CN116981047A

CN116981047A - Electronic device and method for wireless communication, computer-readable storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN116981047A
Application number: CN202210428627.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 党建; 李业伟; 樊婷婷; 孙晨
Original assignee: Sony Group Corp
Current assignee: Sony Group Corp
Priority date: 2022-04-22
Filing date: 2022-04-22
Publication date: 2023-10-31
Also published as: WO2023202493A1

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to electronic devices and methods for wireless communications, computer-readable storage media. Wherein the electronic device for wireless communication comprises processing circuitry configured to: the initial location information of the user device is determined by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the user device within a service range of the electronic device.

Description

Electronic device and method for wireless communication, computer-readable storage medium

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of wireless communication technology, and in particular, to an electronic device and method for wireless communication and a computer readable storage medium. And more particularly to determining location information of a user device using Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) assistance.

Background

In the prior art, methods for locating a user equipment include a multiple round trip delay locating method, a time difference of arrival locating method, an angle of arrival locating method, and the like. The multi-round trip delay positioning method requires the user equipment to switch between different base stations, the switching process is complex, and the positioning delay is large. The arrival time difference positioning method needs to keep time synchronization between base stations, otherwise positioning accuracy is affected. The arrival angle positioning method needs a base station to be provided with a large-scale antenna to ensure higher positioning precision, so that the positioning cost is increased.

Disclosure of Invention

The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. It should be understood that this summary is not an exhaustive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its purpose is to present some concepts in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is discussed later.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an electronic device for wireless communication, comprising processing circuitry configured to: the initial location information of the user device is determined by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the user device within a service range of the electronic device. In embodiments according to the present disclosure, the applicability of locating a user device is improved by determining initial location information of the user device based on a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected based on a connection state between the electronic device and the user device.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an electronic device for wireless communication, comprising processing circuitry configured to: the network-side device is assisted in determining initial location information for the electronic device by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the network-side device serving the electronic device. In the embodiment according to the disclosure, the positioning applicability of the electronic device is improved by assisting in determining the position information through a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected based on the connection state between the electronic device and the network side device.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method for wireless communication, comprising: the initial location information of the user device is determined by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the user device within a service range of the electronic device.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method for wireless communication, comprising: the network-side device is assisted in determining initial location information for the electronic device by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the network-side device serving the electronic device.

According to other aspects of the present invention, there are also provided a computer program code and a computer program product for implementing the above-mentioned method for wireless communication, and a computer readable storage medium having recorded thereon the computer program code for implementing the above-mentioned method for wireless communication.

These and other advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Drawings

To further clarify the above and other advantages and features of the present invention, a more particular description of the invention will be rendered by reference to the appended drawings. The accompanying drawings are incorporated in and form a part of this specification, together with the detailed description below. Elements having the same function and structure are denoted by the same reference numerals. It is appreciated that these drawings depict only typical examples of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 illustrates a functional block diagram of an electronic device for wireless communication according to one embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 illustrates one example of a mapping between a Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) and a downstream synchronization signal in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates one example of an electronic device broadcasting a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) to user devices via an original reconfigurable smart surface in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 4 illustrates one example of an electronic device broadcasting SSBs to user devices via a coarse beam of an original reconfigurable smart surface in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a user equipment selecting a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a measurement of a received downlink synchronization signal in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 6 illustrates one example of signaling interactions between an electronic device and a user device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 illustrates one example of an electronic device determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 8 illustrates another example of an electronic device determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 illustrates another example of a mapping between RIS and downlink synchronization signals according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 10 illustrates another example of an electronic device broadcasting an SSB to user devices via an original reconfigurable smart surface in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 11 illustrates another example of an electronic device broadcasting SSBs to user devices via a coarse beam of an original reconfigurable smart surface in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 12 illustrates another example of signaling interactions between an electronic device and a user device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 13 illustrates one example of an electronic device determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble and a sounding reference signal, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

Fig. 14 illustrates another example of an electronic device determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble and a sounding reference signal, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 15 illustrates one example of an electronic device determining enhanced location information based on initial location information in a disconnected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 16 illustrates another example of an electronic device determining enhanced location information based on initial location information in a disconnected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 17 illustrates one example of an electronic device determining enhanced location information based on candidate beamlets in accordance with an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 18 illustrates another example of an electronic device determining enhanced location information based on candidate beamlets in accordance with an embodiment of the disclosure;

fig. 19 illustrates a schematic diagram of communication between an electronic device and a user device using beams in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 20 is a schematic diagram illustrating selecting a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within a range of an initial beam according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 21 illustrates one example of signaling interactions between an electronic device and a user device with which a connection has been established in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 22 illustrates one example of an electronic device determining enhanced location information based on initial location information in a connected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 23 illustrates another example of signaling interactions between an electronic device and a user device with which a connection has been established according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 24 illustrates another example of an electronic device determining enhanced location information based on initial location information in a connected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 25 illustrates another schematic diagram of communication between an electronic device and a user device using beams in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 26 illustrates a functional block diagram of an electronic device for wireless communication according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 27 shows a flowchart of a method for wireless communication according to one embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 28 shows a flowchart of a method for wireless communication according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 29 is a block diagram showing a first example of a schematic configuration of an eNB or a gNB to which the techniques of the present disclosure may be applied;

fig. 30 is a block diagram showing a second example of a schematic configuration of an eNB or a gNB to which the techniques of this disclosure may be applied;

Fig. 31 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a smart phone to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied;

fig. 32 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a car navigation device to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied; and

FIG. 33 is a block diagram of an exemplary architecture of a general-purpose personal computer in which methods and/or apparatus and/or systems according to embodiments of the present invention may be implemented.

Detailed Description

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the interest of clarity and conciseness, not all features of an actual implementation are described in this specification. It will of course be appreciated that in the development of any such actual embodiment, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made in order to achieve the developer's specific goals, such as compliance with system-and business-related constraints, and that these constraints will vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.

It should be noted here that, in order to avoid obscuring the present invention due to unnecessary details, only the device structures and/or processing steps closely related to the solution according to the present invention are shown in the drawings, while other details not greatly related to the present invention are omitted.

Fig. 1 illustrates a functional block diagram of an electronic device 100 for wireless communication according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 1, the electronic device 100 includes: the determining unit 101 may determine initial location information of the user device by selecting a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from a plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device 100 and the user device within a service range of the electronic device 100.

The determination unit 101 may be implemented by one or more processing circuits, which may be implemented as a chip, for example.

The electronic device 100 may be provided as a network-side device in a wireless communication system, and specifically may be provided at a base station side or communicatively connected to a base station, for example. Here, it should also be noted that the electronic device 100 may be implemented at a chip level or may also be implemented at a device level. For example, the electronic device 100 may operate as a base station itself, and may also include external devices such as memory, transceivers (not shown), and so forth. The memory may be used to store programs and related data information that the base station needs to perform to implement various functions. The transceiver may include one or more communication interfaces to support communication with different devices (e.g., user Equipment (UE), other base stations, etc.), the implementation of the transceiver is not particularly limited herein.

As an example, the base station may be an eNB or a gNB, for example.

The wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may be a 5G NR (New Radio) communication system. Further, a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may include a Non-terrestrial network (Non-terrestrial network, NTN). Optionally, the wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may further comprise a terrestrial network (Terrestrial network, TN). In addition, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may also be a 4G or 3G communication system.

The connection state between the electronic device 100 and the user device includes: a non-connected state in which no communication connection has been established between the electronic device 100 and the user device, and a connected state in which a communication connection has been established between the electronic device 100 and the user device.

Assume that there are M original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces between the electronic device 100 and the user device, and the serial numbers (IDs) of the M original RIS are respectively: RIS-1, RIS-2, …, RIS-M. According to the connection state between the electronic device 100 and the user device, N (N is a positive integer less than or equal to M) selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected from the M original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, for determining initial location information of the user device.

In the embodiment according to the present disclosure, by determining the location information of the user equipment through a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected based on the connection state between the electronic device 100 and the user equipment, the applicability of positioning the user equipment is improved, and the coverage of positioning can be improved.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to broadcast, via the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, downlink synchronization signals including preambles, respectively, in case the electronic device 100 is in a non-connected state with the user device, for the user device to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the preambles. Thereby, at least one of the following benefits is enabled: the positioning complexity is low, the implementation is easy, the positioning precision can be improved, and the positioning overhead can be reduced.

Thus, in the disconnected state, a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces may be selected for positioning based on the preamble.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signal may include a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB). Other examples of downstream synchronization signals will also occur to those skilled in the art and will not be further elaborated upon here. Hereinafter, for simplicity, description will be made taking an example that the downlink synchronization signal is SSB.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces do not include a common preamble.

For example, SSB corresponding to RIS-1 is SSB1, SSB corresponding to RIS-2 is SSB2, …, and SSB corresponding to RIS-M is SSBM.

Fig. 2 illustrates one example of a mapping between a reconfigurable intelligent surface and a downlink synchronization signal in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. Assuming SSB-per-rach-occasin <1, this means that one RIS has multiple PRACH occasions, the RIS is configured with a wide beam to broadcast the signal. For simplicity, only the mapping between 4 RISs (with sequence numbers RIS-1, RIS-2, RIS-3, RIS-4, respectively) and SSB resources is shown in FIG. 2. As can be seen from FIG. 2, the SSB corresponding to RIS-1 is SSB1, the SSB corresponding to RIS-2 is SSB2, the SSB corresponding to RIS-3 is SSB3, and the SSB corresponding to RIS-4 is SSB4. Taking SSB1 as an example, 4 SSB1 shown in fig. 2 indicates that SSB1 includes 4 preambles, and time domain and frequency domain resources corresponding to each preamble are respectively represented by a horizontal axis and a vertical axis. For example, SSB1, which is shown with an oval circle in fig. 2, is used to schematically represent a single preamble time-frequency resource among 4 preamble time-frequency resources corresponding to SSB 1. SSB2, SSB3, SSB4 in fig. 2 include 4 preambles similarly to SSB 1. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the number of preambles included in each SSB may be other than 4. As can be seen from fig. 2, SSB1, SSB2, SSB3, SSB4 do not occupy common time-frequency resources, so that preambles can be transmitted over PRACH (physical random access channel) on different time-frequency resources. In this case, the PRACH may be used directly for positioning.

Fig. 3 illustrates one example of an electronic device 100 broadcasting SSBs to user devices via an original reconfigurable smart surface in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

For simplicity, hereinafter, the electronic device 100 is sometimes denoted by a gNB, and the user equipment by a UE.

As shown in fig. 3, the gNB broadcasts SSB1, … … to the UE via RIS-1 and SSBM to the UE via RIS-M. In fig. 3, a common preamble is not included in each SSB.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each of the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces also includes a sequence number of the coarse beam of that original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

For example, each original reconfigurable intelligent surface may have several coarse beams, respectively. Hereinafter, for simplicity, it is assumed that each original reconfigurable intelligent surface has 3 coarse beams, respectively, and the serial numbers of these 3 coarse beams are labeled coarse beam 1, coarse beam 2, and coarse beam 3. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that each original reconfigurable intelligent surface may have other numbers of coarse beams. The SSB corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface may be broadcast separately using 3 coarse beams of that original reconfigurable intelligent surface. To more clearly represent SSBs broadcast on different coarse beams, SSBs corresponding to the original reconfigurable intelligent surface may be distinguished as SSBs broadcast on coarse beams of different directions. For example, SSB1 may be distinguished into SSB1-1 broadcast over coarse beam 1 of RIS-1, SSB1-2 broadcast over coarse beam 2 of RIS-1, and SSB1-3 broadcast over coarse beam 3 of RIS-1. SSB2 may be classified into SSB2-1 broadcast through coarse beam 1 of RIS-2, SSB2-2 broadcast through coarse beam 2 of RIS-2, and SSB2-3 broadcast through coarse beam 3 of RIS-2, … …, SSBM may be classified into SSBM-1 broadcast through coarse beam 1 of RIS-M, SSBM-2 broadcast through coarse beam 2 of RIS-M, and SSBM-3 broadcast through coarse beam 3 of RIS-M.

