CN117044273A

CN117044273A - Electronic device and method for wireless communication, computer-readable storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN117044273A
Application number: CN202280020517.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 党建; 李业伟; 吴志坤; 孙晨
Original assignee: Sony Group Corp
Current assignee: Sony Group Corp
Priority date: 2021-03-18
Filing date: 2022-03-14
Publication date: 2023-11-10
Also published as: WO2022194082A1; CN115119239A

Abstract

An electronic device and method for wireless communication, an electronic device and method for smart reflective surfaces, and a computer-readable storage medium, the electronic device comprising: processing circuitry configured to: in the event of a beam failure, receiving broadcast information from one or more intelligent reflective surfaces; and utilizing the first intelligent reflective surface determined based on the reception of the broadcast information to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.

Description

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

The present application claims priority from chinese patent office, application number 202110290876.4, chinese patent application entitled "electronic device and method for wireless communications, computer readable storage medium," filed 3/18 of 2021, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Technical Field

The application relates to the technical field of wireless communication, in particular to a beam fault recovery technology based on intelligent reflection surface (Intelligent Reflecting Surface, IRS) assistance. And more particularly, to an electronic device and method for wireless communication, an electronic device and method for intelligent reflective surfaces, and a computer readable storage medium.

Background

In the 5G millimeter wave system, because the channel fluctuation is severe, when the base station communicates with the user, the situation of beam misalignment may occur, and at this time, a beam fault recovery procedure may be adopted to help the base station or the user adjust the current fault beam to the available beam, so as to avoid frequent radio link failure caused by the beam misalignment.

The existing beam fault recovery flow in the 5G NR standard mainly comprises four steps: beam fault detection, candidate beam identification, recovery request transmission, and network response beam recovery request. In the second step of candidate beam identification, the user may attempt to identify one or more new available beams, however, in the case of poor channel conditions, the user may not be able to identify any candidate beam that is satisfactory, and at this time, a radio link failure operation may be triggered, which consumes a lot of time and resources.

Smart reflective surfaces (IRSs) are an emerging auxiliary communication technology. The plane array is composed of a large number of passive reflecting units, and by adjusting the amplitude and the phase of the reflecting units, controllable influence can be exerted on an incident signal to guide the reflected wave to move towards any preset direction, so that the wireless propagation environment is changed under the condition of limited power consumption. For example, under control of the base station, the IRS improves the signal quality of the receiver by modifying the phase of the incident wave to obtain a reflected wave of the appropriate reflection direction. When the intelligent reflecting surface is deployed in a communication system, the intelligent reflecting surface can be used for assisting a beam fault recovery process, so that the flexibility of the system is improved.

Disclosure of Invention

The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. It should be understood that this summary is not an exhaustive overview of the disclosure. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure or to delineate the scope of the disclosure. 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 application, there is provided an electronic device for wireless communication, comprising: processing circuitry configured to: in the event of a beam failure, receiving broadcast information from one or more IRS; and utilizing the first intelligent reflective surface determined based on the reception of the broadcast information to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.

According to one aspect of the present application, there is provided a method for wireless communication, comprising: in the event of a beam failure, receiving broadcast information from one or more IRS; and utilizing the first intelligent reflective surface determined based on the reception of the broadcast information to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.

According to another aspect of the present application, there is provided an electronic device for wireless communication, comprising: processing circuitry configured to: in case of beam failure, acquiring information for selection of IRS obtained by the user equipment through receiving broadcast information from one or more IRS; and determining a first IRS to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment based on the information.

According to another aspect of the present application, there is provided a method for wireless communication, comprising: in case of beam failure, acquiring information for selection of IRS obtained by the user equipment through receiving broadcast information from one or more IRS; and determining a first IRS to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment based on the information.

According to another aspect of the present application, there is provided an electronic device for an intelligent reflection surface, comprising: processing circuitry configured to: transmitting broadcast information to the user equipment, the broadcast information being used to determine an IRS used to facilitate communications between the base station and the user equipment; and receiving a selection notification from the base station, the selection notification indicating that the IRS is selected for facilitating communication between the base station and the user equipment.

According to another aspect of the present application, there is provided a method for an intelligent reflective surface, comprising: transmitting broadcast information to the user equipment, the broadcast information being used to determine an IRS used to assist in communication between the base station and the user equipment; and receiving a selection notification from the base station, the selection notification indicating that the IRS is selected for facilitating communication between the base station and the user equipment.

