CN116801340A - Base station switching processing method and system - Google Patents

Abstract

The application provides a base station switching processing method and a system, in the method, a main cell and an auxiliary cell, namely, a cell of an aerospace base station is defined as the main cell, a cell of a ground base station is an auxiliary cell, and one main cell can cover a plurality of auxiliary cells, such as N auxiliary cells. And also by defining the capability of the aerospace base station, such as a terminal residing in its primary cell can be handed over, such as performing a handover of the primary or secondary cell. After the terminal finishes signal measurement of the neighboring cells of the main cell and the neighboring cells of the auxiliary cell, the aerospace base station can switch the auxiliary cell where the terminal currently resides or switch the main cell where the terminal currently resides according to the measurement result reported by the terminal, thereby realizing cell switching of the terminal under the condition of simultaneously accessing the cell of the ground base station and the cell of the aerospace base station.

Description

Base station switching processing method and system

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a base station handover processing method and system.

Background

In the present fifth generation (5th generation,5G) mobile communication system, base stations are deployed in the form of ground stations (or terrestrial base stations). But the coverage area of the cell of the ground base station is smaller due to the poor penetrability of millimeter waves. To achieve full coverage of cell signals, operators need to expend significant amounts of money to complete the deployment of ground base stations. Therefore, in future communication systems, such as the sixth generation (6th generation,6G) mobile communication system, the evolution direction of the communication network may be an air-ground integrated network, that is, by deploying an air-ground base station (such as a low-orbit satellite) to assist the ground base station in providing services, not only the signal coverage requirement on the ground base station can be reduced, for example, the area where the signal of the ground base station is not covered by the signal of the air-ground base station can be covered, but also the stability and reliability of the services can be improved.

In this case, after the terminal is simultaneously connected to the cell of the ground base station and the cell of the space base station, how the terminal performs cell switching is a hot problem in current research.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a base station switching processing method and a base station switching processing system, which are used for realizing cell switching of a terminal under the condition that the terminal is simultaneously accessed into a cell of a ground base station and a cell of an aerospace base station.

In order to achieve the above purpose, the application adopts the following technical scheme:

in a first aspect, a base station handover processing method is provided, in which a terminal currently resides in a first primary cell of a first space-time base station and a first secondary cell of a first ground base station, where the first primary cell covers N secondary cells, N is an integer greater than 1, the first secondary cell is one of multiple secondary cells, and the terminal establishes dual connection with the first primary cell and the first secondary cell, the method includes: the terminal performs signal measurement on a neighboring cell of a first main cell to obtain a first measurement result, and performs signal measurement on a neighboring cell of a first auxiliary cell to obtain a second measurement result, wherein the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is an auxiliary cell adjacent to the first auxiliary cell in a plurality of auxiliary cells, the first measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first main cell, and the second measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell; the terminal reports a first measurement result and a second measurement result to the first space base station; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station indicates a second ground base station providing the second auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the second auxiliary cell for residence; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighboring cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station requests the second space base station providing the second main cell to switch the terminal to the second main cell for residence.

In a possible design, the first space-time base station determines, according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, that the terminal needs to be switched to a second secondary cell in the neighboring cells of the first secondary cell, including: if the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold, and the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the non-main cell in the neighboring cell of the first main cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second auxiliary cell.

In a possible design, the first space-time base station determines, according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, that the terminal needs to be switched to a second primary cell in the neighboring cells of the first primary cell, including: if the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second primary cell in the neighboring cell of the first primary cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second primary cell no matter whether the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold.

In one possible embodiment, the method further comprises: under the condition that the terminal is switched to a second main cell for residence, the second space-time base station indicates M auxiliary cells covered by the second main cell to the terminal, wherein the M auxiliary cells are different from the N auxiliary cells; the terminal initiates signal measurement to M auxiliary cells according to the indication of the second space-time base station to obtain a third measurement result, wherein the third measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the M auxiliary cells; the terminal reports a third measurement result to the second space base station; and the second aerospace base station instructs a third ground base station providing a third auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to reside in the third auxiliary cell according to a third measurement result, wherein the third auxiliary cell is one of M auxiliary cells.

Optionally, the method further comprises: and under the condition that the terminal is switched to the third auxiliary cell residence, the terminal releases the related information of the N auxiliary cells.

In a second aspect, a communication system is provided, the system including a terminal, a first space base station, and a first ground base station, where the terminal currently resides in a first primary cell of the first space base station and a first secondary cell of the first ground base station, the first primary cell covering N secondary cells, N being an integer greater than 1, the first secondary cell being one of the plurality of secondary cells, the terminal establishing a dual connection with the first primary cell and the first secondary cell. The system is configured to: the terminal performs signal measurement on a neighboring cell of a first main cell to obtain a first measurement result, and performs signal measurement on a neighboring cell of a first auxiliary cell to obtain a second measurement result, wherein the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is an auxiliary cell adjacent to the first auxiliary cell in a plurality of auxiliary cells, the first measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first main cell, and the second measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell; the terminal reports a first measurement result and a second measurement result to the first space base station; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station indicates a second ground base station providing the second auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the second auxiliary cell for residence; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighboring cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station requests the second space base station providing the second main cell to switch the terminal to the second main cell for residence.

In one possible design, the system is specifically configured to: if the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold, and the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the non-main cell in the neighboring cell of the first main cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second auxiliary cell.

In one possible design, the system is specifically configured to: if the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second primary cell in the neighboring cell of the first primary cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second primary cell no matter whether the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold.

In a possible design, the system is further configured to: under the condition that the terminal is switched to a second main cell for residence, the second space-time base station indicates M auxiliary cells covered by the second main cell to the terminal, wherein the M auxiliary cells are different from the N auxiliary cells; the terminal initiates signal measurement to M auxiliary cells according to the indication of the second space-time base station to obtain a third measurement result, wherein the third measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the M auxiliary cells; the terminal reports a third measurement result to the second space base station; and the second aerospace base station instructs a third ground base station providing a third auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to reside in the third auxiliary cell according to a third measurement result, wherein the third auxiliary cell is one of M auxiliary cells.

Optionally, the system is further configured to: and under the condition that the terminal is switched to the third auxiliary cell residence, the terminal releases the related information of the N auxiliary cells.

The method and the device described in the first aspect to the second aspect have the following technical effects:

by defining the main cell and the auxiliary cells, namely, the cells of the space-time base station are the main cells, the cells of the ground base station are the auxiliary cells, and one main cell can cover a plurality of auxiliary cells, such as N auxiliary cells. And also by defining the capability of the aerospace base station, such as a terminal residing in its primary cell can be handed over, such as performing a handover of the primary or secondary cell. After the terminal finishes signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the primary cell (such as the first primary cell) and the neighboring cell of the secondary cell (such as the first secondary cell), the space base station (such as the first space base station) can switch the secondary cell where the terminal currently resides or switch the primary cell where the terminal currently resides according to the measurement results (such as the first measurement result and the second measurement result) reported by the terminal, thereby realizing cell switching under the condition that the terminal is simultaneously accessed to the cell of the ground base station and the cell of the space base station.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station handover processing method, which is applied to a gateway, including:

Receiving a first switching request sent by core network equipment; the first switching request carries identification information of a first cell code and a source macro base station corresponding to the target small base station group; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

acquiring a small base station list under the coverage of a source macro base station according to a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

determining a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code from a small base station list covered by the source macro base station;

sending a second switching request to the target small base station; the second switching request carries information of a switching access special resource group;

receiving a switching request confirmation message sent by a target small base station;

and sending a first switching signaling to the core network equipment, wherein the first switching signaling carries switching access special resource group information.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station handover processing method, which is applied to a network management server, including:

acquiring a neighbor relation information table between a macro base station and a small base station, wherein the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list under the coverage of each macro base station;

And sending the neighbor relation information table to the gateway.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station handover processing method, which is applied to a small cell, including:

receiving a second switching request sent by a gateway under the condition that the small base station passes through the first cell coding identifier, wherein the second switching request carries a switching access special resource information group; the second switching request is sent after the gateway receives a first switching request sent by the core network device, and determines a target small base station corresponding to a first PCI according to a first cell code corresponding to a target small base station group indicated by the first switching request and a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

and sending a switching request confirmation message to the gateway.

In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station handover processing apparatus, applied to a gateway, including:

the first receiving module is used for receiving a first switching request sent by core network equipment; the first switching request carries a first cell code corresponding to the target small cell group and identification information of the source macro base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

The first acquisition module is used for acquiring a small base station list under the coverage of the source macro base station according to the neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

the first determining module is used for determining a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code from a small base station list covered by the source macro base station;

the first sending module is used for sending a second switching request to the target small base station; the second switching request carries information of a switching access special resource group;

the second receiving module is used for receiving a switching request confirmation message sent by the target small base station;

and the second sending module is used for sending a first switching signaling to the core network equipment, wherein the first switching signaling carries switching access special resource group information.

In a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station handover processing apparatus, applied to a network management server, including:

the second acquisition module is used for acquiring a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations, wherein the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

and the third sending module is used for sending the neighbor relation information table to the gateway.