Fig. 4 illustrates one example of electronic device 100 broadcasting SSBs to user devices via a coarse beam of an original reconfigurable intelligent surface, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. M original RISs (RIS-1, RIS-2, … …, RIS-M) are shown in FIG. 4. Wherein, the connection between the gNB and the UE labeled with "# in FIG. 4 indicates that there is no pass-through link between the gNB and the UE (e.g., because there is an obstacle between the gNB and the UE and no pass-through link).

As shown in fig. 4, the gNB broadcasts SSB1 to the UE via RIS-1, more specifically SSB1-1, SSB1-2, and SSB1-3 via the 3 coarse beams of RIS-1, respectively; the gNB broadcasts SSB2 to the UE via RIS-2, more specifically SSB2-1, SSB2-2 and SSB2-3 via the 3 coarse beams of RIS-2, respectively; … …; the gNB broadcasts SSBM via RIS-M to the UE, more specifically SSBM-1, SSBM-2 and SSBM-3 via the 3 coarse beams of RIS-M, respectively.

As an example, the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected by the user equipment based on measurements of the received downlink synchronization signals.

For example, the measurement result of the received downlink synchronization signal includes Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) of the received downlink synchronization signal, signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio of the received downlink synchronization signal, and the like. Hereinafter, description will be generally made taking an example in which the measurement result is RSRP.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a user equipment selecting a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a measurement of a received downlink synchronization signal in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 5, the UE calculates RSRP of SSBs received via RIS-1, … …, RIS-M and compares and ranks the maximum RSRP corresponding to each RIS, and selects RIS corresponding to the first N maximum RSRP from among RIS-1, … …, RIS-M as the selected reconfigurable smart surface (selected RIS). For example, in the case where there is an obstruction between the gNB and the UE such that there is no through link between the gNB and the UE, N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 3.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to receive, via each of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, a preamble from the user equipment respectively corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

For example, for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface that is selected, the user device sends a corresponding preamble to the electronic device 100 via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to further receive, via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, reporting information corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface from the user equipment, wherein the reporting information corresponding to a first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to be used for transmitting the random access response to the user equipment includes a feedback identification for indicating that the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used for transmitting the random access response, and the reporting information corresponding to other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces than the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface respectively includes a non-feedback identification for indicating that the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are not used for transmitting the random access response.

For example, the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface may be the RIS corresponding to the maximum RSRP among the selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces RIS-1, … …, RIS-N.

Thus, of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, only the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface reporting the feedback identification is used for communication between the electronic device 100 and the user device, while the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces reporting the non-feedback identification are used only for assisted positioning. Thus, the signaling overhead between the electronic device 100 and the user equipment for positioning is reduced and the costs required for positioning are reduced.

For example, the electronic device 100 may send a random access response to the user device via the first selected reconfigurable smart surface.

As an example, the reported information corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes a serial number of an optimal coarse beam of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the optimal coarse beam is a coarse beam that maximizes a measurement result of a downlink synchronization signal received by the user equipment from the electronic equipment via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface among coarse beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

As an example, the reported information corresponding to the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface also includes accuracy requirements regarding the location information.

For example, when the accuracy requirement is low, the initial position information may be determined, and when the accuracy requirement is high, the enhanced position information more accurate than the initial position information may be determined. Therefore, the positioning accuracy requirements of different user equipment can be met.

Fig. 6 illustrates one example of signaling interactions between an electronic device 100 and a user device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 6, only three selected RISs (RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3) are shown for simplicity, assuming that a first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is RIS-1 (e.g., in FIG. 6, the link between the UE and the gNB via RIS-1 is labeled as the "maximum RSRP link", meaning that RIS-1 is the RIS corresponding to the maximum RSRP among RIS-1, RIS-2, RIS-3), and other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces include RIS-2 (e.g., in FIG. 6, the link between the UE and the gNB via RIS-2 is labeled as the "second large RSRP link", meaning that RIS-2 is the RIS-1, RIS-2, the RIS corresponding to the second large RSRP among RIS-3), and RIS-3 (e.g., in FIG. 6, the link between the UE and the gNB via RIS-3 is labeled as the "third large RSRP link", meaning that RIS-3 is the RIS-1, RIS-2, RIS corresponding to the third large RSRP among RIS-3).

As shown in fig. 6, the gNB may receive, from the UE via the RIS-1, a preamble corresponding to the SSB1, a feedback identification, a sequence number of an optimal coarse beam of the RIS-1, and a positioning accuracy requirement; the gNB may receive, from the UE via RIS-2, a preamble corresponding to SSB2, a non-feedback identification, and a sequence number of an optimal coarse beam of RIS-2; and the gNB may receive, from the UE via RIS-3, the preamble corresponding to SSB3, the non-feedback identification, and the sequence number of the optimal coarse beam of RIS-3. The gNB may send a random access response to the UE via RS-1.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to calculate a time delay of arrival from the user device to the electronic device 100 corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the received preambles corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, respectively, and to determine the initial position information based on the time delay of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface. Thus, the time delay and the synchronization error of the traditional positioning method are reduced.

As shown in fig. 6, the gNB may calculate (or measure) arrival delays from the gNB to the UE corresponding to RIS-1, RIS-2, RIS-3, respectively, based on the preamble received from the UE, thereby determining initial location information.

For example, the electronic device 100 subtracts the arrival time delay from each selected reconfigurable smart surface link to the electronic device 100 obtained in advance based on the above calculated arrival time delays, and the arrival time delay from the user device to each selected reconfigurable smart surface link can be obtained, whereby the initial position information of the user device can be determined.

Fig. 7 illustrates one example of the electronic device 100 determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Hereinafter, the Preamble corresponding to RIS-1 may be denoted as Preamble 1, paired with RIS-2The corresponding Preamble may be denoted as Preamble 2 and the Preamble corresponding to RIS-3 may be denoted as Preamble 3. Suppose that the SSB corresponding to the optimal coarse beam of RIS-1 is SSB1-3, the SSB corresponding to the optimal coarse beam of RIS-2 is SSB2-3, and the SSB corresponding to the optimal coarse beam of RIS-3 is SSB3-2. By t ₁ Representing the time delay of arrival (TOA) from the UE to the gNB corresponding to RIS-1, using t ₂ Representing the arrival delay from the UE to the gNB corresponding to RIS-2, and using t ₃ Representing the arrival delay from the UE to the gNB corresponding to RIS-3. The time delay difference of arrival (TDOA) of RIS-2 relative to RIS-1 is t ₂ -t ₁ The arrival time delay difference of RIS-3 relative to RIS-1 is t ₃ -t ₁ 。

In fig. 7, initial position information is calculated by using a method based on arrival time difference of a preamble, and based on signal arrival time delay differences between multiple RIS, a distance difference between a user equipment and different RIS can be calculated, and then a hyperbola with RIS as a focus and a distance difference as a long axis is made, and an intersection point of different hyperbolas is the initial position of the user. For example, in FIG. 7, TDOA-1 represents a hyperbola with RIS-3 and RIS-1 as focuses, the distance difference corresponding to the arrival time delay difference between the user equipment and RIS-3 and RIS-1 as long axes, TDOA-2 represents a hyperbola with RIS-2 and RIS-1 as focuses, the distance difference corresponding to the arrival time delay difference between the user and RIS-2 and RIS-1 as long axes, and the initial position of the user equipment can be determined by the intersection point of the TDOA-1 hyperbola and the TDOA-2 hyperbola.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to determine the initial position information also based on the serial number of the optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

For example, when determining the initial position, the initial position of the user equipment can be determined by taking the RIS as the origin, taking the arrival angle corresponding to the optimal coarse beam of the RIS as a ray, and determining the initial position of the user equipment by the intersection point of a plurality of rays corresponding to different RIS.

Hereinafter, a ray corresponding to an arrival angle of an optimal coarse beam of RIS-1 is denoted as L1, a ray corresponding to an arrival angle of an optimal coarse beam of RIS-2 is denoted as L2, and a ray corresponding to an arrival angle of an optimal coarse beam of RIS-3 is denoted as L3, with RIS-1 as an origin.

For example, the ray L1 of the arrival angle corresponding to the coarse beam corresponding to SSB-1-3 in FIG. 7 may be made, and the rays L2 and L3 of the arrival angles corresponding to the coarse beams corresponding to SSB-2-3 and SSB-3-2 may also be made, and the intersection of these three rays may be used to determine the initial position of the user equipment.

For example, combining the initial position calculated based on the arrival angle and the initial position calculated based on the arrival time delay difference in fig. 7, a more accurate initial position of the user can be obtained.

Fig. 8 illustrates another example of the electronic device 100 determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In fig. 8, initial position information may be calculated using a preamble-based multi-station Round Trip Time (RTT) method. In FIG. 8, three RTT curves RTT-1, RTT-2, and RTT-3 represent curves corresponding to multi-station round trip times of three reconfigurable intelligent surfaces RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3, respectively. Based on the arrival time delay between the user equipment and the RIS, the distance between the user equipment and different RIS can be calculated, the RTT curve can be obtained by taking the RIS as the center of a circle and the distance as the radius, and the intersection point of a plurality of RTT curves is the user position. More specifically, in fig. 8, RTT-1 represents an RTT curve corresponding to a radius, which is a distance between the RIS-1 and the user equipment, with the RIS-1 as a center of a circle; RTT-2 represents an RTT curve corresponding to radius by taking RIS-2 as a circle center and the distance between the RIS2 and the user equipment; RTT-3 represents an RTT curve corresponding to radius with RIS-3 as the center of circle and the distance between RIS3 and user equipment. In FIG. 8, the intersection point of the RTT-1 curve and the RTT-2 curve, and the RTT-3 curve is the initial position of the user equipment.

In addition, for example, the ray L1 of the arrival angle corresponding to the coarse beam corresponding to SSB-1-3 in FIG. 8 may be made, and the rays L2 and L3 of the arrival angles corresponding to the coarse beams corresponding to SSB-2-3 and SSB-3-2 may also be made, and the intersection point of these three rays may be used to determine the initial position of the user equipment.

For example, combining the initial position calculated based on the arrival angle in fig. 8 with the initial position calculated based on RTT, a more accurate initial position of the user can be obtained.

As an example, at least a portion of the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces include a common preamble, and the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes a sequence number of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 9 illustrates another example of a mapping between RIS and downlink synchronization signals according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Let SSB-per-rach-occasing >1, this means that one PRACH occasion may have multiple RIS configured with a wide beam to broadcast the signal. Suppose SSB corresponding to RIS-1 is SSB1, SSB corresponding to RIS-2 is SSB2, SSB corresponding to RIS-3 is SSB3, and SSB corresponding to RIS-4 is SSB4. In FIG. 9, SSB1/2 represents the preamble time-frequency resource shared between RIS-1 and RIS-2, and SSB3/4 represents the preamble time-frequency resource shared between RIS-3 and RIS-4. SSB1/2, which is shown as an oval circle in fig. 9, is used to schematically represent a single preamble time-frequency resource shared between RIS-1 and RIS-2. The preambles shown in each column of fig. 9 correspond to a plurality of RIS. That is, SSBs corresponding to different RIS occupy a common time-frequency resource, thereby including a common preamble. Since the RIS cannot be distinguished by the preamble, the SSB corresponding to the original RIS also includes the serial number of the original RIS.

In this case, if the PRACH is directly used for positioning, the collision probability of the random access may increase.

Fig. 10 illustrates another example of an electronic device 100 broadcasting SSBs to user devices via an original reconfigurable smart surface in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 10, the gNB broadcasts SSB1, … … to the UE via RIS-1 and SSBM to the UE via RIS-M. In fig. 10, in addition to the preamble, the sequence number of the original RIS is also included in each SSB.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface also includes the serial number of the coarse beam of that original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 11 illustrates another example of an electronic device 100 broadcasting SSBs to user devices via a coarse beam of an original reconfigurable smart surface, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. M original RISs (RIS-1, RIS-2, … …, RIS-M) are shown in FIG. 11. Assuming that SSB corresponding to RIS-1 is SSB1, SSB corresponding to RIS-2 is SSB2, … …, and SSB corresponding to RIS-M is SSBM. Wherein, the connection between the gNB and the UE marked with "# in FIG. 11 indicates that there is no through link between the gNB and the UE.