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

The electronic equipment and the method according to the embodiment of the application reduce the time required by beam fault recovery and improve the flexibility of a communication system by using the IRS with the broadcasting information function to assist the beam fault recovery between the base station and the user equipment.

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

Drawings

To further clarify the above and other advantages and features of the present disclosure, a more particular description of the disclosure 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 disclosure and are not therefore to be considered limiting of its scope. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows one illustrative example of an application scenario for an Intelligent Reflective Surface (IRS);

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating an electronic device for wireless communication according to one embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of an IRS transmitting broadcast information;

FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram of the establishment of a reflective communication link;

FIG. 5 shows a schematic diagram of information flow between a base station, an IRS, and a UE;

FIG. 6 shows a schematic diagram of a partial information flow between a UE, a first IRS, and a base station;

FIG. 7 shows a schematic diagram of a partial information flow between a UE, a first IRS, and a base station;

FIG. 8 shows a schematic diagram of a partial information flow between a UE, a first IRS, and a base station;

Fig. 9 shows an example of a configuration of a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) in a time domain;

FIG. 10 illustrates an example of distinguishing direct and reflected signals based on beam directivity;

fig. 11 shows a schematic diagram of control signaling;

fig. 12 shows a schematic diagram of subcarrier spacing versus slot length;

FIG. 13 illustrates an example of distinguishing direct and reflected signals based on bandwidth configuration;

FIG. 14 shows a functional block diagram of an electronic device for wireless communication according to another embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 15 shows a schematic diagram of a base station configuring resource information and specific parameters for an IRS;

fig. 16 shows a schematic diagram of a base station configuring resource information and specific parameters for a UE;

FIG. 17 shows a functional block diagram of an electronic device for wireless communication according to another embodiment of the present application;

fig. 18 shows a flow chart of a method for wireless communication according to an embodiment of the application;

fig. 19 shows a flow chart of a method for wireless communication according to another embodiment of the application;

fig. 20 shows a flow chart of a method for wireless communication according to another embodiment of the application;

Fig. 21 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. 22 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. 23 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. 24 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. 25 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 disclosure 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 application due to unnecessary details, only the device structures and/or processing steps closely related to the solution according to the present application are shown in the drawings, while other details not greatly related to the present application are omitted.

< first embodiment >

Fig. 1 shows one illustrative example of an application scenario of Intelligent Reflection Surfaces (IRSs), where multiple IRSs are deployed in one cell, each IRS may serve one or more User Equipment (UEs), each UE may also be served by one or more IRSs. For example, UE1 and UE2 may communicate with the base station with the assistance of IRS-1, and UE3 and UE4 may communicate with the base station with the assistance of IRS-2. The base station controls the operation modes of IRS-1 and IRS-2 through a controller.

For example, when the direct communication link between the base station and UE1 fails, the reflected communication link via IRS-1 may be used to resume communication between the base station and UE 1. For this purpose, but not limited to, the present embodiment provides an electronic device 100 for wireless communication.

It should be noted that, although the embodiments of the present application are described below taking a beam fault recovery scenario as an example, the embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto, but may be applied to various cases where IRSs are used to assist communication between a base station and a UE, for example, to cases where an appropriate IRS is selected from a plurality of IRSs to establish a reflected communication link between the base station and the UE, and so on.

Fig. 2 shows a functional block diagram of an electronic device 100 according to an embodiment of the application, comprising: a transceiver unit 101 configured to receive broadcast information from one or more IRSs in case it is determined that a beam failure has occurred; and an auxiliary communication unit 102 configured to assist communication between the base station and the UE using the first IRS determined based on reception of the broadcast information.

The transceiver unit 101 and the auxiliary communication unit 102 may be implemented by one or more processing circuits, which may be implemented as a chip, a processor, for example. Also, it should be understood that each functional unit in the electronic device shown in fig. 2 is merely a logic module divided according to the specific function it implements, and is not intended to limit the specific implementation.

The electronic device 100 may be provided at the UE side or communicatively connected to the UE, 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 the UE itself, and may also include external devices such as a memory, transceiver (not shown), and the like. 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 UEs, etc.), the implementation of the transceiver is not particularly limited herein.

Moreover, the first, second, etc. herein are provided solely for distinguishing or facilitating the description thereof and do not represent any sequential or otherwise significant.