In an eighth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a base station handover processing apparatus, applied to a small base station, including:

the third receiving module is used for receiving a second switching request sent by the gateway under the condition that the small base station passes through the first cell coding identifier, wherein the second switching request carries information of switching access special resource groups; the second switching request is sent after the gateway receives a first switching request sent by the core network device, and determines a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code according to a first cell code corresponding to a target small base station group indicated by the first switching request and a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

and the fourth sending module is used for sending a switching request confirmation message to the gateway.

In a ninth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a gateway, including: a transceiver, a processor, a memory, and a program or instructions stored on the memory and executable on the processor; the processor, when executing the program or instructions, implements the base station handover processing method as in the third aspect.

In a tenth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a network management server, including: a transceiver, a processor, a memory, and a program or instructions stored on the memory and executable on the processor; the processor, when executing the program or instructions, implements the base station handover processing method as in the fourth aspect.

In an eleventh aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a small cell, including: a transceiver, a processor, a memory, and a program or instructions stored on the memory and executable on the processor; the processor, when executing the program or instructions, implements the base station handover processing method as in the fifth aspect.

In a twelfth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a readable storage medium having stored thereon a program or instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the steps in the above-described base station handover processing method.

The method and apparatus described in the third to eleventh aspects have the following technical effects:

the small base stations under the gateway are grouped, and each small base station group is identified through different cell codes, so that one macro base station can add cell codes corresponding to N small base station groups, the macro base station can add N small base station groups into adjacent cells, and therefore the macro base station can be switched to one small base station in the target small base station group, and the switching from the macro base station to the small base station is realized. On the other hand, based on the neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations, small base stations in the target small base station group are screened to obtain a smaller number of target small base stations, so that fewer small base stations trigger the switching access flow, the signaling overhead of part of small base stations is saved, and excessive resource waste is avoided.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a flow chart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 4 is a flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a neighbor relation between a macro base station and a small base station according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 6 is a second flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is a third flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 11 is a flowchart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a diagram showing one of the construction of a base station switching processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 13 is a second block diagram of a base station switching processing device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 14 is a third block diagram of a base station switching processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 15 is a block diagram of a gateway according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 16 is a block diagram of a network management server according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 17 is a block diagram of a small cell in accordance with an embodiment of the present application.

Description of the embodiments

The technical scheme of the application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The technical solution of the embodiment of the present application may be applied to various communication systems, such as a wireless network (Wi-Fi) system, a vehicle-to-arbitrary object (vehicle to everything, V2X) communication system, an inter-device (D2D) communication system, a car networking communication system, a fourth generation (4th generation,4G) mobile communication system, such as a long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) system, a worldwide interoperability for microwave access (worldwide interoperability for microwave access, wiMAX) communication system, a fifth generation (5th generation,5G) system, such as a new radio, NR) system, and a future communication system.

The present application will present various aspects, embodiments, or features about a system that may include a plurality of devices, components, modules, etc. It is to be understood and appreciated that the various systems may include additional devices, components, modules, etc. and/or may not include all of the devices, components, modules etc. discussed in connection with the figures. Furthermore, combinations of these schemes may also be used.

In addition, in the embodiments of the present application, words such as "exemplary," "for example," and the like are used to indicate an example, instance, or illustration. Any embodiment or design described herein as "exemplary" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. Rather, the term use of an example is intended to present concepts in a concrete fashion.

In the embodiment of the present application, "information", "signal", "message", "channel", and "signaling" may be used in a mixed manner, and it should be noted that the meaning of the expression is matched when the distinction is not emphasized. "of", "corresponding" and "corresponding" are sometimes used in combination, and it should be noted that the meanings to be expressed are matched when the distinction is not emphasized. Furthermore, references to "/" in this disclosure may be used to indicate an "or" relationship.

The network 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 applicable to similar technical problems.

To facilitate understanding of the embodiments of the present application, a communication system suitable for use in the embodiments of the present application will be described in detail with reference to the communication system shown in fig. 1.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system to which a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application is applicable. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system includes: a terminal and a network device.

The terminal may be a terminal device with a transceiver function, or a chip system that may be disposed in the terminal device. The terminal device may also be referred to as a User Equipment (UE), an access terminal device, a subscriber unit (subscriber unit), a subscriber station, a Mobile Station (MS), a mobile station, a remote terminal device, a mobile device, a user terminal device, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment. The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be a mobile phone (mobile phone), a cellular phone (cellular phone), a smart phone (smart phone), a tablet computer (Pad), a wireless data card, a personal digital assistant (personal digital assistant, PDA), a wireless modem (modem), a handheld device (handset), a laptop computer (laptop computer), a machine type communication (machine type communication, MTC) terminal device, a computer with a wireless transceiving function, a Virtual Reality (VR) terminal device, an augmented reality (augmented reality, AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal device in industrial control (industrial control), a wireless terminal device in unmanned (self driving), a wireless terminal device in remote medical (remote media), a wireless terminal device in smart grid (smart grid), a wireless terminal device in transportation security (transportation safety), a wireless terminal device in smart city (smart city), a wireless terminal device in smart home (smart city), a roadside terminal device, a mobile unit having a function, and the like. The terminal device of the present application may also be an in-vehicle module, an in-vehicle part, an in-vehicle chip, or an in-vehicle unit built in a vehicle as one or more parts or units. Alternatively, the terminal device may be a customer-premises equipment (CPE).

The network equipment may include ground base stations (e.g., first ground base station, second ground base station, etc.) and space base stations (e.g., first space base station, second space base station, etc.).

The ground base station is also referred to as AN Access Network (AN) device, or may be referred to as a radio access network device (radio access network, RAN) device. The RAN device may provide an access function for the terminal device, and is responsible for radio resource management, quality of service (quality of service, qoS) management, data compression, encryption, and other functions on the air interface side. The RAN device may comprise a 5G, such as a gNB in an NR system, or one or a group of base stations (including multiple antenna panels) in the 5G, or may also be a network node, such as a baseband unit (building base band unit, BBU), or a Centralized Unit (CU) or a Distributed Unit (DU), an RSU with base station functionality, or a wired access gateway, constituting a gNB, a transmission point (transmission and reception point, TRP or transmission point, TP), or a transmission measurement function (transmission measurement function, TMF), or a core network element of the 5G. Alternatively, the RAN device may also include an Access Point (AP) in a wireless fidelity (wireless fidelity, wiFi) system, a wireless relay node, a wireless backhaul node, various forms of macro base stations, micro base stations (also referred to as small stations), relay stations, access points, wearable devices, vehicle devices, and so on.

The space base station may be a satellite, such as a low-orbit satellite, a medium-orbit satellite, a high-orbit satellite, or other space aircrafts, such as a fire balloon, an unmanned aerial vehicle, etc., and the embodiment of the application does not limit the form thereof.

The terminal currently resides in a first main cell of a first space base station and a first auxiliary cell of a first ground base station, the first main cell covers N auxiliary cells, N is an integer greater than 1, the first auxiliary cell is one of a plurality of auxiliary cells, and the terminal establishes double connection with the first main cell and the first auxiliary cell.

It will be appreciated that fig. 1 is a simplified schematic diagram that is illustrated for ease of understanding, and that other network devices, and/or other terminals, may also be included in the communication system, and that fig. 1 is not shown.

It is convenient to understand that the base station handover processing method provided in the embodiment of the present application in fig. 2 will be specifically described below.

In an embodiment, an exemplary flow chart of a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present application is shown in fig. 2. The method can be applied to the communication between the network equipment and the terminal equipment in the communication system.

As shown in fig. 2, the flow of the base station handover processing method is as follows:

S201, the terminal performs signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the first main cell to obtain a first measurement result, and performs signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell to obtain a second measurement result.

The neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is an auxiliary cell adjacent to the first auxiliary cell in the plurality of auxiliary cells. The first measurement is used to characterize the signal quality of the neighbor cell of the first primary cell. The second measurement is used to characterize the signal quality of the neighbor cell of the first secondary cell.

S202, the terminal reports a first measurement result and a second measurement result to a first space base station.

S203, if the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space-time base station instructs a second ground base station providing the second auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the second auxiliary cell for residence; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighboring cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station requests the second space base station providing the second main cell to switch the terminal to the second main cell for residence.

The first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to a first measurement result and a second measurement result, and comprises the following steps: if the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold, and the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the non-main cell in the neighboring cell of the first main cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second auxiliary cell.

Or the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighboring cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, and comprises the following steps: if the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second primary cell in the neighboring cell of the first primary cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second primary cell no matter whether the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold.

In one possible embodiment, the method further comprises: under the condition that the terminal is switched to a second main cell for residence, the second space-time base station indicates M auxiliary cells covered by the second main cell to the terminal, wherein the M auxiliary cells are different from the N auxiliary cells; the terminal initiates signal measurement to M auxiliary cells according to the indication of the second space-time base station to obtain a third measurement result, wherein the third measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the M auxiliary cells; the terminal reports a third measurement result to the second space base station; and the second aerospace base station instructs a third ground base station providing a third auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to reside in the third auxiliary cell according to a third measurement result, wherein the third auxiliary cell is one of M auxiliary cells.

Optionally, the method further comprises: and under the condition that the terminal is switched to the third auxiliary cell residence, the terminal releases the related information of the N auxiliary cells.

