CN116614212A

CN116614212A - Beam indication method and device

Info

Publication number: CN116614212A
Application number: CN202210119172.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 袁世通; 曹蔚; 李芳�
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2022-02-08
Filing date: 2022-02-08
Publication date: 2023-08-18

Abstract

The application provides a beam indicating method and device. In the technical scheme provided by the application, the network equipment can indicate a target system message to the terminal equipment, wherein the target system message is used for indicating the logic index information of the wave beam used by the network equipment in a target period; and then the terminal equipment obtains the logic index information corresponding to the target beam by receiving all the beams sent by the network equipment in the target period and according to the beams measured in the target period and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams, and finally reports the logic index information corresponding to the target beam through the random access channel message 3 or the 2-step random access channel. According to the method provided by the application, the network equipment and the terminal equipment can determine the target beam used when the network equipment and the terminal equipment carry out data communication without depending on the scanning of the reference signal, so that a large amount of pilot frequency overhead is saved, and further, the energy consumption and the time delay caused by scanning are reduced.

Description

Beam indication method and device

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for indicating a beam.

Background

High frequency has become one of the effective methods for improving service capability of wireless communication systems due to its large bandwidth. However, the high frequency has a disadvantage of serious path loss compared to the low frequency, and thus, in order to overcome this disadvantage in the wireless communication system, the network device side increases the array gain by driving out a narrow beam using a beam forming technique, thereby overcoming the disadvantage that the high frequency has a higher path loss. But at the same time the number of beams needed to complete cell coverage is increasing. In this case, the network device and the terminal device need to perform beam training to determine a beam that enables good communication between the terminal device and the network device.

Currently, the most common beam training method is mainly based on beam traversal scanning. Specifically, the method comprises the following steps: the network device scans beams in different directions at different moments to complete the coverage of broadcast beams of a cell, wherein different synchronous signal blocks (synchronization signal block, SSB) are broadcast in the beams in different directions, and meanwhile, the terminal device selects a proper SSB and indicates a beam corresponding to the proper SSB to the network device by detecting the signal strength of the received SSB. Then, further, after the network device acquires the beam corresponding to the appropriate SSB based on the indication of the terminal device, scanning in different directions by using the beam carrying the channel state information reference signal (channel state information reference signal, CSI-RS) in the vicinity of the beam corresponding to the appropriate SSB is continued, and meanwhile, the terminal device selects an optimal narrow beam according to the relevant information of the detected received CSI-RS (for example, the signal strength of the detected received CSI-RS) and indicates the optimal narrow beam to the network device. The network device may then use the optimal narrow beam to send information to the terminal device.

However, as the network device continuously evolves towards the large array technology, the beams on the network device side become narrower, and accordingly, the number of beams becomes larger, so that when the traversing scanning based on the beams is caused, the pilot frequency overhead becomes larger, the energy consumption becomes higher correspondingly, and the time delay caused by scanning becomes larger.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a beam indicating method and device, which can save a large amount of pilot frequency expenditure and further can reduce energy consumption and time delay caused by scanning.

In a first aspect, the present application provides a beam indication method, applied to a terminal device, including: receiving a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates logic index information of beams used by the network equipment in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; receiving all beams sent by the network equipment in the M subintervals; obtaining logic index information corresponding to a target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam; and sending first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates logic index information corresponding to the target beam.

According to the technical scheme provided by the application, the network equipment indicates the logic index information of the wave beam used by the network equipment in the target time period through the target system message; after that, the terminal device can determine the logical index information corresponding to the target beam through the measured beams (which can be considered as all signals sent by the network device in the target period) sent by the network device in the target period and the logical index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams, and then send the logical index information corresponding to the target beam to the network device, so that the network device can determine the beam indicated by the logical index information sent by the terminal device.

It can be understood that in the prior art, the network device scans beams carrying SSBs at intervals, and for the terminal device, the terminal device needs to receive all the beams and measure them to obtain a relatively suitable beam, and then the network device scans beams carrying channel state information reference signals in different directions around the suitable beam, so as to finally determine the target beam. In the scheme, the terminal equipment can directly determine the target beam based on the data communication between the network equipment and other users in the target period, so that the target beam is no longer determined by scanning beams carrying channel state information reference signals in different directions, a large amount of pilot frequency expenditure is saved, and further, the energy consumption and the time delay caused by scanning are reduced.

With reference to the first aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the receiving the target system message includes: receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1; receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to the target system message; and receiving the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

In this implementation, the time-frequency resource location corresponding to the target system message may be indicated by SIB 1.

With reference to the first aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the sending the first indication information includes: the first indication information is transmitted through a random access channel message 3 or through a 2-step random access channel.

With reference to the first aspect, in one possible implementation manner, each of the M sub-periods includes any one of the following: time slots or symbols.

With reference to the first aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the logical index information of the beam includes any one of the following: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

With reference to the first aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

With reference to the first aspect, in a possible implementation manner, the target system message further includes one or more of the following information: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a second aspect, the present application provides a beam indication method, applied to a network device, including: transmitting a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates logic index information of beams used by the network equipment in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; transmitting beams in the M sub-periods; and receiving first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates logic index information of the target beam.

In this embodiment, the network device indicates, in the target system message, the logical index information of the beam used by the network device in the target period, so that the terminal device can determine the logical index information of the target beam based on the indicated logical index information of the beam.

With reference to the second aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the sending a target system message includes: broadcasting a synchronous signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to a target system message; and sending the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

With reference to the second aspect, in one possible implementation manner, each of the M sub-periods includes any one of the following: time slots or symbols.

With reference to the second aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the logical index information of the beam includes any one of the following: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

With reference to the second aspect, in one possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

With reference to the second aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the target system message: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a third aspect, the present application provides a beam indication method, applied to a terminal device, including: receiving a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates time slot index information of the network equipment when transmitting a wave beam in each of M subintervals in a target time interval, and M is a positive integer; receiving all beams sent by the network equipment in the M subintervals; obtaining time slot index information corresponding to a target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams; and sending first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates time slot index information corresponding to the target beam.

According to the technical scheme provided by the application, the network equipment indicates the time slot index information of the wave beam sent by the network equipment in the target time period through the target system message; then, the terminal device determines the time slot index information corresponding to one optimal beam through the measured beams (which can be considered as all signals sent by the network device in the target period) sent by the network device in the target period and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams, and then sends the time slot index information to the network device, so that the network device can determine the beam based on the time slot index information corresponding to the target beam.

With reference to the third aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the receiving the target system message includes: receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1; and receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

With reference to the third aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the sending the first indication information includes: the first indication information is transmitted through the random access channel message 3 or through a 2-step random access channel.

With reference to the third aspect, in one possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a beam indication method, applied to a network device, including: transmitting a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates time slot index information of the network equipment when transmitting a wave beam in each of the M subintervals, and M is a positive integer; transmitting beams in the M sub-periods; first indication information is received, wherein the first indication information indicates time slot index information of a target beam.

In this embodiment, the network device indicates, through the target system message, slot index information when the network device transmits a beam in each of M sub-periods in the target period, so that the terminal device can determine, based on the indicated slot index information of the beam, slot index information corresponding to the target beam, where the target beam indicates a beam determined by the terminal device to correspond to a signal that is strongest.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, the sending a target system message includes: broadcasting a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises first indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; and transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a beam pointing device, the device comprising: a transceiver module, configured to receive a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates logic index information of a beam used by a network device in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module is further configured to receive all beams sent by the network device in the M subintervals; the determining module is used for obtaining the logic index information corresponding to the target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams; the transceiver module is further configured to send first indication information, where the first indication information indicates logic index information corresponding to the target beam.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the transceiver module is specifically configured to: receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1; receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to the target system message; and receiving the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the transceiver module is specifically configured to: the first indication information is transmitted through a random access channel message 3 or through a 2-step random access channel.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, each of the M sub-periods includes any one of the following: time slots or symbols.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the logical index information of the beam includes any one of the following: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

With reference to the fifth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the target system message: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a beam indicating device, applied to a network device, the device comprising: a transceiver module, configured to send a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates logic index information of a beam used by a network device in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module is further configured to transmit beams in the M subintervals; the transceiver module is further configured to receive first indication information, where the first indication information indicates logic index information of the target beam.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the transceiver module is specifically configured to: broadcasting a synchronous signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to a target system message; and sending the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, each of the M sub-periods includes any one of the following: time slots or symbols.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the logical index information of the beam includes any one of the following: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

With reference to the sixth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the target system message: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a beam indicating device, applied to a terminal device, where the device includes: a transceiver module, configured to receive a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates slot index information when a network device sends a beam in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module is further configured to receive all beams sent by the network device in the M subintervals; the determining module is used for obtaining the time slot index information corresponding to the target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams; the transceiver module is further configured to send first indication information, where the first indication information indicates slot index information corresponding to the target beam.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the transceiver module is specifically configured to: receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1; and receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the transceiver module is specifically configured to: the first indication information is transmitted through the random access channel message 3 or through a 2-step random access channel.

With reference to the seventh aspect, in one possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In an eighth aspect, the present application provides a beam indicating device, applied to a network device, the device comprising: a transceiver module, configured to send a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates slot index information when a network device sends a beam in each of the M subintervals, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module is further configured to transmit beams in the M subintervals; the transceiver module is further configured to receive first indication information, where the first indication information indicates slot index information of a target beam.