As shown in fig. 11, the gNB broadcasts SSB1 to the UE via RIS-1, more specifically SSB1-1, SSB1-2, and SSB1-3 via the 3 coarse beams of RIS-1, respectively; the gNB broadcasts SSB2 to the UE via RIS-2, more specifically SSB2-1, SSB2-2 and SSB2-3 via the 3 coarse beams of RIS-2, respectively; … …; the gNB broadcasts SSBM via RIS-M to the UE, more specifically SSBM-1, SSBM-2 and SSBM-3 via the 3 coarse beams of RIS-M, respectively. As shown in fig. 11, each SSB includes a sequence number corresponding to the original RIS.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to receive, from the user equipment, a preamble corresponding to a second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface and reporting information via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to be used for transmitting a random access response to the user equipment, and the reporting information includes sequence numbers of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Thus, the signaling overhead between the electronic device 100 and the user equipment for positioning is reduced and the costs required for positioning are reduced.

As an example, the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected by the user equipment based on measurements of the received downlink synchronization signals. Please refer to the description with reference to fig. 5, and will not be described here.

For example, the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface with the highest received reference signal receiving power of the received SSB is selected as the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the user equipment sends the preamble corresponding to the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device 100 via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the reported information reported by the user equipment includes the serial numbers of all the selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

As an example, the reported information further includes a sequence number of an optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the optimal coarse beam is a coarse beam among coarse beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface that maximizes a measurement result of a downlink synchronization signal received by the user equipment from the electronic device via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

As an example, the reported information also includes accuracy requirements regarding the location information.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to calculate an arrival time delay from the user device to the electronic device corresponding to the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the received preamble; transmitting a random access response to the user equipment and configuring a sounding reference signal for the user equipment via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; receiving sounding reference signals from the user equipment via other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces than the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, respectively; receiving the sending time of the sounding reference signal sent by the user equipment and reported by the user equipment through the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; calculating arrival delays between the user equipment and the electronic equipment, which correspond to other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces respectively, based on the sounding reference signals and the transmission time received from the user equipment; and determining initial location information based on the arrival delays corresponding to each of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Thus, the time delay and the synchronization error of the traditional positioning method are reduced.

For example, the electronic device 100 calculates the arrival delay of the preamble after receiving the preamble from the user device. The electronic device 100 sends a random access response to the user device through the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface and configures sounding reference signal resources for the user device. After receiving the resource configuration signaling, the user equipment transmits a sounding reference signal to the electronic device 100 via the selected reconfigurable smart surface other than the second selected reconfigurable smart surface. In addition, the user equipment reports the transmission time of the sounding reference signal to the electronic device 100 via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface. The electronic device 100 calculates an arrival time delay of the sounding reference signal received from the user equipment based on the above-described transmission time. The electronic device 100 determines initial location information based on the arrival delays corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 12 illustrates another example of signaling interactions between an electronic device 100 and a user device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 12, only three selected RISs (RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3) are shown for simplicity, assuming that the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is RIS-1, the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces include RIS-2 and RIS-3.

As shown in fig. 12, the gNB may receive, from the UE via the RIS-1, a preamble corresponding to the SSB1, sequence numbers RIS-1 to RIS-3 of the selected RIS, sequence numbers of optimal coarse beams of the RIS-1 to RIS-3, and positioning accuracy requirements. The gNB calculates an arrival delay from the UE to the gNB corresponding to RIS-1 based on the received preamble. Then, the gNB sends a random access response to the UE through the RIS-1, and configures sounding reference signal resources for the UE. After receiving the resource configuration signaling, the UE sends sounding reference signals (e.g., sounding reference signals SRS-Pos for positioning) to the gNB via RIS-2 and RIS-3, respectively. In addition, the UE reports the transmission time of the sounding reference signal to the gNB via RIS-1. The gNB calculates the arrival delay of the sounding reference signals received from the UE via RIS-2 and RIS-3 based on the above-mentioned transmission times. Finally, the gNB determines initial position information based on arrival delays corresponding to RIS-1 to RIS-3, respectively.

Fig. 13 illustrates one example of an electronic device 100 determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble and a sounding reference signal, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In fig. 13, initial position information is determined using a time difference of arrival method based on a preamble and a sounding reference signal. The Preamble corresponding to RIS-1 may be denoted as Preamble 1.SRS-Pos 2 represents a sounding reference signal corresponding to RIS-2, and SRS-Pos 3 represents a sounding reference signal corresponding to RIS-3. Other reference numerals in fig. 13 are similar to those in fig. 7 and will not be described again here. TDOA-1 represents a hyperbola with RIS-3 and RIS-1 as focuses and the distance difference corresponding to the arrival time delay difference between the user equipment and RIS-3 and RIS-1 as long axes, TDOA-2 represents a hyperbola with RIS-2 and RIS-1 as focuses and the distance difference corresponding to the arrival time delay difference between the user and RIS-2 and RIS-1 as long axes, and the initial position of the user equipment can be determined by the intersection point of the TDOA-1 hyperbola and the TDOA-2 hyperbola.

For example, the ray L1 of the arrival angle corresponding to the coarse beam corresponding to SSB-1-3 in FIG. 13 may be made, and the rays L2 and L3 of the arrival angles corresponding to the coarse beams corresponding to SSB-2-3 and SSB-3-2 may also be made, and the intersection of these three rays may be used to determine the initial position of the user equipment.

For example, by combining the initial position calculated based on the arrival angle and the initial position calculated based on the arrival time delay difference in fig. 13, a more accurate initial position of the user can be obtained.

Fig. 14 illustrates another example of the electronic device 100 determining initial location information via a selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a preamble and a sounding reference signal, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In fig. 14, initial position information is determined using a multi-station round trip time method based on a preamble and a sounding reference signal. The Preamble corresponding to RIS-1 may be denoted as Preamble 1.SRS-Pos 2 represents a sounding reference signal corresponding to RIS-2, and SRS-Pos 3 represents a sounding reference signal corresponding to RIS-3. Other reference numerals in fig. 14 are similar to those in fig. 8 and will not be described again here. RTT-1 represents an RTT curve corresponding to radius with RIS-1 as a circle center and the distance between the RIS-1 and the user equipment; RTT-2 represents an RTT curve corresponding to radius by taking RIS-2 as a circle center and the distance between the RIS2 and the user equipment; RTT-3 represents an RTT curve corresponding to radius with RIS-3 as the center of circle and the distance between RIS3 and user equipment. In fig. 14, the intersection point of the RTT-1 curve and the RTT-2 curve, and the RTT-3 curve is the initial position of the ue.

In addition, for example, the ray L1 of the arrival angle corresponding to the coarse beam corresponding to SSB-1-3 in FIG. 14 may be made, and the rays L2 and L3 of the arrival angles corresponding to the coarse beams corresponding to SSB-2-3 and SSB-3-2 may also be made, and the intersection point of these three rays may be used to determine the initial position of the user equipment.

For example, combining the initial position calculated based on the arrival angle in fig. 14 with the initial position calculated based on RTT, a more accurate initial position of the user can be obtained.

In the case where the accuracy requirement concerning the position information is high, the enhanced position information more accurate than the initial position information can be determined based on the initial position information.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to: transmitting positioning reference signals via a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, respectively, based on the initial position information, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface include a serial number of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; receiving a sequence number of a candidate beamlet selected by the user equipment from among beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal; estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and determining enhanced location information based on the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface. The above-described manner of determining enhanced location information is used in case the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is not transparent to the user equipment, i.e. the user equipment knows information about the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 15 illustrates one example of the electronic device 100 determining enhanced location information based on initial location information in a disconnected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 15, only three selected RISs (RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3) are shown for simplicity.

As shown in fig. 15, the gNB transmits positioning reference signals (DL PRSs) via each of RIS-1 to RIS-3, respectively, based on the initial position information, each DL PRS including a sequence number of a beamlet (schematically represented in fig. 15 as carrying a beamlet sequence number) corresponding to the selected RIS. That is, as shown in FIG. 15, DL PRS beam fine scans are performed at RIS-1 to RIS-3, respectively.

The UE selects a candidate beamlet from among beamlets of each RIS based on the measurement result of the positioning reference signal. The measurement result may be RSPR or signal to interference plus noise ratio of the positioning reference signal, etc. Fig. 15 shows that the UE calculates RSPR of the positioning reference signal to select a beamlet with the largest RSPR from among beamlets of each RIS as a candidate beamlet, and the UE reports the sequence number of the candidate beamlet of each RIS to the gNB. The gNB estimates an angle of arrival of the UE to each selected RIS based on the sequence number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to the selected RIS, and determines enhanced location information based on the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected RIS.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to: configuring a sounding reference signal for the user equipment based on the initial position information, wherein the configuring includes designating a sequence number of a beamlet on which the user equipment is to transmit the sounding reference signal; after receiving all the sounding reference signals transmitted by the user equipment via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligning the receive beamforming vectors of the electronic device 100 with the location directions from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device 100, respectively, to determine the sounding reference signals received from the user equipment through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; measuring a sounding reference signal received from the user device via each of the beamlets of the selected reconfigurable smart surface to select candidate beamlets of each of the selected reconfigurable smart surface, and estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to the selected reconfigurable smart surface based on the candidate beamlets; and determining enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information based on the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface. The above-described manner of determining enhanced location information is used in case the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is transparent to the user equipment, i.e. the user equipment is not aware of the information about the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 16 illustrates another example in which the electronic device 100 determines enhanced location information based on initial location information in a disconnected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 16, only three selected RISs (RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3) are shown for simplicity.

As shown in fig. 16, the gNB transmits resource configuration signaling to the user equipment, i.e., configures the UE with sounding reference signals based on initial location information, wherein the configuration includes a sequence number of a beamlet that specifies the user equipment is to transmit the sounding reference signals on. After receiving the resource configuration signaling, the UE sends sounding reference signals to the gNB on the designated beamlets, for example, sounding reference signals SRS-Pos 0-1, SRS-Pos 0-2, SRS-Pos 0-3, SRS-Pos 1-1, SRS-Pos 1-2, where SRS-Pos 0-1, SRS-Pos 0-2, SRS-Pos 0-3 respectively represent sounding reference signals sent by the UE on the 1 st beamlet, the 2 nd beamlet, and the 3 rd beamlet included in the 0 th coarse beam thereof, and SRS-Pos 1-1, SRS-Pos 1-2 respectively represent sounding reference signals sent by the UE on the 1 st beamlet and the 2 nd beamlet included in the 1 st coarse beam thereof. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the above-described number of coarse and fine beams for a UE is merely an example.

After receiving all sounding reference signals transmitted by the UE via RIS-1 to RIS-3, the gNB aligns the received beamforming vector of the gNB with the location direction from each selected RIS to the gNB, respectively, to determine the sounding reference signals received from the UE by each selected RIS.

As shown in the lowermost part of fig. 16, measurements are made for the sounding reference signal (illustrated in fig. 16 as SRS-Pos '1-1) received from the UE via beamlet 1 of RIS-1, measurements are made for the sounding reference signal (not illustrated in fig. 16) received from the UE via beamlet 2 of RIS-1, measurements are made for the sounding reference signal (not illustrated in fig. 16) received from the UE via beamlet 3 of RIS-1, measurements are made for the sounding reference signal (illustrated in fig. 16 as SRS-Pos' 1-4) received from the UE via beamlet 4 of RIS-1. Similarly, measurements are made for sounding reference signals received from the UE via beamlets 1-4 of RIS-2, respectively, and for sounding reference signals received from the UE via beamlets 1-4 of RIS-3, respectively (e.g., sounding reference signal received from the UE via beamlet 1 of RIS-3 is illustrated as SRS-Pos '3-1, and sounding reference signal received from the UE via beamlet 4 of RIS-3 is illustrated as SRS-Pos' 3-4). Selecting, for example, a beamlet with the strongest signal strength from among beamlets of each selected RIS as a candidate beamlet for the selected RIS according to the measured signal strength, and estimating a fine angle of arrival of the UE to the selected RIS based on the candidate beamlets for the selected RIS.

In the example of FIG. 16, RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3 are each described as having four beamlets, for simplicity, and those skilled in the art will appreciate that RIS-1, RIS-2, and RIS-3 may each have other numbers of beamlets.

In fig. 16, the gNB determines enhanced location information based on the fine angle of arrival corresponding to each selected RIS.