In summary, by defining a primary cell and a secondary cell, i.e. the cell of the aerospace base station is the primary cell, the cell of the ground base station is the secondary cell, and one primary cell may cover a plurality of secondary cells, e.g. N secondary cells. And also by defining the capability of the aerospace base station, such as a terminal residing in its primary cell can be handed over, such as performing a handover of the primary or secondary cell. After the terminal finishes signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the primary cell (such as the first primary cell) and the neighboring cell of the secondary cell (such as the first secondary cell), the space base station (such as the first space base station) can switch the secondary cell where the terminal currently resides or switch the primary cell where the terminal currently resides according to the measurement results (such as the first measurement result and the second measurement result) reported by the terminal, thereby realizing cell switching under the condition that the terminal is simultaneously accessed to the cell of the ground base station and the cell of the space base station.

In addition, the technical effects of the communication system may refer to the technical effects of the method shown in fig. 2, and will not be described herein.

In an embodiment, fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application. The communication device may be the terminal or the network device, or may be a chip (system) or other parts or components that may be provided in the terminal or the network device. As shown in fig. 3, the communication device 300 may include a processor 301. Optionally, the communication device 300 may further comprise a memory 302 and/or a transceiver 303. Wherein the processor 301 is coupled to the memory 302 and the transceiver 303, e.g. may be connected by a communication bus. In addition, the communication device 300 may also be a chip, for example, including the processor 301, and in this case, the transceiver may be an input/output interface of the chip.

The base station handover processing method provided by the embodiment of the present application is described in detail above with reference to fig. 2. A communication system for performing the base station handover processing method provided in the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below.

As can be seen in connection with the method illustrated in fig. 2 above, the communication system may be configured to:

the terminal performs signal measurement on a neighboring cell of a first main cell to obtain a first measurement result, and performs signal measurement on a neighboring cell of a first auxiliary cell to obtain a second measurement result, wherein the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is an auxiliary cell adjacent to the first auxiliary cell in a plurality of auxiliary cells, the first measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first main cell, and the second measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell; the terminal reports a first measurement result and a second measurement result to the first space base station; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station indicates a second ground base station providing the second auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the second auxiliary cell for residence; if the first space base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighboring cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space base station requests the second space base station providing the second main cell to switch the terminal to the second main cell for residence.

In one possible design, the system is specifically configured to: if the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold, and the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the non-main cell in the neighboring cell of the first main cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second auxiliary cell.

In one possible design, the system is specifically configured to: if the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second primary cell in the neighboring cell of the first primary cell is greater than the second quality threshold, the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second primary cell no matter whether the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than the first quality threshold.

In a possible design, the system is further configured to: under the condition that the terminal is switched to a second main cell for residence, the second space-time base station indicates M auxiliary cells covered by the second main cell to the terminal, wherein the M auxiliary cells are different from the N auxiliary cells; the terminal initiates signal measurement to M auxiliary cells according to the indication of the second space-time base station to obtain a third measurement result, wherein the third measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the M auxiliary cells; the terminal reports a third measurement result to the second space base station; and the second aerospace base station instructs a third ground base station providing a third auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to reside in the third auxiliary cell according to a third measurement result, wherein the third auxiliary cell is one of M auxiliary cells.

Optionally, the system is further configured to: and under the condition that the terminal is switched to the third auxiliary cell residence, the terminal releases the related information of the N auxiliary cells.

The following describes the respective constituent elements of the communication apparatus 300 in detail with reference to fig. 3:

the processor 301 is a control center of the communication device 300, and may be one processor or a collective term of a plurality of processing elements. For example, processor 301 is one or more central processing units (central processing unit, CPU), but may also be an integrated circuit (application specific integrated circuit, ASIC), or one or more integrated circuits configured to implement embodiments of the present application, such as: one or more microprocessors (digital signal processor, DSPs), or one or more field programmable gate arrays (field programmable gate array, FPGAs).

Alternatively, the processor 301 may perform various functions of the communication apparatus 300, such as performing the base station handover processing method shown in fig. 2 described above, by running or executing a software program stored in the memory 302 and invoking data stored in the memory 302.

In a particular implementation, as one embodiment, processor 301 may include one or more CPUs, such as CPU0 and CPU1 shown in FIG. 3.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, the communication apparatus 300 may also include a plurality of processors. Each of these processors may be a single-core processor (single-CPU) or a multi-core processor (multi-CPU). A processor herein may refer to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores for processing data (e.g., computer programs or instructions).

The memory 302 is configured to store a software program for executing the solution of the present application, and the processor 301 controls the execution of the software program, and the specific implementation may refer to the above method embodiment, which is not described herein again.

Alternatively, memory 302 may be, but is not limited to, read-only memory (ROM) or other type of static storage device that can store static information and instructions, random access memory (random access memory, RAM) or other type of dynamic storage device that can store information and instructions, but may also be electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory, EEPROM), compact disc read-only memory (compact disc read-only memory) or other optical disk storage, optical disk storage (including compact disc, laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc, blu-ray disc, etc.), magnetic disk storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer. The memory 302 may be integrated with the processor 301 or may exist separately and be coupled to the processor 301 through an interface circuit (not shown in fig. 3) of the communication device 300, which is not specifically limited by the embodiment of the present application.

A transceiver 303 for communication with other communication devices. For example, the communication apparatus 300 is a terminal device, and the transceiver 303 may be used to communicate with a network device or another terminal device. As another example, the communication apparatus 300 is a network device, and the transceiver 303 may be used to communicate with a terminal device or another network device.

Alternatively, the transceiver 303 may include a receiver and a transmitter (not separately shown in fig. 3). The receiver is used for realizing the receiving function, and the transmitter is used for realizing the transmitting function.

Alternatively, transceiver 303 may be integrated with processor 301 or may exist separately and be coupled to processor 301 through an interface circuit (not shown in fig. 3) of communication device 300, as embodiments of the present application are not specifically limited in this regard.

It will be appreciated that the configuration of the communication device 300 shown in fig. 3 is not limiting of the communication device, and that an actual communication device may include more or fewer components than shown, or may combine certain components, or a different arrangement of components.

In addition, the technical effects of the communication device 300 may refer to the technical effects of the method described in the above method embodiments, which are not described herein.

As shown in fig. 4, a base station switching processing method in an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a gateway, and includes the following steps:

step 101, receiving a first switching request sent by core network equipment; the first switching request carries a first cell code corresponding to the target small base station group and identification information of a source macro base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

it should be noted that, the plurality of small base stations access the core network through the gateway, are allocated to the plurality of base station numbers (eNB ID or gNB ID) of the gateway through the core network, the gateway uses one of the base station numbers as a base station number dedicated for handover, and divides the small base stations under the base station number into N small base station groups, each small base station group corresponding to one super virtual cell.

Specifically, the neighbors between base stations are identified with a target cell identity (Target Cell Identifier, TCI). TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups are uniformly added to all the macro base stations in the area, so that the macro base stations and the small base stations form a neighbor relation. Wherein, TCI includes: cell code sum (Physical Cell Identifier, PCI).

Specifically, the small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI identifier, and the small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI identifiers.

For 4G networks, the Cell code is an E-UTRAN Cell unique identity (E-UTRAN Cell Identifier, ECI), and ECI includes an eNB ID (base station number) and a Cell ID (Cell number).

For 5G (NR) networks, cells are encoded as Cell unique identities (NR Cell Identifier, NCI), which includes a gNB ID (base station number) and a Cell ID (Cell number).

In this step, different small base station packets are identified by different ECIs or NCIs, and the first cell is encoded as the first ECI or first NCI. And adding TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups in the neighbor list of each macro base station, namely adding N ECIs/NCIs and N corresponding PCI as neighbor cells of each macro base station, so that the N small base station groups and the macro base station are in neighbor cell relation. Specifically, the macro base station sends a measurement control instruction to the terminal, and the terminal sends a measurement control report to the macro base station based on the measurement control instruction, wherein the measurement control report comprises the neighbor cell information. The macro base station sends a switching request (namely a third switching request in the macro base station side method) to the core network equipment when judging that the switching condition is met according to the measurement control report; further, after receiving the third handover request, the core network sends the first handover request to the gateway.

It should be noted that the ECI/NCI configured for small cell packets may be understood as a virtual ECI/NCI. The virtual ECI/NCI is only used for configuring neighbor cell use on the macro base station, and is only used in the switching process from the macro base station to the small base station. The ECI/NCI configured on the small base station is unchanged according to the original plan and is used for other processes except the switching from the macro base station to the small base station.