With reference to the eighth aspect, in one possible implementation manner, the transceiver module is specifically configured to: broadcasting a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises first indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; and transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

With reference to the eighth aspect, in a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a ninth aspect, the present application provides a beam pointing device, comprising: a memory and a processor; the memory is used for storing program instructions; the processor is configured to invoke program instructions in the memory to perform a method as described in the first aspect or the third aspect or any possible implementation of the first aspect or the third aspect.

In a tenth aspect, the present application provides a beam pointing device, comprising: a memory and a processor; the memory is used for storing program instructions; the processor is configured to invoke program instructions in the memory to perform a method as described in the second aspect or the fourth aspect or any possible implementation of the second aspect or the fourth aspect.

In an eleventh aspect, the present application provides a computer readable medium storing program code for computer execution, the program code comprising instructions for performing the method of the first to fourth aspects or any one of the possible implementations thereof.

In a twelfth aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising computer program code embodied therein, which when run on a computer causes the computer to implement the method according to the first to fourth aspects or any one of the possible implementations thereof.

The technical effects of any implementation manner of the second aspect to the twelfth aspect may be referred to the technical effects of any possible implementation manner of the first aspect, which are not described herein.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication system to which the present application is applied;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam training method in the prior art according to the present application;

FIG. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing method according to another embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a schematic structural view of a beam pointing device according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing device according to another embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing device according to another embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

In order to better understand the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application, some concepts used in the embodiments of the present application are described below.

1. Beam

A beam (beam) is a communication resource. The beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam, or other type of beam. The technique of forming the beam may be a beam forming technique or other technical means. The beamforming technique may specifically be a digital beamforming technique, an analog beamforming technique, a hybrid digital/analog beamforming technique.

Alternatively, the beam may be referred to as a direction, the beam may be directly replaced with a direction, or the direction may be directly replaced with a beam, for example, the first beam may be replaced with a first direction, and the first direction may be replaced with a first beam, which is not described herein.

Alternatively, the beams may also be referred to as precoding vectors, the beams may be replaced directly with precoding vectors, or the precoding vectors may be replaced directly with beams.

Alternatively, a beam may be understood as a spatial resource, and may refer to a transmit or receive precoding vector with energy transmission directivity/directionality. And, the transmission or reception precoding vector can be identified by index information. The energy transmission directivity may mean that in a certain spatial position, a signal after receiving the precoding vector and performing precoding processing has better receiving power, for example, the signal to noise ratio of receiving demodulation is satisfied; the energy transmission directivity may also refer to that the same signal transmitted from different spatial locations through the precoding vector has different receiving powers, which may be understood as that the device uses different beams to indicate that the device uses different spatial resources, and optionally further distinguishes uplink spatial resources and/or downlink spatial resources, or spatial resources used for transmitting information and spatial resources used for receiving information.

Alternatively, a beam may be understood as a main lobe formed by the transmission pattern of the antenna array.

Optionally, the same communication device (e.g. a terminal device or a network device) may have different precoding vectors, and the different devices may also have different precoding vectors, i.e. corresponding to different beams, and the different beams may correspond to different directions, which may be understood that the devices use different beams to represent that the devices use different precoding vectors, optionally further distinguish between uplink precoding vectors, downlink precoding vectors, or between precoding vectors for transmitting information and precoding vectors for receiving information;

optionally, the beam may also be understood as a spatial domain transmission filter (spatial domain transmission filter); devices (e.g., network devices and/or user devices) that use beams may be replaced with devices that use spatial domain transmission filters.

2. Reference signal

The reference signal may be used for channel measurement or channel estimation, etc. According to the protocol of the long term evolution LTE/NR, at the physical layer, the uplink communication comprises an uplink physical channel and transmission of an uplink signal. Wherein the uplink physical channels include a random access channel (random access channel, PRACH), an uplink control channel (physical uplink control channel, PUCCH), an uplink data channel (physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH), etc., the uplink signals include a channel sounding signal (sounding reference signal, SRS), a demodulation reference signal (de-modulation reference signal, DMRS) of the uplink control channel, a demodulation reference signal (PUSCH-DMRS) of the uplink data channel, an uplink phase noise tracking signal (phase noise tracking reference signal, PTRS), an uplink positioning signal, etc. The downlink communication includes transmission of downlink physical channels and downlink signals. Wherein the downlink physical channels include a broadcast channel (physical broadcast channel, PBCH), a downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), a downlink data channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), etc., the downlink signals include a primary synchronization signal (primary synchronization signal, abbreviated PSS)/secondary synchronization signal (secondary synchronization signal, SSS), a demodulation reference signal (PDCCH-DMRS) of the downlink control channel, a downlink data channel demodulation reference signal (PDSCH-DMRS), a phase noise tracking signal, a channel state information reference signal (channel status information reference signal, CSI-RS), a cell signal (cell reference signal, CRS) (NR not), a fine synchronization signal (time/frequency tracking reference signal, TRS) (LTE not), an LTE/NR positioning signal (positioning RS), etc.

It should be understood that the reference signals listed above and the corresponding reference signal resources are merely exemplary and should not be construed as limiting the application in any way, and the application does not exclude the possibility of defining other reference signals in future protocols to achieve the same or similar functionality.

3. Quasi co-located

Quasi co-location (QCL) or quasi co-location. Quasi-co-ordination is used to denote that there are one or more identical or similar communication characteristics between the plurality of resources, for which the same or similar communication configuration may be employed. In particular. The same parameters are included in the signals corresponding to the antenna ports having the QCL relationship, or the parameters of one antenna port (may also be referred to as QCL parameters) may be used to determine the parameters of the other antenna port having the QCL relationship with the antenna port, or the two antenna ports have the same parameters, or the parameter difference between the two antenna ports is less than a certain threshold. Wherein the parameters may include one or more of the following: delay spread (delay spread), doppler spread (doppler spread), doppler shift (doppler shift), average delay (average delay), average gain, spatial reception parameters (spatial rx parameters). Wherein the spatial reception parameters may include one or more of: angle of arrival (AOA), average AOA, AOA spread, angle of departure (angle ofdeparture, AOD), average angle of departure (AOD), AOD spread, receive antenna spatial correlation parameter, transmit beam, receive beam, and resource identification.

Spatial quasi-co-location (spatial QCL): the spatial QCL may be considered a type of QCL. For spatial, it can be understood from the perspective of the sender or the receiver, respectively: from the transmitting end, if two antenna ports are spatially quasi-co-located, it means that the corresponding beam directions of the two antenna ports are spatially identical; from the receiving end, if two antenna ports are spatially quasi-co-located, it means that the receiving end can receive signals transmitted by the two antenna ports in the same beam direction.

4. Synchronous signal block

The synchronization signal block (synchronization signal block, SSB) is composed of three parts, namely a primary synchronization signal (primary synchronization signals, PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (secondary synchronization signals, SSS) and a physical broadcast channel block (physical broadcasting channel block, PBCH). I.e., PSS, SSS, PBCH and DMRS are received in four consecutive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM) symbols and then constitute SSBs, primarily for downlink synchronization.

5. Random access

Random access refers to the procedure before attempting to access the network and establishing a basic signaling connection with the network, starting with the user transmitting a random access preamble. Random access mainly includes contention-based random access and non-contention-based random access. In contention-based random access, four steps are included, respectively: the terminal device initiates a random access request (random access preamble or Msg 1) to the network device, the network device sends an access response (random access response or Msg 2) to the terminal device, the terminal device sends a connection request (scheduled transmission or Msg 3) to the network device, and the network device performs collision resolution (contention resolution or Msg 4). In non-contention based random access, three steps are included: the network device sends a preamble allocation (random access preamble assignment or Msg 0) to the terminal device, the terminal device initiates a random access request (random access preamble or Msg 1) to the network device, and the network device sends an access response (Random Access Response or Msg 2) to the terminal device.

The embodiment of the application provides a beam indicating method, namely a device, wherein the method and the device are based on the same technical conception, and because the principles of solving the problems of the method and the device are similar, the implementation of the device and the method can be mutually referred to, and the repetition of the description is omitted.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication systems. For example, the applied communication system may be a global system for mobile communications (global system of mobile communication, GSM), a code division multiple access (code dividion multiple access, CDMA), wideband code division multiple access (wideband radio service, GPRS), long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE), advanced long term evolution (LTE-a), LTE frequency division duplex (frequency division duplex, FDD), LTE time division duplex (time division duplex, TDD), universal mobile telecommunications system (universal mobile telecommunication system, UMTS), and other wireless communication systems employing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM) techniques.

It is further described herein that the system architecture and the service scenario described in the embodiments of the present application are for more clearly describing the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application, and do not constitute a limitation on the technical solution provided by the embodiments of the present application, and those skilled in the art can know that, with the evolution of the network architecture and the appearance of the new service scenario, the technical solution provided by the embodiments of the present application is equally applicable to similar technical solutions.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present application will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

To facilitate an understanding of embodiments of the present application, a communication system suitable for use in embodiments of the present application will be described in detail with reference to fig. 1. Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a suitable communication system for use with embodiments of the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system may include at least one network device, such as network device 110 shown in fig. 1; the communication system may also include at least one terminal device, such as terminal device 120 shown in fig. 1. Network device 110 and terminal device 120 may communicate via a wireless link. Each communication device, such as network device 110 or terminal device 120, may be configured with multiple antennas that may include at least one transmit antenna for transmitting signals and at least one receive antenna for receiving signals. In addition, each communication device may additionally include a transmitter chain and a receiver chain, each of which may include a plurality of components (e.g., processors, modulators, multiplexers, demodulators, demultiplexers, antennas, etc.) associated with the transmission and reception of signals, as will be appreciated by one skilled in the art. Thus, network device 110 and terminal device 120 may communicate via multiple antenna techniques.

