication line 902, and at least one communication interface (which is only exemplified in fig. 9 to include the communication interface 904 and one processor 901 for illustration), and optionally, a memory 903 may also be included.

The processor 901 may be a general-purpose Central Processing Unit (CPU), a microprocessor, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or one or more ics for controlling the execution of programs in accordance with the present disclosure.

Communication lines 902 may be used for communication between different components included in communication device 900.

The communication interface 904 may be a transceiver module for communicating with other devices or communication networks, such as ethernet, radio Access Network (RAN), wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), etc. For example, the transceiver module may be a transceiver, or the like. Optionally, the communication interface 904 may also be a transceiver circuit located in the processor 901, so as to realize signal input and signal output of the processor.

The memory 903 may be a device having a storage function. Such as, but not limited to, read-only memory (ROM) or other types of static storage devices that may store static information and instructions, random Access Memory (RAM) or other types of dynamic storage devices that may store information and instructions, electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) or other optical disk storage, optical disk storage (including compact disk, laser disk, optical disk, digital versatile disk, blu-ray disk, etc.), magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer. The memory may be self-contained and coupled to the processor through a communication link 902. The memory may also be integrated with the processor.

The memory 903 is used for storing computer-executable instructions for executing the present invention, and is controlled by the processor 901 to execute. The processor 901 is configured to execute computer-executable instructions stored in the memory 903, so as to implement the communication method provided in the embodiment of the present application.

Alternatively, in this embodiment of the present application, the processor 901 may also execute a function related to processing in a communication method provided in the following embodiments of the present application, and the communication interface 904 is responsible for communicating with other devices or a communication network, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present application.

Optionally, the computer-executable instructions in the embodiments of the present application may also be referred to as application program codes, which are not specifically limited in the embodiments of the present application.

In particular implementations, processor 901 may include one or more CPUs, such as CPU0 and CPU1 in fig. 9, as an embodiment.

In particular implementations, communication apparatus 900 may include multiple processors, such as processor 901 and processor 908 in fig. 9, for example, as an example. Each of these processors may be a single-core (Single-core) processor or a multi-core (Multi-core) processor. The processor herein may include, but is not limited to, at least one of: various computing devices that run software, such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a microprocessor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a Microcontroller (MCU), or an artificial intelligence processor, may each include one or more cores for executing software instructions to perform operations or processing.

In particular implementations, communications apparatus 900 may also include an output device 905 and an input device 906, as one embodiment. An output device 905, which is in communication with the processor 901, may display information in a variety of ways. For example, the output device 905 may be a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), a Light Emitting Diode (LED) display device, a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display device, a projector (projector), or the like. The input device 906, which is in communication with the processor 901, may receive input from a user in a variety of ways. For example, the input device 906 may be a mouse, keyboard, touch screen device, or sensing device, among others.

The communication apparatus 900 may be a general-purpose device or a special-purpose device. For example, the communication device 900 may be a desktop computer, a portable computer, a network server, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wireless terminal device, an embedded device, the terminal, the network device, or a device with a similar structure as in fig. 9. The embodiment of the present application does not limit the type of the communication apparatus 900.

Further, the constituent structure shown in fig. 9 does not constitute a limitation of the communication apparatus, and the communication apparatus may include more or less components than those shown in fig. 9, or combine some components, or a different arrangement of components, in addition to the components shown in fig. 9.

The following describes a communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application with reference to the communication system shown in fig. 5 or fig. 7 or fig. 8a to 8 c.

In the following embodiments of the present application, a message name, a name of each parameter, a name of each information, and the like between each device are only an example, and may be other names in other embodiments, and the method provided in the present application is not particularly limited to this.

It is to be understood that, in the embodiments of the present application, each device may perform some or all of the steps in the embodiments of the present application, and these steps or operations are merely examples, and the embodiments of the present application may also perform other operations or various modifications of the operations. Further, the various steps may be performed in a different order presented in the embodiments of the application, and not all operations in the embodiments of the application may be performed.

Referring to fig. 10, a flowchart of a communication method provided in the embodiment of the present application is shown, where the method may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 7. As shown in fig. 10, the communication method may include:

s1001, the first network node acquires second information.

Wherein the second information is used for indicating the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node.

As a possible implementation, the second information may include identification information of the cell and second indication information indicating that the first network node is a network node supporting the PC5 interface. The identification information of the cell is used to uniquely identify a cell, and may include CGI and/or PCI of the cell, and the like. In this possible implementation, the second indication information indicates that the first network node is a network node supporting the PC5 interface, and it may be considered that all cells identified by the identification information of the cells included in the second information are cells supporting the PC5 interface.

As a specific example, the second indication information may be a 1-bit indicator (indicator), where a value of the 1 bit is a first value and indicates that the first network node is a network node supporting a PC5 interface, and a value of the 1 bit is a second value and indicates that the first network node is not a network node supporting a PC5 interface, or does not indicate any information when the value is the second value. The first value may be 1 and the second value 0, or the first value may be 0 and the second value may be 1.

Illustratively, taking the identification information of the cell as the PCI, the first network node manages 5 cells supporting the PC5 interface, and the first value is equal to 1, and the second information includes contents that can be represented as PCI #1, PCI #2, PCI #3, PCI #4, PCI #5, indicator 2=1. Wherein indicator 2=1 represents the second instruction information.

As another possible implementation, the second information may include the identification information of the cell and third indication information corresponding to the identification information of the cell, where the third indication information indicates that the cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface. The third indication information may be explicitly carried in the second information or implicitly carried in the second information.

In this possible implementation, the first network node may also manage a cell supporting the Uu interface. At this time, the second information may further include identification information of a cell supporting the Uu interface, and corresponding indication information for indicating that the cell is a cell supporting the Uu interface.

As a specific example, in a case that the third indication information is explicitly carried in the second information, the third indication information may be a 1-bit indicator, where when the value of the 1 bit is a first value, the third indication information indicates that the cell is a cell supporting the PC5 interface, and when the value of the 1 bit is a second value, the third indication information indicates that the first cell is not a cell supporting the PC5 interface, or when the value is a second value, the third indication information does not indicate any information. The first value and the second value can refer to the above related descriptions, and are not described herein again.

Illustratively, taking the identification information of the cell as the PCI, the first network node manages 5 cells in total, wherein 3 support PC5 interfaces and 2 support Uu interfaces, and the first value is equal to 1, for example, the second information includes contents that can be expressed as { PCI #1, indicator 3=1}, { PCI #2, indicator 3=1}, { PCI #3, indicator 3=0}, { PCI #4, indicator 3=0}, { PCI #5, indicator 3=1}. Wherein indicator 3=1 indicates the third indication information, and indicator 3=0 indicates that the cell is a cell supporting the Uu interface. That is, PCI #1, PCI #2, and PCI #5 managed by the first network node are cells supporting the PC5 interface, and PCI #3 and PCI #4 are cells supporting the Uu interface.

As another specific example, in the case that the third indication Information is implicitly carried in the second Information, the third indication Information may be a Cell (e.g., a Served PC5 based Cell Information), and the identification Information of the Cell may be included in the Cell to indicate that the Cell identified by the Cell identification Information in the Cell is a Cell supporting a PC5 interface.

Illustratively, taking the identification Information of the Cell as PCI, the first network node manages 3 cells supporting PC5 interfaces in total, and the Cell indicating the third indication Information is Served PC5 based Cell Information, for example, the second Information may include:

service PC5 based Cell Information { # Cell supporting PC5 interface

PCI#1

PCI#2

PCI#5

}

Serving Cell Information { # Cell supporting Uu interface

PCI#3

PCI#4

}。

As yet another possible implementation, the second information may include identification information of a cell. In this possible implementation manner, when the frequency band in which the PC5 operates is a dedicated frequency band allocated by an International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the cell may be identified as a cell supporting a PC5 interface by using a frequency point of the cell identified by the identification information of the cell. Under the condition that the working frequency band of the PC5 is the uplink frequency band of the cellular network, the first network node may use the PC5 system to transmit the second information on the uplink frequency band of the cellular network, and the receiver of the second information may identify the cell as a cell supporting the PC5 interface through the transmission system.

S1002, the first network node sends second information.

As a possible implementation, the sending of the second information by the first network node may include the following step S1002a and/or step S1002b:

s1002a, the first network node sends the second information to the second access network device.

The second access network device is an access network device that manages the first network node, or the first network node is a network node that is managed by the second access network device.

Optionally, the sending, by the first network node, the second information to the second access network device may include: and the first network node sends an interface establishment request message to the second access network equipment, wherein the interface establishment request message carries the second information. Illustratively, when the first network node and the second access network device communicate with each other via the F1 interface, the interface setup request message may be an F1 setup request (F1 setup request) message.

Based on the scheme, the second access network device can know that the first network node is a network node supporting the PC5 interface and/or a cell supporting the PC5 interface and managed by the first network node.

And S1002b, the first network node broadcasts second information on the PC5 interface.

Alternatively, the second information may be carried in system information of a cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node.

Based on the scheme, the terminal device located in the coverage area of the first network node can sense the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node, so that the terminal device is possible to select the cell supporting the PC5 interface and camp on the cell during cell selection.

Optionally, in some embodiments, in addition to the steps S1001 and S1002, the communication method may further include the following step S1003 and/or step S1004:

s1003, the first network node sends the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

Wherein, the relevant information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface comprises: layer two identification corresponding to the identification information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

As a possible implementation, the layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface may be used for the terminal device to establish the PC5 connection with the first network node. Information of a sidelink Resource Pool (RP) corresponding to the identification information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface may be used to indicate the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the cell, and the sidelink resource pool may be used to transmit data and/or control signaling between the terminal device and the first network node. The information of the sidelink resource pool may include identification information (for example, an RP ID) of the resource pool, information of resources included in the resource pool, and the like, which is not specifically limited in this application.