Fig. 17 illustrates one example of the electronic device 100 determining enhanced location information based on candidate beamlets according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

Fig. 18 illustrates another example of the electronic device 100 determining enhanced location information based on candidate beamlets according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

In FIGS. 17 and 18, preamble 1 is shown corresponding to RIS-1, SRS-Pos 2 or Preamble 2 is shown corresponding to RIS-2, and SRS-Pos3 or Preamble3 is shown corresponding to RIS-3. Preamble 1 is used to represent initial location information determined via RIS-1 based on a Preamble, similar to fig. 7 and 8, and fig. 13 and 14. In the case where initial position information is determined via RIS-2 and RIS-3 based on a Preamble as shown in fig. 7 and 8, a signal corresponding to RIS-2 is Preamble 2 and a signal corresponding to RIS-3 is Preamble3. In contrast, in the case where initial position information is determined via RIS-2 and RIS-3 based on the sounding reference signal as shown in FIGS. 13 and 14, the signal corresponding to RIS-2 is SRS-Pos 2 and the signal corresponding to RIS-3 is SRS-Pos 3.

In FIGS. 17 and 18, AOA-1 represents a candidate beamlet for RIS-1, AOA-2 represents a candidate beamlet for RIS-2, and AOA-3 represents a candidate beamlet for RIS-3, which may be used for calculation of user-enhanced locations. Other reference numerals in fig. 17 and 18 are similar to those in fig. 7 and 8, and fig. 13 and 14, and will not be described again here.

And taking each selected RIS as an origin, taking an angle corresponding to the candidate beamlets of the selected RIS as a ray, and determining the position of the user equipment based on the intersection point of a plurality of rays. As in FIGS. 17 and 18, the location of the user device may be calculated based on the intersection of the three rays, with the angle corresponding to AOA-2 being taken as the ray, and with the angles corresponding to AOA-1 and AOA-3 being taken as the ray. The location calculation results are combined with the initial location calculation results described in connection with fig. 7 and 8, and fig. 13 and 14 to determine enhanced location information of the user equipment.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to send information about the candidate beamlets of each selected reconfigurable smart surface to the user equipment for use of the candidate beamlets for communication between the user equipment and the electronic equipment. Therefore, the robustness of the communication of the user equipment is enhanced, and the communication system is more flexible.

Fig. 19 shows a schematic diagram of communication between an electronic device 100 and a user device using beams according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The gNB transmits information of candidate beamlets of RIS-1, RIS-2 and RIS-3 (labeled "beam related information" in FIG. 19) to the UE. As shown in fig. 19, the gNB and UE may communicate using a candidate beamlet of RIS-1 (labeled "RIS-1 link beam" in fig. 19). If a candidate beamlet fault for RIS-1 occurs for subsequent communications, the user may select a candidate beamlet for RIS-2 (labeled "candidate beam 1" in FIG. 19) and/or a candidate beamlet for RIS-3 (labeled "candidate beam 2" in FIG. 19) to resume communications.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to select, in a connected state between the electronic device 100 and the user device, a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within a range of the initial beam based on an initial beam alignment between the electronic device 100 and the user device for use in selecting the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

The connected state may be a state in which the electronic device 100 and the user device are connected from a disconnected state, or may be a state in which whether the electronic device 100 and the user device are previously connected or not is not considered, but only a state in which the electronic device 100 and the user device have been connected.

When the user device has access to the electronic device 100, there is an initial beam alignment relationship between the electronic device 100 and the user device, and the electronic device 100 may select a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within the range of the initial beam. Selecting a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces for positioning enables at least one of the following benefits: low complexity, easy realization, and can improve the positioning accuracy and reduce the positioning overhead.

Fig. 20 is a schematic diagram illustrating selecting a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within a range of an initial beam according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In fig. 20, 3 UEs are illustrated: UE1, UE2, UE3. The initial beam corresponding to UE1 is initial beam 1, the initial beam corresponding to UE2 is initial beam 2, and the initial beam corresponding to UE3 is initial beam 3. Taking UE1 as an example, the gNB selects P initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (initial RIS) for UE1 within the range of initial beam 1, where P is a positive integer.

According to the embodiment of the disclosure, the electronic device 100 can select the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface for the user device based on the initial beam, so that the applicability of positioning the user device is improved.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to: transmitting positioning reference signals respectively through a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces; and receiving reporting information from the user device, wherein the reporting information includes a sequence number of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is selected from among the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces by the user device based on positioning reference signals received via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. In case the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface is not transparent to the user equipment, i.e. the user equipment knows the information of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface, a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces using this approach.

Fig. 21 shows one example of signaling interactions between an electronic device 100 and a user device with which a connection has been established according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In FIG. 21, P initial RISs (RIS-1, … …, RIS-P) and Q UEs (UE-1, … …, UE-Q) are illustrated, where Q is a positive integer.

As shown in fig. 21, the gNB transmits positioning reference signals DL PRS (shown schematically as "DL PRS broadcast" in fig. 21) via each of RIS-1 to RIS-P to UE-1, … …, UE-Q, respectively, each DL PRS including a sequence number corresponding to the initial RIS.

The UE-1, … …, UE-Q selects a selected RIS from among the initial RISs (RIS-1, … …, RIS-P) based on the measurement results of the positioning reference signals. The measurement result may be RSPR or signal to interference plus noise ratio of the positioning reference signal, etc. The calculation of the RSPR of the positioning reference signal by the UE-1, … …, UE-Q is shown in fig. 21 to select a selected RIS from the initial RIS, e.g. according to the size of the RSRP.

UE-1, … …, UE-Q report the serial number of the selected RIS to gNB as report information. The reported information of each UE also includes accuracy requirements for the location information.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to calculate initial position information based on the report information. As shown in fig. 21, the gNB determines initial position information based on the report information.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to: based on the initial position information, respectively transmitting positioning reference signals via the electronic device 100 and the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to the electronic device 100 comprise serial numbers of beamlets of the electronic device 100 and the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; receiving a sequence number of a candidate beamlet selected from among beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface by the user equipment based on the positioning reference signal and a sequence number of a candidate beamlet selected from among beamlets of the electronic device 100; estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on a serial number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to the electronic device 100 based on a serial number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to the electronic device 100; and determining enhanced position information more accurate than the initial position information based on the angle of arrival. This approach is used to determine enhanced location information in case the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface is not transparent to the user equipment, i.e. the user equipment knows the information of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 22 illustrates one example of the electronic device 100 determining enhanced location information based on initial location information in a connected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 22, only 2 selected RISs (RIS-1 and RIS-2) and 1 UE are shown for simplicity.

As shown in fig. 22, the gNB transmits positioning reference signals (DL PRSs) via the gNB and the RIS-1 and RIS-2, respectively, based on the initial position information, and the DL PRSs corresponding to the gNB include the sequence numbers of the beamlets of the gNB and the DL PRSs corresponding to the RIS-1 and RIS-2 include the sequence numbers of the beamlets of the RIS, respectively (schematically shown as carrying the beamlet sequence numbers in fig. 22). That is, as shown in FIG. 22, DL PRS beam fine scanning is performed at gNB, RIS-1 and RIS-2, respectively.

The UE selects candidate beamlets from among the beamlets of RIS-1 and RIS-2, and selects candidate beamlets from among the beamlets of gNB, respectively, based on the measurement results of the positioning reference signals. The measurement result may be RSPR or signal to interference plus noise ratio of the positioning reference signal, etc. Fig. 22 shows that the UE calculates RSPR of the positioning reference signal to select a candidate beamlet (for example, uses the beamlet with the largest RSRP as the candidate beamlet), and reports the sequence number of the selected candidate beamlet to the gNB. The gNB estimates the fine angle of arrival of the UE to the selected RIS based on the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets of RIS-1 and RIS-2, respectively, and estimates the fine angle of arrival of the UE to the gNB based on the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets of gNB. Then, the gNB determines enhanced position information based on the above-described fine arrival angle.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to: configuring a sounding reference signal for a user equipment, wherein the configuring comprises specifying a sequence number of a coarse beam on which the user equipment is to transmit the sounding reference signal; after receiving all the sounding reference signals transmitted by the user equipment via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligning the receive beamforming vectors of the electronic device 100 with the position directions from each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device 100, respectively, so as to determine the sounding reference signals received from the user equipment through each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface; the method includes measuring a sounding reference signal received by each of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and selecting a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from among the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a result of the measuring. In case the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface is transparent to the user equipment, i.e. the user equipment does not know the information of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface, a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces using this approach.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to also receive accuracy requirements regarding the location information from the user equipment.

Fig. 23 illustrates another example of signaling interactions between an electronic device 100 and a user device with which a connection has been established according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In FIG. 23, P initial RISs (RIS-1, … …, RIS-P) and 1 UE are illustrated.

As shown in fig. 23, the gNB sends resource configuration signaling to the UE to configure the sounding reference signal for the UE, wherein the configuration includes a sequence number specifying a coarse beam on which the UE is to transmit the sounding reference signal. After receiving the resource configuration signaling, the UE sends sounding reference signals in a designated coarse beam direction, for example, the UE sends sounding reference signals SRS-Pos 0, SRS-Pos 1, SRS-Pos 2 to the gNB, where SRS-Pos 0, SRS-Pos 1, SRS-Pos 2 respectively represent sounding reference signals sent by the UE on the 0 th coarse beam, the 1 st coarse beam, and the 2 nd coarse beam. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the number of coarse beams described above for a UE is merely an example. In addition, the UE also sends a precision requirement to the gNB.

After receiving all sounding reference signals transmitted by the UE via the initial RIS-1 to the initial RIS-P, the gNB aligns the received beamforming vector of the gNB with the location direction from each initial RIS to the gNB, respectively, to determine the sounding reference signals received from the UE by each initial RIS.

As shown in the lowermost part of fig. 23, measurements are made for sounding reference signals (illustrated in fig. 23 as SRS-Pos '1) received from UEs via the initial RIS-1, and measurements are made for sounding reference signals (illustrated in fig. 23 as SRS-Pos' P) received from UEs via the initial RIS-P, … …. The selected RIS is selected from among the P initial RIS based on the magnitude of the measured signal strength.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to determine the initial location information based on an angle of arrival of the user device to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

For example, the gNB estimates the angle of arrival of the UE to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the above-described sounding reference signals, determining initial location information.

As an example, the determination unit 101 may be configured to: configuring a sounding reference signal for the user equipment based on the initial position information, wherein the configuring includes designating a sequence number of a beamlet on which the user equipment is to transmit the sounding reference signal; receiving a sounding reference signal directly transmitted by the user equipment to the electronic device 100 and a sounding reference signal transmitted via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; after receiving the sounding reference signal directly transmitted by the user equipment to the electronic device 100 and all the sounding reference signals transmitted via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligning the receive beamforming vectors of the electronic device 100 with the position directions from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device 100, respectively, thereby determining the sounding reference signal received from the user equipment through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; measuring a sounding reference signal received from the user device via each of the beamlets of the selected reconfigurable smart surface to select candidate beamlets of each of the selected reconfigurable smart surface, and estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to the selected reconfigurable smart surface based on the candidate beamlets; and determining enhanced position information more accurate than the initial position information based on the angle of arrival. This approach is used to determine enhanced location information in case the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface is transparent to the user equipment, i.e. the user equipment does not know the information of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Fig. 24 illustrates another example in which the electronic device 100 determines enhanced location information based on initial location information in a connected state according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 24, only 2 selected RISs (RIS-1 and RIS-2) and 1 UE are shown for simplicity.

As shown in fig. 24, the gNB sends resource configuration signaling to the user equipment, i.e., configures the UE with sounding reference signals based on the initial location information, wherein the configuration includes sequence numbers of beamlets on which the user equipment is to send the sounding reference signals. After receiving the resource configuration signaling, the UE sends sounding reference signals to the gNB on the designated beamlets, for example, sounding reference signals SRS-Pos 0-1, SRS-Pos 0-2, SRS-Pos 0-3, SRS-Pos 1-1, SRS-Pos 1-2, where SRS-Pos 0-1, SRS-Pos 0-2, SRS-Pos 0-3 respectively represent sounding reference signals sent by the UE on the 1 st beamlet, the 2 nd beamlet, and the 3 rd beamlet included in the 0 th coarse beam thereof, and SRS-Pos 1-1, SRS-Pos 1-2 respectively represent sounding reference signals sent by the UE on the 1 st beamlet and the 2 nd beamlet included in the 1 st coarse beam thereof. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the above-described number of coarse and fine beams for a UE is merely an example.