It should be understood that the network device in the wireless communication system may be any device having a wireless transceiving function. The apparatus includes, but is not limited to: an evolved NodeB (eNB or eNodeB), a radio network controller (radio network controller, RNC), a NodeB (Node B, NB), a base station controller (base stationcontroller, BSC), a base transceiver station (base transceiver station, BTS), a home base station (e.g., homeevolved NodeB, or home Node B, HNB), a Base Band Unit (BBU), an Access Point (AP) in a wireless fidelity (wireless fidelity, WIFI) system, a wireless relay Node, a wireless backhaul Node, a transmission point (transmission point, TP), or a transmission reception point (transmission and receptionpoint, TRP), etc., may also be 5G, e.g., NR, a gNB in a system, or a transmission point (TRP, TP), one or a group of base stations (including multiple antenna panels) in a 5G system, or may also be a network Node constituting a gNB or a transmission point, e.g., a baseband unit (BBU), or a Distributed Unit (DU), etc.

In some deployments, the gNB may include a Centralized Unit (CU) and DUs. The gNB may also include a Radio Unit (RU). The CU implements part of the functions of the gNB, the DU implements part of the functions of the gNB, for example, the CU implements functions of a radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC), a packet data convergence layer protocol (packet data convergence protocol, PDCP) layer, and the DU implements functions of a radio link control (radio link control, RLC), a medium access control (media access control, MAC), and a Physical (PHY) layer. Since the information of the RRC layer may eventually become information of the PHY layer or be converted from the information of the PHY layer, under this architecture, higher layer signaling, such as RRC layer signaling, may also be considered to be transmitted by the DU or by the du+cu. It is understood that the network device may be a CU node, or a DU node, or a device comprising a CU node and a DU node. In addition, the CU may be divided into network devices in an access network (radio access network, RAN), or may be divided into network devices in a Core Network (CN), which is not limited by the present application.

The terminal device 120 in the embodiment of the present application may be a device that provides voice and/or data connectivity to a user, for example, a handheld device with a wireless connection function, an in-vehicle device, and the like. The terminal device may also be referred to as a User Equipment (UE), an access terminal (access terminal), a user unit (user unit), a subscriber station (user station), a mobile station (mobile), a remote station (remote station), a remote terminal (remote terminal), a mobile device (mobile device), a user terminal (user terminal), a wireless communication device (wireless telecom equipment), a user agent (user agent), a user equipment (user equipment), or a user equipment. The terminal device may be a Station (STA) in a wireless local area network (wireless local Area networks, WLAN), may be a cellular telephone, a cordless telephone, a session initiation protocol (session initiation protocol, SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (wireless local loop, WLL) station, a personal digital processing (personal digital assistant, PDA) device, a handheld device with wireless communication capabilities, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a terminal in a next generation communication system (e.g., a fifth generation (5G) communication network) or a terminal device in a future evolution public land mobile network (public land mobile network, PLMN) network, etc. Wherein 5G may also be referred to as a New Radio (NR). In a possible application scenario of the present application, the terminal device may also be a terminal device that is often operated on the ground, such as a vehicle-mounted device. In the present application, for convenience of description, a chip disposed in the above-described device, or a chip may also be referred to as a terminal device.

In the embodiment of the application, the two terms of the UE and the terminal equipment can be interchanged, and the two terms of the base station and the network equipment can also be interchanged.

In the application, the network equipment and the terminal equipment can communicate through the authorized spectrum, can also communicate through the unlicensed spectrum, and can also communicate through the authorized spectrum and the unlicensed spectrum at the same time. The network device and the terminal device may communicate with each other through a frequency spectrum of 6 Gigahertz (GHZ) or less, may communicate through a frequency spectrum of 6GHZ or more, and may communicate using a frequency spectrum of 6GHZ or less and a frequency spectrum of 6GHZ or more at the same time. The embodiment of the application does not limit the frequency spectrum resources used between the network equipment and the terminal equipment.

It will be appreciated that the number of network devices and terminal devices shown in fig. 1 is merely one example. The number of network devices and terminal devices in the actual process may also be other numbers. Of course, the communication system may also comprise other network elements, for example core network devices, to which the network devices may be connected. It is described herein that the specific forms of the network device and the terminal device in the embodiments of the present application are not limited.

It should be noted that in an embodiment of the present application, the terminal device or the network device includes a hardware layer, an operating system layer running above the hardware layer, and an application layer running above the operating system layer. The hardware layer includes hardware such as a central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), a memory management unit (memory management unit, MMU), and a memory (also referred to as a main memory). The operating system may be any one or more computer operating systems that implement business processes through processes (processes), such as a Linux operating system, a Unix operating system, an Android operating system, an iOS operating system, or a windows operating system. The application layer comprises applications such as a browser, an address book, word processing software, instant messaging software and the like. Further, the embodiment of the present application is not particularly limited to the specific structure of the execution body of the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, as long as communication can be performed by the method provided according to the embodiment of the present application by running a program in which the code of the method provided by the embodiment of the present application is recorded. For example, the execution body of the method provided by the embodiment of the present application may be a terminal device or a network device, or may be a functional module in the terminal device or the network device that can call a program and execute the program.

Additionally, the methods of the various aspects of the application may be implemented using programming and form a computer readable device, carrier, or media accessed computer program. For example, computer-readable media can include, but are not limited to, magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, or magnetic strips, etc.), optical disks (e.g., compact disk, CD, digital versatile disk, digital versatile disc, DVD, etc.), smart cards, and flash memory devices (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory, EPROM), cards, sticks, or key drives, etc. Additionally, various storage media described herein can represent one or more devices and/or other machine-readable media for storing information. The term "machine-readable medium" can include, without being limited to, wireless channels and various other media capable of storing, containing, and/or carrying instruction(s) and/or data

The application scenario to which the embodiment of the present application is applied is first briefly described below.

With the rapid development of internet technology, users have put higher demands on data communication. In order to meet the increasing demands of users for wireless and mobile data communications, international communication standards organizations, such as the third generation partnership project (third generation partnership project,3 GPP), have begun to formulate standards for the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system. Compared to third generation (3G) and fourth generation (fourth generation, 4G) mobile communication systems, the 5G mobile communication system will provide higher system bandwidth and data rate, lower communication latency for users to support various application scenarios, such as large-scale machine type communication (enhanced mobile broadband, eMBB) services that need to support internet of things, and ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) for telemedicine and virtual reality.

High frequency has an advantage of a large bandwidth, and thus, in practical applications, in order to provide a larger bandwidth and a higher data rate, high frequency is one of effective methods for improving service capability of a wireless communication system. However, the high frequency versus the low frequency has the disadvantage of serious path loss. Currently, to overcome this drawback, the network device may boost the array gain by driving out a narrower beam with a beamforming technique, thereby overcoming the disadvantage of higher path loss at high frequencies. For example, by digital or analog beamforming to form multiple transmit or receive beams, the angles covered by the individual beams may be the same or different, and overlapping portions of the beams may exist for different angles of coverage. So that, for example, the network device can transmit data information using beams with narrower coverage angles. The user equipment may receive information transmitted by the network equipment within the coverage area of one or more beams or sets or groups of beams therein.

Similarly, the ue may also form multiple receive beams by using beamforming techniques, corresponding to the downlink beams used by the network device, to determine to use one or more of the receive beams for reception. For convenience of description, the beams referred to in the embodiments of the present application may refer to single or multiple beams.

Illustratively, for the communication system shown in fig. 1, the network device side 110 boosts the array gain by using beamforming techniques to steer out a narrow beam, thereby overcoming the disadvantage of higher path loss for high frequencies. However, since the beams have directivity, both communication parties need to know which direction of the beams can be aligned with each other to obtain better beam performance. Thus, for the communication system shown in fig. 1, the terminal device 120 selects a beam through a beam training method during random access, and informs the network device of the selected beam. The network device 110 transmits data to the terminal device 120 on the beam selected by the terminal device 120 to enable a better beam gain.

Currently, the most common beam training method is mainly based on beam traversal scanning. Specifically, the beam training method includes: the network device scans beams in different directions at different moments to complete the coverage of broadcast beams of a cell, wherein different synchronous signal blocks (synchronization signal block, SSB) are broadcast in the beams in different directions, and meanwhile, the terminal device selects a proper SSB and indicates a beam corresponding to the proper SSB to the network device by detecting the signal strength of the received SSB. Then, further, after the network device acquires the beam corresponding to the appropriate SSB based on the indication of the terminal device, scanning in different directions by using the beam carrying the channel state information reference signal (channel state information reference signal, CSI-RS) in the vicinity of the beam corresponding to the appropriate SSB is continued, and meanwhile, the terminal device detects the relevant information of the received CSI-RS (for example, detects the signal strength of the received CSI-RS) to select an optimal narrow beam and indicates the optimal narrow beam to the network device. The network device may then use the optimal narrow beam to send information to the terminal device.