102, acquiring a small base station list under the coverage of a source macro base station according to a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

illustratively, based on the relationship between the coverage areas of the small and macro base stations shown in fig. 5, the neighbor relation information is as follows:

small base station 1 (PCI=2)

Small base station 2 (PCI=3)

Small base station 3 (PCI=2)

Small base station 4 (PCI=2)

Small base station 5 (PCI=1)

Small base station 6 (PCI=2)

Macro base station A

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Macro base station B

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Macro base station C

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

As can be seen from the above table and fig. 2, the macro base station a and the small base stations 1, 2, 4 and 6 are in adjacent cell relationship; the macro base station B and the small base stations 2, 4 and 5 are adjacent to each other; the macro base station C is in a neighboring relationship with the small base station 1, the small base station 3, the small base station 5 and the small base station 6. That is, the list of small base stations under the coverage of macro base station a includes: the small base station 1, the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 6, and the handover initiated from the macro base station A is certainly accessed to one of the small base station 1, the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 6; the list of small base stations under the coverage of macro base station B includes: the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 5 are switched into one of the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 5 certainly when the switch is initiated from the macro base station B; the list of small base stations under the coverage of macro base station C includes: the small base station 1, the small base station 3, the small base station 5 and the small base station 6, and the handover initiated from the macro base station C must access one of the small base station 1, the small base station 3, the small base station 5 and the small base station 6.

For example, the first handover request carries identification information of the macro station a, and the list of small base stations obtained from the area relation information table includes: base station 1, small base station 2, small base station 4 and small base station 6.

Step 103, determining a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code from a small base station list covered by the source macro base station;

in this step, a plurality of small base stations in the small base station list covered by the source macro base station may be in different small base station groups, and because different small base station groups correspond to different cell codes, the target small base station corresponding to the first cell code may be further screened from the small base station list based on the first cell code.

It is understood that the target small cell includes at least one small cell.

104, sending a second switching request to the target small base station; the second switching request carries information of a switching access special resource group;

it should be noted that after the N super-virtual cells are activated and established, each small base station allocates and reserves several groups (e.g. 3 groups) of dedicated resources for handover access, and the resources reserved by each small base station are the same for handover of the base station. The sets of handover access specific resources are used by scheduling to the small base station via a second handover request.

Specifically, the gateway designates a group of idle switching access special resources according to the use condition of reserved switching access resources on the small base station maintained locally, and sends the switching access special resources to the target small base station in a second switching request; and the target small base station starts the switching access special resource group according to the second switching request of the gateway, and prepares for the access of the receiving terminal.

Step 105, receiving a handover request acknowledgement message sent by the target small cell;

step 106, a first switching signaling is sent to the core network device, and the first switching signaling carries the information of the switching access special resource group.

The gateway sends a first switching signaling gateway to the core network device, so that the gateway carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a switching command (namely, a first switching command in a gateway side method) and sends the information to the core network device; the core network equipment further carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a switching command (namely a second switching command in a core network equipment side method) and sends the switching access special resource group information to the macro base station; and the macro base station carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a first RRC connection reconfiguration message and sends the information to the terminal. And finally, the terminal is switched to a first small base station in the target small base station by the macro base station according to the information of the switching access special resource group and the ECI corresponding to the target small base station group.

It should be noted that, the handover access dedicated resource groups corresponding to the plurality of small base stations in one small base station group are the same, and although the plurality of small base stations in the target small base station all enable the handover access dedicated resource group, in actual access, the terminal is only in the coverage area of one small base station (i.e. the first small base station in the target small base station), so that the first small base station can be accessed based on the handover access dedicated resource group, and the handover from the macro base station to the first small base station can be completed.

In the above embodiment, the small base stations under the gateway are grouped, and each small base station group is identified by different cell codes, so that one macro base station can add cell codes corresponding to the N small base station groups, and the macro base station can add the N small base station groups into neighboring cells, so that the macro base station can be switched to one small base station in the target small base station group, and the switching from the macro base station to the small base station is realized. And the neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations is used for screening the small base stations in the target small base station group to obtain a smaller number of target small base stations, so that fewer small base stations trigger the switching access process, the signaling overhead of part of small base stations is saved, and excessive resource waste is avoided.

In one embodiment, before the step 102, the method includes:

and receiving the neighbor relation information table sent by the network management server.

In this embodiment, the network management server is used for management of each small cell. The neighbor relation information comprises identification information of at least one macro base station which is adjacent to each small base station, and the network management server determines a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations according to the neighbor relation information corresponding to each small base station by receiving the neighbor relation information sent by each small base station under the gateway.

For example, the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 1 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 2 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station B; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 3 includes: identification information of the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 4 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station B; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 5 includes: identification information of the macro base station B and the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 6 includes: and the identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station C. Thus, the network management server obtains the neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations based on the neighbor relation information sent by each small base station.

In an embodiment, the gateway is allocated with a base station number, and the base station number corresponds to a plurality of small base stations; before the step 101, the method further includes:

dividing a plurality of small base stations corresponding to the base station numbers into N small base station groups; wherein, small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI mark, and small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI marks; and the cell codes corresponding to the same small base station group are associated with PCI, and N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

When PCI is allocated to the small base stations, N PCI can be allocated to all the small base stations as a PCI pool, and the small base stations are automatically configured according to PCI confusion detection.

In this embodiment, since the cell code includes a base station number and a cell number, the present embodiment may set the cell number equal to PCI, that is, set cellid=pci, and N small base stations group together set N PCIs; thus, only N ECIs/NCIs and corresponding N PCI are added as neighbor cells on each macro base station.

For example, when ENB id=100 and pci=1/2/3, the corresponding 3 ECIs are respectively: 1001. 1002, 1003, the corresponding 3 TCIs are: 1001/1, 1002/2, 1003/3. Thus, the last bit of ECI is PCI, and ECI and PCI association is realized.

In one embodiment, the step 103 includes:

determining a first PCI associated with the first cell code according to the association relation between the cell code and the PCI;

and determining a target small base station corresponding to the first PCI from a small base station list covered by the source macro base station according to the first PCI.

For example, the connection state terminal moves to the coverage area of the small base station 1 under the coverage of the macro base station A, measures that the PCI of the small base station 1 is 2, and initiates the switching; the macro base station A initiates a first switching request to a configured super virtual neighbor (ECI=1002) corresponding to PCI=2 through a core network; after the small base station gateway receives the first switching request, judging that the switching request is initiated by the macro base station A according to the source base station identification information carried by the message, and finding out a small base station list in the coverage area of the macro base station A comprises the following steps: the small base station 1, the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 6 further obtain that the PCI of the corresponding small base station is 2 according to ECI=1002 carried by the message, and obtain that the target small base station is the small base station 1 and the small base station 4.

In this embodiment, the gateway may obtain the first PCI corresponding to the first ECI based on the first ECI sent by the core network, so as to obtain the target small base station corresponding to the first PCI from the small base station list based on the first PCI.

In an embodiment, after step 106, the method further comprises:

under the condition that the terminal is determined to be accessed to a first small base station in the target small base stations, sending a resource release message to a second small base station, wherein the resource release message is used for indicating the first small base station to release the switching access special resource group;

the first small base station is one small base station in the target small base stations, and the second small base station is one small base station except the first small base station in the target small base stations.

For example, based on the above example, the femto 1 and femto 4 both enable the handover access dedicated resource group based on the second handover request sent by the gateway, after the terminal accesses the femto 1 according to the handover access dedicated resource group, the gateway sends a resource release message to the femto 4, instructing the femto 4 to release the enabled handover access dedicated resource group, so that the femto that does not access the terminal can timely perform resource release for use in other handover access procedures.

In a preferred embodiment, N is 3.

In an embodiment, the method further comprises:

receiving a first state transition message sent by core network equipment, wherein the first state transition message is used for indicating the gateway to switch data planes;

And sending the second state transition message to a plurality of small base stations in the target small base station group, wherein the second state transition message is used for indicating the small base stations to perform data plane switching.

In this embodiment, the gateway completes the switching of the user data plane through the first state transition message, and completes the switching of the user data plane of the small cell through the second state transition message.

As shown in fig. 6, a base station switching processing method in an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a network management server, and includes the following steps:

step 201, acquiring a neighbor relation information table between macro base stations and small base stations, wherein the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

illustratively, based on the relationship between the coverage areas of the small and macro base stations shown in fig. 2, the neighbor relation information is as follows:

small base station 1 (PCI=2)

Small base station 2 (PCI=3)

Small base station 3 (PCI=2)

Small base station 4 (PCI=2)

Small base station 5 (PCI=1)

Small base station 6 (PCI=2)

Macro base station A

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Macro base station B

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Macro base station C

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

Neighboring cell

As can be seen from the above table and fig. 2, the macro base station a and the small base stations 1, 2, 4 and 6 are in adjacent cell relationship; the macro base station B and the small base stations 2, 4 and 5 are adjacent to each other; the macro base station C is in a neighboring relationship with the small base station 1, the small base station 3, the small base station 5 and the small base station 6. That is, the list of small base stations under the coverage of macro base station a includes: the small base station 1, the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 6, and the handover initiated from the macro base station A is certainly accessed to one of the small base station 1, the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 6; the list of small base stations under the coverage of macro base station B includes: the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 5 are switched into one of the small base station 2, the small base station 4 and the small base station 5 certainly when the switch is initiated from the macro base station B; the list of small base stations under the coverage of macro base station C includes: the small base station 1, the small base station 3, the small base station 5 and the small base station 6, and the handover initiated from the macro base station C must access one of the small base station 1, the small base station 3, the small base station 5 and the small base station 6.

Step 201, sending the neighbor relation information table to a gateway.

In the embodiment, the neighbor relation table between the macro base station and the small base stations is sent to the gateway, so that the gateway screens the small base stations based on the neighbor relation information table to obtain a smaller number of target small base stations, and the smaller number of small base stations trigger the switching access process, thereby saving the signaling overhead of part of small base stations and avoiding excessive resource waste.