In case it is determined that a beam failure has occurred, the transceiver unit 101 receives broadcast information sent by the IRS, which broadcast information comprises, for example, one or more of the following: the identification of the IRS, the position information of the IRS, the number of the UE which the IRS is assisting in communication, and the estimated number of the UE which the IRS can also assist in communication. In this way, the UE can identify possible IRSs that are currently available to recover from its beam failure.

For example, as shown in fig. 3, the broadcast information may be transmitted by the IRS using a particular antenna and received by UEs within the broadcast coverage of the IRS. For example, the IRS may periodically transmit the broadcast information, and the period of transmission may be configured by the base station.

It will be appreciated that if the signal quality of the broadcast information received by the UE is good, it is indicated that the corresponding IRS is more suitable as an IRS for assisting the communication between the base station and the UE. If the IRS currently serves a smaller number of UEs or if the IRS is also capable of assisting in a larger number of UEs, the IRS is more suitable as an IRS for assisting in communications between the base station and the UEs.

The transceiver unit 101 is configured to provide the base station with selected information for IRS based on the reception of the broadcast information, so that the base station determines the first IRS based on the information. The determination of the first IRS may be performed primarily by the base station, or may be performed primarily by the UE and acknowledged by the base station, which is not limiting.

In one example, the information for selection of IRSs includes at least a portion of a received signal quality indication for each IRS. For example, in the case where the UE receives broadcast information from a plurality of IRSs, only broadcast information in which the received signal quality is higher than a certain threshold may be selected to be reported to the base station.

In this example, the broadcast information may have a smaller amount of information, such as location information including only IRSs. In this case, the UE simply measures only the broadcast information, and the measurement result includes, for example, the received signal power and the like.

After receiving the received signal quality (such as the received signal power) of the UE for each IRS, the base station further combines the current working state of the relevant IRS based on the received signal quality, and selects the optimal IRS from the received signal quality as the first IRS. For example, the base station may select an IRS having the highest received signal power among currently available IRSs as the first IRS.

In another example, the transceiving unit 101 may be configured to determine one or more candidate IRSs based on the reception of the broadcast information, and to provide the determined relevant information of the one or more candidate IRSs as the information for selection of the IRSs to the base station.

In this example, the broadcast information may have a larger amount of information, e.g., including the number of UEs that the IRS is assisting in communication, the estimated number of UEs that the IRS is also capable of assisting in communication, etc., in addition to the location information of the IRS. In this way, the UE may analyze and filter the broadcast information to select one or more candidate IRSs that are considered to be useful as first IRSs to facilitate communications between the base station and the UE, the UE providing relevant information of the candidate IRSs, such as identification information or location information, and/or received signal quality indications, etc., to the base station.

After receiving the related information of the candidate IRS, the base station selects the optimal IRS from the related IRS according to the current working state of the related IRS as the first IRS. For example, the optimal IRS may be the most idle IRS of the candidate IRSs.

The transceiver unit 101 may be configured to provide the above information to the base station in one of the following ways: providing information via an uplink communication link between the UE and the base station; the information is sent to the corresponding IRS and the information is sent by the corresponding IRS to the base station. For example, in case the uplink communication link between the UE and the base station is still available, the transceiver unit 101 may select one of two ways. In case the uplink communication link between the UE and the base station also fails, the transceiver unit 101 will provide the above information to the base station by means of the IRS. Specifically, the UE may transmit the above information to and from the corresponding IRS to the base station through D2D communication.

Further, after the first IRS is finalized, the base station may send a selection notification to the first IRS to inform the first IRS that it is selected to facilitate communications between the UE and the base station. The first IRS sends the selection notification to the UE, changes the reflection coefficient, and distributes a beam to the direction of the position of the UE so as to realize beam alignment. At the same time, the base station aligns the beam originally directed to the UE in the direction of the first IRS to increase the signal reception power.

Accordingly, the transceiver unit 101 is configured to receive a selection notification from the first IRS, in response to which the auxiliary communication unit 102 directs the beam of the UE towards the first IRS to establish a reflective communication link via the first IRS. For ease of understanding, fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of the establishment of the above-described reflective communication link.

After the reflective communication link via the IRS is established, the beam fault recovery procedure of the UE is completed. Since steps such as candidate beam recognition and the like do not need to be executed, the time required for beam fault recovery is effectively shortened, and signaling overhead is reduced. And the power of the received signal is increased, and the signal to noise ratio of the communication system is improved.