As a possible implementation, the sending, by the first network node, the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface may include the following step S1003a and/or step S1003b:

s1003a, the first network node sends the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface to the second access network device.

Optionally, the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the second information may be sent in the same message, or may be sent in different messages, which is not specifically limited in this application.

S1003b, the first network node broadcasts the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface on the PC5 interface.

Optionally, the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface may be carried in system information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node.

Optionally, the system information carrying the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the system information carrying the second information may be the same system information or different system information, which is not specifically limited in this application.

S1004, the first network node broadcasts a second offset value. It will be appreciated that the first network node may broadcast the second offset value over the PC5 interface.

Wherein the second offset value is used for the determination of the cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and/or the cell selection received signal quality value Squal.

Optionally, the second offset value used for determining Srxlev of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the second offset value used for determining Squal of the cell supporting the PC5 interface may be the same or different.

Optionally, the second offset value may be granular with respect to the network node, that is, the same second offset value is corresponding to the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node. Alternatively, the second offset value may be cell-granular, i.e. each PC5 interface capable cell managed by the first network node has its corresponding second offset value, and different cells may correspond to the same or different second offset values.

As a possible implementation, srxlev of a cell supporting the PC5 interface may satisfy the following formula (5):

S _rxlev ＝Q _{rxlevmeas,PC5} -(Q _rxlevmin,PC5 +Q _{rxlevminoffset,PC5} )-P _{compensation,PC5} -Qoffset _temp,PC5 -Q _offset2r,PC5 (5)

the Squal of the cell supporting the PC5 interface may satisfy the following equation (6):

S _qual ＝Q _qualmeas,PC5 -(Q _qualmin,PC5 +Q _{qualminoffset,PC5} )-Qoffset _temp,PC5 -Q _offset2q,PC5 (6)

wherein Q is _offset2r,PC5 Second offset value, Q, for Srxlev for determining a cell supporting a PC5 interface _offset2q,PC5 Is the second offset value used to determine the Squal for the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

As a specific example, the physical meanings of the other parameters in equation (5) are similar to the physical meanings of the corresponding parameters in equation (1) above, except that the parameters in equation (5) are parameters for a cell supporting the PC5 interface. The physical meanings of the other parameters in the formula (6) are similar to the physical meanings of the corresponding parameters in the formula (2), except that the parameters in the formula (6) are parameters for the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and reference may be made to the above description, which is not repeated herein.

As another specific example, Q is divided in formula (5) and formula (6) _offset2r,PC5 And Q _offset2q,PC5 The parameters other than the above may be parameters common to the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the Uu interface.

Based on the scheme, the terminal equipment in the coverage area of the first network node can consider the cell supporting the PC5 interface when performing cell selection, and calculate the S value of the cell supporting the PC5 interface according to the second offset value, thereby solving the cell selection problem when the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the Uu interface coexist.

In some embodiments, the first network node may not broadcast the second offset value, but rather a set of parameters referred to in equation (1) and equation (2) for a cell supporting the PC5 interface. In this scenario, for a cell supporting the PC5 interface, when performing cell selection, the terminal device may perform determination by using the above formula (1) and formula (2) according to the set of parameters broadcast by the first network node.

Furthermore, the access network device or the first network node may broadcast another set of parameters referred to in equation (1) and equation (2) for the cell supporting the Uu interface for the terminal device to determine the S value of the cell supporting the Uu interface. The parameters for the cell supporting the Uu interface and the parameters for the cell supporting the PC5 interface may be the same or different, and this is not specifically limited in this application.

That is, for a cell supporting the PC5 interface and a cell supporting the Uu interface, the same formula may be used to calculate the S value, where the formula has one set of parameter configuration for the cell supporting the PC5 interface and another set of parameter configuration for the cell supporting the Uu interface.

The method shown in fig. 10 describes a related implementation of the first network node, and as shown in fig. 11, the present application further provides a communication method to introduce a related implementation of the second access network device, where the method may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 7. Referring to fig. 11, the communication method may include:

s1101, the second access network equipment acquires the first information.

The first information comprises identification information of the first cell and first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

Optionally, the first indication information may be explicitly carried in the first information, for example, the first indication information may be a 1-bit indicator. Alternatively, the first indication information may be implicitly carried in the first information, for example, the first indication information may be an information element (e.g., a new node PCI), and the identification information of the first cell may be included in the information element. The related description of the third indication information can be referred to, and is not repeated herein.

Alternatively, the first cell may be one of the cells supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node, which is one of the network nodes managed by the second access network device. For other cells supporting the PC5 interface, there is a similar feature or implementation as the first cell.

As a possible implementation, the second access network device receives second information from the first network node, the second information indicating a cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node. For the second information, reference may be made to the related description in step S1001, and details are not repeated herein. Taking the example that the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node indicated by the second information includes the first cell, after receiving the second information, the first network node may learn that the first cell is the cell supporting the PC5 interface from the second information, and thus in response to the second information, the second access network device acquires the first information.

Optionally, the first network node may send an interface establishment request message to the second access network device, where the interface establishment request message carries the second information. Correspondingly, after receiving the interface establishment request message, the second access network device may send an interface establishment response message to the first network node, and indicate to the first network node to accept the interface establishment request, so far, the interface between the first network node and the second access network device is successfully established. For example, when the interface setup request message is an F1 setup request (F1 setup request) message, the interface setup response message may be an F1 setup response (F1 setup response) message.

Illustratively, after receiving the second information, the second access network device may learn, according to the second information, that the first cell is a cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node, so as to obtain the first information.

S1102, the second access network equipment sends the first information.

As a possible implementation, the sending of the first information by the second access network device may include the following step S1102a and/or step S1102b:

s1102a, the second access network device sends first information to the first access network device.

The first access network device may be a neighboring access network device of the second access network device. For example, the second access network device may send the first information to the first access network device through an Xn interface. For example, the first information may be included in an Xn setup request (Xn setup request) message or a next generation radio access network (NG-RAN) node configuration update (NG-RAN node configuration update) message.

Based on the scheme, by sending the first information to the first access network device, the first access network device can acquire the cell supporting the PC5 interface under the network node managed by the other access network device, so that the first access network device can configure the relevant information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface to the terminal device (for example, the first terminal device or the second terminal device shown in fig. 7) located in the coverage area of the first access network device, so as to implement the relevant operation of the terminal device on the cell supporting the PC5 interface, such as cell reselection or cell measurement.

And S1102b, the second access network equipment sends the first information to the third terminal equipment.

The second access network device may send the first information to the third terminal device through an RRC reconfiguration message.

For example, the RRC reconfiguration message may be used for handover configuration or measurement configuration, that is, after receiving the first information, the third terminal device may measure the first cell to obtain a measurement result, and send the measurement result to the second access network device, so that the second access network device performs handover or other related operations according to the measurement result.

Optionally, in some embodiments, in addition to the above steps S1101 and S1102, the communication method may further include the following steps S1103 and S1104:

s1103, the second access network device receives association information of the first cell from the first network node.

The second access network device may receive association information of a PC5 interface enabled cell from the first network node, the association information of the PC5 interface enabled cell including the association information of the first cell.

Wherein the association information of the first cell comprises: and the layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell, and/or the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell. Reference may be made to the related description in step S1003, and details are not repeated herein.

S1104, the second access network device sends the association information of the first cell.

As a possible implementation, the sending, by the second access network device, the association information of the first cell may include the following step S1104a and/or step S1104b:

s1104a, the second access network device sends the association information of the first cell to the first access network device.

And S1104b, the second access network device sends the association information of the first cell to the third terminal device.

Optionally, in step S1104a or S1104b, the association information of the first cell and the first information may be sent in the same message, or may be sent in different messages, which is not specifically limited in this application.

Based on the scheme, the terminal device or the third terminal device within the coverage of the first access network device can establish connection with the first network node through the association information of the first cell, so as to access the first cell.

The methods shown in fig. 10 and 11 describe related implementations of the first network node and the second access network device, respectively. In addition, as shown in fig. 12, the present application also provides a communication method to describe a related implementation of the first access network device, and the method may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 7. Referring to fig. 12, the communication method may include:

s1201, the first access network equipment acquires the first information.

The first information includes identification information of the first cell and first indication information, where the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface, which may refer to the relevant description in step S1101 and is not described herein again.

As a possible implementation, the first access network device receives the first information from the second access network device. For related implementation of the second access network device, reference may be made to the related description shown in fig. 11, and details are not repeated here.

As another possible implementation, the first access network device receives the first information from the first terminal device.

For example, the first terminal device may send the first information to the first access network device through the ANR procedure. For example, when the first terminal device performs cell search according to a frequency point in measurement object configuration issued by the first access network device, the first cell is searched on the frequency point of the first cell, and the second information broadcast by the first network node is read, so that the identification information of the first cell is obtained, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface, and then the first information is sent to the first access network device.

For example, the first terminal device may carry the first information in a measurement report, that is, the first access network device receives the measurement report from the first terminal device, where the measurement report includes the first information. The measurement report may be determined according to a reporting configuration, where the reporting configuration corresponds to the same measurement identifier as the measurement object configuration.

S1202, the first access network equipment broadcasts the first information.

For example, the first access network device may broadcast the first information in system information for a cell managed by the first access network device.

Optionally, in some embodiments, in addition to the steps S1201 and S1202, the communication method may further include the following steps S1203 and/or S1204:

s1203, the first access network device broadcasts the first offset value.

Wherein the first offset value is used for determination of at least one of a signal quality level Rn of the first cell, a cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev, or a cell selection received signal quality value Squal.

For example, the first offset value may be used for cell reselection. It can be understood that, for a terminal device residing in the coverage area of the first access network device, the first cell is a neighboring cell, so that during cell reselection, the signal quality level Rn of the neighboring cell is determined for the first cell.