In one embodiment, the step 201 includes:

receiving neighbor relation information sent by each small base station under a gateway, wherein the neighbor relation information comprises identification information of at least one macro base station which is adjacent to each small base station;

and determining a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station according to the neighbor relation information corresponding to each small base station.

For example, the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 1 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 2 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station B; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 3 includes: identification information of the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 4 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station B; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 5 includes: identification information of the macro base station B and the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 6 includes: and the identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station C. Thus, the network management server obtains the neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations based on the neighbor relation information sent by each small base station.

As shown in fig. 7, a base station handover processing method according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a small cell, and includes the following steps:

step 301, receiving a second switching request sent by a gateway under the condition that the small base station passes through a first cell code identifier, wherein the second switching request carries information of switching access special resource groups; after receiving a first switching request sent by core network equipment, the gateway determines a target small base station corresponding to the first PCI and sends the target small base station according to a first cell code corresponding to a target small base station group indicated by the first switching request and a neighbor relation information table between a macro base station and the small base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

it should be noted that, the plurality of small base stations access the core network through the gateway, are allocated to the plurality of base station numbers (eNB ID or gNB ID) of the gateway through the core network, the gateway uses one of the base station numbers as a base station number dedicated for handover, and the small base stations under the base station number are divided into N small base station groups, each small base station group corresponds to one super virtual cell. Wherein, TCI includes: cell coding and physical cell identification PCI. Specifically, the small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI identifier, and the small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI identifiers.

In this step, different small base station packets are identified by different ECIs or NCIs, and the first cell is encoded as the first ECI or first NCI. And adding TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups in the neighbor list of each macro base station, namely adding N ECIs/NCIs and N corresponding PCI as neighbor cells of each macro base station, so that the N small base station groups and the macro base station are in neighbor cell relation. Specifically, the macro base station sends a measurement control instruction to the terminal, and the terminal sends a measurement control report to the macro base station based on the measurement control instruction, wherein the measurement control report comprises the neighbor cell information. When judging that the switching condition is met according to the measurement control report, the macro base station sends a switching request (namely a third switching request in the macro base station side method) to core network equipment; further, after receiving the third switching request, the core network sends the first switching request to the gateway; and the gateway determines the target small base station corresponding to the first PCI according to the first cell code corresponding to the target small base station group indicated by the first switching request and a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station, and sends a second switching request to the target small base station.

Step 302, a handover request acknowledgement message is sent to the gateway.

The gateway sends a first switching signaling gateway to the core network equipment based on the switching confirmation message, so that the gateway carries switching access special resource group information in a switching command (namely, a first switching command in a gateway side method) and sends the switching access special resource group information to the core network equipment; the core network equipment further carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a switching command (namely a second switching command in a core network equipment side method) and sends the switching access special resource group information to the macro base station; and the macro base station carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a first RRC connection reconfiguration message and sends the information to the terminal. And finally, the terminal is switched to a first small base station in the target small base station by the macro base station according to the information of the switching access special resource group and the ECI corresponding to the target small base station group.

In an embodiment, before the step 301, the method further includes:

and sending neighbor relation information corresponding to the small base station to a network management server, wherein the neighbor relation information comprises identification information of at least one macro base station which is adjacent to the small base station.

And starting an automatic neighbor relation (Automatic Neighbor Relation, ANR) function at the small base stations, and reporting a measurement report through the terminal to acquire macro base station information around each small base station, namely neighbor relation information corresponding to each small base station.

Illustratively, the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 1 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 2 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station B; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 3 includes: identification information of the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 4 includes: identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station B; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 5 includes: identification information of the macro base station B and the macro base station C; the neighbor relation information transmitted by the small cell 6 includes: and the identification information of the macro base station A and the macro base station C. Thus, the network management server obtains the neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations based on the neighbor relation information sent by each small base station.

In an embodiment, the small base stations in the same small base station group are identified by the same Physical Cell Identifier (PCI), and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified by different PCI; and the cell code corresponding to the same small cell group is associated with PCI.

When PCI is allocated to the small base stations, N PCI can be allocated to all the small base stations as a PCI pool, and the small base stations are automatically configured according to PCI confusion detection.

In this embodiment, since the cell code includes a base station number and a cell number, the present embodiment may set the cell number equal to PCI, that is, set cellid=pci, and N small base stations group together set N PCIs; thus, only N ECIs/NCIs and corresponding N PCI are added as neighbor cells on each macro base station.

For example: when ENB id=100 and pci=1/2/3, the corresponding 3 ECIs are respectively: 1001. 1002, 1003, the corresponding 3 TCIs are: 1001/1, 1002/2, 1003/3. Thus, the last bit of ECI is PCI, and ECI and PCI association is realized.

In an embodiment, the method further comprises:

receiving a second state transition message sent by the gateway, wherein the second state transition message is used for indicating the small base station to perform data plane switching;

and switching the data surface according to the second state transition message.

In this embodiment, the small cell completes the handover of the user data plane through the second state transition message.

In an embodiment, after step 302, the method further comprises:

and sending a second RRC connection reconfiguration message to the terminal, wherein the second RRC connection reconfiguration message is used for indicating the terminal to release the switching access special resource group.

In this embodiment, the small cell instructs the terminal to release the handover access dedicated resource by sending a second RRC connection reconfiguration message to the terminal, so that the handover dedicated resource group continues to be used as a reserved handover access dedicated resource group for use in the next base station handover.

As shown in fig. 8, a base station switching method in an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a macro base station, and includes the following steps:

step 501, receiving neighbor cell information sent by a terminal, wherein the neighbor cell information comprises the PCI of a first small base station; the first small base station is one of target small base station groups, the target small base station groups are identified through a first cell code, the target small base station groups are one of N small base station groups, each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

specifically, the neighbors between base stations are identified with a target cell identity (Target Cell Identifier, TCI). TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups are uniformly added to all the macro base stations in the area, so that the macro base stations and the small base stations form a neighbor relation. Wherein, TCI includes: cell coding and physical cell identification PCI.

Specifically, the small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI identifier, and the small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI identifiers. The cell code of each small cell group is associated with the PCI of the small cell in the group, namely, based on the PCI of the small cell, the cell code of the small cell group where the small cell is located can be determined; based on the cell code of the small cell group, the PCI corresponding to the small cell in the small cell group can be determined.

For a 4G network, the cell is encoded as an E-UTRAN cell unique identity (E-UTRAN Cell Identifier, ECI), and the ECI includes: eNB ID (base station number) and Cell ID (Cell number).

For a 5G (NR) network, the cell code is a global cell identity (NR Cell Identifier, NCI), which includes: gNB ID (base station number) and Cell ID (Cell number).

In this step, different small base station packets are identified by different ECIs or NCIs, and the first cell is encoded as the first ECI or first NCI. And adding TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups in the neighbor cell list of each macro base station, namely adding N ECIs/NCIs and N PCI (peripheral component interconnect) corresponding to the N ECIs/NCIs as neighbor cells of each macro base station, so that the N small base station groups and the macro base station are in neighbor cell relation. Specifically, the macro base station sends a measurement control instruction to the terminal, and the terminal sends a measurement control report to the macro base station based on the measurement control instruction, wherein the measurement control report comprises the neighbor cell information. And when judging that the switching condition is met according to the measurement control report, the macro base station sends a switching request (namely, a third switching request in step 502) to the core network equipment.

Step 502, sending a third switching request to the core network device if the switching condition is judged to be satisfied; the third switching request carries a first cell code of the target small cell group and identification information of the macro base station; wherein the first cell code is determined according to an association between cell code (ECI/NCI) and PCI; that is, the first cell code is associated with the first PCI;

For example, the connected terminal moves from the macro base station a to the coverage of the small base station 1, measures that the PCI of the small base station 1 is 2, and initiates the handover to the macro base station a. The macro base station a initiates a handover request to a super virtual neighbor cell corresponding to pci=2 (e.g., a super virtual cell corresponding to a target small base station packet corresponding to eci=1002) through the core network device.

Step 503, receiving a second handover command sent by the core network device, where the second handover command carries handover access dedicated resource group information;

each small base station is allocated with a switching access special resource group after dividing small base station groups, and the switching access special resource groups reserved by the small base stations in each small base station group are the same.

Step 504, a first radio link control RRC connection reconfiguration message is sent to the terminal, where the first RRC connection reconfiguration message carries terminal handover access specific resource information group information.

In this embodiment, the dedicated switching access resource group is reserved for the dedicated switching access resource of the terminal, and the small base station starts the dedicated switching access resource group after receiving the second switching request sent by the gateway, and carries the dedicated switching access resource group information in the switching request acknowledgement message and feeds back to the gateway; the gateway carries the information of the special switching access resource group in a switching command (namely a first switching command in a gateway side method) and sends the switching command to core network equipment; further, the core network equipment carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a second switching command and sends the information to the macro base station; and the macro base station carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a first RRC connection reconfiguration message and sends the information of the switching access special resource group to the terminal, so that the terminal finishes switching from the macro base station to the first small base station according to the information of the switching access special resource group.