For clarity, fig. 5 shows a schematic diagram of the relevant information flow between the base station, IRS and UE. The IRS-1, IRS-2, … … and IRS-N send broadcast information to the UE, the UE receives the broadcast information when determining that beam faults occur, and the received information for selecting the IRS is provided to the base station through a reporting mode 1 or a reporting mode 2. In the reporting mode 1, the UE directly reports the information to the base station through an uplink communication link; in the reporting mode 2, the UE reports the information to the corresponding IRS, and then the IRS reports the information to the base station. The base station selects an optimal IRS for the UE based on the received information and the current operating state of the corresponding IRS (IRS-2 is taken as an example of the optimal IRS in fig. 5), and transmits a selection notification to the optimal IRS. The optimal IRS then sends a selection notification to the UE informing the UE of the information of the IRS to be used for the secondary communication.

Wherein, the resource information and specific parameters of the communication between the IRS and the UE can be configured in advance by the base station. The resource information and the specific parameters include, for example, one or more of the following: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control. Specifically, the frequency band range is used to specify a frequency bandwidth range used when the IRS communicates with the UE; the sending and receiving resource sets are used for designating subframes and resource blocks used when IRS and UE communicate; the physical resource block allocation is used for specifying physical resource allocation used when the IRS and the UE communicate; the broadcast information period is used for designating a transmission period of the IRS for transmitting broadcast information; the transmission power control is used to specify the transmission power range at which the IRS communicates with the UE.

The IRS and the UE perform communication based on these resource information and specific parameters. For example, the IRS performs transmission of broadcast information, reception of UE report information, transmission of selection notification, and the like based on these resource information and specific parameters. The UE performs reception of broadcast information, information reporting to IRS, reception of selection notification, and the like based on these resource information and specific parameters.

For example, the transceiver unit 101 of the UE may be configured to interact with the first IRS using D2D communication, control signaling, and to interact with the first IRS using uplink and downlink communication using the reflective nature of the first IRS. The control signaling herein may include not only the control signaling in the IRS-based beam fault recovery procedure described above, but also various control signaling in subsequent IRS-based auxiliary communications.

Furthermore, during a first IRS based secondary communication using a reflective communication link, the transceiver unit 101 is further configured to receive an exit notification from the first IRS. The secondary communication unit 102 exits the reflective communication link in response to the exit notification and causes the base station to re-determine an IRS for communication between the secondary base station and the UE or to make beam measurements of the direct link between the base station and the UE. This configuration may be used, for example, to address unexpected conditions during communication using the IRS.

In an actual communication system, it is likely that one IRS serves not just one UE but a plurality of UEs at the same time. In this case, each time a new UE is added, the IRS needs to change its own reflection coefficient in order to allocate a beam thereto, which may affect the communication quality of the existing UE. It is therefore desirable to provide a solution to evaluate such effects and to take corresponding measures.

For example, after a new UE joins the first IRS, the base station may send a reference signal to all UEs served by the first IRS, the UE measures the received power of the reference signal, and reports the measurement result to the base station, so that the base station determines whether joining of the new UE affects the existing UEs of the first IRS based on the measurement result. The reference signal is sent to the UE via IRS reflection, and the UE may report the measurement result to the base station by one of the following methods: transmitted via IRS reflection; sent to the IRS by D2D communication and sent by the IRS (e.g., via a controller) to the base station; directly to the base station via the uplink.

For example, the UE may report the measurement result to the base station in case the received power of the reference signal is less than a given threshold. If the base station does not receive the report from any UE, the communication quality of the new UE and the existing UE is not obviously affected. Otherwise, if the base station receives the report of one or more UEs, it indicates that there is a UE whose communication quality is affected.

The base station feeds back the measurement result to the first IRS, which keeps the reflection coefficient unchanged in the case of no UE whose communication quality is affected. In the case where there is a UE whose communication quality is affected, the first IRS changes the reflection coefficient to a value before the new UE joins, and notifies the new UE to exit.

That is, the transceiver unit 101 receives the exit notification in the case of an existing UE whose joining affects the first IRS. The UE then re-makes the selection of IRS. For example, the UE may again perform reception of broadcast information from the respective IRSs and report the relevant information to the base station, so that the base station re-determines the new first IRS. Alternatively, the UE may perform beam measurements of the direct link between the base station and the UE to determine whether the direct link is available.

