CN115767580A

CN115767580A - Communication method and related equipment

Info

Publication number: CN115767580A
Application number: CN202211073772.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 于金杨; 胡春雷; 谢伟良; 许晓航; 林平平
Original assignee: China Telecom Corp Ltd
Current assignee: China Telecom Corp Ltd
Priority date: 2022-09-02
Filing date: 2022-09-02
Publication date: 2023-03-07

Abstract

The disclosure provides a communication method and related equipment, and relates to the technical field of communication. The method comprises the following steps: and when the terminal is switched from the Radio Resource Control (RRC) connected state to the RRC non-activated state, the base station sends downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC non-activated state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource. According to the embodiment of the disclosure, the terminal in the RRC non-activated state can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state, thereby reducing the time delay and the power consumption of the terminal.

Description

Communication method and related equipment

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a communication method and a related device.

Background

In some scenarios, a terminal in an RRC (Radio Resource Control) inactive state needs to transmit a small number of data packets. Under these scenes, the Transmission without switching the RRC state is realized through Small Data Transmission (SDT), and the signaling overhead and the terminal power consumption can be reduced. However, there is no solution for downlink SDT in the related art communication scheme.

It is to be noted that the information disclosed in the above background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the present disclosure, and thus may include information that does not constitute prior art known to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

The inventor finds that, for a service which receives downlink data packets infrequently, the time delay is large and the power consumption of the terminal is high when the service is switched to the RRC connection state to receive data.

In order to solve the above problem, the present application discloses a communication method and related device, which enable an RRC inactive terminal to quickly receive a downlink data packet without switching to an RRC connected state.

As an example, the term (Terminology) in the present application is to be interpreted with reference to the definition of the 5G R17 (5G Release-17) standard.

According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication method applied to a base station, the method including:

and when the terminal is switched from the radio resource control RRC connected state to the RRC non-activated state, sending downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC non-activated state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, before sending the downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC inactive state terminal using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource, the method further includes:

and sending target SPS physical layer information to an RRC inactive state terminal, wherein the target SPS physical layer information comprises frequency domain resources and a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH).

The features in the embodiments and examples of the present disclosure may be arbitrarily combined with each other without conflict.

According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication method applied to a terminal, the method including:

and when the terminal is switched from the RRC connected state to the RRC inactive state, receiving downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data sent by the base station by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource.

According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a base station comprising:

and the data sending module is used for sending the downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC inactive state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource when the terminal is switched from the radio resource control RRC connected state to the RRC inactive state.

According to a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a terminal comprising:

and the data receiving module is used for receiving the downlink small data transmission SDT data sent by the base station by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource when the terminal is switched from the RRC connected state to the RRC non-activated state.

According to a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a communication system comprising the base station of claim 17, and the terminal of claim 18.

According to a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an electronic device comprising: a memory to store instructions; and the processor is used for calling the instructions stored in the memory to realize the communication method.

According to a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the communication method described above.

According to an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer program product storing instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to implement the above-described communication method.

According to a ninth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a chip comprising at least one processor and an interface;

an interface for providing program instructions or data to at least one processor;

at least one processor is configured to execute program instructions to implement the communication methods described above.

According to the communication method and the related equipment provided by the embodiment of the disclosure, when the terminal is switched from the radio resource control RRC connected state to the RRC non-activated state, the base station sends downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC non-activated state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource. The terminal in the RRC non-activated state can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state, and the time delay and the terminal power consumption are reduced for the service of infrequently receiving the downlink data packet.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the disclosure.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the present disclosure and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure.

It should be apparent that the drawings in the following description are merely examples of the disclosure and that other drawings may be derived by those of ordinary skill in the art without inventive effort.

Fig. 1 illustrates a flow chart of a communication method in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 illustrates a flow chart of another method of communication in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates a flow chart of yet another method of communication in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a base station in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 shows a schematic structural diagram of a terminal in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 6 shows a schematic structural diagram of a communication system in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 7 shows a block diagram of an electronic device in an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

Example embodiments will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings.

It should be noted that the example embodiments may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the examples set forth herein.

RRC has three states: IDLE (IDLE), CONNECTED (INACTIVE), and INACTIVE (CONNECTED).