Illustratively, fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam training method in the prior art provided by the present application. As shown in fig. 2, the base station 210 performs scanning of a narrow beam based on the synchronization signal block (synchronization signal block, SSB), that is, the base station transmits beams in different directions at different times, to complete the broadcast beam coverage of the cell. As shown in fig. 2 (a), the base station 210 completes the broadcast beam coverage of the cell using beam 1, beam 2, beam 3, beam 4, beam 5, and beam 6. Meanwhile, the UE220 receives beams in different directions, and determines a more appropriate beam that the base station 210 should use according to the received signal strength. Taking fig. 2 (a) as an example, it is assumed that after receiving 6 beams broadcast by the base station 210, the UE220 detects that the signal in the direction corresponding to the beam 5 is strongest, and at this time, the UE220 may feed back the beam 5 to the base station 210. Then, when the base station 210 receives the feedback information, the base station 210 scans the vicinity of the beam 5 in order to further find the beam in the optimal direction. Specifically, as shown in fig. 2 (b), the base station continues to scan the narrow beam through the channel state information reference signal (channel state information reference signal, CSI-RS) in the vicinity of the beam 5, and at the same time, the UE220 determines the target beam that should be used by the base station 210 according to the received signal, so as to implement communication with the UE 220.

It should be appreciated that the SSB typically carries a master information block (master information block, MIB) indicating the channel resources carrying the system information block (system information block, SIB) 1. And the base station can indicate the mapping relation between one SSB and the random access channel opportunity (random access channel occasion, RO) through the SIB1 message. Thus, after the UE determines the appropriate beam or target beam, random access may be performed from physical random access channel (physical random access channel, PRACH) resources corresponding to the appropriate beam or target beam, thereby enabling the base station to determine the appropriate beam or target beam.

It is to be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the specific form of the communication manner between the terminal device 220 and the network device 210 is not limited. For example, the beam signals of the non-serving cell may be measured for the terminal device 220 and reported to the current serving cell. Then after switching the beam, a signal is received from another cell but without switching the scenario of the serving cell. Alternatively, the terminal device 220 may measure the reference signal of the non-serving beam of the current serving cell and report the reference signal to the current serving cell. And then the terminal equipment switches the service beam to the scene of the reporting beam. Wherein a cell refers to an area for providing a wireless communication service to a terminal device, in which area a network device can provide the wireless communication service to the terminal device. In particular, one network device may manage one or more cells. Each cell corresponds to a cell identity that uniquely identifies the cell. If the terminal device camps on a certain cell and is to be accessed to the camping cell, the cell may be referred to as a camping cell or a serving cell of the terminal device, and cells around and adjacent to the serving cell may be referred to as neighbor cells or neighbor cells of the serving cell. It is noted that the concept of the related cells may refer to the description in the related art, and will not be repeated here.

However, it can be understood that as the network device continuously evolves towards the large array technology, the beams on the network device side become narrower, and accordingly the number of beams becomes larger, so that the pilot frequency overhead becomes larger and the corresponding energy consumption becomes higher during the traversing scanning based on the beams, and the time delay caused by the scanning becomes larger and larger.

In view of this, an embodiment of the present application provides a beam indication method. In the technical scheme provided by the application, the network equipment can indicate a target system message to the terminal equipment, wherein the target system message is used for indicating the logic index information of the wave beam used by the network equipment in a target period; and then the terminal equipment obtains the logic index information corresponding to the target beam by receiving all the beams sent by the network equipment in the target period and according to all the beams and the logic index information used by each beam in all the beams, and finally reports the logic index information corresponding to the target beam through a random access channel message 3 or a 2-step random access channel. According to the method provided by the application, the network equipment and the terminal equipment can determine the target beam used when the network equipment and the terminal equipment carry out data communication without depending on the scanning of the reference signal, so that a large amount of pilot frequency overhead is saved, and further, the energy consumption and the time delay caused by scanning are reduced.

Fig. 3 is a schematic flow chart of a beam indication method according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 3, the method of the present embodiment may include S301, S302, S303, and S304. The method may be performed by the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 shown in fig. 1 through interaction.

S301, a network device sends a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates logic index information of a wave beam used by the network device in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; accordingly, the terminal device receives the target system message.

In this embodiment, the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates logic index information of a beam used by the network device in each of M sub-periods in the target period, and M is a positive integer.

Wherein the logical index information of the beam is information for identifying the beam.

Here, the embodiment is not limited to a specific form of the logical index information.

In one implementation, the logical index information may be an absolute index, such as an index ranging from 0 to 127 (corresponding to 128 beams employed by the network device in this implementation). Illustratively, the logical index information may be in the following format:

{

Slot#2 beam ID＝56，118

Slot#9 beam ID＝90，

Slot#12，13 beam ID＝27，

…

}

Where Slot #2 denotes Slot 2, slot #9 denotes Slot 9, slots #12, 13 denote Slot 12 and Slot 13, beam id=56, 118 denotes the identity of the beam (also called beam ID) is 56 and 118, beam id=90 denotes beam ID 90, and beam id=27 denotes beam ID 27. That is, the meaning of the information representation in the above format is: the beams used by the network device in slot 2 include a 56 # beam and a 118 # beam, the beam used by the network device in slot 2 is a 90 # beam, and the beams used by the network device in slot 12 and slot 13 are 27 # beams. It can be seen that in this example, the logical index information of the beam is directly represented by the identity of the beam.

It should be noted that the above implementation is only an example, and in implementation, the signaling cell name is not limited to the above example, and the included information may not be limited to the timeslot and the beam ID, and may also include a symbol index, an SSB index, a component carrier (component carrier, CC) index, a transmission configuration number (trasmission configuration index, TCI) status index, a CSI-RS index, and the like.

It is noted that, the component carrier (component carrier, CC) index may be equivalently replaced by a serving cell ID (serving cell ID) in the protocol, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.

It is also explained here that the present embodiment does not limit the specific form of the M sub-periods within the target period. For example, the M sub-periods may be a plurality of periods continuous within the target period, or may be a plurality of periods discrete within the target period.

It is also explained herein that if a certain sub-period (e.g. a certain time slot or a certain symbol) the network device does not transmit a beam (e.g. no other terminal device is scheduled) or the network device does not want the terminal device to know the beam information it uses, it may also indicate that it is not available with 0. Or the target system message does not carry the logic index information of the beam used by the certain subinterval so as to indicate that the beam information of the corresponding time resource is not available.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, when the terminal device receives the target system message, it is possible to obtain the logical index information of the beam used by the network device in each of the M sub-periods within the target period.

S302, the network equipment transmits wave beams in M subintervals; accordingly, the terminal device receives all beams transmitted by the network device in the M sub-periods.

Here, in this embodiment, the transmission of the beams in the M sub-periods is also referred to as the transmission of the signals in the M sub-periods, and accordingly, all the beams transmitted by the terminal device receiving network device in the M sub-periods are also referred to as all the signals transmitted by the terminal device receiving network device in the M sub-periods.

Illustratively, assuming that the network device will communicate using beam 1 for the first sub-period and terminal device 1, beam 2 for the second sub-period and terminal device 2, beam 3 for the third sub-period and terminal device 3, and beam 4 for the fourth sub-period and terminal device 4, the network device will transmit signals in the corresponding four sub-periods, and accordingly the terminal device will receive all signals transmitted by the network device in the corresponding four sub-periods. For example, the terminal device may attempt to receive signals over the air (the received signals may be data signals transmitted by the network device to other terminal devices using a beam) within a target period.

It should be noted that the four sub-periods described above and transmitting four beams are only examples, and that the number 4 may also be other values in a specific implementation, e.g. the network device transmits 100 beams in M sub-periods.

Also described herein are embodiments of the present application in which all beams transmitted by a network device during M subintervals are also referred to as training samples.

S303, the terminal equipment obtains the logic index information corresponding to the target beam according to the beam measured in the target period and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams.

In this embodiment, when the terminal device measures the beam sent by the network device in the target period and obtains the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam, the logic index information of the target beam may be determined based on the measured beam and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam. The target beam may be, for example, a beam determined by the terminal device and corresponding to when the signal is strongest, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.

It is described herein that, the implementation manner of determining the logical index information of the target beam by the terminal device according to the measured beam and the logical index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

For example, in one possible implementation, the terminal device may directly select according to the energy of the signal received by different subintervals (e.g. different time slots or different symbols), or may train with advanced algorithms such as conventional interpolation algorithms or artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI) to obtain the logical index information of the target beam.

In one embodiment, the terminal device may train according to a configured training method. For example, the indices of the conventional method and the AI-based method may be uniform, for example, "0" may be used to represent linear interpolation, "1" may represent polynomial interpolation, "2" may represent multi-spline, "3" may represent neural network, "4" may represent reinforcement learning, and so on. Alternatively, the indexes of the conventional method and the AI-based method may be separate, for example, "00" may be used to represent linear interpolation, "01" may be used to represent polynomial interpolation, "02" may be used to represent a multi-spline, and "10" may be used to represent a neural network, "11" may be used to represent reinforcement learning, and so on. Assuming that under the training method configured in this way, when the terminal device receives the training method index of "3", the terminal device performs beam training using the neural network to obtain the logical index information of the target beam.

In another embodiment, for a neural network-based training method, a specific neural network model may also be indicated by way of a model index, e.g., a "0" may be used to represent a deep neural network, "1" a convolutional neural network, "2" a long and short memory neural network, etc. It is assumed that under the training method of this configuration, if the terminal device receives the AI model of "0", the terminal device performs beam training using the deep neural network to obtain logical index information of the target beam.