Fig. 6 shows a schematic diagram of the information flow between the UE, the first IRS and the base station related to the above procedure. The first IRS comprises existing users UE1 to UEm, and after the new UE joins the first IRS, the base station transmits reference signals to all the UEs, and the UEs respectively measure the reference signal received power and compare the reference signal received power with a given threshold value. For example, assuming that the reference signal received power of an existing UEm is below a given threshold, the UEm reports its measurement or the fact that the reference signal received power is below the given threshold to the base station. The base station then feeds back the received measurement results to the first IRS, which sends an exit notification to the new UE according to the measurement results, which exit notification may be transmitted via D2D communication between the first IRS and the UE, for example. It should be noted that fig. 6 is only an example and not limiting.

In addition, in the course of using IRS to assist communication, in order to ensure communication quality, the base station may periodically transmit a reference signal to the UE to perform channel measurement. Accordingly, the transceiver unit 101 is further configured to measure the periodic reference signal from the base station during the secondary communication using the reflected communication link and report the measurement result to the base station. Wherein the measurement of the periodic reference signal is used to indicate the communication quality of the reflective communication link.

For example, the transceiver unit 101 may be configured to report the measurement result to the base station in case the measurement result of the periodic reference signal is below a predetermined threshold value a predetermined number of times in succession. After receiving the report, the base station considers that the reflective communication link of the UE fails, so that the UE can be informed to exit the current reflective communication link. The UE may then perform beam measurements of the direct link or may re-perform IRS selection.

Accordingly, the transceiver unit 101 is further configured to obtain a fault notification from the base station. The secondary communication unit 102 exits the reflective communication link in response to the failure notification and makes beam measurements of the direct link between the base station and the UE or causes the base station to re-determine the IRS for the secondary communication.

Fig. 7 shows a schematic diagram of the information flow between the UE, the first IRS and the base station related to the above procedure. The base station periodically transmits a reference signal to the UE, the reference signal reaches the UE through IRS reflection, and if the reference signal continuously received by the UE for many times is lower than a preset threshold value, the measurement result is reported to the base station. The base station considers that a reflected communication link failure has occurred, thereby issuing a failure notification to the UE, which may be forwarded by the first IRS. For example, the base station may send the failure notification to the first IRS, which sends the failure notification to the UE via D2D communication.

In practice, there is also a possibility of communication failure between the IRS and the base station. In this case, the base station cannot receive the reflected signal from the IRS, however, the base station cannot determine whether a communication failure has occurred between the IRS and the base station or between the base station and the UE. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the source of the fault first. For example, the base station may send a request signal to the IRS over the wireless channel, and if a response signal from the IRS is received, it is considered that a failure has occurred between the IRS and the UE, otherwise it is considered that a failure has occurred between the IRS and the base station.

In the latter case, the base station may send a failure notification to the IRS via the controller, which, upon receiving the failure notification, sends a failure notification (exit notification) to all the serving UEs. Also, the auxiliary communication unit 102 of the UE exits the reflective communication link in response to the failure notification and performs beam measurement of the direct link between the base station and the UE or causes the base station to re-determine the IRS for auxiliary communication.

Fig. 8 shows a schematic diagram of the information flow between the UE, the first IRS and the base station related to the above procedure. As described above, when the base station cannot receive the response signal from the first IRS, the base station transmits a failure notification to the first IRS. The first IRS then sends the failure notification to the served UE1 to UEm, which may be achieved by D2D communication, for example.

Further, the base station can transmit signals to the UE using both the direct link and the reflected communication link, and thus it is necessary to distinguish between signals (hereinafter, direct signal and reflected signal) transmitted through the two links, respectively. Several ways of distinguishing are given below, it being understood that these ways are merely exemplary and not limiting. These modes may be used alone or in combination.

In a first example, the transceiving unit 101 may distinguish between two signals based on a reference signal configuration. In particular, reference signals of different properties may be configured for the direct signal and the reflected signal. For example, the reference signals of both may have different periodicity and offset properties in the time domain. Fig. 9 shows an example of a configuration of a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) in the time domain.

In a second example, the transceiving unit 101 may distinguish between two signals based on beam directivity. In general, the direct signal and the reflected signal come from different spatial directions, so the UE can direct the received beam direction to the directions of the base station and the IRS, respectively, and distinguish between them according to the signal strengths of the different directions. Fig. 10 shows an example of discrimination based on beam directivity. In the left diagram of fig. 10, the signal strength is greater when the UE directs the beam direction to the base station, indicating that the direct signal is received at this time; in the right diagram of fig. 10, the signal strength is greater when the UE directs the beam direction to the IRS, indicating that a reflected signal is being received at this time.