The RRC inactive state is a state of a terminal (UE) between an RRC CONNECTED state and an RRC idle state, the terminal remains in a CM-CONNECTED state, and the terminal can move within an RNA region (RAN-based notification region) without notifying a base station. If the gNB receives downlink data or signaling, the gNB pages the UE in all cells of the RNA in which the UE is located.

And switching from the RRC inactive state to the RRC connected state, wherein the RRC message name in the access process is different from the access process message initiated from the idle state.

Msg3, msg4, msg5 are RRCResumeRequest/RRCResumeRequest1, RRCResume and RRCResumeComplete, respectively.

In the R17 version, uplink (MO) SDT aiming at an RRC non-activated state terminal is divided into RA-SDT and CG-SDT:

in the RA-SDT, UE initiates packet service through PRACH (Physical Random Access Channel) resources configured by the base station, and sends RRC signaling and packet service data on Msg3 (4-step RACH) or MsgA (2-step RACH).

CG-SDT, UE sends RRC signaling and packet service data through uplink scheduling-free resources pre-configured by the base station.

And the terminal determines whether SDT transmission can be carried out or not according to the uplink data volume and the TA timer, and preferentially selects the SDT based on the CG under the condition of carrying out CG-SDT transmission.

The inventor finds that the 3GPP R17 version introduces SDT enhancement characteristics, allows the terminal to quickly complete packet data transmission in an RRC non-activated state without switching to an RRC connected state, reduces time delay and saves terminal power consumption. However, the R17 version only introduces the SDT of the uplink (MO), and there is no solution for the SDT of the downlink (MT).

The base station sends the downlink data in the SPS (semi-persistent scheduling) resource allocated to the RRC inactive state terminal, so that the RRC inactive state terminal can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state. For services which do not frequently receive downlink data packets (such as receiving downlink heartbeat messages periodically), the time delay and the power consumption of the terminal are reduced.

The technical scheme of the embodiment of the present disclosure can be applied to various communication systems, for example: long Term Evolution (LTE) system, worldwide Interoperability For Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication system, fifth generation (5g) system, such as New Radio Access Technology (NR), network with multiple systems integrated, internet of things system, car networking system, and future communication system, such as the sixth generation 6G system.

The present exemplary embodiment will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings and examples.

Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of a communication method in an embodiment of the present disclosure, where the communication method is applied to a base station, and as shown in fig. 1, the communication method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure includes the following steps:

s102, when the terminal is switched from the radio resource control RRC connection state to the RRC non-activation state, the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource is used for sending downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC non-activation state terminal.

In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the terminal includes, but is not limited to, a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook, a vehicle-mounted Communication device, an unmanned aerial vehicle, a Communication module on the unmanned aerial vehicle, a remote control plane, an aircraft, a small aircraft, a vehicle, a RSU, a wireless sensor, an internet access card, an internet of things terminal, an RFID terminal, an NB-IOT terminal, an MTC (Machine Type Communication) terminal, an eMTC (enhanced MTC) terminal, a data card, an internet access card, a vehicle-mounted Communication device, a low-cost mobile phone, a low-cost tablet computer, and other wireless Communication devices.

In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the base station includes, but is not limited to, a macro cell base station, a micro cell base station, a small cell base station, a home base station, a relay base station, an eNB, a gNB, a TRP (Transmitter Receiver Point), a GNSS, a relay satellite, a satellite base station, an air base station, an RSU (Road Side Unit), an unmanned aerial vehicle, a testing device, and a wireless communication device such as a transceiver device or a signaling tester simulating a partial function of a base station.

When the terminal is switched from the RRC Connect state to the RRC Inactive state, the RRCRelease sent by the base station needs to configure a downlink SPS used in the RRC Inactive state, configure an SDT DRB configuration in a layer two, and the like.

As an example, the change of the rrcreelease message IE:

rrcreelease message change, new part example (continuation):

fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a communication method applied to a base station in an embodiment of the present disclosure, which is similar to the communication method illustrated in fig. 1.

Wherein S204 is the same as S102 in fig. 1, and is not repeated herein.

The communication method shown in fig. 2 further includes the following steps:

s202, sending target SPS physical layer information to an RRC inactive state terminal, wherein the target SPS physical layer information comprises frequency domain resources and a physical uplink control channel PUCCH.