When the first cell and the serving cell have different priorities or frequency point relationships, the first offset value may be different, where the serving cell is a cell managed by the first access network device, and a terminal device located within a coverage area of the first access network device resides in the cell. Illustratively, the relationship of the priority or frequency point of the first cell and the serving cell may include any one of: the first cell is a same-frequency cell of the serving cell, the first cell is a same-priority different-frequency or different-system cell of the serving cell, the first cell is a high-priority different-frequency or different-system cell of the serving cell, or the first cell is a low-priority different-frequency or different-system cell of the serving cell.

For example, when the first cell is an intra-frequency cell of a serving cell or an inter-frequency or inter-system cell of the same priority, the first offset value may be a first offset value #1; the first offset value may be a first offset value #2 when the first cell is a high priority inter-frequency or inter-system cell of the serving cell or the first cell is a low priority inter-frequency or inter-system cell of the serving cell.

Optionally, the first offset value used for determining Rn of the first cell, the first offset value used for determining Srxlev of the first cell, and the first offset value used for determining Squal of the first cell may be completely the same, or completely different, or not completely the same.

Optionally, for the same relationship between the priority levels or the frequency points of the first cell and the serving cell, the first offset value used for determining Rn of the first cell, the first offset value used for determining Srxlev of the first cell, and the first offset value used for determining Squal of the first cell may be completely the same, or completely different, or not completely the same. For example, when the first cell is an intra-frequency cell of a serving cell or an inter-frequency or inter-system cell of the same priority, the first offset value #1 may include a first offset value #11, a first offset value #12, and a first offset value #13 for determination of Rn, srxlev, and Squal of the first cell, respectively.

Alternatively, the first offset value may be in a granularity of network nodes, that is, all cells of the first network node that manages the first cell that support the PC5 interface correspond to the same first offset value. Alternatively, the first offset value may be cell-granular, i.e. each PC5 interface capable cell managed by the first network node has its corresponding first offset value, and different cells may correspond to the same or different first offset values.

As a possible implementation, rn of the first cell may satisfy the following formula (7):

Rn＝Q _meas,n,PC5 -Q _offset,PC5 -Q _{offsettemp,PC5} -Q _offset1n,PC5 (7)

srxlev of the first cell may satisfy the following formula (8):

S _rxlev ＝Q _{rxlevmeas,PC5} -(Q _rxlevmin,PC5 +Q _{rxlevminoffset,PC5} )-P _{compensation,PC5} -Qoffset _temp,PC5 -Q _offset1r,PC5 (8)

the Squal of the first cell may satisfy equation (9) as follows:

S _qual ＝Q _qualmeas,PC5 -(Q _qualmin,PC5 +Q _{qualminoffset,PC5} )-Qoffset _temp,PC5 -Q _offset1q,PC5 (9)

wherein Q is _offset1n,PC5 For determining a first offset value, Q, for Rn of a first cell _offset1r,PC5 First offset value, Q, for determining Srxlev for a first cell _offset1q,PC5 Is a first offset value used to determine the Squal for the first cell.

As a specific example, the physical meaning of the other parameters in equation (7) is similar to the physical meaning of the corresponding parameters in equation (4) above, except that the parameters in equation (7) are parameters for cells supporting the PC5 interface. The physical meaning of the other parameters in equation (8) is similar to that of the corresponding parameters in equation (1) above, except that the parameters in equation (8) are parameters for a cell supporting the PC5 interface. The physical meaning of the other parameters in equation (9) is similar to the physical meaning of the corresponding parameters in equation (2) above, except that the parameters in equation (9) are parameters for cells supporting the PC5 interface. Reference is made to the above description, which is not repeated herein.

As another specific example, in the formulas (7) to (9), Q is divided _offset1n,PC5 、Q _offset1r,PC5 And Q _offset1q,PC5 The parameters other than the above may be parameters common to the cell supporting the PC5 interface and the cell supporting the Uu interface.

Based on the scheme, when the terminal equipment located in the coverage area of the first network node performs cell reselection, the terminal equipment can consider the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and calculate the signal quality level Rn of the cell supporting the PC5 interface according to the first offset value, the cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev, or the cell selection received signal quality value Squal, so that the terminal equipment can possibly reselect to the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

In some embodiments, the first access network device may not broadcast the first offset value, but instead broadcast a set of parameters referred to in equation (1), equation (2), and equation (4) for the cell supporting the PC5 interface. In this scenario, for a cell supporting the PC5 interface, when performing cell reselection, the terminal device may use the formula (1), the formula (2), and the formula (4) to perform determination according to the set of parameters.

In addition, the first access network device may broadcast another set of parameters referred to in formula (1), formula (2), and formula (4) for the cell supporting the Uu interface for the terminal device to perform reselection of the cell supporting the Uu interface. The parameters for the cell supporting the Uu interface and the parameters for the cell supporting the PC5 interface may be the same or different, and this is not specifically limited in this application.

That is, for a cell supporting the PC5 interface and a cell supporting the Uu interface, the same formula may be used for cell reselection, where the formula has one set of parameter configuration for the cell supporting the PC5 interface and another set of parameter configuration for the cell supporting the Uu interface.

S1204, the first access network device broadcasts the association information of the first cell.

The association information of the first cell may be sent by the second access network device to the first access network device. For the association information of the first cell, reference may be made to the relevant description in step S1103, and details are not repeated herein.

Based on the scheme, when the terminal device residing in the cell of the first access network device reselects the first cell, the terminal device can establish connection with the first network node managing the first cell according to the association information of the first cell, so as to access the first cell.

Above, the residence problem in the cell selection or cell reselection process after the first network node is introduced. In the following, a measurement configuration after introduction of the first network node will be explained. In the following description, the access network device already knows the information about the first cell managed by the first network node and the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

Referring to fig. 13, a flowchart of a communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application may be used for introducing a measurement configuration after a network node is introduced. Which may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 5 or fig. 7 or fig. 8a or fig. 8 b. As shown in fig. 13, the communication method may include:

s1301, the access network equipment determines measurement configuration information of the first cell.

The measurement configuration information may include measurement object configuration information and/or reporting configuration information.

The access network device may be the first access network device or the second access network device shown in fig. 7, or the access network device may be a third access network device shown in fig. 8a or fig. 8b, which is not limited in this application.

As a possible implementation, the measurement object configuration information may include identification information of the first cell and information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell. The measurement object configuration information may correspond to a first measurement identity.

Based on the possible implementation, the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell can be indicated to the terminal device, so that the terminal device can measure the resource of the resource pool, for example, measure a reference signal sent by the first network node on the resource of the resource pool, and then report the measurement result.

For example, taking the measurement object configuration information carried in the MeasObjectNR cell, where the MeasObjectNR cell includes a CellsToAddMod cell, the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell and the identification information of the first cell may be carried in the CellsToAddMod cell. For example, the cell structure of the measurement object configuration information may be:

further, when the information of the sidelink resource pool is the identification information of the sidelink resource pool, the cell structure of the measurement object configuration information may be:

as a possible implementation, the reporting configuration information includes a measurement signal type on the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell, and/or a measurement trigger amount of the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell. The reporting configuration information may correspond to the first measurement identifier.

As a specific example, the measurement signal type on the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell may include one or more of an SSB, a demodulation reference signal (DMRS), or a CSI-RS. Based on the scheme, the type of the signal which needs to be measured can be indicated to the terminal device, for example, when the measurement signal type includes the DMRS, the terminal device may measure the quality of the DMRS transmitted by the first network node on the resource of the resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

As a specific example, the measurement trigger quantity of the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell may be used to refer to a signal quality type and a quality threshold for triggering reporting. The signal quality type may be one of RSRP, RSRQ, or SINR. That is, the access network device may configure, through the measurement trigger amount, the terminal device to report a measurement result (e.g., a measurement report) when the signal quality of the measurement signal is greater than the quality threshold. For example, taking the measurement signal type as DMRS and the signal quality type as RSRP as an example, the access network device may configure the terminal device to report a measurement result (e.g., a measurement report) when the RSRP of the DMRS is greater than a certain threshold.

Illustratively, the above report configuration information is carried in a ReportConfigNR cell, where the ReportConfigNR cell includes an NR-RS-Type cell and a MeasTriggerQuantity cell, and the NR-RS-Type cell may carry a measurement signal Type on a PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell, and the MeasTriggerQuantity cell may carry a measurement trigger quantity of the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell. For example, taking the example that the measurement signal type on the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell includes a DMRS, the cell structure for reporting the configuration information may include:

it should be noted that, taking the case that the access network device selects RSRP in the MeasTriggerQuantity when performing reporting configuration, the quality threshold for triggering reporting that is finally configured by the access network device is one value in the RSRP-Range. Similar when selecting other measurement signal quality types, and will not be described in detail herein.

S1302, the access network device sends the measurement configuration information to the terminal device.

Optionally, when the access network device is the first access network device shown in fig. 7, the terminal device may be the second terminal device shown in fig. 7. Alternatively, when the access network device is the second access network device shown in fig. 7, the terminal device may be the third terminal device shown in fig. 7. Alternatively, when the access network device is the third access network device shown in fig. 8a or fig. 8b, the terminal device may be the terminal device shown in fig. 8a or fig. 8 b.

Optionally, in some embodiments, in addition to the steps S1301 and S1302, the method may further include the following steps S1303 and S1304:

and S1303, the terminal device measures the first cell according to the measurement configuration information to obtain a measurement result of the first cell.

The content included in the measurement result of the first cell may be determined according to reporting configuration information included in the measurement configuration information.

S1304, the terminal device sends the measurement result of the first cell to the access network device. Accordingly, the access network device receives the measurement result of the first cell from the terminal device.

The measurement result of the first cell may be a measurement result of cell granularity, or the measurement result of the first cell may be a measurement result of beam granularity.

As a specific example, taking the measurement result of the first cell carried in the MeasResultNR cell, and the measurement signal type on the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell includes DMRS, the cell structure of the measurement result of the first cell may include:

for example, after receiving a measurement result (such as a measurement report) of the first cell, the access network device may perform relevant processing according to the measurement result, for example, the measurement result is used for handover of the terminal device, and a target cell is determined according to the measurement result, which is not specifically limited in this application.