After receiving the sounding reference signal sent directly by the UE to the gNB and all the sounding reference signals sent by the UE via the selected RIS-1 and the selected RIS-2, the gNB aligns the received beamforming vector of the gNB with the location direction from each selected RIS to the gNB, respectively, to determine the sounding reference signal received from the UE via each selected RIS.

As shown in the lowermost part of fig. 24, measurement is performed for a sounding reference signal (illustrated as SRS-Pos '1-1 in fig. 24) received from a UE via a beamlet 1 of RIS-1, measurement is performed for a sounding reference signal (not illustrated in fig. 24) received from a UE via a beamlet 2 of RIS-1, measurement is performed for a sounding reference signal (not illustrated in fig. 24) received from a UE via a beamlet 3 of RIS-1, and measurement is performed for a sounding reference signal (illustrated as SRS-Pos'1-4 in fig. 24) received from a UE via a beamlet 4 of RIS-1. Similarly, measurements are made for sounding reference signals received from the UE via beamlets 1-4 of RIS-2, respectively (e.g., sounding reference signals received from the UE via beamlet 1 of RIS-2 are illustrated as SRS-Pos '2-1, and sounding reference signals received from the UE via beamlet 4 of RIS-2 are illustrated as SRS-Pos' 2-4). Selecting one of the beamlets of each selected RIS (e.g., the beamlet with the greatest signal strength) as a candidate beamlet for the selected RIS based on the measured signal strengths, and estimating a fine angle of arrival of the UE to the selected RIS based on the candidate beamlets for the selected RIS.

In the example of FIG. 24, the description is given of four beamlets for the sake of simplicity for each of the selected RIS-1 and RIS-2, and those skilled in the art will appreciate that RIS-1 and RIS-2, respectively, may have other numbers of beamlets.

In fig. 24, the gNB determines enhanced location information based on the fine angle of arrival corresponding to each selected RIS.

As an example, the determining unit 101 may be configured to send information about the candidate beamlets of each selected reconfigurable smart surface to the user equipment for use of the candidate beamlets for subsequent communication with the electronic device 100 by the user equipment. Therefore, the robustness of the communication of the user equipment is enhanced, and the communication system is more flexible.

Fig. 25 shows another schematic diagram of communication between an electronic device 100 and a user device using beams according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The gNB transmits information (labeled "beam related information" in FIG. 25) of candidate beamlets for the selected RIS-1 and RIS-2 to the UE. As shown in fig. 25, the gNB and the UE may communicate using a beam corresponding to the direct link (labeled "direct link beam" in fig. 25). If a subsequent communication occurs with an event such as a direct link beam failure, the user may select a candidate beamlet of RIS-1 (labeled "candidate beam 1" in FIG. 25) and/or a candidate beamlet of RIS-2 (labeled "candidate beam 2" in FIG. 25) to resume the communication.

The present disclosure also provides an electronic device for wireless communication according to another embodiment. Fig. 26 illustrates a functional block diagram of an electronic device 2600 for wireless communication according to yet another embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 26, the electronic device 2600 includes: processing unit 2601, processing unit 2601 may assist network-side device in determining initial location information for electronic device by selecting a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from a plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection status between electronic device 2600 and the network-side device serving electronic device 2600.

The processing unit 2601 may be implemented by one or more processing circuits, which may be implemented as a chip, for example.

The electronic device 2600 may be provided on a User Equipment (UE) side or communicatively connected to the user equipment, for example. In the case where electronic device 2600 is provided on the user device side or communicatively connected to the user device, the apparatus related to electronic device 2600 may be the user device. Here, it should also be noted that electronic device 2600 may be implemented at a chip level or may also be implemented at a device level. For example, electronic device 2600 may operate as a user device itself, and may also include external devices such as memory, transceivers (not shown), and so forth. The memory may be used for storing programs and related data information that the user equipment needs to perform to implement various functions. The transceiver may include one or more communication interfaces to support communication with different devices (e.g., base stations, other user equipment, etc.), the implementation of the transceiver is not particularly limited herein.

As an example, the network-side device may be the electronic device 100 mentioned above. As an example, electronic device 2600 may be a user device as referred to in the electronic device 100 embodiments above.

The wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may be a 5G NR communication system. Further, a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may include a non-terrestrial network. Optionally, the wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may further comprise a terrestrial network. In addition, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the wireless communication system according to the present disclosure may also be a 4G or 3G communication system.

In embodiments according to the present disclosure, by assisting in determining location information of electronic device 2600 through a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected based on a connection state between electronic device 2600 and a network-side device, applicability to locating electronic device 2600 is improved, and coverage of locating can be improved.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to receive, in a case where the electronic device 2600 is in a non-connected state with the network-side device, a downlink synchronization signal including a preamble broadcasted by the network-side device via the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the preamble.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces do not include a common preamble. Reference may be made to descriptions of related content in embodiments of the electronic device 100 (e.g., descriptions made in connection with fig. 2 and 3), which are not further described herein.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each of the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces also includes a sequence number of the coarse beam of that original reconfigurable intelligent surface. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 4), which is not further detailed herein.

As an example, the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected by electronic device 2600 based on measurements of the received downlink synchronization signals. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., as described in connection with fig. 5), which is not further described herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to send, via each of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, a preamble respectively corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network-side device.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to further send, via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, reporting information corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, wherein the reporting information corresponding to a first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to be used for sending the random access response to the electronic device 2600 includes a feedback identification for indicating that the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used for sending the random access response, and the reporting information corresponding to other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, except for the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, respectively includes a non-feedback identification for indicating that the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are not used for sending the random access response.

As an example, the reported information corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes a serial number of an optimal coarse beam of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the optimal coarse beam is a coarse beam that maximizes a measurement result of a downlink synchronization signal received by the electronic device 2600 from the network side device via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface among coarse beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The foregoing may be referred to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., described in connection with fig. 6), and will not be further described herein.

As an example, the preambles respectively corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface are used by the network-side device to calculate the arrival time delay between the electronic device 2600 and the network-side device corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface for the network-side device to determine the initial location information.

As an example, the sequence number of the optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine initial location information.

The foregoing may be referred to in the description of relevant content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., as described in connection with fig. 6-8), and will not be further described herein.

As an example, at least a portion of the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces include a common preamble, and the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes a sequence number of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface. Reference may be made to descriptions of related content in embodiments of the electronic device 100 (e.g., descriptions made in connection with fig. 9 and 10), which are not further described herein.

As an example, the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface also includes the serial number of the coarse beam of that original reconfigurable intelligent surface. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 11), which is not further detailed herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to report, to the network-side device, a preamble corresponding to the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface and reporting information via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to be used for transmitting the random access response to the electronic device 2600, and the reporting information includes a sequence number of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

As an example, the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected by electronic device 2600 based on measurements of the received downlink synchronization signals.

As an example, the reported information further includes a serial number of an optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the optimal coarse beam is a coarse beam among coarse beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface that maximizes a measurement result of a downlink synchronization signal received by the electronic device 2600 from the network side device via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving, via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, a random access response and a sounding reference signal configured for electronic device 2600 from the network side device; transmitting sounding reference signals to the network side devices via other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces than the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface among the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, respectively; and reporting to the network side device, via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, a transmission time at which the electronic device 2600 transmitted the sounding reference signal. Wherein the preamble is used by the network side device to calculate an arrival delay between the electronic device 2600 and the network side device corresponding to the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; the sounding reference signal sent by the user equipment and the sending time are used by the network side equipment to calculate the arrival time delay between the electronic equipment 2600 and the network side equipment, which corresponds to other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces respectively; and the arrival delays corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface are used by the network side device to determine initial location information.

The foregoing may be referred to in the description of relevant content in the embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 12 to 14), and will not be further described herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving positioning reference signals respectively sent by network side equipment through a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on initial position information, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; and reporting the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected from the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal to the network side device. Wherein the serial number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to estimate an angle of arrival of electronic device 2600 to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information. Reference may be made to descriptions of relevant content in embodiments of the electronic device 100 (e.g., descriptions made in connection with fig. 15, 17 and 18), which are not further detailed herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving a sounding reference signal configured by the network-side device based on the initial location information, wherein the configuration includes a sequence number specifying a beamlet on which the electronic device 2600 is to transmit the sounding reference signal; and transmitting the sounding reference signal to the network side device via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, respectively. Wherein the network side device, after receiving all the sounding reference signals sent via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligns the received beamforming vectors of the network side device with the location directions from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, respectively, thereby determining the sounding reference signals received from the electronic device 2600 through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; the network side device performs measurements on the sounding reference signals received from the electronic device 2600 via the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable smart surface to select candidate beamlets of each selected reconfigurable smart surface; and estimating an angle of arrival of the electronic device 2600 to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the candidate beamlets, and the network side device determines enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information based on the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface. Reference may be made to descriptions of related content in embodiments of the electronic device 100 (e.g., those described in connection with fig. 16-18), which are not further described herein.

As an example, processing unit 2601 may be configured to receive information from the network-side device regarding candidate beamlets for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface for subsequent communication with the network-side device by electronic device 2600. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 19), which is not further described herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to assist the network-side device in determining initial location information by the network-side device based on an initial beam alignment between the electronic device 2600 and the network-side device, a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within a range of the initial beam, with the electronic device 2600 and the network-side device in a connected state, wherein the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are used to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 20), which is not further detailed herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving positioning reference signals respectively sent by network side equipment through a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces; and sending reporting information to the network side device, wherein the reporting information includes a serial number of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is selected by the electronic device 2600 from among the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the positioning reference signals received via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

The foregoing may be referred to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 21), and will not be further described herein.

As an example, the reported information is used by the network side device to calculate initial location information.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving positioning reference signals respectively sent by network side equipment based on initial position information through the network side equipment and a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to the network side equipment comprise serial numbers of thin beams of the network side equipment and the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of thin beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; and reporting to the network side device the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets selected from among the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal and the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets selected from among the beamlets of the network side device. Wherein the serial number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to estimate an angle of arrival of electronic device 2600 to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the serial number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to the network side device is used by the network side device to estimate an angle of arrival of electronic device 2600 to the network side device, and the angle of arrival is used by the network side device to determine enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 22), which is not further detailed herein.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving a sounding reference signal configured by a network side device, wherein the configuration includes a sequence number of a coarse beam on which the electronic device 2600 is designated to transmit the sounding reference signal; and reporting the sounding reference signal to the network side device via each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface. Wherein, after receiving all the sounding reference signals sent by the electronic device 2600 via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, the network side device aligns the received beamforming vectors of the network side device with the position directions from each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, respectively, so as to determine the sounding reference signals received from the electronic device 2600 through each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface; and the network side equipment measures the detection reference signals received by each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface and selects a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the measurement result.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to also report accuracy requirements regarding the location information to the network-side device.

The foregoing may be referred to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 23), and will not be further described herein.

As an example, the angle of arrival of electronic device 2600 to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine initial location information.

As an example, the processing unit 2601 may be configured to: receiving a sounding reference signal configured by the network-side device based on the initial location information, wherein the configuration includes a sequence number specifying a beamlet on which the electronic device 2600 is to transmit the sounding reference signal; and transmitting the sounding reference signal directly to the network side device and transmitting the sounding reference signal to the network side device via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface. Wherein, after receiving the sounding reference signal directly sent by the electronic device 2600 and all the sounding reference signals sent via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, the network side device aligns the received beamforming vector of the network side device with the position direction from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, respectively, so as to determine the sounding reference signal received from the electronic device 2600 through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface; the network side device performs measurements on the sounding reference signals received from the electronic device 2600 via the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable smart surface to select candidate beamlets of each selected reconfigurable smart surface, and estimates an angle of arrival of the electronic device 2600 to the selected reconfigurable smart surface based on the candidate beamlets; and the network side equipment determines enhanced position information which is more accurate than the initial position information based on the arrival angle. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 24), which is not further detailed herein.