The embodiment of the disclosure is suitable for an infrequent downlink scheduling scenario, such as a URLLC scenario, and can reduce time delay and terminal power consumption and improve user experience.

In the related art, similar to the uplink CG-Type2, the downlink SPS uses a mechanism of RRC message configuration + DCI activation. This type of downlink SPS lacks critical physical layer information such as frequency domain resources and PUCCH in RRC configuration, which is carried in DCI activating downlink SPS.

The embodiment of the disclosure informs the terminal of the SPS configured to the RRC inactive state terminal in advance.

As an example, when the terminal is switched from the RRC connected state to the RRC activated state, the base station configures the terminal with a downlink SPS in the RRC connected state in an RRC Release message, and this type of SPS is activated when the terminal receives an SDT type page without being activated through DCI additionally.

That is to say, in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the base station sends the target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive state terminal, and may notify the RRC inactive state terminal of the target SPS physical layer information through RRC release when the terminal enters the RRC inactive state.

As another example, the present disclosure may also send target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive state terminal via a Paging message, which is used to activate SPS resources.

In some embodiments, the disclosed embodiments may further include the steps of:

receiving downlink data from an RRC (radio resource control) non-activated state terminal of a core network;

and sending a paging message to the terminal, wherein the paging message carries full-RNTI (complete radio network temporary identity) information and an SDT (data description protocol) indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used for indicating that the paging message is to be sent to the RRC (radio resource control) inactive state terminal, and the SDT indication field is used for informing the RRC inactive state terminal that a base station is to send downlink data through the SDT.

The base station receives downlink data of the RRC non-activated state terminal from the core network, and then sends Paging, wherein the Paging message can carry other information such as an SDT indication field and the like besides full-RNTI (I-RNTI) information of the terminal.

After receiving the Paging message, the terminal in the RRC inactive state determines that the Paging message is sent to the terminal from the full-RNTI in the terminal, and knows that the base station needs to send downlink data to the terminal through the SDT indication field. And if the TA timer for the SDT is still valid, the terminal receives downlink data in the slot of the first SPS after the Paging message. Otherwise, the terminal initiates the downlink SDT based on RA.

In some embodiments, the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource is used to send downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC inactive state terminal, or the terminal may be configured with the RRC inactive state downlink SPS resource in an RRC release message, where the SPS resource includes the downlink SDT data.

Wherein, DRB (data radio bearer) configuration for SDT may also be included in the RRC release message.

As an example, when the terminal transitions from the RRC connected state to the RRC inactive state, the base station sends an RRCRelease to configure a downlink SPS used in the RRC inactive state, an SDT DRB configuration, and the like.

In some embodiments, after all the downlink SDT data is sent, an RRC release message is sent to the terminal, where the RRC release message carries RRC inactive state information of the suspend configuration terminal.

The following explains in detail the procedure of S202 sending the target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive terminal by using a specific example.

The present disclosure provides two ways to send target SPS physical layer information to RRC inactive state terminals.

The first way is to modify the SPS-Config IE, which carries the target SPS physical layer information, so that the terminal can be informed of the physical layer information (SPS-Config in rrcreelease- > suspend Config- > MT-sdt-Config-r 18) by RRC Release when the terminal enters the RRC inactive state.

An example of the new part:

the second way is to carry these target SPS physical layer information in the SDT Paging message (the Paging message also activates the downlink SPS resources at the same time).

An example of the new part:

an additional modification of the Paging message is to add a new Paging cause indicating a Paging for SDT; and carries the new C-RNTI of the terminal.

After receiving the SDT Paging, if only receiving downlink data, the terminal may not consider the TA Timer used for uplink alignment, but the terminal also feeds back HARQ ACK/NACK of the SPS PDSCH in the uplink, and may send uplink signaling/data subsequently, so it needs to determine whether the SDT TA Timer is still valid, and the determining method may refer to the uplink SDT to determine that the TA Timer is valid.

In addition to sending downlink data to the terminal on the SPS resource, the subsequent base station may also use the new C-RNTI to perform downlink dynamic scheduling for the terminal. If the SDT Paging carries the C-RNTI, the terminal needs to use the new C-RNTI to detect the PDCCH dynamic scheduling.