It should be understood that, according to all beams and the logic index information used by each beam in all beams, the terminal device determines that the logic index information corresponding to the target beam may be one of multiple logic index information indicated by the network device to the terminal device, or may not be included in multiple logic index information indicated by the network device to the terminal device.

As an example, when the network device communicates with the terminal device 1 using the beam 1 in the first sub-period and communicates with the terminal device 2 using the beam 2 in the second sub-period, the terminal device may determine that the logical index information of the target beam is the beam 2 when the terminal device detects that the energy of the beam transmitted by the network device received in the second sub-period is strongest. That is, the determined logical index information corresponding to the target beam is one of a plurality of logical index information indicated by the network device to the terminal device.

As yet another example, when the network device communicates with the terminal device 1 using the beam 1 in the first sub-period and communicates with the terminal device 2 using the beam 2 in the second sub-period, the terminal device may determine that the energy corresponding to the beam received by the terminal device is strongest when the network device communicates with the beam 3 through analysis of the received beam 1 and the received beam 2, for example, analysis of the received energy of the beam 1 and the received energy of the beam 2, and at this time, the terminal device may determine that the logical index information of the target beam is the beam 3. That is, the logical index information corresponding to the determined target beam is not included in the plurality of logical index information indicated to the terminal device by the network device.

It is to be noted that the 2 beams in the above example are only one example, and the number is not limited in the specific implementation.

S304, the terminal equipment sends first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates logic index information corresponding to the target beam; accordingly, the network device receives the first indication information.

In this embodiment, after the terminal device determines the logical index information corresponding to the target beam, the logical index information corresponding to the target beam may be sent to the network device, so that the network device may determine the beam based on the logical index information corresponding to the target beam.

For example, based on the logical index information illustrated in S301, assuming that the terminal device finds that the received signal energy is strongest in the time slot 9 after training, the terminal device determines the received signal energy as a potentially optimal downlink communication beam, and at this time, the terminal device may report the optimal beam absolute index to the network device as 90 by using uplink signaling. For example, in signaling using binary, the terminal device only needs to report "0101 1010" (corresponding to decimal 90), so as to indicate the optimal narrow beam of the network device itself.

Or in another possible implementation, the terminal device finds that the energy of the received signal is strongest on the time slot 9 after training, determines the received signal as a potential optimal downlink communication beam, and reports the optimal beam to the network device with a time slot index of 9 corresponding to the optimal beam by using uplink signaling.

In the implementation, when the received signal energy of the plurality of time slots is the strongest, for example, any one of the time slots with the least logical index number of the corresponding beam may be selected. For example, the received signal energy is strongest for both slot 2 and slot 9, as slot 2 corresponds to beams 56 and 118, while slot 9 corresponds only to beam 90, so the beam corresponding to slot 9 can be selected. Since the network device side knows what kind of beam is used to schedule other terminal devices in the cell on the time slot No. 9, the base station can communicate based on the corresponding beam only by reporting the logical index of the beam 90 to the base station.

As an alternative embodiment, the network device sends a target system message, including: broadcasting a synchronous signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; transmitting the SIB1 on a first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to a target system message; and sending the target system message on the second time-frequency resource. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the target system message, including: the synchronization signal block SSB is received, SIB1 is received on the first time-frequency resource based on the first time-frequency resource of the system message block 1SIB1 indicated in the SSB, and the target system message is received on the second time-frequency resource based on the second time-frequency resource of the target system message indicated in the SIB 1.

Wherein the SSB includes a primary synchronization signal, a secondary synchronization signal, and a physical broadcast channel. For details of SSB, reference may be made to the description in the related art, and details are not repeated here.

In one possible implementation, the network device may broadcast the SSB by way of beam scanning, e.g., transmitting the SSBs sequentially in time, one SSB for each beam. Accordingly, the terminal device receives the SSB broadcast by the network device.

It is described herein that the manner how the network device scans is not limited in this embodiment. For example, the network device may periodically scan for and transmit SSBs in a time-sharing manner. It should be understood that when the beam scanning signal of the SSB is transmitted to the terminal device, the terminal device may acquire relevant parameters, such as master information block (master information block, MIB) information in the PBCH, including information such as a system frame number, a subcarrier spacing of the SSB, a subcarrier offset of the SSB, and an SSB index, from the SSB in the beam.

In particular implementation, the MIB information generally carries information (also referred to as second indication information in this embodiment) for indicating the first time-frequency resource corresponding to the system message block1 (system information block, SIB 1). For example, the number of resource blocks corresponding to the system message block1, the length of the symbol, or the frequency domain offset from the SSB, the search space period, and the like may be indicated in MIB information. It is noted that the detailed description of the MIB can refer to the description in the related art, and will not be repeated here.

In this embodiment, the network device sends SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, where the SIB1 includes third indication information, where the third indication information is used to indicate a second time-frequency resource corresponding to the target system message; accordingly, the terminal device receives SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource.

It should be understood that the network device may send SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource corresponding to SIB1 indicated by the MIB, and accordingly, the terminal device receives SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource.

It should be understood that the terminal device may obtain configuration information of an initial BWP, configuration information of random access resources, etc. from SIB1. If no configuration information of the initial BWP is configured in SIB1, a default initial bandwidth part (BWP) is a control resource set (control resource set, CORESET) #0. The terminal device needs to perform an initial random access procedure on the time-frequency resources indicated by the initial BWP.

In this embodiment, the SIB1 further includes information for indicating the second time-frequency resource corresponding to the target system message (i.e., the SIB1 further includes third indication information). In this embodiment, the target system message may be referred to as other system information, which is not limited thereto.

In particular implementations, whether the target system message is broadcast ("SI-BroadcastStatus" field), the period of the broadcast system message ("SI-Periodicity" field), the type of the system message ("SIB-TypeInfo" field) may be indicated in an "SI-scheduling info" information element (information element, IE) in SIB1.

Or may also broadcast via an "SI-RequestConfig" information element whether the target system message supports random access based triggering. If random access based triggering is supported, the target system message may further include corresponding random access resources ("SI-RequestResources" field), including a preamble index, associated random access channel timing (random access channel occasion, RO) information, for the terminal to trigger the base station to send the system message using the random access resources.

As an optional embodiment, in an implementation manner of S304, the terminal device sends first indication information, including: the first indication information is transmitted through the random access channel message 3.

The details of RACH Msg3 may refer to those in the related art, and will not be described here.

In this implementation manner, the terminal device may carry the first indication information based on the random access channel message3 (random access channel message, also referred to as RACH Msg 3), so that the network device can determine, through the first indication information, a beam corresponding to the logical index information sent by the terminal device.

As an alternative embodiment, in another implementation manner of 304, the terminal device sends the first indication information, including: and transmitting the first indication information through a 2-step random access channel.

The detailed description of the 2-step RACH may refer to the description in the related art, and will not be repeated here.

In this implementation manner, the terminal device may carry the first indication information based on a 2-step random access channel (also referred to as a 2-step RACH), so that the network device can determine, through the first indication information, a beam corresponding to the logical index information sent by the terminal device.

Here, it is explained that the beam indication method provided in the above description indicates the time-frequency resource of the target system message through SIB1 and then obtains the target system message through the time-frequency resource of the target system message. In particular implementations, the network device may also broadcast the slot index of the QCL beam occurrence directly at SIB 1. For ease of understanding, another method of beam pointing is described below in connection with the embodiment shown in fig. 4.

Specifically, fig. 4 is a schematic flow chart of a beam indication method according to another embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 4, the method of the present embodiment may include S401, S402, S403, and S404. The method may be performed by the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 shown in fig. 1 through interaction.

S401, the network equipment sends a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates time slot index information when the network equipment sends a wave beam in each of M subintervals in a target period, and M is a positive integer; accordingly, the terminal device receives the target system message.

In this embodiment, the target system message sent by the network device to the terminal device includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates slot index information of a beam used by the network device in each of M sub-periods in the target period. For example, the first mapping information indicates slot index information of QCL narrow beams used by the network device for each of M sub-periods within the target period. The conceptual description of QCL may refer to the description in the related art, and will not be repeated here.

Wherein slot index information of the beam is used to indicate on which slot the beam is transmitted. That is, the network device can indicate to the terminal device the slot corresponding to the transmitted beam through the slot index information.

As an example, the slot index information of the beam indicated by the first mapping information is {13, 45, 66, 78}, i.e. the network device indicates to the terminal device that the network device will transmit the beam on the slot corresponding to the slot index information of 13, transmit the beam on the slot corresponding to the slot index information of 45, transmit the beam on the slot corresponding to the slot index information of 66, and transmit the beam on the slot corresponding to the slot index information of 78.

Therefore, in this embodiment, when the terminal device receives the target system message, the slot index information of the beam used by the network device in each of the M sub-periods within the target period may be acquired from the target system message. I.e. it is acquired in which time slot the network device will transmit the corresponding beam.

In this embodiment, the target system message may be referred to as other system information, which is not limited thereto.

S402, the network device transmits beams in M subintervals; accordingly, the terminal device receives all beams transmitted by the network device in the M sub-periods.