As shown in fig. 9, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a base station handover processing method, which is applied to a core network device, and includes:

step 601, receiving a third handover request sent by a macro base station, where the third handover request carries a first cell code of the target small cell group and identification information of the macro base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups, each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

specifically, the neighbors between base stations are identified with a target cell identity (Target Cell Identifier, TCI). TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups are uniformly added to all the macro base stations in the area, so that the macro base stations and the small base stations form a neighbor relation. Wherein, TCI includes: cell coding and physical cell identification PCI.

Specifically, the small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI identifier, and the small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI identifiers.

For 4G networks, the Cell code is an E-UTRAN Cell unique identity (E-UTRAN Cell Identifier, ECI), and ECI includes an eNB ID (base station number) and a Cell ID (Cell number).

For 5G (NR) networks, cells are encoded as global Cell identities (NR Cell Identifier, NCI), which includes a gNB ID (base station number) and a Cell ID (Cell number).

In this step, different small base station packets are identified by different ECIs or NCIs, and the first cell is encoded as the first ECI or first NCI. And adding TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups in the neighbor list of each macro base station, namely adding N ECIs/NCIs and N corresponding PCI as neighbor cells of each macro base station, so that the N small base station groups and the macro base station are in neighbor cell relation.

Step 602, a first switching request is sent to a gateway, wherein the first switching request carries a cell code of the target small cell group;

step 603, receiving a first switching command sent by a gateway, where the first switching command carries the information of the switching access dedicated resource group;

after dividing the small base station groups, each small base station is allocated with a plurality of groups of switching access special resources, and the switching access special resources reserved by the small base stations in each small base station group are the same.

Step 604, sending a second handover command to the macro base station, where the second handover command carries handover access dedicated resource group information.

In this embodiment, the switch access dedicated resource group is a reserved terminal switch access dedicated resource, and after receiving a third switch request of a first ECI/NCI carrying a target cell packet sent by a macro base station, the core network device sends the first switch request of the first ECI/NCI carrying the target cell packet to the gateway, so that the gateway sends a second switch request carrying switch access dedicated resource group information to a small base station in the target small base station packet; the small base station starts the switching access special resource after receiving a second switching request sent by the gateway, and feeds back a switching request confirmation message to the gateway; the gateway carries the information of the special switching access resource group in a first switching command and sends the first switching command to core network equipment; carrying the information of the switching access special resource group in a second switching command through core network equipment and sending the information to the macro base station; and finally, carrying the switching access special resource group information in a first RRC connection reconfiguration message by the macro base station and sending the first RRC connection reconfiguration message to the terminal, so that the terminal completes switching from the macro base station to the first small base station in the target small base station according to the switching access special resource group information.

In an embodiment, the method further includes:

Receiving a third state transition message sent by a macro base station, wherein the third state transition message is used for indicating the core network equipment to perform data plane switching;

and sending a first state transition message to the gateway, wherein the first state transition message is used for indicating the gateway to perform data plane switching.

In this embodiment, the core network device completes the user data plane switching based on the third state transition message, and the gateway completes the user data plane switching based on the first state transition message.

As shown in fig. 10, a base station switching method in an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a terminal, and specifically includes the following steps:

step 701, sending neighbor cell information to a macro base station, wherein the neighbor cell information comprises: PCI of the first small base station; the first small cell is one of target small cell groups, and the target small cell groups are identified through a first cell code; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups, each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

Specifically, the neighbors between base stations are identified with a target cell identity (Target Cell Identifier, TCI). TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups are uniformly added to all the macro base stations in the area, so that the macro base stations and the small base stations form a neighbor relation. Wherein, TCI includes: cell coding and physical cell identification PCI.

Specifically, the small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI identifier, and the small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI identifiers. The cell code of each small cell group is associated with the PCI of the small cell in the group, namely, based on the PCI of the small cell, the cell code of the small cell group where the small cell is located can be determined; based on the cell code of the small cell group, the PCI corresponding to the small cell in the small cell group can be determined.

For 4G networks, the Cell code is an E-UTRAN Cell unique identity (E-UTRAN Cell Identifier, ECI), and ECI includes an eNB ID (base station number) and a Cell ID (Cell number).

For 5G (NR) networks, cells are encoded as global Cell identities (NR Cell Identifier, NCI), which includes a gNB ID (base station number) and a Cell ID (Cell number).

In this step, different small base station packets are identified by different ECIs or NCIs, and the first cell is encoded as the first ECI or first NCI. And adding TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups in the neighbor list of each macro base station, namely adding N ECIs/NCIs and N corresponding PCI as neighbor cells of each macro base station, so that the N small base station groups and the macro base station are in neighbor cell relation.

Specifically, the macro base station sends a measurement control instruction to the terminal, and the terminal sends a measurement control report to the macro base station based on the measurement control instruction, wherein the measurement control report comprises the neighbor cell information. And when judging that the switching condition is met according to the measurement control report, the macro base station sends a switching request (namely, a third switching request in the macro base station side method) to the core network equipment.

Step 702, receiving a first radio link control RRC connection reconfiguration message sent by the macro base station, where the first RRC connection reconfiguration message carries handover access dedicated resource group information.

After dividing the small base station groups, each small base station is allocated with a plurality of groups of switching access special resources, and the switching access special resources reserved by the small base stations in each small base station group are the same.

In the step, the special switching access resource group is reserved terminal switching access special resource, the small base station starts the special switching access resource group after receiving a switching request (namely a second switching request in a gateway side method) sent by the gateway, and carries the special switching access resource group information in a switching request confirmation message and feeds the switching access special resource group information back to the gateway; the gateway carries the information of the special switching access resource group in a switching command (namely a first switching command in a gateway side method) and sends the switching command to core network equipment; further, the core network device carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a switching command (namely, a second switching command in a core network device side method) and sends the switching access special resource group information to the macro base station; and the macro base station carries the information of the switching access special resource group in a first RRC connection reconfiguration message and sends the information to the terminal.

Step 703, according to the handover access dedicated resource group information and the first cell code corresponding to the target small cell group, the macro base station is handed over to the first small cell in the target small cell group.

It should be noted that, the handover access dedicated resources corresponding to the plurality of small base stations in one small base station group are the same, and although the plurality of small base stations in the target small base station group all enable the group of handover access dedicated resources, in actual access, the terminal only enters the coverage area of one small base station (i.e. the first small base station), and accesses the first small base station through the handover access dedicated resource group.

In the above embodiment, by grouping the small base stations under the gateway and identifying each small base station group by different cell codes, one macro base station may add cell codes corresponding to the N small base station groups, so that the macro base station may add the N small base station groups as neighbor cells, so that one macro base station may switch to one small base station in the target small base station group, and the macro base station may switch to the small base station.

In an embodiment, after the handover from the macro base station to the first small cell in the target small cell packet, the method further comprises:

Receiving a second RRC connection reconfiguration message sent by the first small base station, wherein the second RRC connection reconfiguration message is used for indicating the terminal to release the switching access special resource group;

and releasing the switching access special resource group according to the second RRC connection reconfiguration message.

In this embodiment, the first small base station instructs the terminal to release the handover access dedicated resource group by sending a second RRC connection reconfiguration message to the terminal, so that the group of handover dedicated resources continues to be used as the reserved handover access dedicated resource group for use in the next base station handover.

The base station switching method of the present application will be described with reference to fig. 11.

As shown in fig. 8, the base station handover method mainly includes the following steps.

Step one, a source base station (macro base station) sends a measurement control instruction to a terminal.

Step two, the terminal sends a measurement report to the source base station; the measurement report includes neighbor information.

Wherein, the neighbor cell information includes: PCI of the first small base station; the first small cell is one of target small cell groups, and the target small cell groups are identified through a first cell code; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups, each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; small base stations in the same small base station group pass through the same PCI mark, and small base stations in different small base station groups pass through different PCI marks; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2. TCIs corresponding to the N small base station groups are added in the neighbor list of the source macro base station, namely ECIs/NCIs of the N small base station groups and N PCI (peripheral component interconnect) corresponding to the ECIs/NCIs are added as neighbor of the source macro base station, so that the N small base station groups and the source macro base station are in neighbor relation.

And step three, when judging that the switching condition is met, sending a switching Request (Handover Request) message (third switching Request) to the core network equipment.

Specifically, the source base station judges whether the terminal meets the switching condition according to the measurement report; when the switching condition is met, determining a first cell code according to the first PCI, and sending a third switching request to core network equipment; the third handover request carries the first cell code of the target small cell packet.

Step four, core network equipment sends a first switching request to a gateway; the first handover request carries the cell code of the target small cell group and the identification information of the source macro base station.

Step five, the gateway sends a second switching request to the target small base station; the second switching request carries information of a switching access special resource group;

in the step, after receiving a first switching request sent by a core network, a gateway acquires a neighbor relation information table between a macro base station and a small base station, and determines that the source macro base station is covered from the neighbor relation information table according to the identification information of the source macro base station; further, determining a target small base station from the small base station list according to the first cell code of the target small base station group; the gateway sends a second switching request to the target small base station (one of the small base stations is the small base station where the terminal is located), and indicates the switching access special resource group information to the target small base station through the second switching request.