And after judging that all downlink data are sent, the base station sends an RRCRelease message to the terminal, wherein the message carries RRC (radio resource control) non-activated state information of the SuspenConfig configuration terminal.

Like the uplink CG-SDT, the downlink SPS-SDT is also only applicable to the case where the serving gbb of the terminal has not changed. If the position of the RRC Inactive state terminal moves and the new serving gNB is different from the Last serving gNB, the downlink RA-SDT can only be used for completing downlink data transmission.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present disclosure, different base stations may be base stations with different identities, and may also be base stations with the same identity and deployed in different geographic locations. In some scenarios, before the base station is deployed, the base station does not know whether the base station will relate to a scenario, the base station, or a baseband chip to which the embodiments of the present disclosure are applied, and the method provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may be supported before the base station is deployed. In some scenarios, the method provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure may also be supported through upgrade or loading after deployment. It is to be understood that the foregoing identifier with different identifier may be a base station identifier, a cell identifier, or other identifiers.

The embodiment of the disclosure configures downlink SPS (semi-persistent scheduling) resources for the RRC inactive state terminal, and directly sends downlink packet service data to the RRC inactive state terminal in the downlink SPS, thereby realizing that the RRC inactive state terminal quickly receives downlink data packets without switching to an RRC connected state. For the service of infrequently receiving the downlink data packet (such as periodically receiving the downlink heartbeat message), the time delay and the power consumption of the terminal are reduced.

In the disclosed embodiments, the terms "first," "second," and "third" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance.

The term "and/or" in this disclosure is only one kind of association relationship describing the associated object, and means that there may be three kinds of relationships, for example, a and/or B, which may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. In addition, the character "/" herein generally indicates that the former and latter associated objects are in an "or" relationship.

Moreover, although the steps of the methods of the present disclosure are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, this does not require or imply that the steps must be performed in this particular order, or that all of the depicted steps must be performed, to achieve desirable results.

In some embodiments, certain steps may be omitted, multiple steps may be combined into one step execution, and/or one step may be broken down into multiple step executions, and so on.

Based on the same inventive concept, the embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a communication method, which is applied to a terminal, and as shown in fig. 3, the communication method includes:

s302, when the terminal is switched from the RRC connection state to the RRC non-activation state, receiving the downlink small data transmission SDT data sent by the base station by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource.

In some embodiments, the method may further include receiving a Paging (Paging) message sent by the base station, where the Paging message carries full-RNTI information and an SDT indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used to indicate that the Paging message is to be sent to the RRC inactive terminal, and the SDT indication field is used to inform the RRC inactive terminal that the base station is to send downlink data through the SDT.

In some embodiments, prior to S302, target SPS physical layer information transmitted by the base station may also be received, the target SPS physical layer information including frequency domain resources and a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH.

As an example, when the terminal transitions from the RRC connected state to the RRC inactive state, the base station configures a downlink SPS in the RRC inactive state to the terminal in an RRC release message, and this type of SPS is activated when the terminal receives a paging message of an SDT type without being activated through DCI additionally. The paging message may carry target SPS physical layer information.

The method of transmitting the target SPS physical layer information is not limited to the above-described paging message, and may be transmitted by another method.

As an example, the target SPS physical layer information sent by the receiving base station may be target SPS physical layer information sent by the receiving base station through RRC release when the terminal enters an RRC inactive state.

As another example, the target SPS physical layer information sent by the receiving base station may be a paging message sent by the receiving base station, where the paging message carries the target SPS physical layer information.

In some embodiments, the paging message further carries at least one of the following information:

paging reasons of the downlink SDT and a cell radio network temporary identifier C-RNTI.

In some embodiments, when the paging message carries the C-RNTI, the C-RNTI is used for detecting the physical downlink control channel PDCCH dynamic scheduling.

If the TA timer for the SDT is still valid, receiving downlink data at the slot of the first SPS after the paging message; if the TA timer for the SDT is invalid, initiating a downlink SDT based on the RA.