Based on the scheme, under the scene of introducing the network node supporting the PC5 interface, the terminal equipment can be measured and configured aiming at the cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the network node, so that the terminal equipment can measure and report the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and the access network equipment can accurately perform mobility management.

In the above, the related implementation of cell selection, cell reselection, and measurement configuration after introducing the network node is introduced. In the following, the implementation of initial connection establishment (or initial access) after introduction of a network node and the implementation of mobility management will be described separately.

Referring to fig. 14, a flow chart of a communication method provided in the present application is illustrated, where the method may be used for initial connection establishment after a network node is introduced. Which can be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 5 or fig. 7. In this communication method, taking the example that the interface connection has been successfully established between the first network node and the second access network device, that is, as shown in fig. 14, before step S1400, the first network node and the second access network device execute an interface establishment procedure, which may refer to the relevant description in step S1002a and step S1101, and is not described again here. Specifically, the method may include the steps of:

s1400, the terminal device selects a first cell.

The terminal device may be the fourth terminal device shown in fig. 7, or the terminal device may be a terminal device residing in a cell of the first access network device shown in fig. 7.

As a possible implementation, in a scenario where the terminal device is the fourth terminal device shown in fig. 7, step S1400 may specifically include:

s14001a, the first network node broadcasts the second information on the PC5 interface. The terminal device receives the second information broadcast by the first network node.

The content included in the second information and the broadcast mode of the second information may refer to the related descriptions in steps S1001 and S1002b, and are not described herein again.

S14001b, the terminal device performs cell selection and selects the first cell.

After receiving the second information, the terminal device may perform a cell selection process to select a suitable cell to camp on.

The terminal device may perform cell selection according to the above formula (5) and formula (6), and the relevant parameters in the formula (5) and the formula (6) may be broadcasted by the first network node, which may refer to the above description, and are not described herein again.

As another possible implementation, in a scenario that the terminal device is a terminal device that resides in a cell of the first access network device shown in fig. 7, step S1400 may specifically include:

s14002a, the first access network equipment broadcasts the first information. Correspondingly, the terminal equipment receives the first information broadcast by the first access network equipment.

The content included in the first information and the broadcast mode of the first information may refer to the related descriptions in steps S1201 and S1202, which are not described herein again.

S14002b, the terminal device performs cell reselection and selects a first cell.

After receiving the first information, the terminal device may execute a cell reselection process to select a more suitable cell for residence, which is described in the present application by taking the first cell as the more suitable cell when the terminal device performs cell reselection.

The terminal device may perform cell reselection according to one or more of the above formulas (7), (8), and (9), and the relevant parameters in the formulas (7), (8), and (9) may be broadcasted by the first access network device, which may refer to the above relevant descriptions, and are not described again here.

S1401, the terminal equipment sends first request information to a first network node. Accordingly, the first network node receives the first request information from the terminal device.

The first request message is used for requesting access to a first cell managed by a first network node. Illustratively, the first request information may be Direct Communication Request (DCR) information.

Regarding the content included in the first request information or the transmission mode of the first request information:

as a possible implementation, the first request information may include identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

As a specific example, the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell may include a layer two identifier corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, that is, the first request information includes the layer two identifier corresponding to the identification information of the first cell. After receiving the first request message, the first network node may learn that the cell to which the terminal device requests access is the first cell according to the layer two identifier included in the first request message and the corresponding relationship between the cell identifier message and the layer two identifier.

As another specific example, the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell may include an identification of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, that is, the first request information includes an identification of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell. After receiving the first request message, the first network node may learn that the cell to which the terminal device requests access is the first cell according to the identifier of the sidelink resource pool included in the first request message and the corresponding relationship between the cell identifier information and the identifier of the sidelink resource pool.

As another specific example, the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell may include a preset identifier, where the preset identifier is capable of uniquely identifying the first cell, and a length of the preset identifier may be smaller than a length of the PCI or CGI. For example, in a scenario where the terminal device is the fourth terminal device shown in fig. 7, the preset identifier may be broadcast by the first network node. In a scenario where the terminal device is a terminal device residing in a cell of the first access network device shown in fig. 7, the preset identifier may be broadcasted by the first access network device. After receiving the first request message, the first network node may learn that the cell to which the terminal device requests to access is the first cell according to the preset identifier included in the first request message and the correspondence between the cell identifier information and the preset identifier.

Optionally, the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell may be carried in the first request information as a load (payload) of the first request information. Alternatively, the first request information may be carried in a header of a MAC layer, a PDCP layer, an RLC layer, or a PHY layer of the first request information. Alternatively, the first request information may be carried in a packet header of a MAC layer, a PDCP layer, an RLC layer, or a PHY layer, which encapsulates the first request information, which is not specifically limited in this application.

As another possible implementation, the sending, by the terminal device, the first request information to the first network node may include: and the terminal equipment sends first request information to the first network node on the resources in the side link resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell. Accordingly, the first network node may receive the first request information from the terminal device on a resource in a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell. In this possible implementation, after receiving the first request information on the sidelink resource, the first network node may learn that the cell to which the terminal device requests to access is the first cell according to the correspondence between the identification information of the cell and the sidelink resource pool.

The layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier of the first cell and the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the first cell may be included in the association information of the first cell. The association information of the first cell may be received by the terminal device before this step S1400. For example, in a scenario where the terminal device is the fourth terminal device shown in fig. 7, the terminal device may receive the association information of the first cell broadcast by the first network node, refer to the relevant description in step S1003b, and are not described herein again. In the scenario that the terminal device resides in the cell of the first access network device shown in fig. 7, the terminal device may receive the association information of the first cell broadcast by the first access network device, which may refer to the relevant description in step S1204, and is not described herein again.

Based on the scheme, the terminal device carries the identification information corresponding to the identification information of the first cell in the first request information, or sends the first request information on the resource of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, and under the condition that the first request information does not carry the identification information of the longer first cell, the first network node can also identify the cell which the terminal device wants to access, so that the signaling overhead can be saved.

S1402, in response to the first request message, the first network node allocates a cell-radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) in the first cell to the terminal device.

S1403, the first network node sends the C-RNTI to the terminal equipment. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the C-RNTI from the first network node.

Optionally, the first network node may send Direct Communication Accept (DCA) information to the terminal device, where the DCA information carries the C-RNTI. Illustratively, the C-RNTI may be carried in DCA information as a payload (payload) of the DCA. Alternatively, the DCA information may be carried in a header of a MAC layer, a PDCP layer, an RLC layer, or a PHY layer of the DCA information, which is not specifically limited in this application.

It is to be understood that in the above steps S1401-S1403, the terminal device and the first network node may interact based on a default configuration of the PHY layer, MAC layer, or RLC layer of the sidelink. The default configuration may be predefined by a protocol, or may be preconfigured in the terminal device, which is not specifically limited in this application.

At this point, it may be considered that the unicast connection between the first network node and the terminal device is successfully established, and the subsequent terminal device may communicate with the first network node through the layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell.

Based on the scheme, the terminal equipment requests the first network node to access the first cell supporting the PC5 interface, and the first network node allocates the C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the first cell to the terminal equipment, so that the terminal equipment can be accessed to the first cell, and the initial access after the network node is introduced is realized.

In addition, the first network node allocates a C-RNTI in the first cell to the terminal device, and if a connection failure occurs subsequently, when the terminal device reestablishes the RRC to the access network device, the terminal device may carry the cell identifier of the first cell and the C-RNTI in the RRC reestablishment message, so that the access network device can identify the terminal device when the RRC is reestablished, and the first network node providing service for the terminal device or the second access network device managing the network node before the RRC reestablishment, thereby requesting the context of the terminal device from the first network node or the second access network device to complete the RRC reestablishment process.

Optionally, in some embodiments, after step S1403, the communication method may further include:

s1404, the terminal device sends the first RRC message to the first network node. Accordingly, the first network node receives a first RRC message from the terminal device.

Wherein the first RRC message is used to request establishment, re-establishment, or recovery of an RRC connection. The first RRC message is an RRC message sent to the second access network device, and correspondingly, the RRC connection is an RRC connection between the terminal device and the second access network device.

Illustratively, the terminal device may send the first RRC message as a payload to the first network node over the PC5 link.

As a possible implementation, the terminal device may send Sidelink Control Information (SCI) to the first network node, where the SCI carries fourth indication information (e.g., uu RRC indication) to indicate that the first RRC message is an RRC message sent to the second access network device.

As another possible implementation, the terminal device may carry fourth indication information in a packet header of a PHY layer, a MAC layer, or an RLC layer of the sidelink information including the first RRC message, so as to indicate that the first RRC message is an RRC message sent to the second access network device.

As a further possible implementation, the terminal device may send the first RRC message to the first network node over a specific sidelink logical channel. The specific sidelink logical channel may be protocol-specific or negotiated between the terminal device and the first network node, which is not specifically limited in this application. Subsequently, if the first network node receives the RRC message through the specific sidelink logical channel, the RRC message is considered to be the RRC message sent to the second access network device.

As a possible implementation, when the subsequent terminal device needs to send information to the second access network device, a sending method similar to the first RRC message may be used, so that the first network node recognizes the payload transmitted through the PC5 link as the information sent to the second access network device. For example, indication information is carried in the SCI to indicate that the payload transmitted by the PC5 is sent to the second access network device; or, the indication information is carried in a packet header of a PHY layer, an MAC layer or an RLC layer which carries the information; alternatively, the information is sent over a specific sidelink logical channel.

The first network node, upon identifying the first RRC message as an RRC message sent to the second access network device, may perform the following step S1405:

s1405, the first network node sends the first RRC message to the second access network device. Accordingly, the second access network device receives the first RRC message from the first network node.