Illustratively, assuming that the network device would communicate with the first terminal device using a beam in a slot with slot index information of 13, would communicate with the second terminal device using a beam in a slot with slot index information of 45, would communicate with the third terminal device using a beam in a slot with slot index information of 66, and would communicate with the fourth terminal device using a beam in a slot with slot index information of 78, the network device would transmit on the corresponding four slots. Accordingly, the terminal device receives all signals sent by the network device in the corresponding four time slots. For example, the terminal device may attempt to receive signals over the air (the received signals may be data signals transmitted by the network device to other terminal devices using a beam) within a target period.

It should be noted that the four sub-periods described above and transmitting four beams are just one example, and that the number 4 described above may be other values when embodied.

S403, the terminal equipment obtains the time slot index information corresponding to the target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams.

In this embodiment, when the terminal device measures the beam sent by the network device in the target period and obtains the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam, the time slot index information of the target beam may be determined based on the measured beam and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam. The target beam may be, for example, a beam determined by the terminal device and corresponding to when the signal is strongest, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application.

It is described herein that the implementation manner of determining the time slot index information of the target beam by the terminal device according to the measured beam and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

For example, in one possible implementation, the terminal device may directly select according to the energy of the signal received in different subintervals, or may train with advanced algorithms such as a conventional interpolation algorithm or artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI) to obtain the slot index information of the target beam.

In one embodiment, the terminal device may train according to a configured training method. For example, the indices of the conventional method and the AI-based method may be uniform, for example, "0" may be used to represent linear interpolation, "1" may represent polynomial interpolation, "2" may represent multi-spline, "3" may represent neural network, "4" may represent reinforcement learning, and so on. Alternatively, the indexes of the conventional method and the AI-based method may be separate, for example, "00" may be used to represent linear interpolation, "01" may be used to represent polynomial interpolation, "02" may be used to represent a multi-spline, and "10" may be used to represent a neural network, "11" may be used to represent reinforcement learning, and so on. Assuming that under the training method configured in this way, when the terminal device receives the training method index of "3", the terminal device performs beam training using the neural network to obtain slot index information of the target beam.

In another embodiment, for a neural network-based training method, a specific neural network model may also be indicated by way of a model index, e.g., a "0" may be used to represent a deep neural network, "1" a convolutional neural network, "2" a long and short memory neural network, etc. It is assumed that under the training method of this configuration, if the terminal device receives the AI model of "0", the terminal device performs beam training using the deep neural network to obtain slot index information of the target beam.

It should be understood that, according to all beams and the logic index information used by each beam in all beams, the terminal device determines that the time slot index information corresponding to the target beam may be one of multiple logic index information indicated by the network device to the terminal device, or may not be included in multiple time slot index information indicated by the network device to the terminal device.

As an example, when the network device communicates with the first terminal device using a beam at a slot with slot index information of 13 and communicates with the second terminal device using a beam at a slot with slot index information of 45, the terminal device may determine that the slot index information of the target beam is 45 when the terminal device detects that the energy of the beam received at the slot with slot index information of 45 is strongest. That is, the determined slot index information corresponding to the target beam is one of a plurality of logic index information indicated by the network device to the terminal device.

As yet another example, when the first terminal device is communicating using a beam at a slot with slot index information of 13 and the second terminal device is communicating using a beam at a slot with slot index information of 45, the terminal device may determine that the energy corresponding to the beam received by the terminal device is strongest when the network device is communicating using a beam at a slot with slot index information of 65 by analyzing the signal received at the slot with slot index information of 13 and the signal received at the slot with slot index information of 45, and then the terminal device may determine that the slot index information of the target beam is 65. That is, the slot index information corresponding to the determined target beam is not included in the plurality of slot index information indicated to the terminal device by the network device.

S404, the terminal equipment sends first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates time slot index information corresponding to a target beam; accordingly, the network device receives the first indication information.

In this embodiment, after the terminal device determines the slot index information corresponding to the target beam, the slot index information corresponding to the target beam may be sent to the network device, so that the network device may determine the beam used when communicating with the terminal device.

In one possible implementation, the terminal device may send the slot index information corresponding to the target beam based on RACH Msg3, or the terminal device may be based on 2-step RACH and carry the slot index information corresponding to the target beam.

It is noted that, in this embodiment, the specific form of the timeslot index information corresponding to the target beam reported by the terminal device is not limited, for example, reporting "01", and the network device may determine that the timeslot where the target beam of the terminal device appears corresponds to timeslot index information as 45.

As an alternative embodiment, the network device sends the target system message, including: broadcasting a synchronous signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; and transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message. Accordingly, the terminal device receiving the target system message includes: the synchronization signal block SSB is received, and based on the first time-frequency resource of SIB1 indicated in the SSB, SIB1 is received on the first time-frequency resource, where the SIB1 includes the target system message.

It is explained here that the implementation does not limit how the network device scans. For example, the network device may periodically scan for and transmit SSBs in a time-sharing manner. It should be understood that when the beam scanning signal of the SSB is transmitted to the terminal device, the terminal device may acquire relevant parameters, such as master information block (master information block, MIB) information in the PBCH, including information such as a system frame number, a subcarrier spacing of the SSB, a subcarrier offset of the SSB, and an SSB index, from the SSB in the beam.

In a specific implementation, the SSB generally includes master information block (master information block, MIB) information, where the MIB information generally carries information (also referred to as second indication information in this embodiment) for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to the system message block1 (system information block, SIB 1). For example, the number of resource blocks corresponding to the system message block1, the length of the symbol, or the frequency domain offset from the SSB, the search space period, and the like may be indicated in MIB information. It is noted that the detailed description of the MIB can refer to the description in the related art, and will not be repeated here.

In this implementation manner, the network device may send SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource corresponding to SIB1 indicated by the MIB, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource. It can be appreciated that, because the SIB1 sent by the network device in this implementation carries the target system message, the terminal device may acquire the target system message from the received SIB1.

As an alternative embodiment, the SIB1 or the target system message further includes one or more of the following information: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

The training bandwidth is used for indicating the bandwidth of the signal received by the terminal equipment. It should be understood that the bandwidth of the network device in scheduling data to other terminal devices in the cell is determined by the channel and traffic requirements of the other terminal devices, and thus, excessive training bandwidth may result in the terminal devices collecting a large number of invalid samples when collecting data (e.g., no other terminal devices are scheduled on certain time resources); on the other hand, excessive training bandwidth increases the power consumption of the terminal.

It is to be noted that the manner how the training bandwidth is indicated in this embodiment is not limited.

Illustratively, the configuration of the training bandwidth includes any one or more of: a starting physical resource block (physical resource block, PRB); ending PRB index of the frequency domain resource; absolute radio channel number (absolute radio frequency channel number, ARFCN); number of Resource Blocks (RBs).

In some implementations, the configuration of the training bandwidth includes starting PRBs. In this case, the configured ending PRB of the training bandwidth may default to the last PRB within the bandwidth resource (the resource of the entire cell or CC).

In other implementations, the configuring of the training bandwidth includes ending the PRBs. In this case, the starting PRB of the configuration of the training bandwidth may be PRB0. In general, the frequency domain resources of the serving cell or BWP are often PRB0 first in order from low to high, and thus, when ending PRB is indicated by the first information, the starting PRB of the available frequency domain resources may be defaulted to PRB0.

In still other implementations, the available frequency domain resources include ARFCNs. The ARFCN may be used to represent a configured starting frequency point of the training bandwidth.

In still other implementations, the configuration of the training bandwidth includes the number of RBs (which may also be understood as the frequency domain length of the configuration of the training bandwidth). In this case, the starting position of the configuration of the training bandwidth may be PRB0 or the like, and in this embodiment, how to set the starting position is not limited. It is understood that the frequency domain length of the available frequency domain resources measured in RB units shown herein is only an example. The frequency domain length of the available frequency domain resource may also be measured in PRBs or Resource Elements (REs), for example. For example, the available frequency domain resources include the number of PRBs, or the number of REs, etc., which are not limited by the embodiment of the present application.

In still other implementations, the available frequency domain resources are indicated by common resource blocks (common resource block, CRBs).

In still other implementations, the configuration of the training bandwidth includes a start position (which may also be referred to as a start position, etc.) and an end position (which may also be referred to as a stop position, etc.) of the configuration of the training bandwidth. Illustratively, the start and end positions of the configuration of the training bandwidth may be measured in any of the following units: PRB, resource Block (RB), or Resource Element (RE), etc.

The initial BWP of the cell may also be defaulted as a training bandwidth, for example. In one implementation, after reading MIB and SIB1 information, the terminal device may obtain an initial BWP of the cell through a "ServingCellConfigSIB1" cell. Note that the BWP in this embodiment is a downlink initial BWP, or DL bwp#0.

It should be appreciated that since the network devices within the cell may configure and schedule different subcarrier spacings for different terminal devices, in this embodiment, the network devices may also determine a reference subcarrier spacing (subcarrier spacing, SCS) for the terminal devices to acquire signals. Alternatively, if the subcarrier spacing is not explicitly configured, the terminal device may default to use SCS corresponding to SSB as the reference subcarrier spacing or use the subcarrier spacing of initial BWP as the reference subcarrier spacing. The embodiment of the present application is not limited thereto.

The time resource configuration information is used for indicating effective time resources of signals which can be acquired by the terminal equipment. The network device may not communicate on a narrow beam basis in all slots or symbols, e.g., the network device may employ wide beam transmission on part of the downlink physical control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH) to facilitate multi-user multiplexing. Or the network device may transmit synchronization signals or tracking reference signals (tracking reference signal, TRS) based on a wide beam, in which case the terminal device should be prevented from taking the received signals on these symbols as samples of training.