According to the communication method provided by the embodiment of the disclosure, when the terminal is switched from the RRC connection state to the RRC non-activation state, the base station uses the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource to send the downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC non-activation state terminal. The terminal in the RRC non-activated state can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state, and the time delay and the terminal power consumption are reduced for the service of infrequently receiving the downlink data packet.

Based on the same inventive concept, the embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a base station, as described in the following embodiments. Because the principle of solving the problem of the embodiment of the base station is similar to that of the embodiment of the method, the embodiment of the base station can be implemented by referring to the implementation of the embodiment of the method, and repeated details are not described again.

Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a base station in an embodiment of the present disclosure, and as shown in fig. 4, the base station 400 includes:

a data sending module 402, configured to send downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC inactive state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource when the terminal transitions from the radio resource control RRC connected state to the RRC inactive state.

In some embodiments, the base station 400 may further include:

and the information sending module is used for sending target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive state terminal before sending downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC inactive state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource, wherein the target SPS physical layer information comprises a frequency domain resource and a physical uplink control channel PUCCH.

As an example, the information sending module is configured to notify the RRC inactive state of the target SPS physical layer information through RRC release when the terminal enters the RRC inactive state.

As another example, the information sending module is configured to send the target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive state terminal through a paging message.

In some embodiments, the base station 400 may further include:

a first receiving module, configured to receive downlink data from an RRC inactive terminal of a core network;

the first sending module is configured to send a paging message to the terminal, where the paging message carries full-RNTI information and an SDT indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used to indicate that the paging message is to be sent to the RRC inactive terminal, and the SDT indication field is used to inform the RRC inactive terminal that the base station is to send downlink data through the SDT.

In some embodiments, the data sending module 402 sends the downlink small data transmission SDT data to the terminal in the RRC inactive state by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource, which may be configured with the downlink SPS resource in the RRC inactive state in the RRC release message, where the SPS resource includes the downlink SDT data.

In some embodiments, the data radio bearer configuration for SDT may also be included in the RRC release message.

In some embodiments, the base station 400 may further include:

and the second sending module is used for sending an RRC release message to the terminal after all the downlink SDT data are sent, wherein the RRC release message carries RRC non-activated state information of the Suspendeconfig configuration terminal.

When the terminal is switched from the radio resource control RRC connected state to the RRC non-activated state, the base station sends downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC non-activated state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resources. The terminal in the RRC non-activated state can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state, and the time delay and the terminal power consumption are reduced for the service of infrequently receiving the downlink data packet.

Based on the same inventive concept, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a terminal, as shown in fig. 5, where the terminal 500 includes:

a data receiving module 502, configured to receive downlink small data transmission SDT data sent by a base station using a downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource when the terminal is switched from an RRC connected state to an RRC inactive state.

In some embodiments, the terminal 500 may further include:

the second receiving module is configured to receive a paging message sent by the base station, where the paging message carries full-RNTI information and an SDT indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used to indicate that the paging message is to be sent to the RRC inactive terminal, and the SDT indication field is used to inform the RRC inactive terminal that the base station is to send downlink data through the SDT.

In some embodiments, the terminal 500 may further include:

and a third receiving module, configured to receive target SPS physical layer information sent by the base station, where the target SPS physical layer information includes a frequency domain resource and a physical uplink control channel PUCCH.

In some embodiments, the third receiving module receives the target SPS physical layer information sent by the base station, and may be that the receiving base station releases the sent target SPS physical layer information through RRC when the terminal enters an RRC inactive state.

In some embodiments, the third receiving module receives the target SPS physical layer information sent by the base station, which may be a paging message sent by the base station, where the paging message carries the target SPS physical layer information.

In some embodiments, the terminal 500 may further include:

and the detection module is used for detecting the dynamic scheduling of the physical downlink control channel PDCCH by using the C-RNTI when the paging message carries the C-RNTI.

In some embodiments, the terminal 500 may further include:

a judging module, configured to receive downlink data at a slot of a first SPS after the paging message if a TA timer for the SDT is still valid;

if the TA timer for the SDT is invalid, initiating a downlink SDT based on the RA.

According to the terminal provided by the embodiment of the disclosure, when the terminal is switched from the radio resource control RRC connected state to the RRC non-activated state, the base station sends downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC non-activated state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource. The terminal in the RRC non-activated state can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state, and the time delay and the power consumption of the terminal are reduced for the service of infrequently receiving the downlink data packet.