As an example, processing unit 2601 may be configured to receive information from the network-side device regarding candidate beamlets for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface for subsequent communication with the network-side device by electronic device 2600. Reference may be made to a description of related content in an embodiment of the electronic device 100 (e.g., the description made in connection with fig. 25), which is not further detailed herein.

In describing the electronic device for wireless communication in the above embodiments, it is apparent that some processes or methods are also disclosed. Hereinafter, an outline of these methods is given without repeating some of the details that have been discussed above, but it should be noted that although these methods are disclosed in the course of describing an electronic device for wireless communication, these methods do not necessarily employ or are not necessarily performed by those components described. For example, embodiments of an electronic device for wireless communications may be implemented in part or in whole using hardware and/or firmware, while the methods for wireless communications discussed below may be implemented entirely by computer-executable programs, although such methods may also employ hardware and/or firmware of an electronic device for wireless communications.

Fig. 27 shows a flowchart of a method S2700 for wireless communication according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. The method S2700 starts at step S2702. In step S2704, initial location information of the user device is determined by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the user device within a service range of the electronic device. The method S2700 ends at step S2706.

The method may be performed, for example, by the electronic device 100 described above, and specific details thereof may be found in the description of the corresponding locations above and are not repeated here.

Fig. 28 shows a flowchart of a method S2800 for wireless communication according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. The method S2800 begins at step S2802. In step S2804, the auxiliary network side device determines initial location information of the electronic device by selecting a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the network side device serving the electronic device. The method S2800 ends at step S2806.

The method may be performed, for example, by the electronic device 2600 described above, and specific details thereof may be found in the description of the corresponding locations above and are not repeated here.

The techniques of the present disclosure can be applied to various products.

Electronic device 100 may be implemented as various network-side devices such as a base station. A base station may be implemented as any type of evolved node B (eNB) or gNB (5G base station). enbs include, for example, macro enbs and small enbs. The small enbs may be enbs that cover cells smaller than the macro cell, such as pico enbs, micro enbs, and home (femto) enbs. A similar situation can also be used for the gNB. Instead, the base station may be implemented as any other type of base station, such as a NodeB and a Base Transceiver Station (BTS). The base station may include: a main body (also referred to as a base station apparatus) configured to control wireless communication; and one or more Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) disposed at a different location than the main body. In addition, various types of electronic devices may operate as a base station by temporarily or semi-permanently performing base station functions.

Electronic device 2600 may be implemented as a variety of user devices. The user equipment may be implemented as a mobile terminal (such as a smart phone, a tablet Personal Computer (PC), a notebook PC, a portable game terminal, a portable/dongle type mobile router, and a digital camera device) or an in-vehicle terminal (such as a car navigation device). User equipment may also be implemented as terminals performing machine-to-machine (M2M) communication (also referred to as Machine Type Communication (MTC) terminals). Further, the user equipment may be a wireless communication module (such as an integrated circuit module including a single die) mounted on each of the above terminals.

[ application example about base station ]

(first application example)

Fig. 29 is a block diagram showing a first example of a schematic configuration of an eNB or a gNB to which the techniques of the present disclosure may be applied. Note that the following description takes eNB as an example, but is equally applicable to the gNB. The eNB 800 includes one or more antennas 810 and a base station device 820. The base station apparatus 820 and each antenna 810 may be connected to each other via an RF cable.

Each of the antennas 810 includes a single or multiple antenna elements, such as multiple antenna elements included in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna, and is used for transmitting and receiving wireless signals by the base station device 820. As shown in fig. 29, the eNB 800 may include multiple antennas 810. For example, the plurality of antennas 810 may be compatible with a plurality of frequency bands used by the eNB 800. Although fig. 29 shows an example in which the eNB 800 includes a plurality of antennas 810, the eNB 800 may also include a single antenna 810.

The base station apparatus 820 includes a controller 821, a memory 822, a network interface 823, and a wireless communication interface 825.

The controller 821 may be, for example, a CPU or DSP, and operates various functions of higher layers of the base station apparatus 820. For example, the controller 821 generates data packets from data in signals processed by the wireless communication interface 825 and delivers the generated packets via the network interface 823. The controller 821 may bundle data from a plurality of baseband processors to generate a bundle packet and transfer the generated bundle packet. The controller 821 may have a logic function to perform control as follows: such as radio resource control, radio bearer control, mobility management, admission control and scheduling. The control may be performed in conjunction with a nearby eNB or core network node. The memory 822 includes a RAM and a ROM, and stores programs executed by the controller 821 and various types of control data (such as a terminal list, transmission power data, and scheduling data).

The network interface 823 is a communication interface for connecting the base station device 820 to the core network 824. The controller 821 may communicate with the core network node or another eNB via the network interface 823. In this case, the eNB 800 and the core network node or other enbs may be connected to each other through logical interfaces such as S1 interface and X2 interface. The network interface 823 may also be a wired communication interface or a wireless communication interface for a wireless backhaul. If the network interface 823 is a wireless communication interface, the network interface 823 may use a higher frequency band for wireless communication than the frequency band used by the wireless communication interface 825.

The wireless communication interface 825 supports any cellular communication schemes, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced, and provides wireless connectivity to terminals located in a cell of the eNB 800 via the antenna 810. The wireless communication interface 825 may generally include, for example, a baseband (BB) processor 826 and RF circuitry 827. The BB processor 826 may perform, for example, encoding/decoding, modulation/demodulation, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and performs various types of signal processing of layers such as layer 1, medium Access Control (MAC), radio Link Control (RLC), and Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP). Instead of the controller 821, the bb processor 826 may have some or all of the above-described logic functions. The BB processor 826 may be a memory storing a communication control program, or a module including a processor configured to execute a program and associated circuits. The update procedure may cause the functionality of the BB processor 826 to change. The module may be a card or blade that is inserted into a slot of the base station apparatus 820. Alternatively, the module may be a chip mounted on a card or blade. Meanwhile, the RF circuit 827 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, and transmits and receives a wireless signal via the antenna 810.

As shown in fig. 29, the wireless communication interface 825 may include a plurality of BB processors 826. For example, the plurality of BB processors 826 may be compatible with a plurality of frequency bands used by the eNB 800. As shown in fig. 29, the wireless communication interface 825 may include a plurality of RF circuits 827. For example, the plurality of RF circuits 827 may be compatible with a plurality of antenna elements. Although fig. 29 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 825 includes a plurality of BB processors 826 and a plurality of RF circuits 827, the wireless communication interface 825 may also include a single BB processor 826 or a single RF circuit 827.

In the eNB 800 shown in fig. 29, the transceiver of the electronic device 100 may be implemented by the wireless communication interface 825 when implemented as a base station. At least a portion of the functions may also be implemented by the controller 821. For example, the controller 821 may determine location information of the user device by performing functions of units in the electronic device 100.

(second application example)

Fig. 30 is a block diagram showing a second example of a schematic configuration of an eNB or a gNB to which the techniques of this disclosure may be applied. Note that the following description is similarly given by way of example to the eNB, but is equally applicable to the gNB. The eNB 830 includes one or more antennas 840, a base station apparatus 850, and an RRH 860. The RRH 860 and each antenna 840 may be connected to each other via RF cables. Base station apparatus 850 and RRH 860 may be connected to each other via high-speed lines, such as fiber optic cables.

Each of the antennas 840 includes a single or multiple antenna elements (such as multiple antenna elements included in a MIMO antenna) and is used for the RRH 860 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 30, the eNB 830 may include multiple antennas 840. For example, multiple antennas 840 may be compatible with multiple frequency bands used by eNB 830. Although fig. 30 shows an example in which the eNB 830 includes multiple antennas 840, the eNB 830 may also include a single antenna 840.

Base station apparatus 850 includes a controller 851, memory 852, a network interface 853, a wireless communication interface 855, and a connection interface 857. The controller 851, memory 852, and network interface 853 are the same as the controller 821, memory 822, and network interface 823 described with reference to fig. 29.

Wireless communication interface 855 supports any cellular communication schemes (such as LTE and LTE-advanced) and provides wireless communication via RRH 860 and antenna 840 to terminals located in the sector corresponding to RRH 860. The wireless communication interface 855 may generally include, for example, a BB processor 856. The BB processor 856 is identical to the BB processor 826 described with reference to fig. 29, except that the BB processor 856 is connected to the RF circuit 864 of the RRH 860 via connection interface 857. As shown in fig. 30, the wireless communication interface 855 may include a plurality of BB processors 856. For example, the plurality of BB processors 856 may be compatible with the plurality of frequency bands used by the eNB 830. Although fig. 30 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 855 includes a plurality of BB processors 856, the wireless communication interface 855 may also include a single BB processor 856.

Connection interface 857 is an interface for connecting base station apparatus 850 (wireless communication interface 855) to RRH 860. Connection interface 857 may also be a communication module for connecting base station apparatus 850 (wireless communication interface 855) to communication in the above-described high-speed line of RRH 860.

RRH 860 includes connection interface 861 and wireless communication interface 863.

Connection interface 861 is an interface for connecting RRH 860 (wireless communication interface 863) to base station apparatus 850. The connection interface 861 may also be a communication module for communication in the high-speed line described above.

Wireless communication interface 863 transmits and receives wireless signals via antenna 840. Wireless communication interface 863 may generally include, for example, RF circuitry 864. The RF circuit 864 may include, for example, mixers, filters, and amplifiers, and transmits and receives wireless signals via the antenna 840. As shown in fig. 30, wireless communication interface 863 may include a plurality of RF circuits 864. For example, multiple RF circuits 864 may support multiple antenna elements. Although fig. 30 shows an example in which wireless communication interface 863 includes a plurality of RF circuits 864, wireless communication interface 863 may also include a single RF circuit 864.

In the eNB 830 shown in fig. 30, the electronic device 100, when implemented as a base station, may have its transceiver implemented by the wireless communication interface 855. At least a portion of the functionality may also be implemented by the controller 851. For example, the controller 851 may determine location information of the user device by performing functions of elements in the electronic device 100.

[ application example with respect to user Equipment ]

(first application example)

Fig. 31 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a smart phone 900 to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied. The smartphone 900 includes a processor 901, a memory 902, a storage device 903, an external connection interface 904, an imaging device 906, a sensor 907, a microphone 908, an input device 909, a display device 910, a speaker 911, a wireless communication interface 912, one or more antenna switches 915, one or more antennas 916, a bus 917, a battery 918, and an auxiliary controller 919.

The processor 901 may be, for example, a CPU or a system on a chip (SoC) and controls functions of an application layer and additional layers of the smartphone 900. The memory 902 includes a RAM and a ROM, and stores data and programs executed by the processor 901. The storage 903 may include storage media such as semiconductor memory and hard disk. The external connection interface 904 is an interface for connecting external devices such as a memory card and a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device to the smart phone 900.

The image pickup device 906 includes an image sensor such as a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) and a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS), and generates a captured image. The sensor 907 may include a set of sensors such as a measurement sensor, a gyro sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, and an acceleration sensor. Microphone 908 converts sound input to smartphone 900 into an audio signal. The input device 909 includes, for example, a touch sensor, a keypad, a keyboard, buttons, or switches configured to detect a touch on the screen of the display device 910, and receives an operation or information input from a user. The display device 910 includes a screen such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display, and displays an output image of the smart phone 900. The speaker 911 converts audio signals output from the smart phone 900 into sound.

The wireless communication interface 912 supports any cellular communication scheme (such as LTE and LTE-advanced) and performs wireless communication. The wireless communication interface 912 may generally include, for example, a BB processor 913 and RF circuitry 914. The BB processor 913 can perform, for example, encoding/decoding, modulation/demodulation, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and perform various types of signal processing for wireless communication. Meanwhile, the RF circuit 914 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, and transmits and receives a wireless signal via the antenna 916. Note that although the figure shows a case where one RF link is connected to one antenna, this is only illustrative, and includes a case where one RF link is connected to a plurality of antennas through a plurality of phase shifters. The wireless communication interface 912 may be one chip module on which the BB processor 913 and the RF circuit 914 are integrated. As shown in fig. 31, the wireless communication interface 912 may include a plurality of BB processors 913 and a plurality of RF circuits 914. Although fig. 31 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 912 includes a plurality of BB processors 913 and a plurality of RF circuits 914, the wireless communication interface 912 may also include a single BB processor 913 or a single RF circuit 914.