The first network node may send an F1AP message, such as an Initial UL RRC message transmission (Initial UL RRC message transfer) message, to the second access network device, where the F1AP message carries the first RRC message.

S1406, the second access network device sends a second RRC message to the first network node. Accordingly, the first network node receives a second RRC message from the second access network device.

Wherein the second RRC message is a response message of the first RRC message. For example, when the first RRC message is an RRC setup request (RRCSetupRequest) message, the second RRC message may be an RRC setup (RRCSetup) message.

The second access network device may send an F1AP message, such as a downlink RRC message transfer (DL RRC message transfer) message, to the first network node, where the F1AP message carries the second RRC message.

S1407, the first network node sends the second RRC message to the terminal device. Accordingly, the terminal device receives a second RRC message from the first network node.

S1408, UE context setup procedure (UE context setup procedure) for the terminal device is executed between the second access network device and the first network node.

After step S1408 is successfully completed, it may be considered that the terminal device accesses the second access network device through the first network node, and establishes an RRC connection with the second access network device. The subsequent terminal device and the second access device can realize the interaction of the control plane signaling and the user plane data through the assistance of the first network node.

Referring to fig. 15, a flowchart of a communication method provided in the present application is shown, where the method may be used for mobility management after a network node is introduced. Which may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 8a or 8 b. In this communication method, the method similar to that shown in fig. 14 is performed by the terminal device 805 having accessed the third access network device through the third network node, for example, the terminal device 805, the third network node, and the third access network device, and for mobility management of the terminal device 805, the third network node is taken as a source network node, and the second network node is taken as a target network node. As shown in fig. 15, the communication method may include:

s1501, the third access network device determines a target cell.

Here, the target cell is described as an example of a cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the second network node.

For example, the third access network device may determine the target cell according to a measurement result reported by the terminal device. That is, before step S1501, the method may further include:

s1500a, the third access network equipment and the third network node exchange measurement configuration.

The measurement configuration includes a PC5 measurement configuration, where the PC5 measurement configuration includes measurement configuration information of one or more cells supporting a PC5 interface, and the measurement configuration information of the cells supporting the PC5 interface may refer to the description of the measurement configuration information of the first cell in S1301 above. Further, the measurement configuration may further include one or more Uu measurement configurations, where the Uu measurement configuration includes measurement configuration information of a cell supporting the Uu interface.

As a possible implementation, the measurement configuration may be determined by the third access network device. In this scenario, the third access network device may send a UE context setup or modification request (UE context setup/modification request) to the third network node, where the UE context setup or modification request carries the measurement configuration. For example, the measurement configuration is carried in a CU to DU RRC container (CU to DU RRC container) of the UE context establishment or modification request.

As another possible implementation, the third access network device may inform the third network node to perform the PC5 measurement configuration. After the third network node performs the PC5 measurement configuration, the PC5 measurement configuration may be sent to the third access network device. After the third access network device performs the Uu measurement configuration, the Uu measurement configuration may be sent to the third network node.

For example, the third access network device may carry the Uu measurement configuration in a CU to DU RRC container included in the UE context setup or modification request to the third network node. The third network node may carry the PC5 measurement configuration in a DU to CU RRC container (DU to CU RRC container) included in a UE context setup or modification response (UE context setup/modification response) sent to the third access network device.

And S1500b, the third access network equipment sends the measurement configuration to the terminal equipment through the third network node. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the measurement configuration from the third access network device via the third network node.

And S1500c, the terminal equipment executes measurement according to the measurement configuration to obtain a measurement result.

The measurements may include measurements of one or more cells supporting the PC5 interface. Further, the measurement results of one or more cells supporting the Uu interface may also be included.

And S1500d, the terminal equipment sends the measurement result to the third access network equipment through the third network node. Correspondingly, the third access network device receives the measurement result from the terminal device via the third network node.

Exemplarily, in case that the measurement result includes a measurement result of a cell supporting the PC5 interface and a measurement result of a cell supporting the Uu interface:

and the third access network equipment classifies the measurement result of each cell according to the type of the measurement signal. For example, if the measurement signal types include RSRP and RSRQ, the measurement results including RSRP may be classified into one type and the measurement results including RSRQ may be classified into one type. Then, for the similar measurement result, if the measurement result of the PC5 cell is greater than or equal to the sum of the measurement result of the Uu cell and the specific threshold, the third access network device determines the PC5 cell as the target cell. For example, taking the sidelink signal type as RSRP, if the RSRP of the PC5 cell #1 is greater than or equal to the sum of the PSRP of the Uu cell #2 and a specific threshold, the third access network device determines the PC5 cell #1 as the target cell. The present application takes the example that the third access network device determines the PC5 cell managed by the second network node as the target cell.

Alternatively, the specific threshold may be protocol specified. Or may be access network device configured. Or may be terminal device specific.

S1502, the third access network device sends the second request information to the target device. Accordingly, the target device receives the second request message from the third access network device.

Wherein the second request information is used for requesting to connect the terminal device to the target cell.

Illustratively, the target device may be a fourth access network device shown in fig. 8a, or may be a second network node shown in fig. 8 b.

S1503, the target device sends response information to the third access network device. Accordingly, the third access network device receives the response information from the target device.

Wherein the response information is used for indicating the acceptance of the terminal equipment.

S1504, the third access network device sends an RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal device. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the RRC reconfiguration message from the third access network device.

It will be appreciated that the third access network device and the terminal device may interact with the RRC reconfiguration message with the assistance of the third network node.

The RRC reconfiguration message is used to instruct the terminal device to initiate a PC5 interface connection establishment procedure with the second network node.

As a possible implementation, the RRC reconfiguration message may include the identity information of the target cell, a layer two identity corresponding to the identity information of the target cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell.

As another possible implementation, the RRC reconfiguration message may include identification information of the target cell, information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the target cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell.

Further, the RRC reconfiguration message may further include PC5 configuration information (PC 5-Config), the PC5 configuration information being used to establish a PC5 interface connection between the terminal device and the second network node. Illustratively, the PC5 configuration information may include basic configuration information of a PHY layer, a MAC layer, or an RLC layer of the sidelink.

Optionally, after receiving the RRC reconfiguration message, the terminal device may perform the following step S1505:

s1505, the terminal device initiates a PC5 interface connection establishment procedure with the second network node.

As a possible implementation, the terminal device sends DCR information to the second network node, where the DCR information carries a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell, so that the second network node identifies the target cell to which the terminal device is expected to access according to the layer two identifier, or establishes a terminal device connected according to the C-RNTI identification request, the target cell to which the terminal device is expected to access, and a PC5 configuration corresponding to the terminal device. Accordingly, the second network node may reply to the terminal device with DCA information. In this process, the terminal device and the second network node can communicate based on the PC5 configuration.

As another possible implementation, the terminal device sends DCR information on a resource indicated by the sidelink resource pool information corresponding to the identification information of the target cell, where the DCR information carries the C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell. And the second network node determines the target cell which the terminal equipment is expected to access according to the side link resource, or identifies the terminal equipment which requests to establish connection, the target cell which the terminal equipment is expected to access and the PC5 configuration corresponding to the terminal equipment according to the C-RNTI. Accordingly, the second network node may reply to the terminal device with DCA information. In this process, the terminal device and the second network node can communicate based on the PC5 configuration.

For example, after the terminal device and the PC5 interface of the second network node are established, the terminal device may send an RRC reconfiguration complete message to an access network device (e.g., a fourth access network device shown in fig. 8a or a third access network device shown in fig. 8 b) that manages the second network node through the second network node, and a subsequent terminal device may perform interaction of control plane signaling and user plane data with the access network device through the second network node.

Based on the scheme, the terminal equipment can be switched or connected to the target network node from the source network node, so that the mobility management after the network node is introduced is realized.

As a possible implementation, as shown in fig. 16, in a scenario where the target device is a fourth access network device, the second request information may be Handover (HO) request information, and the second request information may include identification information of the target cell. The response information may be handover request acknowledgement (HO request acknowledgement) information. The response information may include an identifier of the target cell, a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell; or, the response information may include the identity of the target cell, information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identity information of the target cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell.

In this scenario, the second request message may further include part or all of the measurement results reported by the terminal device in step S1500d, which is used by the fourth access network device to determine whether to perform Carrier Aggregation (CA).

In this scenario, after the fourth access network device receives the handover request information, before sending handover request acknowledgement information, the method may further include:

s1601, the fourth access network device sends UE context establishment request information to the second network node. Accordingly, the second network node receives UE context setup request information from the fourth access network device.

Wherein, the UE context setup request information may include identification information of the target cell.

Further, the UE context setup request message may further include handover preparation information (handover preparation information) information. Illustratively, the handover preparation information may include Radio Access Technology (RAT) capability information (ue-capability RAT-List) of the terminal device, source configuration (sourceconfiguration), radio Resource Management (RRM) configuration (RRM), access stratum Context (as-Context), and the like.

S1602, the second network node sends UE context setup response information to the fourth access network device. Accordingly, the fourth access network device receives UE context setup response information from the second network node.

The UE context setup response message may include a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell. Or, the UE context setup response message may include information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the target cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell. That is, the layer two identity corresponding to the identity information of the target cell, the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identity information of the target cell, and the C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell are allocated by the second network node.

Further, the UE context setup response message may further include the PC5 configuration information (PC 5-Config) described above.

After receiving the UE context setup response message, the fourth access network device may send the handover request response message to the third access network device, where the handover request response message carries the identification information of the target cell and the information included in the UE context setup response message.

That is, the request response information may include: the identification information of the target cell, the layer two identification corresponding to the identification information of the target cell and the C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the target cell. Alternatively, it may include: the identification information of the target cell, the information of the side link resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the target cell, and the C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the target cell.

Further, in case that the UE context setup response information includes PC5 configuration information, the handover request response information may further include the PC5 configuration.