For example, in one possible implementation, the network device may instruct the terminal device to collect a set of time slots of training samples. It will be appreciated that for one system frame (10 ms), when the reference subcarrier spacing is determined, the total number of slots within the system frame can be determined so that the slot index (set) can accurately indicate the time resource. For example, the reference subcarrier spacing is 120kHz, there are a total of 80 slots within 10ms, and the set of slot indices configured at this time corresponds to one or more of the 80 slots.

Alternatively, the time resource configuration information may also indicate symbol-level resources. Currently, one slot includes 14 orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM) symbols (only 12 symbols are included when the cyclic prefix is extended), and this embodiment takes the normal cyclic prefix (normal cyclic prefix, NCP as an example)). The first 1-3 symbols of the general system are physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH) symbols, the network device may use a wide beam, and the terminal device may be specified to train only based on signals of the 3 rd-X symbols (assuming that the PDCCH occupies two symbols), and X is an integer less than or equal to 14. Alternatively, the designated terminal device trains based on only the 3 rd symbol, where the 3 rd symbol is often a demodulation reference signal (demodulation reference signal, DMRS) signal. In general, DMRS signals are often transmitted using the same beam (typically a narrow beam) as the physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH) signals.

Optionally, in one possible implementation method, the training method of the terminal device may also be indicated in the target system message or SIB 1. It is to be noted that the present application is not limited to the specific form of the training algorithm. For example, training algorithms include conventional interpolation algorithms (e.g., linear interpolation, polynomial interpolation, multiple splines, etc.) or AI-based training methods (e.g., neural networks, reinforcement learning, decision trees, support vector machines, etc.).

In one possible implementation, the index of training methods may be used to indicate different training methods. For example, the indices of the conventional method and the AI-based method may be uniform, for example, "0" may be used to represent linear interpolation, "1" may represent polynomial interpolation, "2" may represent multi-spline, "3" may represent neural network, "4" may represent reinforcement learning, and so on. Alternatively, the indexes of the conventional method and the AI-based method may be separate, for example, "00" may be used to represent linear interpolation, "01" may be used to represent polynomial interpolation, "02" may be used to represent a multi-spline, and "10" may be used to represent a neural network, "11" may be used to represent reinforcement learning, and so on.

Alternatively, in one possible implementation, the model employed for training may also be indicated in the target system message or SIB 1. For example, for a neural network-based training method, a specific neural network model may also be indicated by a model index, for example, "0" may be used to represent a deep neural network, "1" may be used to represent a convolutional neural network, "2" may be used to represent a long and short memory neural network, and so on.

It is explained herein that the above embodiments describe the network device indicating to the terminal device a target system message for indicating logical index information of a beam used by the network device in a target period; and then the terminal equipment obtains the logic index information corresponding to the target beam by receiving all the beams sent by the network equipment in the target period and according to the beams measured in the target period and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams, and finally reports the logic index information corresponding to the target beam through the random access channel message 3 or the 2-step random access channel. It should be understood that the concept of the beam indication method can also be applied to terminal devices. Specifically, when the concept of the beam indication method is applied to the terminal device, it is different from the above embodiment only in that the terminal device still needs to receive the system message transmitted by the network device (or the paging message indicates the system message update), and the terminal device acquires the logical index information of the beam transmitted in the target period through the system message.

Fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing device according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus shown in fig. 5 may be configured to perform the respective processes and/or steps corresponding to the terminal device in any of the foregoing embodiments.

As shown in fig. 5, the apparatus 500 of the present embodiment includes: a transceiver module 501 and a determination module 502. The apparatus 500 may be comprised in a terminal device.

Wherein in one embodiment, the transceiver module 501 is configured to receive a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates logic index information of a beam used by a network device in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module 501 is further configured to receive all beams sent by the network device in the M subintervals; a determining module 502, configured to obtain logical index information corresponding to a target beam according to a beam measured in the target period and logical index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams; the transceiver module 501 is further configured to send first indication information, where the first indication information indicates logic index information corresponding to the target beam.

As an example, the transceiver module 501 may be used to perform the step of receiving the target system message in the beam pointing method shown in fig. 3, e.g., the transceiver module 501 may be used to perform S301.

As yet another example, the determining module 502 may be used to perform the step of obtaining the logical index information corresponding to the target beam in the beam indicating method shown in fig. 3, for example, the determining module 502 may be used to perform S303.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver module 501 is specifically configured to: receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1; receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to the target system message; and receiving the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

In a possible implementation, the transceiver module 501 is specifically configured to send the third indication information through the random access channel message 3 or in a possible implementation, the transceiver module 501 is further configured to send the third indication information through a 2-step random access channel.

In one possible implementation, each of the M sub-periods includes any one of: time slots or symbols.

In one possible implementation, the logical index information of the beam includes any one of the following: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

In one possible implementation, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In a possible implementation manner, the target system message further includes one or more of the following information: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

In another embodiment, the transceiver module 501 is configured to receive a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates slot index information when a network device sends a beam in each of M subintervals in a target period, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module 501 is further configured to receive all beams sent by the network device in the M subintervals; a determining module 502, configured to obtain time slot index information corresponding to a target beam according to a measured beam in the target period and time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams; the transceiver module 501 is further configured to send first indication information, where the first indication information indicates slot index information corresponding to the target beam.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver module 501 is specifically configured to: receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1; receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message

In one possible implementation, the transceiver module 501 is specifically configured to: the first indication information is transmitted through the random access channel message 3 or through a 2-step random access channel.

In a possible implementation manner, one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing device according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus shown in fig. 6 may be configured to perform the respective processes and/or steps corresponding to the network device in the method described in any of the foregoing embodiments.

As shown in fig. 6, the apparatus 600 of the present embodiment includes: a transceiver module 601.

Wherein in one embodiment, the transceiver module 601 is configured to send a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, where the first mapping information indicates logic index information of a beam used by a network device in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module 601 is further configured to transmit beams during the M subintervals; the transceiver module 601 is further configured to receive first indication information, where the first indication information indicates logic index information of a target beam.

As an example, the transceiver module 601 may be used to perform the step of receiving the first indication information in the indication method of the beam shown in fig. 3, for example, the transceiver module 601 may be used to perform S304.

As yet another example, the transceiver module 601 may be used to perform the step of sending the target system message in the embodiment shown in fig. 3, for example, the transceiver module 601 may be used to perform S301.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver module 601 is specifically configured to: broadcasting a synchronous signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to a target system message; and sending the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

In another embodiment, the transceiver module 601 is configured to send a target system message, where the target system message includes first mapping information, and the first mapping information indicates slot index information when the network device sends a beam in each of the M subintervals, and M is a positive integer; the transceiver module 601 is further configured to transmit beams during the M subintervals; the transceiver module 601 is further configured to receive first indication information, where the first indication information indicates slot index information of a target beam.

In one possible implementation, the transceiver module 601 is specifically configured to: broadcasting a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises first indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1; and transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 700 provided in the present application. For convenience of explanation, fig. 7 shows only major components of the terminal device. As shown in fig. 7, the terminal device 700 includes a processor, a memory, a control circuit, an antenna, and an input-output means. The terminal device 700 may be applied in a system as shown in fig. 1, and perform the functions of the terminal device in the above-described method embodiment.

The processor is mainly used for processing the communication protocol and the communication data, controlling the whole terminal device, executing the software program, processing the data of the software program, for example, for controlling the terminal device to execute the actions described in the above method embodiments. The memory is mainly used for storing software programs and data. The control circuit is mainly used for converting baseband signals and radio frequency signals and processing the radio frequency signals. The control circuit together with the antenna, which may also be called a transceiver, 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 mainly used for receiving data input by a user and outputting data to the user.

When the terminal device is started, the processor can read the software program in the storage unit, interpret and execute the instructions of the software program, and process the data of the software program. When data is required to be transmitted wirelessly, the processor carries out baseband processing on the data to be transmitted and then outputs a baseband signal to the radio frequency circuit, and the radio frequency circuit carries out radio frequency processing on the baseband signal and then transmits the radio frequency signal outwards in the form of electromagnetic waves through the antenna. When data is sent to the terminal equipment, 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, and the processor converts the baseband signal into data and processes the data.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that fig. 7 shows only one memory and processor for ease of illustration. In an actual terminal device, there may be multiple processors and memories. The memory may also be referred to as a storage medium or storage device, etc., and embodiments of the present application are not limited in this respect.

As an alternative implementation manner, the processor may include a baseband processor, which is mainly used for processing the communication protocol and the communication data, and a central processor, which is mainly used for controlling the whole terminal device, executing a software program, and processing the data of the software program. The processor in fig. 7 integrates the functions of a baseband processor and a central processing unit, and those skilled in the art will appreciate that the baseband processor and the central processing unit may be separate processors, interconnected by bus technology, etc. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the terminal device may include multiple baseband processors to accommodate different network formats, and that the terminal device may include multiple central processors to enhance its processing capabilities, and that the various components of the terminal device may be connected by various buses. The baseband processor may also be referred to as a baseband processing circuit or baseband processing chip. The central processing unit may also be expressed as a central processing circuit or a central processing chip. The function of processing the communication protocol and the communication data may be built in the processor, or may be stored in the storage unit in the form of a software program, which is executed by the processor to realize the baseband processing function.