Further, the wireless communication interface 912 may support other types of wireless communication schemes, such as a short-range wireless communication scheme, a near-field communication scheme, and a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) scheme, in addition to the cellular communication scheme. In this case, the wireless communication interface 912 may include a BB processor 913 and an RF circuit 914 for each wireless communication scheme.

Each of the antenna switches 915 switches a connection destination of the antenna 916 between a plurality of circuits included in the wireless communication interface 912 (e.g., circuits for different wireless communication schemes).

Each of the antennas 916 includes a single or multiple antenna elements (such as multiple antenna elements included in a MIMO antenna) and is used for the wireless communication interface 912 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 31, the smart phone 900 may include a plurality of antennas 916. Although fig. 31 shows an example in which the smart phone 900 includes multiple antennas 916, the smart phone 900 may also include a single antenna 916.

Further, the smart phone 900 may include an antenna 916 for each wireless communication scheme. In this case, the antenna switch 915 may be omitted from the configuration of the smart phone 900.

The bus 917 connects the processor 901, the memory 902, the storage device 903, the external connection interface 904, the image pickup device 906, the sensor 907, the microphone 908, the input device 909, the display device 910, the speaker 911, the wireless communication interface 912, and the auxiliary controller 919 to each other. The battery 918 provides power to the various blocks of the smartphone 900 shown in fig. 31 via a feeder line, which is partially shown as a dashed line in the figure. The secondary controller 919 operates minimal essential functions of the smart phone 900, for example, in a sleep mode.

In the smart phone 900 shown in fig. 31, when the electronic device 2600 is implemented as a smart phone on the user device side, for example, a transceiver of the electronic device 2600 can be implemented by the wireless communication interface 912. At least a portion of the functionality may also be implemented by the processor 901 or the secondary controller 919. For example, the processor 901 or the auxiliary controller 919 may assist the network-side device in determining location information by performing the functions of the elements in the electronic device 2600 described above.

(second application example)

Fig. 32 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a car navigation device 920 to which the technology of the present disclosure can be applied. The car navigation device 920 includes a processor 921, a memory 922, a Global Positioning System (GPS) module 924, a sensor 925, a data interface 926, a content player 927, a storage medium interface 928, an input device 929, a display device 930, a speaker 931, a wireless communication interface 933, one or more antenna switches 936, one or more antennas 937, and a battery 938.

The processor 921 may be, for example, a CPU or SoC, and controls the navigation function and additional functions of the car navigation device 920. The memory 922 includes a RAM and a ROM, and stores data and programs executed by the processor 921.

The GPS module 924 uses GPS signals received from GPS satellites to measure the location (such as latitude, longitude, and altitude) of the car navigation device 920. The sensor 925 may include a set of sensors such as a gyroscopic sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, and an air pressure sensor. The data interface 926 is connected to, for example, an in-vehicle network 941 via a terminal not shown, and acquires data generated by the vehicle (such as vehicle speed data).

The content player 927 reproduces content stored in a storage medium (such as CD and DVD) inserted into the storage medium interface 928. The input device 929 includes, for example, a touch sensor, a button, or a switch configured to detect a touch on the screen of the display device 930, and receives an operation or information input from a user. The display device 930 includes a screen such as an LCD or OLED display, and displays images of navigation functions or reproduced content. The speaker 931 outputs sounds of the navigation function or reproduced contents.

The wireless communication interface 933 supports any cellular communication scheme (such as LTE and LTE-advanced), and performs wireless communication. Wireless communication interface 933 may generally include, for example, BB processor 934 and RF circuitry 935. The BB processor 934 can perform, for example, encoding/decoding, modulation/demodulation, and multiplexing/demultiplexing, and performs various types of signal processing for wireless communication. Meanwhile, the RF circuit 935 may include, for example, a mixer, a filter, and an amplifier, and transmit and receive a wireless signal via the antenna 937. Wireless communication interface 933 may also be a chip module with BB processor 934 and RF circuitry 935 integrated thereon. As shown in fig. 32, wireless communication interface 933 may include a plurality of BB processors 934 and a plurality of RF circuits 935. Although fig. 32 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 933 includes a plurality of BB processors 934 and a plurality of RF circuits 935, the wireless communication interface 933 may also include a single BB processor 934 or a single RF circuit 935.

Further, the wireless communication interface 933 may support another type of wireless communication scheme, such as a short-range wireless communication scheme, a near field communication scheme, and a wireless LAN scheme, in addition to the cellular communication scheme. In this case, the wireless communication interface 933 may include a BB processor 934 and RF circuitry 935 for each wireless communication scheme.

Each of the antenna switches 936 switches the connection destination of the antenna 937 between a plurality of circuits included in the wireless communication interface 933 (such as circuits for different wireless communication schemes).

Each of the antennas 937 includes a single or a plurality of antenna elements (such as a plurality of antenna elements included in a MIMO antenna), and is used for the wireless communication interface 933 to transmit and receive wireless signals. As shown in fig. 32, the car navigation device 920 can include a plurality of antennas 937. Although fig. 32 shows an example in which the car navigation device 920 includes a plurality of antennas 937, the car navigation device 920 can also include a single antenna 937.

Further, the car navigation device 920 can include an antenna 937 for each wireless communication scheme. In this case, the antenna switch 936 may be omitted from the configuration of the car navigation device 920.

The battery 938 provides power to the various blocks of the car navigation device 920 shown in fig. 32 via a feeder line, which is partially shown as a dashed line in the figure. The battery 938 accumulates electric power supplied from the vehicle.

In the car navigation device 920 shown in fig. 32, when the electronic device 2600 is implemented as a car navigation device on the user device side, for example, a transceiver of the electronic device 2600 can be implemented by the wireless communication interface 933. At least a portion of the functionality may also be implemented by the processor 921. For example, the processor 921 may assist the network-side device in determining location information by performing the functions of the elements in the electronic device 2600 described above.

The techniques of this disclosure may also be implemented as an in-vehicle system (or vehicle) 940 that includes one or more of a car navigation device 920, an in-vehicle network 941, and a vehicle module 942. The vehicle module 942 generates vehicle data (such as vehicle speed, engine speed, and fault information) and outputs the generated data to the on-board network 941.

While the basic principles of the invention have been described above in connection with specific embodiments, it should be noted that all or any steps or components of the methods and apparatus of the invention will be understood by those skilled in the art to be embodied in any computing device (including processors, storage media, etc.) or network of computing devices, either in hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof, which will be accomplished by one skilled in the art with the basic circuit design knowledge or basic programming skills of those in the art upon reading the description of the invention.

The invention also proposes a program product storing machine-readable instruction codes. The above-described methods according to embodiments of the present invention may be performed when the instruction codes are read and executed by a machine.

Accordingly, a storage medium for carrying the above-described program product storing machine-readable instruction codes is also included in the disclosure of the present invention. Storage media include, but are not limited to, floppy diskettes, compact discs, magneto-optical discs, memory cards, memory sticks, and the like.

In the case of implementing the present invention by software or firmware, a program constituting the software is installed from a storage medium or a network to a computer (for example, a general-purpose computer 3300 shown in fig. 33) having a dedicated hardware structure, and the computer can execute various functions and the like when various programs are installed.

In fig. 33, a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 3301 executes various processes according to a program stored in a Read Only Memory (ROM) 3302 or a program loaded from a storage section 3308 to a Random Access Memory (RAM) 3303. In the RAM 3303, data required when the CPU 3301 executes various processes and the like is also stored as needed. The CPU 3301, ROM 3302, and RAM 3303 are connected to each other via a bus 3304. An input/output interface 3305 is also connected to the bus 3304.

The following components are connected to the input/output interface 3305: an input section 3306 (including a keyboard, a mouse, and the like), an output section 3307 (including a display such as a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and the like, and a speaker, and the like), a storage section 3308 (including a hard disk, and the like), and a communication section 3309 (including a network interface card such as a LAN card, a modem, and the like). The communication section 3309 performs communication processing via a network such as the internet. The drive 3310 may also be connected to the input/output interface 3305 as needed. A removable medium 3311 such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like is mounted on the drive 3310 as needed so that a computer program read out therefrom is mounted in the storage section 3308 as needed.

In the case of implementing the above-described series of processes by software, a program constituting the software is installed from a network such as the internet or a storage medium such as the removable medium 3311.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that such a storage medium is not limited to the removable medium 3311 shown in fig. 33 in which the program is stored, which is distributed separately from the apparatus to provide the program to the user. Examples of the removable medium 3311 include a magnetic disk (including a floppy disk (registered trademark)), an optical disk (including a compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM) and a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)), a magneto-optical disk (including a Mini Disk (MD) (registered trademark)), and a semiconductor memory. Alternatively, the storage medium may be a ROM 3302, a hard disk contained in the storage section 3308, or the like, in which a program is stored, and distributed to users together with a device containing them.

It is also noted that in the apparatus, methods and systems of the present invention, components or steps may be disassembled and/or assembled. These decompositions and/or recombinations should be considered equivalents of the present invention. Also, the steps of executing the series of processes described above may naturally be executed in chronological order in the order of description, but are not necessarily executed in chronological order. Some steps may be performed in parallel or independently of each other.

Finally, it is also noted that the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Furthermore, without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising one … …" does not exclude the presence of other like elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises an element.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above with reference to the accompanying drawings, it should be understood that the above-described embodiments are merely illustrative of the present invention and not limiting the present invention. Various modifications and alterations to the above described embodiments may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicated only by the appended claims and their equivalents.

The present technique may also be implemented as follows.

Scheme 1. An electronic device for wireless communication, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

initial location information of a user device is determined by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from a plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the user device within a service range of the electronic device.

The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is configured to broadcast, via the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, downlink synchronization signals including preambles, respectively, for the user device to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the preambles, if the electronic device is in a non-connected state with the user device.

The electronic device according to claim 2, wherein the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces do not include a common preamble.

Scheme 4. The electronic device of scheme 3 wherein the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each of the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces further comprises a serial number of a coarse beam of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

An electronic device according to aspect 3 or 4, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive, from the user device, a preamble respectively corresponding to each of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

calculating an arrival delay from the user device to the electronic device corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the received preambles corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, respectively, and

the initial location information is determined based on the arrival delays corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

An electronic device according to claim 6, wherein,

the processing circuitry is configured to receive, from the user device, also via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, reporting information corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

the reporting information corresponding to a first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to be used for transmitting a random access response to the user equipment includes a feedback identification indicating that the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used for transmitting the random access response, and

The reported information corresponding to the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces except the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface respectively comprises a non-feedback identification for indicating that the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are not used for sending the random access response.

Solution 8. The electronic device according to solution 7,

wherein the reported information corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes a serial number of an optimal coarse beam for the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

the optimal coarse beam is a coarse beam that maximizes a measurement of a downlink synchronization signal received by the user device from the electronic device via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, among coarse beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The electronic device of claim 8, wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine the initial location information further based on a serial number of an optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The electronic device of any of claims 7-9, wherein the reported information corresponding to the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes an accuracy requirement regarding the location information.

Solution 11. The electronic device according to solution 2, wherein,

at least a part of downlink synchronization signals in the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces comprise a common preamble, and

the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface also includes a serial number of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface further comprises a serial number of a coarse beam of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

An electronic device according to claim 11 or 12, wherein,

the processing circuitry is configured to receive, from the user equipment, a preamble and reporting information corresponding to a second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to be used for transmitting a random access response to the user equipment, and

the reported information includes serial numbers of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

Calculating a time delay of arrival from the user device to the electronic device corresponding to the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the received preamble,

transmitting a random access response to the user equipment and configuring a sounding reference signal for the user equipment via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

receiving sounding reference signals from the user equipment via other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces than the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

receiving the sending time of the sounding reference signal sent by the user equipment and reported by the user equipment through the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

calculating arrival delays from the user equipment to the electronic device respectively corresponding to the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the sounding reference signals received from the user equipment and the transmission time, and

An electronic device according to claim 14, wherein,

The reported information also includes a serial number of the optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

The electronic device of claim 15, wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine the initial location information further based on a serial number of an optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The electronic device according to any one of aspects 13 to 16, wherein,

the reported information also includes accuracy requirements regarding the location information.