As another possible implementation, as shown in fig. 17, in a scenario where the target device is a second network node, the second request information may be UE context establishment request information, and the second request information may include identification information of the target cell. The response information may establish response information for the UE context. The response information may include a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell; alternatively, the response information may include information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the target cell. Further, the UE context setup response message may further include the PC5 configuration information (PC 5-Config) described above. Reference may be made to the related descriptions in the above steps S1601-S1602, which are not described herein again.

Fig. 15-17 describe the communication method applicable to the handover scenario of fig. 8a or 8 b. Furthermore, in the system shown in fig. 8a, the target device is a fourth access network device, the method may be appropriately modified to be suitable for Dual Connectivity (DC) scenarios. In this scenario, the third access network device may be referred to as a primary base station to which the terminal device is connected, and the fourth access network device may be referred to as a secondary base station to which the terminal device is connected.

As a possible modification, after receiving the measurement result reported by the terminal device, the third access network device may send, to the fourth access network device, a measurement result associated with the fourth access network device in the measurement result through the auxiliary station addition request information. The measurement result associated with the fourth access network device may include a measurement result of a cell or beam managed by the network node managed by the fourth access network device (i.e., a measurement result of the PC5 interface), and further, may also include a measurement result of a cell or beam associated with the fourth access network device (i.e., a measurement result of the Uu interface).

After receiving the measurement result associated with the fourth access network device, the fourth access network device may determine the primary cell of the terminal device under the secondary base station according to the associated measurement result. Further, it is also possible to determine a secondary cell of the terminal device under the secondary base station. Taking the PC5 cell managed by the second network node as the primary cell under the secondary base station determined by the fourth access network device as an example, the subsequent fourth access network device and the second network node may perform steps similar to steps S1601 to S1602 described above. At this time, the target cell in steps S1601-S1602 is the primary cell under the secondary base station. Similar operations can be performed for the secondary cell under the secondary base station, and are not described in detail herein.

Then, the fourth access network device sends a response message, for example, a secondary station addition request acknowledgement message, to the third access network device, where the secondary station addition request acknowledgement message carries configuration information (for example, scg-CellGroupConfig, scg-RB-Config, and the like included in CG-Config) that the secondary base station needs to send to the terminal device through the primary base station, and the configuration information may include identification information of a primary cell under the secondary base station, a layer two identifier corresponding to the identification information of the primary cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device under the primary cell. Or, the configuration information may include identification information of a primary cell under the secondary base station, information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the primary cell, and a C-RNTI of the terminal device under the primary cell. Further, the configuration information may further include a Random Access Channel (RACH) configuration, identification information of a secondary cell under the secondary base station, and the like.

After receiving the configuration information sent by the auxiliary base station through the main base station, the terminal device can establish connection with the second network node according to the configuration information, and access the fourth access network device through the second network node, thereby realizing double connection establishment after the network node is introduced.

Referring to fig. 18, a flowchart of a communication method provided in the present application is shown, where the method may be used for mobility management after a network node is introduced. Which may be applied to the communication system shown in fig. 8 c. In this communication method, a description will be given taking an example in which the terminal device 805 has accessed the third access network device through the source cell managed by the third network node. As shown in fig. 18, the communication method may include:

s1801, the third access network device determines the target cell.

The method for determining the target cell by the third access network device may refer to the relevant description in step S1501, which is not described herein again.

In this embodiment, a cell supporting the PC5 interface, which is managed by the third network node as the target cell, is taken as an example for description.

S1802, the third access network device sends the third request information to the third network node. Accordingly, the third network node receives the third request information from the third access network device.

And the third request information is used for requesting to switch the terminal equipment to the target cell. For example, the third request information may be UE context modification request (UE context modification request) information.

As a possible implementation, the third request information may include identification information of the target cell.

S1803, the third network node sends the response information to the third access network device. Accordingly, the third access network device receives the response information from the third network node.

Wherein the response information is used for indicating the acceptance of the terminal equipment. Illustratively, the response information may be UE context modification response (UE context modification response) information.

As a possible implementation, the response information may include a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell and a C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell; or, the response information may include information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the target cell and the C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell. Further, the response information may also include the configuration information of the PC5, which can refer to the above description and is not described herein again.

S1804, the third access network device sends an RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal device. Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the RRC reconfiguration message from the third access network device.

The content included in the RRC reconfiguration message may refer to the relevant description in step S1504, which is not described herein again.

Optionally, after receiving the RRC reconfiguration message, the terminal device may subsequently use the layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell to communicate with the third network node, or communicate with the third network node on the resource indicated by the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell. Alternatively, the terminal device may perform the following step S1805:

s1805, the terminal device initiates a PC5 interface connection establishment procedure with the second network node.

The implementation of S1805 may refer to the related description in step S1505, which is not described herein again.

In addition to the method shown in fig. 18, the present application also provides a communication method that can be applied to the system shown in fig. 8 c. Referring to fig. 19, which is a flow chart illustrating the communication method, the method may include:

s1901 to S1902 are the same as the above steps S1801 to S1802, and reference may be made to the related descriptions of the above steps S1801 to S1802, which are not repeated herein.

S1903, the third network node sends a first sidelink RRC (SL-RRC) message to the terminal device. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the sidelink RRC message from the third network node.

The side link RRC message comprises identification information of a target cell, a layer two identification corresponding to the identification information of the target cell and a C-RNTI (radio network temporary identifier) of the terminal equipment in the target cell; or, the response information may include the identification information of the target cell, the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the target cell, and the C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell. Further, PC5 configuration information may also be included.

S1904, the terminal device sends a second sidelink RRC message to the third network node. Accordingly, the third network node receives a second sidelink RRC message from the terminal device.

The second sidelink RRC message may be an acknowledgement message of the first sidelink RRC message.

S1905, the third network node sends response information to the third access network device. Accordingly, the third access network device receives the response information from the third network node.

The response information may include the C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell and a handover success indication (e.g., HO success indication) of the terminal device.

Optionally, after receiving the RRC reconfiguration message, the terminal device may subsequently use the layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell to communicate with the third network node, or communicate with the third network node on a resource indicated by the information of the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell. Alternatively, the terminal device may perform the following step S1906:

s1906, the terminal device initiates a PC5 interface connection establishment procedure with the second network node.

The implementation of step S1906 can refer to the related description in step S1505, and is not repeated herein.

Based on the scheme, in a scene of introducing the network node, the switching of the terminal equipment among different PC5 cells managed by the network node can be realized.

The actions implemented by the various devices in the embodiments described above may be performed by the processor 901 in the communications apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9 invoking application program code stored in the memory 903 to instruct the device to perform.

It is to be understood that, in the above embodiments, the method and/or steps implemented by the network node may also be implemented by a component (such as a processor, a chip, a system of chips, a circuit, a logic module, or software) applicable to the network node; the methods and/or steps implemented by the terminal device may also be implemented by a component (e.g., a processor, a chip, a system-on-a-chip, a circuit, a logic module, or software) that is usable with the terminal device; the methods and/or steps implemented by the access network device may also be implemented by components (e.g., processors, chips, chip systems, circuits, logic modules, or software) that may be used with the access network device.

The above mainly introduces the scheme provided by the present application from the perspective of interaction between various devices. Correspondingly, the application also provides a communication device which is used for realizing the various methods. The communication device may be a network node in the above method embodiment, or a device comprising the above network node, or a component available for a network node; alternatively, the communication device may be the terminal device in the foregoing method embodiment, or a device including the foregoing terminal device, or a component that can be used for the terminal device; alternatively, the communication device may be the access network device in the foregoing method embodiment, or a device including the foregoing access network device, or a component that can be used for the access network device.

It is to be understood that the communication device comprises corresponding hardware structures and/or software modules for performing the respective functions in order to realize the above-mentioned functions. Those of skill in the art would readily appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as hardware or combinations of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is performed as hardware or computer software drives hardware depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

In the embodiment of the present application, the communication apparatus may be divided into functional modules according to the method embodiment, for example, each functional module may be divided corresponding to each function, or two or more functions may be integrated into one processing module. The integrated module can be realized in a hardware mode, and can also be realized in a software functional module mode. It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the division of the module is schematic, and is only one logic function division, and another division manner may be available in actual implementation.

In an implementation scenario, taking a communication device as an access network device in the foregoing method embodiment as an example, fig. 20 shows a schematic structural diagram of an access network device 200. The access network apparatus 200 includes a processing module 2001 and a transceiver module 2002.

In some embodiments, the access network apparatus 200 may further include a storage module (not shown in fig. 20) for storing program instructions and data.

In some embodiments, the transceiver module 2002, which may also be referred to as a transceiver unit, is used to implement transmitting and/or receiving functions. The transceiver module 2002 may be formed by a transceiver circuit, a transceiver, or a communication interface.

In some embodiments, the transceiver module 2002, may include a receiving module and a transmitting module for performing the steps of the receiving and transmitting classes performed by the terminal in the above method embodiments, respectively, and/or other processes for supporting the techniques described herein; the processing module 2001 may be configured to perform the steps of the processing classes (e.g., obtaining, etc.) performed by the terminal in the above-described method embodiments, and/or other processes for supporting the techniques described herein.

As a possible implementation, when the access network device 200 is used to implement the functions of the first access network device shown in fig. 7:

a processing module 2001, configured to obtain first information, where the first information includes identification information of a first cell and first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; the transceiver module 2002 is configured to broadcast the first information.

As a possible way, the processing module 2001 is configured to obtain first information, including: the processing module 2001 is configured to receive, through the transceiver module 2002, first information from the second access network device, where the first cell is a cell managed by the first network node, and the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device.

As a possible way, the processing module 2001 is configured to obtain first information, including: a processing module 2001, configured to receive the first information from the first terminal device through the transceiver module 2002.

As a possible manner, the processing module 2001 is configured to receive the first information from the first terminal device through the transceiving module 2002, and includes: a processing module 2001, configured to receive a measurement report from the first terminal device through the transceiver module 2002, where the measurement report includes the first information.