And step six, each small base station in the target small base stations sends a switching request confirmation (Handover Request Ack) message to the gateway.

In this step, after each of the target small base stations receives the second handover request, the reserved handover access dedicated resource group is started, and Handover Request Ack is returned to the gateway.

And step seven, the gateway sends a first switching Command (Handover Command) to the core network equipment, and transmits reserved terminal switching access special resource group information.

And step eight, the core network equipment sends a second switching command to the source base station, and transmits the reserved terminal switching access special resource group information.

And step nine, the source base station sends a first RRC connection reconfiguration (RRC Connection Reconfiguration) to the terminal, and instructs the terminal to access the measured first small base station so as to realize switching. The first RRC connection reconfiguration message carries handover access specific resource group information. The first small cell belongs to one of the target small cells.

And step ten, the source base station sends a third state Transfer (Status Transfer) message to the core network equipment, and instructs the core network equipment to perform user data plane switching.

Step eleven, the core network device sends a first state transition (Status Transfer) message to the gateway, indicating the gateway to switch the user data plane.

Step twelve, the gateway sends a second state Transfer (Status Transfer) message to the target small base station, and instructs the target small base station to switch the user data plane;

and step thirteen, the terminal receives RRC Connection Reconfiguration information sent by a first small base station in the target small base station, and accesses the first small base station according to the switching access special resource group information and the measured cell information.

Step fourteen, a first RRC connection reconfiguration complete (RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete) message is sent to the first small base station.

Fifteen, the first small base station sends a second RRC connection reconfiguration (RRC Connection Reconfiguration) message to the terminal to instruct the terminal to be configured to other access resources, and releases the original handover access dedicated resource group to continue to serve as the reserved handover access dedicated resource for the next handover.

Step sixteen, the terminal reconfigures the access information according to the second RRC connection reconfiguration message and returns a second RRC connection reconfiguration complete (RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete) message.

Seventeenth, the gateway sends a resource release message to the small base stations except the first small base station in the target small base stations, and instructs the small base stations except the first small base station to release the access dedicated resources of the switch set, namely, marks the access dedicated resources of the switch set as idle, so as to be used as the next switch.

Eighteenth, the first small base station sends a Handover notification (Handover Notify) to the gateway, and indicates that the Handover is completed.

And nineteenth, the gateway forwards a Handover notification (Handover Notify) to the core network device, and the Handover is indicated to be completed.

Step twenty, the core network device sends a context release command (Context Release Command) to the source base station, and indicates to release the terminal context resource;

and twenty-one, the source base station releases the terminal context resource, and sends the context release completion to the core network (Context Release Complete), and the switching flow is completed.

As shown in fig. 12, a base station handover processing apparatus 900 according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a gateway, and includes:

a first receiving module 901, configured to receive a first handover request sent by a core network device; the first switching request carries a first cell code corresponding to the target small base station group and identification information of a source macro base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

a first obtaining module 902, configured to obtain a small base station list under coverage of the source macro base station according to a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

A first determining module 903, configured to determine, from a list of small base stations covered by the source macro base station, a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code;

a first sending module 904, configured to send a second handover request to the target small cell; the second switching request carries information of a switching access special resource group;

a second receiving module 905, configured to receive a handover request acknowledgement message sent by the target small cell;

a second sending module 906, configured to send a first handover signaling to the core network device, where the first handover signaling carries the handover access dedicated resource group information.

Optionally, the apparatus 900 further includes:

and the third receiving module is used for receiving the neighbor relation information table sent by the network management server.

Optionally, the gateway is allocated with a base station number, and the base station number corresponds to a plurality of small base stations;

the apparatus 900 further comprises:

the processing module is used for dividing the plurality of small base stations corresponding to the base station numbers into N small base station groups; wherein, small base stations in the same small base station group are identified by the same physical cell identifier PCI, and small base stations in different small base station groups are identified by different PCI; and the cell codes corresponding to the same small base station group are associated with PCI, and N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

Optionally, the first determining module 903 includes:

a first determining submodule, configured to determine a first PCI associated with the first cell code according to an association relationship between the cell code and the PCI;

and the second determining submodule is used for determining a target small base station corresponding to the first PCI from the small base station list covered by the source macro base station according to the first PCI.

Optionally, the apparatus 900 further includes:

a third sending module, configured to send a resource release message to a second small base station when it is determined that a terminal accesses a first small base station in the target small base stations, where the resource release message is used to instruct the first small base station to release the handover access dedicated resource group;

the first small base station is one small base station in the target small base stations, and the second small base station is one small base station except the first small base station in the target small base stations.

The apparatus 900 provided in the embodiment of the present invention may perform the above method embodiment, and its implementation principle and technical effects are similar, and this embodiment will not be described herein again.

As shown in fig. 13, a base station switching processing device 1000 according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a network management server, and includes:

A second obtaining module 1001, configured to obtain a neighbor relation information table between macro base stations and small base stations, where the neighbor relation information table includes a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

and the fourth sending module is used for sending the neighbor relation information table to a gateway.

Optionally, the second obtaining module 1001 includes:

the first acquisition sub-module is used for receiving neighbor relation information sent by each small base station under a gateway, wherein the neighbor relation information comprises identification information of at least one macro base station which is neighbor with each small base station;

and the second acquisition sub-module is used for determining a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base stations according to the neighbor relation information corresponding to each small base station.

The apparatus 1000 provided in the embodiment of the present invention may perform the above method embodiment, and its implementation principle and technical effects are similar, and this embodiment will not be described herein again.

As shown in fig. 14, a base station handover processing apparatus 1100 according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied to a small cell, and includes:

a fourth receiving module 1101, configured to receive, when the small base station passes through the first cell code identifier, a second handover request sent by the gateway, where the second handover request carries handover access dedicated resource group information; the second switching request is sent after the gateway receives a first switching request sent by core network equipment, and determines a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code according to a first cell code corresponding to a target small base station group indicated by the first switching request and a neighbor relation information table between a macro base station and the small base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

A fifth sending module 1102, configured to send a handover request acknowledgement message to the gateway.

Optionally, the apparatus 1100 further comprises:

and a sixth sending module, configured to send neighbor relation information corresponding to the small base station to a network management server, where the neighbor relation information includes identification information of at least one macro base station that is adjacent to the small base station.

Optionally, the small base stations in the same small base station group are identified by the same Physical Cell Identifier (PCI), and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified by different PCI; and the cell code corresponding to the same small cell group is associated with PCI.

The apparatus 1100 provided in the embodiment of the present invention may perform the above method embodiment, and its implementation principle and technical effects are similar, and this embodiment will not be described herein again.

A gateway according to another embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 15, includes a transceiver 1210, a processor 1200, a memory 1220, and a program or instructions stored on the memory 1220 and executable on the processor 1200; the processor 1200, when executing the program or instructions, performs the following steps:

receiving a first switching request sent by core network equipment; the first switching request carries a first cell code corresponding to the target small base station group and identification information of a source macro base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

Acquiring a small base station list under the coverage of the source macro base station according to a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station; the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

determining a target small base station corresponding to the first cell code from a small base station list covered by the source macro base station;

sending a second switching request to the target small base station; the second switching request carries information of a switching access special resource group;

receiving a switching request confirmation message sent by the target small base station;

and sending a first switching signaling to the core network equipment, wherein the first switching signaling carries the switching access special resource group information.

The transceiver 1210 is configured to receive and transmit data under the control of the processor 1200.

Wherein in fig. 15, a bus architecture may comprise any number of interconnected buses and bridges, and in particular, one or more processors represented by processor 1200 and various circuits of memory represented by memory 1220, linked together. The bus architecture may also link together various other circuits such as peripheral devices, voltage regulators, power management circuits, etc., which are well known in the art and, therefore, will not be described further herein. The bus interface provides an interface. The transceiver 1110 may be a number of elements, i.e., include a transmitter and a receiver, providing a means for communicating with various other apparatus over a transmission medium. The processor 1200 is responsible for managing the bus architecture and general processing, and the memory 1120 may store data used by the processor 1200 in performing operations.

Optionally, the processor 1200 further implements the following steps when executing the program or instructions:

and receiving the neighbor relation information table sent by the network management server.

Optionally, the gateway is allocated with a base station number, and the base station number corresponds to a plurality of small base stations; the processor 1200 also performs the following steps when executing the program or instructions:

dividing a plurality of small base stations corresponding to the base station numbers into N small base station groups; wherein, small base stations in the same small base station group are identified by the same physical cell identifier PCI, and small base stations in different small base station groups are identified by different PCI; and the cell codes corresponding to the same small base station group are associated with PCI, and N is an integer greater than or equal to 2.

Optionally, the processor 1200 further implements the following steps when executing the program or instructions:

determining a first PCI associated with the first cell code according to the association relation between the cell code and the PCI;

and determining a target small base station corresponding to the first PCI from a small base station list covered by the source macro base station according to the first PCI.

Optionally, the processor 1200 further implements the following steps when executing the program or instructions:

Under the condition that the terminal is determined to be accessed to a first small base station in the target small base stations, sending a resource release message to a second small base station, wherein the resource release message is used for indicating the first small base station to release the switching access special resource group;

the first small base station is one small base station in the target small base stations, and the second small base station is one small base station except the first small base station in the target small base stations.