Based on the same inventive concept, a communication system is also provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure, as shown in fig. 6, the communication system 600 includes a base station 601 and a terminal 602.

The base station 601 can be configured to implement the functions of the foregoing base station embodiment, and perform the steps performed by the base station in the foregoing communication method embodiment; the terminal 602 can be configured to implement the functions of the terminal embodiments described above, and perform the steps performed by the terminal in the communication method embodiments described above.

In some embodiments, the base station 601 is configured to perform the following steps:

In some embodiments, the base station 601 may be further configured to perform the following steps:

As an example, the base station 601 is configured to notify the RRC inactive state of the target SPS physical layer information through RRC release when the terminal enters the RRC inactive state.

As another example, the base station 601 is configured to send target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive state terminal through a paging message.

receiving downlink data of an RRC (radio resource control) non-activated state terminal from a core network;

and sending a paging message to the terminal, wherein the paging message carries full-RNTI information and an SDT (software development kit) indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used for indicating that the paging message is to be sent to the RRC (radio resource control) inactive state terminal, and the SDT indication field is used for informing the RRC inactive state terminal that the base station is to send downlink data through the SDT.

In some embodiments, the sending of the downlink small data transmission SDT data to the RRC inactive state terminal using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource may be configuring the RRC inactive state downlink SPS resource to the terminal in an RRC release message, where the SPS resource includes the downlink SDT data.

and after all the downlink SDT data are sent, sending an RRC release message to the terminal, wherein the RRC release message carries RRC non-activated state information of the Suspendeconfig configuration terminal.

In some embodiments, the terminal 602 is configured to perform the following steps:

and when the terminal is switched from the RRC connected state to the RRC non-activated state, receiving the downlink small data transmission SDT data sent by the base station by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource.

In some embodiments, the terminal 602 may be further configured to perform the following steps:

and receiving a paging message sent by a base station, wherein the paging message carries full-RNTI information and an SDT (software description transport) indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used for indicating that the paging message is to be sent to the RRC (radio resource control) inactive state terminal, and the SDT indication field is used for informing the RRC inactive state terminal that the base station is to send downlink data through the SDT.

and receiving target SPS physical layer information sent by the base station, wherein the target SPS physical layer information comprises frequency domain resources and a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH).

As an example, the terminal 602, configured to receive the target SPS physical layer information sent by the base station, may be the target SPS physical layer information sent by the receiving base station through RRC release when the terminal enters an RRC inactive state.

As another example, the terminal 602, configured to receive the target SPS physical layer information sent by the base station, may be a paging message sent by the base station, where the paging message carries the target SPS physical layer information.

and when the paging message carries the C-RNTI, detecting the physical downlink control channel PDCCH dynamic scheduling by using the C-RNTI.

if the TA timer for the SDT is still valid, receiving downlink data at the slot of the first SPS after the paging message;

In the communication system provided by the embodiment of the disclosure, when the terminal is switched from the Radio Resource Control (RRC) connected state to the RRC inactive state, the base station sends downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC inactive state terminal by using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resource. The terminal in the RRC non-activated state can quickly receive the downlink data packet without switching to the RRC connected state, and the time delay and the power consumption of the terminal are reduced for the service of infrequently receiving the downlink data packet.

The terms "first", "second", and the like in the present disclosure are only used for distinguishing different devices, modules or units, and are not used for limiting the order or interdependence of the functions performed by the devices, modules or units.

With regard to the base station, the terminal, and the communication system in the above embodiments, the specific manner in which each module performs operations has been described in detail in the embodiments related to the communication method, and will not be elaborated herein.

It should be noted that although in the above detailed description several modules or units of the device for action execution are mentioned, such a division is not mandatory.

Indeed, the features and functions of two or more modules or units described above may be embodied in one module or unit, according to embodiments of the present disclosure. Conversely, the features and functions of one module or unit described above may be further divided into embodiments by a plurality of modules or units.

Some of the block diagrams shown in the figures are functional entities and do not necessarily correspond to physically or logically separate entities. These functional entities may be implemented in the form of software, or in one or more hardware modules or integrated circuits, or in different networks and/or processor devices and/or microcontroller devices.