As a possible approach, the transceiving module 2002 is further configured to broadcast a first offset value, where the first offset value is used for determining at least one of the signal quality level Rn of the first cell, the cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev, or the cell selection received signal quality value Squal.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2002 is further configured to send measurement configuration information of the first cell to the second terminal device, where the measurement configuration information includes measurement object configuration information and/or reporting configuration information.

As another possible implementation, when the access network device 200 is used to implement the function of the second access network device shown in fig. 7:

a processing module 2001, configured to obtain first information, where the first information includes identification information of a first cell and first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; the transceiver module 2002 is configured to transmit first information.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2002 is configured to transmit first information, and includes: the transceiver module 2002 is configured to send the first information to the first access network device and/or the third terminal device.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2002 is further configured to receive second information from the first network node, where the second information is used to indicate a cell supporting the PC5 interface managed by the first network node, and the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device; a processing module 2001, configured to obtain first information, including: a processing module 2001, configured to obtain the first information in response to the second information.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2002 is further configured to receive association information of a first cell from the first network node, where the association information of the first cell includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell, and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell; the transceiver module 2002 is further configured to transmit association information of the first cell.

As yet another possible implementation, when the access network device 200 is used to implement the functions shown in fig. 13:

a processing module 2001, configured to determine measurement configuration information of a first cell, where the measurement configuration information includes measurement object configuration information and/or reporting configuration information, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; a transceiver module 2002, configured to send measurement configuration information to a terminal device; the transceiver module 2002 is further configured to receive a measurement result of the first cell from the terminal device.

As still another possible implementation, when the access network device 200 is used to implement the functions of the third access network device shown in fig. 8a or fig. 8 b:

a processing module 2001, configured to determine a target cell, where the target cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface and managed by a second network node; a transceiver module 2002, configured to send second request information to the target device, where the second request information is used to request that the terminal device is connected to the target cell; a transceiver module 2002, further configured to receive response information from the target device, where the response information is used to indicate that the terminal device is accepted; the transceiver module 2002 is further configured to send a radio resource control, RRC, reconfiguration message to the terminal device, where the RRC reconfiguration message is used to instruct the terminal device to initiate a PC5 interface connection establishment procedure with the second network node.

As a possible manner, the target device is a fourth access network device, and the second network node is a network node managed by the fourth access network device; the second request information includes identification information of the target cell; the response information comprises the identification information of the target cell, a layer two identification corresponding to the identification information of the target cell and a cell radio network temporary identification C-RNTI of the terminal equipment under the target cell.

As a possible approach, the target device is a second network node; the second request information includes identification information of the target cell; the response information comprises a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the target cell and the C-RNTI of the terminal equipment in the target cell.

As a possible manner, the RRC reconfiguration message includes the identity information of the target cell, the layer two identity corresponding to the identity information of the target cell, and the C-RNTI of the terminal device in the target cell.

As a possible approach, the second response information further includes PC5 configuration information, and the PC5 configuration information is used to establish a PC5 interface connection between the terminal device and the second network node.

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

In the present application, the access network apparatus 200 is presented in a form of dividing each functional module in an integrated manner. As used herein, a module may refer to a specific application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, an integrated logic circuit, and/or other devices that provide the described functionality.

In some embodiments, in terms of hardware implementation, those skilled in the art may appreciate that the access network apparatus 200 may take the form of the communication device 900 shown in fig. 9.

As an example, the function/implementation process of the processing module 2001 in fig. 20 may be implemented by the processor 901 in the communication apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9 calling a computer executing instruction stored in the memory 903, and the function/implementation process of the transceiver module 2002 in fig. 20 may be implemented by the communication interface 904 in the communication apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9.

In some embodiments, when the access network apparatus 200 in fig. 20 is a chip or a chip system, the functions/implementation processes of the transceiver module 2002 may be implemented by an input/output interface (or a communication interface) of the chip or the chip system, and the functions/implementation processes of the processing module 2001 may be implemented by a processor (or a processing circuit) of the chip or the chip system.

Since the access network device 200 provided in this embodiment can execute the method described above, the technical effect obtained by the access network device can refer to the method embodiment described above, and will not be described herein again.

In another implementation scenario, taking a communication device as the first network node in the foregoing method embodiment as an example, fig. 21 shows a schematic structural diagram of a first network node 210. The first network node 210 comprises a processing module 2101 and a transceiver module 2102.

In some embodiments, the first network node 210 may also include a storage module (not shown in fig. 21) for storing program instructions and data.

In some embodiments, the transceiver module 2102, which may also be referred to as a transceiver unit, is configured to perform transmit and/or receive functions. The transceiver module 2102 may be formed by a transceiver circuit, transceiver or communication interface.

In some embodiments, the transceiver module 2102, may include a receiving module and a transmitting module for performing the steps of the receiving and transmitting classes performed by the terminal in the above method embodiments, respectively, and/or other processes for supporting the techniques described herein; the processing module 2101 may be used to perform the steps of the processing classes (e.g., acquisition, etc.) performed by the terminals in the above-described method embodiments, and/or other processes to support the techniques described herein.

As a possible implementation, when the first network node 210 is used to implement the functionality in the method shown in fig. 10:

a processing module 2101, configured to obtain second information, where the second information is used to indicate a cell supporting a PC5 interface managed by a first network node; a transceiver module 2102 configured to transmit the second information.

As a possible way, the transceiver module 2102 is configured to transmit the second information, including: the transceiver module 2102 is configured to send the second information to the second access network device, where the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device.

As a possible way, the transceiver module 2102 is configured to transmit the second information, including: a transceiver module 2102 for broadcasting the second information over the PC5 interface.

The transceiving module 2102 is further configured to broadcast a second offset value, which is used for determining the cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and/or the cell selection received signal quality value Squal, as a possible approach.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2102 is further configured to send association information of a cell supporting the PC5 interface, where the association information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface, and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

As another possible implementation, when the first network node 210 is used to implement the functions in the method shown in fig. 14:

a transceiver module 2102, configured to receive first request information from a terminal device, where the first request information is used to request access to a first cell managed by a first network node, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; a processing module 2101, configured to allocate a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI in a first cell to a terminal device in response to the first request information; the transceiver module 2102 is further configured to transmit the C-RNTI to the terminal device.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2102 is configured to receive first request information from a terminal device, and includes: a transceiver module 2102 configured to receive first request information from a terminal device on a resource in a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

As a possible approach, the transceiving module 2102 is further configured to receive a first radio resource control RRC message from the terminal device, where the first RRC message is used to request establishment, reestablishment, or recovery of an RRC connection; the transceiver module 2102 is further configured to send a first RRC message to the second access network device, where the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device.

As a possible manner, the transceiving module 2102 is further configured to receive a second RRC message from the second access network device, where the second RRC message is a response message of the first RRC message; the transceiving module 2102 is further configured to send a second RRC message to the terminal device.

All relevant contents of the steps related to the method embodiment may be referred to the functional description of the corresponding functional module, and are not described herein again.

In the present application, the first network node 210 is presented in the form of dividing the various functional modules in an integrated manner. A "module" herein may refer to a specific application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, an integrated logic circuit, and/or other devices that may provide the described functionality.

In some embodiments, in terms of hardware implementation, those skilled in the art may appreciate that the first network node 210 may take the form of the communication apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9.

As an example, the function/implementation procedure of the processing module 2101 in fig. 21 may be implemented by the processor 901 in the communication apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9 calling a computer executing instruction stored in the memory 903, and the function/implementation procedure of the transceiving module 2102 in fig. 21 may be implemented by the communication interface 904 in the communication apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9.

In some embodiments, when the first network node 210 in fig. 21 is a chip or a chip system, the functions/implementation processes of the transceiver module 2102 may be implemented by an input/output interface (or a communication interface) of the chip or the chip system, and the functions/implementation processes of the processing module 2101 may be implemented by a processor (or a processing circuit) of the chip or the chip system.

Since the first network node 210 provided in this embodiment can execute the method, the technical effects obtained by the method can refer to the method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

In another implementation scenario, taking the communication apparatus as the terminal device in the foregoing method embodiment as an example, fig. 22 shows a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 220. The terminal device 220 includes a processing module 2201 and a transceiver module 2202.

In some embodiments, the terminal device 220 may also include a storage module (not shown in fig. 22) for storing program instructions and data.

In some embodiments, a transceiver module 2202, which may also be referred to as a transceiver unit, is used to implement transmit and/or receive functions. The transceiving module 2202 may be comprised of transceiving circuitry, a transceiver, or a communication interface.

In some embodiments, the transceiver module 2202 may include a receiving module and a transmitting module for performing the steps of the receiving and transmitting classes performed by the terminal in the above method embodiments, respectively, and/or other processes for supporting the techniques described herein; the processing module 2201 may be configured to perform the steps of the processing classes (e.g., acquisition, etc.) performed by the terminal in the above-described method embodiments, and/or other processes for supporting the techniques described herein.

As a possible implementation, when the terminal device 220 is used to implement the functions in the method shown in fig. 14:

a processing module 2201 configured to select a first cell; a transceiving module 2202, configured to send first request information to a terminal device, where the first request information is used to request access to a first cell managed by the terminal device, and the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface; the transceiving module 2202 is further configured to receive a radio network temporary identity C-RNTI of the terminal device in the first cell from the terminal device.

As a possible manner, the transceiver module 2202 is further configured to receive first information, where the first information includes identification information of the first cell and first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

As a possible manner, the transceiving module 2202 is further configured to receive association information of the first cell, where the association information of the first cell includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identification information of the first cell, and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

As a possible manner, the association information of the first cell includes information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell; a transceiving module 2202, configured to send first request information to a terminal device, including: a transceiving module 2202, configured to send first request information to a terminal device on a resource in the sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identification information of the first cell.

In the present application, the terminal device 220 is presented in a form of dividing each functional module in an integrated manner. A "module" herein may refer to a specific application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor and memory that execute one or more software or firmware programs, an integrated logic circuit, and/or other devices that may provide the described functionality.