A network management server according to another embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 16, includes a transceiver 1310, a processor 1300, a memory 1320, and a program or instructions stored in the memory 1320 and executable on the processor 1300; the processor 1300, when executing the program or instructions, performs the following steps:

acquiring a neighbor relation information table between a macro base station and a small base station, wherein the neighbor relation information table comprises a small base station list covered by each macro base station;

and sending the neighbor relation information table to a gateway.

The transceiver 1310 is configured to receive and transmit data under the control of the processor 1300.

Where in FIG. 16, a bus architecture may comprise any number of interconnected buses and bridges, with various circuits of the one or more processors, specifically represented by processor 1300, and the memory, represented by memory 1320, being linked together. The bus architecture may also link together various other circuits such as peripheral devices, voltage regulators, power management circuits, etc., which are well known in the art and, therefore, will not be described further herein. The bus interface provides an interface. The transceiver 1310 may be a number of elements, i.e., include a transmitter and a receiver, providing a means for communicating with various other apparatus over a transmission medium. The processor 1300 is responsible for managing the bus architecture and general processing, and the memory 1320 may store data used by the processor 1300 in performing operations.

Optionally, the processor 1300 when executing the program or instructions further implements the following steps:

receiving neighbor relation information sent by each small base station under a gateway, wherein the neighbor relation information comprises identification information of at least one macro base station which is adjacent to each small base station;

and determining a neighbor relation information table between the macro base station and the small base station according to the neighbor relation information corresponding to each small base station.

A small cell according to another embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 17, comprises a transceiver 1410, a processor 1400, a memory 1420, and a program or instructions stored on the memory 1420 and executable on the processor 1400; the processor 1400, when executing the programs or instructions, performs the following steps:

receiving a second switching request sent by a gateway under the condition that the small base station passes through a first cell coding identifier, wherein the second switching request carries switching access special resource group information; after receiving a first switching request sent by core network equipment, the gateway determines a target small base station corresponding to the first PCI and sends the target small base station according to a first cell code corresponding to a target small base station group indicated by the first switching request and a neighbor relation information table between a macro base station and the small base station; the target small base station group is one of N small base station groups; each small base station group comprises a plurality of small base stations, and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified through different cell codes; n is an integer greater than or equal to 2;

And sending a switching request confirmation message to the gateway.

The transceiver 1410 is configured to receive and transmit data under the control of the processor 1400.

Wherein in fig. 17, a bus architecture may comprise any number of interconnected buses and bridges, and in particular one or more processors represented by the processor 1400 and various circuits of the memory represented by the memory 1420, linked together. The bus architecture may also link together various other circuits such as peripheral devices, voltage regulators, power management circuits, etc., which are well known in the art and, therefore, will not be described further herein. The bus interface provides an interface. The transceiver 1410 may be a number of elements, i.e., include a transmitter and a receiver, providing a means for communicating with various other apparatus over a transmission medium. The processor 1400 is responsible for managing the bus architecture and general processing, and the memory 1420 may store data used by the processor 1400 in performing operations.

Optionally, the processor 1400 when executing the program or instructions further performs the following steps:

and sending neighbor relation information corresponding to the small base station to a network management server, wherein the neighbor relation information comprises identification information of at least one macro base station which is adjacent to the small base station.

Optionally, the small base stations in the same small base station group are identified by the same Physical Cell Identifier (PCI), and the small base stations in different small base station groups are identified by different PCI; and the cell code corresponding to the same small cell group is associated with PCI.

It should be appreciated that the processor in embodiments of the application may be a central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), which may also be other general purpose processors, digital signal processors (digital signal processor, DSP), application specific integrated circuits (application specific integrated circuit, ASIC), off-the-shelf programmable gate arrays (field programmable gate array, FPGA) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, or the like. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like.

It should also be appreciated that the memory in embodiments of the present application may be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or may include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. The nonvolatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically Erasable EPROM (EEPROM), or a flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (random access memory, RAM) which acts as an external cache. By way of example but not limitation, many forms of random access memory (random access memory, RAM) are available, such as Static RAM (SRAM), dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM), enhanced Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (ESDRAM), synchronous Link DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct memory bus RAM (DR RAM).

The above embodiments may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware (e.g., circuitry), 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 program or 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, from one website site, computer, server, or data center to another website site, computer, server, or data center by a 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: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (random access memory, RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, or other various media capable of storing program codes.

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 (10)

1. The base station switching processing method is characterized in that a terminal currently resides in a first main cell of a first space-time base station and a first auxiliary cell of a first ground base station, the first main cell covers N auxiliary cells, N is an integer greater than 1, the first auxiliary cell is one of the plurality of auxiliary cells, and the terminal establishes dual connection with the first main cell and the first auxiliary cell, and the method comprises the following steps:

the terminal performs signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the first main cell to obtain a first measurement result, and performs signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell to obtain a second measurement result, wherein the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is an auxiliary cell adjacent to the first auxiliary cell in the plurality of auxiliary cells, the first measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first main cell, and the second measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell;

The terminal reports the first measurement result and the second measurement result to the first space-sky base station;

if the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space-time base station indicates a second ground base station providing the second auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the second auxiliary cell for residence;

and if the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighbor cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first aerospace base station requests a second aerospace base station providing the second main cell to switch the terminal to the second main cell for residence.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first space-time base station determining that the terminal needs to be handed over to a second secondary cell in the neighborhood of the first secondary cell based on the first measurement result and the second measurement result comprises:

and if the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second auxiliary cell in the adjacent cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than a first quality threshold, and the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the main cell in the adjacent cell of the first main cell is not greater than a second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second auxiliary cell.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first aerospace base station determining that the terminal needs to be handed over to a second primary cell from among the neighbors of the first primary cell based on the first measurement result and the second measurement result comprises:

if the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second primary cell in the neighboring cell of the first primary cell is greater than a second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second primary cell no matter whether the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than a first quality threshold.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

under the condition that the terminal is switched to the second main cell for residence, the second space-time base station indicates M auxiliary cells covered by the second main cell to the terminal, wherein the M auxiliary cells are different from the N auxiliary cells;

the terminal initiates signal measurement to the M auxiliary cells according to the indication of the second space-time base station to obtain the third measurement result, wherein the third measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the M auxiliary cells;

The terminal reports the third measurement result to the second space-sky base station;

and the second space base station instructs a third ground base station providing a third auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the third auxiliary cell for residence according to the third measurement result, wherein the third auxiliary cell is one of the M auxiliary cells.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the method further comprises:

and under the condition that the terminal is switched to the third auxiliary cell for residence, the terminal releases the relevant information of the N auxiliary cells.

6. A communication system, wherein the system comprises a terminal, a first space base station and a first ground base station, the terminal currently resides in a first main cell of the first space base station and a first auxiliary cell of the first ground base station, the first main cell covers N auxiliary cells, N is an integer greater than 1, the first auxiliary cell is one of a plurality of auxiliary cells, and the terminal establishes dual connection with the first main cell and the first auxiliary cell;

the system is configured to:

the terminal performs signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the first main cell to obtain a first measurement result, and performs signal measurement on the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell to obtain a second measurement result, wherein the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is an auxiliary cell adjacent to the first auxiliary cell in the plurality of auxiliary cells, the first measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first main cell, and the second measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell;

The terminal reports the first measurement result and the second measurement result to the first space-sky base station;

if the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second auxiliary cell in the neighboring cells of the first auxiliary cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first space-time base station indicates a second ground base station providing the second auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the second auxiliary cell for residence;

and if the first aerospace base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to a second main cell in the neighbor cells of the first main cell according to the first measurement result and the second measurement result, the first aerospace base station requests a second aerospace base station providing the second main cell to switch the terminal to the second main cell for residence.

7. The system according to claim 6, characterized in that the system is specifically configured to: and if the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second auxiliary cell in the adjacent cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than a first quality threshold, and the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the main cell in the adjacent cell of the first main cell is not greater than a second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second auxiliary cell.

8. The system according to claim 6, characterized in that the system is specifically configured to: if the second measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the second primary cell in the neighboring cell of the first primary cell is greater than a second quality threshold, the first space-time base station determines that the terminal needs to be switched to the second primary cell no matter whether the first measurement result indicates that the signal quality of the auxiliary cell in the neighboring cell of the first auxiliary cell is greater than a first quality threshold.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the system is further configured to:

under the condition that the terminal is switched to the second main cell for residence, the second space-time base station indicates M auxiliary cells covered by the second main cell to the terminal, wherein the M auxiliary cells are different from the N auxiliary cells;

the terminal initiates signal measurement to the M auxiliary cells according to the indication of the second space-time base station to obtain the third measurement result, wherein the third measurement result is used for representing the signal quality of the M auxiliary cells;

the terminal reports the third measurement result to the second space-sky base station;

And the second space base station instructs a third ground base station providing a third auxiliary cell to switch the terminal to the third auxiliary cell for residence according to the third measurement result, wherein the third auxiliary cell is one of the M auxiliary cells.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the system is further configured to:

and under the condition that the terminal is switched to the third auxiliary cell for residence, the terminal releases the relevant information of the N auxiliary cells.