An electronic device provided by an embodiment of the present disclosure is described below with reference to fig. 7. The electronic device 700 shown in fig. 7 is only an example and should not bring any limitation to the functions and the scope of use of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

Fig. 7 shows an architecture diagram of an electronic device 700 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 7, the electronic device 700 includes, but is not limited to: at least one processor 710, at least one memory 720.

Memory 720 for storing instructions.

In some embodiments, memory 720 may include readable media in the form of volatile memory units, such as a random access memory unit (RAM) 7201 and/or a cache memory unit 7202, and may further include a read only memory unit (ROM) 7203.

In some embodiments, memory 720 may also include programs/utilities 7204 having a set (at least one) of program modules 7205, such program modules 7205 including but not limited to: an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each of which, or some combination thereof, may comprise an implementation of a network environment.

In some embodiments, memory 720 may store an operating system. The operating system may be a Real Time eXceptive (RTX) operating system, such as LINUX, UNIX, WINDOWS, or OS X.

In some embodiments, data may also be stored in memory 720.

As an example, processor 710 may read data stored in memory 720, which may be stored at the same memory address as the instructions, or which may be stored at a different memory address than the instructions.

Processor 710, for invoking instructions stored in memory 720, implements the steps according to various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure described in the "exemplary methods" section above in this description. For example, the processor 710 may perform the steps of the above-described communication method embodiments.

It should be noted that the processor 710 may be a general-purpose processor or a special-purpose processor. Processor 710 may include one or more processing cores, and processor 710 executes instructions to perform various functional applications and data processing.

In some embodiments, processor 710 may include a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and/or a baseband processor.

In some embodiments, processor 710 may determine an instruction according to the priority identifier and/or the function category information carried in each control instruction.

In the present disclosure, the processor 710 and the memory 720 may be provided separately or integrated together.

As one example, processor 710 and memory 720 may be integrated on a single board or System On Chip (SOC).

As shown in fig. 7, electronic device 700 is embodied in the form of a general purpose computing device. The electronic device 700 may also include a bus 730.

Bus 730 may be any representation of one or more of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, a processor, or a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.

The electronic device 700 may also communicate with one or more external devices 740 (e.g., keyboard, pointing device, bluetooth device, etc.), with one or more devices that enable a user to interact with the electronic device 700, and/or with any devices (e.g., router, modem, etc.) that enable the electronic device 700 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may occur via an input/output (I/O) interface 750.

Also, the electronic device 700 may communicate with one or more networks (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public network such as the Internet) via the network adapter 760.

As shown in FIG. 7, the network adapter 760 communicates with the other modules of the electronic device 700 via the bus 730.

It should be understood that although not shown in the figures, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with the electronic device 700, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data backup storage systems, among others.

It is to be understood that the illustrated structure of the embodiments of the present disclosure does not constitute a specific limitation to the electronic device 700. In other embodiments of the present disclosure, the electronic device 700 may include more or fewer components than shown in FIG. 7, or combine certain components, or split certain components, or a different arrangement of components. The components shown in fig. 7 may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of software and hardware.

The present disclosure also provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the communication method described in the above method embodiments.

A computer readable storage medium in the embodiments of the present disclosure is any medium that can contain, communicate, propagate, or transport computer instructions for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

As one example, computer-readable storage media are non-volatile storage media.

In some embodiments, more specific examples of computer-readable storage media in the present disclosure may include, but are not limited to: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a U-disk, a removable hard disk, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

In the disclosed embodiments, a computer readable storage medium may include a propagated data signal with computer instructions (readable program code) embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave.

Such a propagated data signal may take many forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof.

Readable storage medium, and any other readable medium

In some examples, the computing instructions contained on the computer-readable storage medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

The embodiments of the present disclosure also provide a computer program product, which stores instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to implement the communication method described in the above method embodiments.

The instructions may be program code. In particular implementations, the program code may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages.

The programming languages include object oriented programming languages such as Java, C + + and the like and conventional procedural programming languages such as "C" or similar programming languages.

The program code may execute entirely on the user's computing device, partly on the user's device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computing device and partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device or server.