In some embodiments, in terms of hardware implementation, those skilled in the art can appreciate that the terminal device 220 can take the form of the communication apparatus 900 shown in fig. 9.

As an example, the function/implementation procedure of the processing module 2201 in fig. 22 may be implemented by the processor 901 in the communication device 900 shown in fig. 9 calling a computer executing instruction stored in the memory 903, and the function/implementation procedure of the transceiving module 2202 in fig. 22 may be implemented by the communication interface 904 in the communication device 900 shown in fig. 9.

In some embodiments, when the terminal device 220 in fig. 22 is a chip or a chip system, the functions/implementation processes of the transceiving module 2202 can be implemented by an input/output interface (or a communication interface) of the chip or the chip system, and the functions/implementation processes of the processing module 2201 can be implemented by a processor (or a processing circuit) of the chip or the chip system.

Since the terminal device 220 provided in this embodiment can execute the method, the technical effects obtained by the terminal device can refer to the method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

As a possible product form, the terminal device, the access network device, or the network node according to the embodiment of the present application may be implemented by using the following: one or more Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), controllers, state machines, gate logic, discrete hardware components, any other suitable circuitry, or any combination of circuitry capable of performing the various functions described throughout this application.

As a possible product form, the terminal device, the access network device, or the network node according to the embodiments of the present application may be implemented by a general bus architecture. For convenience of illustration, referring to fig. 23, fig. 23 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 2300 provided in an embodiment of the present application, where the communication device 2300 includes a processor 2301 and a transceiver 2302. The communication device 2300 may be an end device, an access network device, or a network node, or a chip therein. Fig. 23 shows only the main components of the communication device 2300. The communication device may further include a memory 2303, and an input-output device (not shown) in addition to the processor 2301 and the transceiver 2302.

The processor 2301 is mainly used for processing a communication protocol and communication data, controlling the entire communication apparatus, executing a software program, and processing data of the software program. The memory 2303 is primarily used for storing software programs and data. The transceiver 2302 may include radio frequency circuitry and an antenna, the radio frequency circuitry being primarily used for conversion of baseband signals to radio frequency signals and processing of the radio frequency signals. The antenna is mainly used for receiving and transmitting radio frequency signals in the form of electromagnetic waves. Input and output devices, such as touch screens, display screens, keyboards, etc., are used primarily for receiving data input by a user and for outputting data to the user.

The processor 2301, the transceiver 2302, and the memory 2303 may be connected by a communication bus.

When the communication device is powered on, the processor 2301 may read the software program in the memory 2303, interpret and execute the instructions of the software program, and process the data of the software program. When data needs to be sent wirelessly, the processor 2301 outputs a baseband signal to the radio frequency circuit after performing baseband processing on the data to be sent, and the radio frequency circuit performs radio frequency processing on the baseband signal and sends the radio frequency signal to the outside in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. When data is transmitted to the communication device, the radio frequency circuit receives a radio frequency signal through the antenna, converts the radio frequency signal into a baseband signal, and outputs the baseband signal to the processor 2301, and the processor 2301 converts the baseband signal into data and processes the data.

In another implementation, the rf circuitry and antenna may be provided independently of the processor performing the baseband processing, for example in a distributed scenario, the rf circuitry and antenna may be in a remote arrangement independent of the communication device.

In some embodiments, an embodiment of the present application further provides a communication device, which includes a processor and is configured to implement the method in any of the method embodiments described above.

As a possible implementation, the communication device further comprises a memory. The memory for storing the necessary program instructions and data, the processor may call the program code stored in the memory to instruct the communication device to perform the method of any of the above-described method embodiments. Of course, the memory may not be in the communication device.

As another possible implementation, the communication device further includes an interface circuit, which is a code/data read/write interface circuit, and the interface circuit is used to receive computer execution instructions (the computer execution instructions are stored in the memory, may be directly read from the memory, or may pass through other devices) and transmit the computer execution instructions to the processor.

As yet another possible implementation, the communication device further includes a communication interface for communicating with a module external to the communication device.

It is to be understood that the communication device may be a chip or a chip system, and when the communication device is a chip system, the communication device may be formed by a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices, which is not specifically limited in this embodiment of the present application.

The present application also provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program or instructions which, when executed by a computer, implement the functionality of any of the above-described method embodiments.

The present application also provides a computer program product which, when executed by a computer, implements the functionality of any of the method embodiments described above.

For convenience and brevity of description, a person skilled in the art may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments for specific working processes of the system, the apparatus, and the unit described above, which are not described herein again.

It will be appreciated that the systems, apparatus and methods described herein may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

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

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit.

In the above embodiments, the implementation may be wholly or partially realized by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented using a software program, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. The procedures or functions described in accordance with the embodiments of the application are all or partially generated when the computer program instructions are loaded and executed on a computer. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a network of computers, or other programmable device. The computer instructions may be stored on a computer readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer readable storage medium to another, for example, from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center via wire (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, digital Subscriber Line (DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or can comprise one or more data storage devices, such as a server, a data center, etc., that can be integrated with the medium. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., a floppy disk, a hard disk, a magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., a DVD), or a semiconductor medium (e.g., a Solid State Disk (SSD)), among others. In the embodiment of the present application, the computer may include the aforementioned apparatus.

While the present application has been described in connection with various embodiments, other variations to the disclosed embodiments can be understood and effected by those skilled in the art in practicing the claimed application, from a review of the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims. In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude other elements or steps, and the word "a" or "an" does not exclude a plurality. A single processor or other unit may fulfill the functions of several items recited in the claims. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage.

Although the present application has been described in conjunction with specific features and embodiments thereof, it will be evident that various modifications and combinations can be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the application. Accordingly, the specification and figures are merely exemplary of the present application as defined in the appended claims and are intended to cover any and all modifications, variations, combinations, or equivalents within the scope of the present application. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made in the present application without departing from the spirit and scope of the application. Thus, if such modifications and variations of the present application fall within the scope of the claims of the present application and their equivalents, the present application is intended to include such modifications and variations as well.

Claims

1. A method of communication, comprising:

acquiring second information, wherein the second information is used for indicating a cell which is managed by a first network node and supports a PC5 interface;

and sending the second information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending the second information comprises:

and sending the second information to a second access network device, wherein the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending the second information comprises:

broadcasting the second information over a PC5 interface.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1-3, further comprising:

broadcasting a second offset value for use in the determination of the cell selection received signal strength value, srxlev, and/or the cell selection received signal quality value, squal, of the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

5. The method according to any of claims 1-4, wherein the second information comprises cell identification information and second indication information, and the second indication information indicates that the first network node is a network node supporting a PC5 interface;

or, the second information includes identification information of a cell and third indication information corresponding to the identification information of the cell, where the third indication information indicates that the cell is the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1-5, further comprising:

and sending the associated information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface, wherein the associated information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface comprises a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the cell supporting the PC5 interface.

7. A method of communication, comprising:

acquiring first information, wherein the first information comprises identification information and first indication information of a first cell, and the first indication information indicates that the first cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface;

and sending the first information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein sending the first information comprises:

and sending the first information to the first access network equipment and/or the third terminal equipment.

9. The method of claim 7 or 8, wherein the obtaining the first information comprises:

receiving second information from a first network node, where the second information is used to indicate a cell supporting a PC5 interface managed by the first network node, and the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device;

and responding to the second information, and acquiring the first information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the second information comprises cell identification information and second indication information, and the second indication information indicates that the first network node is a network node supporting a PC5 interface;

or, the second information includes identification information of a cell and third indication information corresponding to the identification information of the cell, where the third indication information indicates that the cell is a cell supporting a PC5 interface.

11. The method according to claim 9 or 10, characterized in that the method further comprises:

receiving associated information of the first cell from the first network node, where the associated information of the first cell includes a layer two identifier corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell and/or information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the identifier information of the first cell;

and sending the associated information of the first cell.

12. A method of communication, comprising:

broadcasting the first information.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein obtaining the first information comprises:

receiving the first information from a second access network device, where the first cell is a cell managed by a first network node, and the first network node is a network node managed by the second access network device.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein obtaining the first information comprises:

receiving the first information from a first terminal device.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the receiving the first information from the first terminal device comprises:

receiving a measurement report from the first terminal device, the measurement report including the first information.

16. The method according to any one of claims 12-15, further comprising:

broadcasting a first offset value for determination of at least one of a signal quality level Rn of the first cell, a cell selection received signal strength value Srxlev, or a cell selection received signal quality value Squal.

17. The method according to any one of claims 12-16, further comprising:

and sending the measurement configuration information of the first cell to a second terminal device, wherein the measurement configuration information comprises measurement object configuration information and/or reporting configuration information.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the measurement object configuration information comprises identification information of the first cell and information of a sidelink resource pool corresponding to the first cell.

19. The method according to claim 17 or 18, wherein the reporting configuration information includes a measurement signal type on a PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell, and/or a measurement trigger quantity of the PC5 interface corresponding to the first cell.

20. A communications device comprising means for performing a method according to any of claims 1-6, or comprising means for performing a method according to any of claims 7-11, or comprising means for performing a method according to any of claims 12-19.

21. A communication apparatus, characterized in that the communication apparatus comprises: at least one processor;

the processor for executing a computer program or instructions to cause the communication device to perform the method of any of claims 1-6, or to cause the communication device to perform the method of any of claims 7-11, or to cause the communication device to perform the method of any of claims 12-19.

22. A computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed on a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any one of claims 1-6, or cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any one of claims 7-11, or cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any one of claims 12-19.

23. A communications apparatus comprising a computer program product, wherein the computer program product comprises instructions which, when run on the communications apparatus, cause the communications apparatus to perform the method of any of claims 1-6, or cause the communications apparatus to perform the method of any of claims 7-11, or cause the communications apparatus to perform the method of any of claims 12-19.