For example, in the embodiment of fig. 7, the antenna and the control circuit having the transceiving function may be regarded as the transceiving unit 701 of the terminal device 700, and the processor having the processing function may be regarded as the processing unit 702 of the terminal device 700. As shown in fig. 7, the terminal device 700 includes a transceiving unit 701 and a processing unit 702. The transceiver unit may also be referred to as a transceiver, transceiver device, etc. Alternatively, the device for implementing the receiving function in the transceiver unit 701 may be regarded as a receiving unit, and the device for implementing the transmitting function in the transceiver unit 701 may be regarded as a transmitting unit, that is, the transceiver unit 701 includes a receiving unit and a transmitting unit. For example, the receiving unit may also be referred to as a receiver, a receiving circuit, etc., and the transmitting unit may be referred to as a transmitter, a transmitting circuit, etc.

The terminal device 700 shown in fig. 7 is capable of implementing the various processes involving the terminal device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 3 or fig. 4. The operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the terminal device 700 are respectively for implementing the corresponding flows in the above-described method embodiments. Reference is specifically made to the description of the above method embodiments, and detailed descriptions are omitted here as appropriate to avoid redundancy.

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to another embodiment of the present application. The apparatus shown in fig. 8 may be used to perform the method described in any of the previous embodiments.

As shown in fig. 8, the apparatus 800 of the present embodiment includes: a memory 801, a processor 802, a communication interface 803, and a bus 804. Wherein the memory 801, the processor 802, and the communication interface 803 are communicatively connected to each other through a bus 804.

The memory 801 may be a Read Only Memory (ROM), a static storage device, a dynamic storage device, or a random access memory (random access memory, RAM). The memory 801 may store a program, and the processor 802 is configured to perform the steps of the method shown in fig. 3 or fig. 4 when the program stored in the memory 801 is executed by the processor 802.

The processor 802 may employ a general-purpose central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), microprocessor, application specific integrated circuit (application specific integrated circuit, ASIC), or one or more integrated circuits for executing associated programs to implement the methods of the present application as illustrated in fig. 3 or 4.

The processor 802 may also be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capabilities. In implementation, various steps of the methods of fig. 3 or 4 of embodiments of the present application may be performed by integrated logic circuitry in hardware or by instructions in software in processor 802.

The processor 802 may also be a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (digital signal processing, DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an off-the-shelf programmable gate array (field programmable gate array, FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware components. The disclosed methods, steps, and logic blocks in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

The steps of the method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be embodied directly in the execution of a hardware decoding processor, or in the execution of a combination of hardware and software modules in a decoding processor. The software modules may be located in a random access memory, flash memory, read only memory, programmable read only memory, or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, etc. as well known in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory 801 and the processor 802 reads information in the memory 801 and in combination with its hardware performs the functions necessary for the unit comprised by the device according to the application, for example, the steps/functions of the embodiments shown in fig. 3 or fig. 4 can be performed.

Communication interface 803 may enable communication between apparatus 800 and other devices or communication networks using, but is not limited to, a transceiver-like transceiver.

Bus 804 may include a path for transferring information between components of apparatus 800 (e.g., memory 801, processor 802, communication interface 803).

It should be understood that the apparatus 800 shown in the embodiment of the present application may be an electronic device, or may be a chip configured in an electronic device.

The above embodiments may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any other combination. When implemented in software, the above-described embodiments may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product comprises one or more computer instructions or computer programs. When the computer instructions or computer program are loaded or executed on a computer, the processes or functions described in accordance with embodiments of the present application are produced in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable apparatus. The computer instructions may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium, for example, the computer instructions may be transmitted from one website site, computer, server, or data center to another website site, computer, server, or data center by wired (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server, data center, etc. that contains one or more sets of available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., floppy disk, hard disk, magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., DVD), or a semiconductor medium. The semiconductor medium may be a solid state disk.

It should be understood that the term "and/or" is merely an association relationship describing the associated object, and means that three relationships may exist, for example, a and/or B may mean: there are three cases, a alone, a and B together, and B alone, wherein a, B may be singular or plural. In addition, the character "/" herein generally indicates that the associated object is an "or" relationship, but may also indicate an "and/or" relationship, and may be understood by referring to the context.

In the present application, "at least one" means one or more, and "a plurality" means two or more. "at least one of" or the like means any combination of these items, including any combination of single item(s) or plural items(s). For example, at least one (one) of a, b, or c may represent: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, wherein a, b, c may be single or plural.

It should be understood that, in various embodiments of the present application, the sequence numbers of the foregoing processes do not mean the order of execution, and the order of execution of the processes should be determined by the functions and internal logic thereof, and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software 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.

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

In the several embodiments provided by the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices, and methods may be implemented in other manners. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, e.g., the division of the units is merely a logical function division, and there may be additional divisions when actually implemented, e.g., multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted or not performed. Alternatively, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed with each other may be an indirect coupling or communication connection via some interfaces, devices or units, which may be in electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate units may or may not be physically separate, and units shown as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

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

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present application may be embodied essentially or in a part contributing to the prior art or in a part of the technical solution, in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, comprising several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, a network device, etc.) to perform all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory, a random access memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk.

The foregoing is merely illustrative of the present application, and the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art will readily recognize that variations or substitutions are within the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for indicating a beam, applied to a terminal device, comprising:

receiving a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates logic index information of beams used by the network equipment in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer;

receiving all beams sent by the network equipment in the M subintervals;

obtaining logic index information corresponding to a target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the logic index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beam;

and sending first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates logic index information corresponding to the target beam.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the target system message comprises:

Receiving a synchronization signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource of a system message block 1SIB 1;

receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to the target system message;

and receiving the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the sending the first indication information comprises:

the first indication information is transmitted through a random access channel message 3 or through a 2-step random access channel.

4. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein each of the M sub-periods comprises any one of: time slots or symbols.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the logical index information of the beam includes any one of: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

6. The method according to any of the claims 1 to 5, characterized in that one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the target system message further comprises one or more of the following information: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

8. A method for indicating a beam, applied to a network device, comprising:

transmitting a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates logic index information of beams used by the network equipment in each of M subintervals in a target interval, and M is a positive integer;

transmitting beams in the M sub-periods;

and receiving first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates logic index information of the target beam.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the sending the target system message comprises:

broadcasting a synchronous signal block SSB, wherein the SSB comprises second indication information which is used for indicating a first time-frequency resource corresponding to a system message block 1SIB 1;

transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises third indication information which is used for indicating a second time-frequency resource corresponding to a target system message;

And sending the target system message on the second time-frequency resource.

10. The method of claim 8 or 9, wherein each of the M sub-periods comprises any one of: time slots or symbols.

11. The method according to any one of claims 8 to 10, wherein the logical index information of the beam includes any one of: beam identification, SSB index, component carrier CC index, channel state information reference signal CSI-RS index.

12. The method according to any of the claims 8 to 11, characterized in that one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

13. The method according to any one of claims 8 to 11, wherein the target system message further comprises one or more of the following information: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

14. A method for indicating a beam, applied to a terminal device, comprising:

Receiving a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates time slot index information of the network equipment when transmitting a wave beam in each of M subintervals in a target time interval, and M is a positive integer;

receiving all beams sent by the network equipment in the M subintervals;

obtaining time slot index information corresponding to a target beam according to the measured beam in the target period and the time slot index information corresponding to each beam in the measured beams;

and sending first indication information, wherein the first indication information indicates time slot index information corresponding to the target beam.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the receiving the target system message comprises:

and receiving the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

16. The method according to claim 14 or 15, wherein the transmitting the first indication information comprises:

17. The method according to any of the claims 14 to 16, characterized in that one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

18. A method for indicating a beam, applied to a network device, comprising:

transmitting a target system message, wherein the target system message comprises first mapping information, the first mapping information indicates time slot index information of a wave beam transmitted by a network device in each of M subintervals in a target time interval, and M is a positive integer;

transmitting beams in the M sub-periods;

first indication information is received, wherein the first indication information indicates time slot index information of a target beam.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the sending the target system message comprises:

And transmitting the SIB1 on the first time-frequency resource, wherein the SIB1 comprises the target system message.

20. The method according to claim 18 or 19, wherein one or more of the following information is further included in the SIB 1: training bandwidth, subcarrier interval information, time resource configuration information, preset training algorithm information and model information used for training.

21. A beam pointing device comprising means for performing the method of any one of claims 1 to 7.

22. A beam pointing device comprising means for performing the method of any one of claims 8 to 13.

23. A beam pointing device comprising means for performing the method of any one of claims 14 to 17.

24. A beam pointing device comprising means for performing the method of any one of claims 18 to 20.

25. A beam pointing device comprising: a memory and a processor;

the memory is used for storing program instructions;

the processor is configured to invoke program instructions in the memory to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 7 or claims 14 to 17.

26. A beam pointing device comprising: a memory and a processor;

the memory is used for storing program instructions;

the processor is configured to invoke program instructions in the memory to perform the method of any of claims 8 to 13 or claims 18 to 20.

27. A computer readable medium storing program code for computer execution, the program code comprising instructions for performing the method of any one of claims 1 to 20.

28. A computer program product comprising computer program code which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to carry out the method according to any one of claims 1 to 20.