In the case of a remote computing device, the remote computing device may be connected to the user computing device through any kind of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or may be connected to an external computing device (e.g., through the internet using an internet service provider).

The embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a chip, which includes at least one processor and an interface;

at least one processor is configured to execute program instructions to implement the communication methods described in the above method embodiments.

In some embodiments, the chip may also include a memory for storing program instructions and data, the memory being located within the processor or external to the processor.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or part of the steps to implement the above embodiments may be embodied in the form of: an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, microcode, etc.), or an embodiment combining hardware and software aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a "circuit," module "or" system.

Other embodiments of the disclosure will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein.

This disclosure is intended to cover any variations, uses, or adaptations of the disclosure following, in general, the principles of the disclosure and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice within the art to which the disclosure pertains. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the disclosure being indicated by the following claims.

Claims

1. A communication method applied to a base station, the method comprising:

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein before sending the SDT data of downlink small data transmission to the RRC inactive state terminal using the SPS resources in downlink semi-persistent scheduling, the method further comprises:

3. The method of claim 2, wherein sending the target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive terminal comprises:

and when the terminal enters an RRC (radio resource control) inactive state, informing the RRC inactive state of the terminal of the target SPS physical layer information and the layer two configuration through RRC release.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein sending the target SPS physical layer information to the RRC inactive state terminal comprises:

and sending the target SPS physical layer information to an RRC inactive state terminal through a paging message, wherein the paging message is used for activating SPS resources.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving downlink data of the RRC non-activated state terminal from a core network;

and sending a paging message to the terminal, wherein the paging message carries full-radio network temporary identifier (full-RNTI) information and an SDT (software description transport) indication field of the terminal, the full-RNTI information is used for indicating that the paging message is to be sent to the RRC (radio resource control) inactive state terminal, and the SDT indication field is used for informing the RRC inactive state terminal that a base station is to send downlink data through SDT.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein sending downlink Small Data Transmission (SDT) data to the RRC inactive state terminal using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) resources comprises:

and configuring downlink SPS resources in an RRC inactive state for the terminal in the RRC release message, wherein the SPS resources comprise downlink SDT data.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising a data radio bearer configuration for SDT in the RRC Release message.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

and after all the downlink SDT data are sent, sending an RRC release message to the terminal, wherein the RRC release message carries RRC non-activated state information for suspending the configuration of the Suspendconfig configuration terminal.

9. A communication method, applied to a terminal, the method comprising:

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a paging message sent by a base station, wherein the paging message carries full-RNTI information and an SDT indication field of a terminal, the full-RNTI information is used for indicating that the paging message is sent to the RRC inactive state terminal, and the SDT indication field is used for informing the RRC inactive state terminal that the base station is to send downlink data through SDT.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein before receiving the downlink small data transmission SDT data sent by the base station using the downlink semi-persistent scheduling SPS resource, the method further comprises:

receiving target SPS physical layer information sent by a base station, wherein the target SPS physical layer information comprises frequency domain resources and a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH).

12. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the target SPS physical layer information from the base station comprises:

and when the terminal enters an RRC inactive state, the receiving base station releases the transmitted target SPS physical layer information through the RRC.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the target SPS physical layer information from the base station comprises:

and receiving a paging message sent by a base station, wherein the paging message carries the information of the physical layer of the target SPS, and the paging message is used for activating the SPS resource.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the paging message further carries at least one of the following information:

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

and when the paging message carries the C-RNTI, the C-RNTI is used for detecting the physical downlink control channel PDCCH dynamic scheduling.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

if TA timer for SDT is invalid, then initiating a downlink SDT based on RA.

17. A base station, comprising:

18. A terminal, comprising:

19. A communication system comprising a base station according to claim 17 and a terminal according to claim 18.

20. An electronic device, comprising:

a memory to store instructions;

a processor for invoking instructions stored in said memory for implementing the communication method of any one of claims 1-16.

21. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer instructions, which when executed by a processor, carry out the communication method of any one of claims 1 to 16.

22. A computer program product having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the communication method of any one of claims 1 to 16.

23. A chip comprising at least one processor and an interface;

the interface is used for providing program instructions or data for the at least one processor;

the at least one processor is configured to execute the program instructions to implement the communication method of any of claims 1-16.