The electronic device of any of claims 2-17, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

transmitting positioning reference signals via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, respectively, based on the initial position information, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface include serial numbers of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

receiving the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected by the user equipment from among the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal,

Estimating an angle of arrival of the user equipment to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

based on the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, enhanced location information is determined that is more accurate than the initial location information.

configuring a sounding reference signal for the user equipment based on the initial position information, wherein the configuring includes designating a sequence number of a beamlet on which the user equipment is to transmit the sounding reference signal,

after receiving all sounding reference signals transmitted by the user equipment via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligning the receive beamforming vectors of the electronic device with the location directions from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device, respectively, to determine sounding reference signals received from the user equipment through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

measuring a sounding reference signal received from the user equipment via a beamlet of each selected reconfigurable smart surface to select a candidate beamlet of each selected reconfigurable smart surface, and estimating an angle of arrival of the user equipment to the selected reconfigurable smart surface based on the candidate beamlets, an

The electronic device of claim 19, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

information about candidate beamlets for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is sent to the user device for use by the candidate beamlets for subsequent communication between the user device and the electronic device.

The electronic device according to any one of aspects 2 to 20, wherein,

the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected by the user equipment based on measurements of the received downlink synchronization signals.

The electronic device of claim 1 or 2, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to select, based on an initial beam alignment between the electronic device and the user device, a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within the range of the initial beam for use in selecting the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, with the electronic device and the user device in a connected state.

The electronic device of claim 22, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

transmitting positioning reference signals respectively via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and

and receiving reporting information from the user equipment, wherein the reporting information includes a sequence number of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is selected from among the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces by the user equipment based on positioning reference signals received via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

Scheme 24. The electronic device of scheme 23 wherein said reported information further comprises accuracy requirements regarding said location information.

The electronic device of claim 23 or 24, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to calculate the initial location information based on the reported information.

The electronic device of claim 25, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

transmitting positioning reference signals via the electronic device and the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, respectively, based on the initial position information, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to the electronic device include serial numbers of beamlets of the electronic device and the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface include serial numbers of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

Receiving the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected by the user equipment from among the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal and the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected from among the beamlets of the electronic device,

estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to each selected reconfigurable smart surface based on a sequence number of a candidate beamlet corresponding to the selected reconfigurable smart surface, and estimating an angle of arrival of the user device to the electronic device based on a sequence number of a candidate beamlet corresponding to the electronic device, and

based on the angle of arrival, enhanced location information is determined that is more accurate than the initial location information.

configuring a sounding reference signal for the user equipment, wherein the configuring comprises specifying a sequence number of a coarse beam on which the user equipment is to transmit the sounding reference signal,

after receiving all sounding reference signals transmitted by the user equipment via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligning the receive beamforming vectors of the electronic device with the location directions from each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device, respectively, to determine sounding reference signals received from the user equipment through each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface,

The method includes measuring a sounding reference signal received by each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface, and selecting the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from among the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a result of the measuring.

The electronic device of claim 27, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to also receive accuracy requirements regarding the location information from the user device.

The electronic device of claim 27 or 28, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine the initial location information based on an angle of arrival of the user device to each selected reconfigurable smart surface.

The electronic device of claim 29, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

receiving a sounding reference signal sent directly by the user equipment to the electronic device and a sounding reference signal sent via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

After receiving the sounding reference signal directly transmitted by the user equipment to the electronic device and all the sounding reference signals transmitted via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligning the receive beamforming vectors of the electronic device with the location directions from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the electronic device, respectively, thereby determining the sounding reference signal received from the user equipment through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to send information regarding candidate beamlets for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the user device for use by the candidate beamlets for subsequent communication with the electronic device.

Scheme 32. An electronic device for wireless communication, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

the network-side device is assisted in determining initial location information for the electronic device by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from a plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the network-side device serving the electronic device.

The electronic device of claim 32, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive, with the electronic device and the network-side device in a non-connected state, a downlink synchronization signal comprising a preamble broadcast by the network-side device via the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the preamble.

The electronic device of claim 33, wherein the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces do not include a common preamble.

The electronic device of claim 34, wherein the downstream synchronization signal corresponding to each of the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces further comprises a serial number of a coarse beam of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The electronic device of claim 34 or 35, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to transmit, via each of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, a preamble respectively corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network-side device.

The electronic device of claim 36, wherein the preambles respectively corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface are used by the network-side device to calculate a time delay of arrival from the electronic device to the network-side device corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface for the network-side device to determine the initial location information.

Scheme 38. The electronic device of scheme 37, wherein,

the processing circuitry is configured to send, via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, also reporting information corresponding to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device,

the reporting information corresponding to a first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to be used for transmitting a random access response to the electronic device includes a feedback identification indicating that the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used for transmitting the random access response, and

The electronic device of claim 38, wherein,

the reported information corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface also includes the serial number of the optimal coarse beam for that selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

the optimal coarse beam is a coarse beam that maximizes a measurement result of a downlink synchronization signal received by the electronic device from the network side device via the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, among coarse beams of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Scheme 40. The electronic device of scheme 39 wherein the sequence number of the optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine the initial location information.

The electronic device of any of claims 38-40, wherein the reported information corresponding to the first selected reconfigurable intelligent surface further includes an accuracy requirement regarding the location information.

Scheme 42. The electronic device according to scheme 33, wherein,

The electronic device of claim 42, wherein the downlink synchronization signal corresponding to each original reconfigurable intelligent surface further comprises a serial number of a coarse beam of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

Scheme 44 the electronic device according to scheme 42 or 43, wherein,

the processing circuitry is configured to report a preamble corresponding to a second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface of the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and report information to the network side device via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to be used for transmitting a random access response to the electronic device, and

The electronic device of claim 44, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

Receiving a random access response and a sounding reference signal configured for the electronic device from the network side device via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

transmitting sounding reference signals to the network side devices via other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces than the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface among the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, respectively, and

reporting the transmission time of the sounding reference signal to the electronic device via the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

wherein the preamble is used by the network side device to calculate an arrival delay from the electronic device to the network side device corresponding to the second selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

the sounding reference signal and the transmission time transmitted by the user equipment are used by the network side equipment to calculate arrival delays from the electronic equipment to the network side equipment respectively corresponding to the other selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and

the arrival delays corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface are used by the network side device to determine the initial location information.

Scheme 46. The electronic device of scheme 45, wherein,

Scheme 47. The electronic device of scheme 46 wherein the sequence number of the optimal coarse beam for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine the initial location information.

The electronic device of any of claims 44-47, wherein,

The electronic device of any of claims 33-48, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

receiving positioning reference signals respectively sent by the network side equipment through the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the initial position information, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

Reporting to the network side device the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected from among the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal,

wherein the sequence number of the candidate beamlets corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to estimate an angle of arrival of the electronic device to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information.

receiving a sounding reference signal configured by the network side device based on the initial position information, wherein the configuration includes specifying a sequence number of a beamlet on which the electronic device is to transmit the sounding reference signal, and

transmitting sounding reference signals to the network side devices via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

wherein the network side device, after receiving all the sounding reference signals transmitted via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligns the receive beamforming vectors of the network side device with the location directions from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, respectively, to determine the sounding reference signals received from the electronic device through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

The network side device performs measurement on a sounding reference signal received from the electronic device via a beamlet of each selected reconfigurable smart surface to select a candidate beamlet of each selected reconfigurable smart surface, and estimates an angle of arrival of the electronic device to the selected reconfigurable smart surface based on the candidate beamlets, and

the network side device determines enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information based on the angle of arrival corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface.

The electronic device of claim 50, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

information about candidate beamlets for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is received from the network side device for subsequent communication between the electronic device and the network side device.

The electronic device of any one of claims 33-51, wherein,

the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are selected by the electronic device based on measurements of the received downlink synchronization signals.

An electronic device according to claim 32 or 33, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to assist the network side device in determining the initial location information by the network side device based on an initial beam alignment between the electronic device and the network side device, a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within the range of the initial beam, with the electronic device and the network side device in a connected state,

Wherein the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are used to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

The electronic device of claim 53, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

receiving positioning reference signals respectively sent by the network side equipment through the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise the serial number of the initial reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

and sending reporting information to the network side device, wherein the reporting information comprises a serial number of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is selected from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces by the electronic device based on positioning reference signals received through the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

The electronic device of claim 54, wherein the reported information further comprises accuracy requirements regarding the location information.

Scheme 56. The electronic device according to scheme 54 or 55 wherein said reported information is used by said network side device to calculate said initial location information.

The electronic device of claim 56, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

receiving positioning reference signals respectively sent by the network side device based on the initial position information through the network side device and the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wherein the positioning reference signals corresponding to the network side device comprise serial numbers of beamlets of the network side device and the positioning reference signals corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface comprise serial numbers of beamlets of the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

reporting to the network side device the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected from among the beamlets of each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface based on the positioning reference signal and the sequence numbers of candidate beamlets selected from among the beamlets of the network side device,

wherein the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets corresponding to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface are used by the network side device to estimate the angle of arrival of the electronic device to the selected reconfigurable intelligent surface, and the sequence numbers of the candidate beamlets corresponding to the network side device are used by the network side device to estimate the angle of arrival of the electronic device to the network side device, and

The angle of arrival is used by the network side device to determine enhanced location information that is more accurate than the initial location information.

receiving a sounding reference signal configured by the network side device, wherein the configuration includes a sequence number specifying a coarse beam on which the electronic device is to transmit the sounding reference signal, and

reporting a sounding reference signal to the network side device via each initially reconfigurable intelligent surface,

wherein the network side device, after receiving all sounding reference signals transmitted by the electronic device via the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, aligns the received beamforming vectors of the network side device with the position directions from each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, respectively, thereby determining sounding reference signals received from the electronic device through each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface, and

the network side device measures the sounding reference signal received by each initial reconfigurable intelligent surface and selects the selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the measurement results.

The electronic device of claim 58, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to also report accuracy requirements regarding the location information to the network-side device.

Scheme 60. The electronic device of scheme 58 or 59 wherein the angle of arrival of the electronic device to each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface is used by the network side device to determine the initial location information.

The electronic device of claim 60, wherein the processing circuit is configured to:

transmitting sounding reference signals directly to the network side device and transmitting sounding reference signals to the network side device via each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

wherein the network side device, after receiving the sounding reference signal directly transmitted by the electronic device and all the sounding reference signals transmitted via the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, respectively aligns the received beamforming vector of the network side device with the position direction from each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface to the network side device, thereby determining the sounding reference signal received from the electronic device through each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface,

the network side device determines enhanced location information more accurate than the initial location information based on the angle of arrival.

The electronic device of claim 60, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive information from the network-side device regarding candidate beamlets for each selected reconfigurable intelligent surface for use in subsequent communications between the electronic device and the network-side device.

Scheme 63. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

initial location information of a user device is determined by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from a plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the user device and the user device within a service range of the electronic device.

Scheme 64. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

The network-side device is assisted in determining initial location information for an electronic device by a plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces selected from a plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on a connection state between the electronic device and the network-side device serving the electronic device.

Scheme 65. A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions which when executed perform the method for wireless communication according to scheme 63 or 64.

Claims

1. An electronic device for wireless communication, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

2. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to broadcast, via the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, downlink synchronization signals including preambles, respectively, for the user device to select the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces based on the preambles, if the electronic device is in a non-connected state with the user device.

3. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the downlink synchronization signals respectively corresponding to the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces do not include a common preamble.

4. The electronic device of claim 3, wherein the downstream synchronization signal corresponding to each of the plurality of original reconfigurable intelligent surfaces further comprises a serial number of a coarse beam of the original reconfigurable intelligent surface.

5. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein,

6. The electronic device of claim 1 or 2, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to select, with the electronic device and the user device in a connected state, a plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces within the range of the initial beam based on an initial beam alignment between the electronic device and the user device for use in selecting the plurality of selected reconfigurable intelligent surfaces from the plurality of initial reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

7. An electronic device for wireless communication, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

8. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

9. A method for wireless communication, comprising:

10. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions which, when executed, perform the method for wireless communication according to claim 8 or 9.