In a third example, the transceiving unit 101 may distinguish between two signals based on control signaling. For example, when the base station is to send a signal to the UE over the IRS, it may send a control signaling to the UE over the direct link in advance to inform the UE that a reflected signal is about to be sent. Fig. 11 shows a schematic diagram of this example.

In a fourth example, the transceiving unit 101 may distinguish between two signals based on subcarrier spacing. In a 5G NR system, a different subcarrier spacing may be configured for each subframe (subframe). The larger the subcarrier spacing, the smaller the slot length, as shown in fig. 12. Thus, different subcarrier spacings may be applied for the direct signal and the reflected signal, respectively.

In a fifth example, the transceiving unit 101 may distinguish between two signals based on a bandwidth configuration. The base station may configure the UE with different designated bandwidths through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, and may change the bandwidths using a bandwidth adaptation technique when the UE is in an RRC connected state, as shown in fig. 13. The base station may configure different designated bandwidths (e.g., different bandwidth portions (BWP)) for the direct signal and the reflected signal, and the UE may utilize bandwidth adaptation techniques to distinguish the two signals.

In a sixth example, the transceiving unit 101 may distinguish between two signals based on channel type. For example, the direct channel may be used as a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), and the reflected channel may be used as a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), that is, the signal received through the PDCCH is the direct signal and the signal received through the PDSCH is the reflected signal.

In summary, the electronic device 100 according to the present embodiment can implement beam fault recovery by means of IRS, effectively shortens the time required for beam fault recovery, and reduces signaling overhead. And the power of the received signal is increased, and the signal to noise ratio of the communication system is improved. In addition, through the selection of the IRS based on the broadcast information, the flexibility of the communication system is increased, and the problem of collision possibly caused when a plurality of UE use one IRS at the same time is avoided.

< second embodiment >

Fig. 14 shows a functional block diagram of an electronic device 200 according to another embodiment of the application, as shown in fig. 14, the electronic device 200 comprises: a communication unit 201 configured to acquire information for selection of IRSs, which is obtained by the UE by receiving broadcast information from one or more IRSs, in the event of a beam failure; and a determining unit 202 configured to determine a first IRS to assist communication between the base station and the UE based on the information.

The communication unit 201 and the determination unit 202 may be implemented by one or more processing circuits, which may be implemented as a chip, a processor, for example. Also, it should be understood that each functional unit in the electronic device shown in fig. 14 is merely a logic module divided according to the specific function it implements, and is not intended to limit the specific implementation.

The electronic device 200 may be provided on the base station side or may be communicatively connected to the base station, for example. The base station in the present application may also be a transceiver Point (Transmit Receive Point, TRP) or an Access Point (AP). Here, it should also be noted that the electronic device 200 may be implemented at a chip level or may also be implemented at a device level. For example, the electronic device 200 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., UEs, other base stations, etc.), the implementation of the transceiver is not particularly limited herein.

The broadcast information includes, for example, one or more of the following: the identification of the IRS, the position information of the IRS, the number of the UE which the IRS is assisting in communication, and the estimated number of the UE which the IRS can also assist in communication. A description of broadcast information from the IRS has been given in the first embodiment, and is equally applicable here and will not be repeated.

In one example, the information for selection of IRSs includes at least a portion of a received signal quality indication for each IRS. For example, in the case where the UE receives broadcast information from a plurality of IRSs, only broadcast information in which the received signal quality is higher than a certain threshold may be selected for reporting. This example corresponds to the case where the information amount of the broadcast information in the first embodiment is small, in which the UE makes only simple measurement of the broadcast information, the measurement result including, for example, the received signal power or the like.

In another example, the information for selection of the IRS may include information related to one or more candidate IRSs determined by the UE based on receipt of the broadcast information. For example, the UE may analyze and filter the broadcast information after it is received to select one or more candidate IRSs that are considered to be the first IRSs to facilitate communication between the base station and the UE, the UE providing relevant information of the candidate IRSs, such as identification information or location information, and/or received signal quality indications, etc., to the base station. This example corresponds to the case where the information amount of broadcast information in the first embodiment is large, in which the UE can make preliminary selection of IRS with reference to the information.

Then, the base station determines an optimal one of the IRSs as the first IRS based on the received information in combination with the current operating state of the relevant IRS. For example, the base station may select the IRS with the highest received signal power of the currently available IRSs as the first IRS, or the most idle IRS of the candidate IRSs, and so on. Note that although an example of determining one IRS is given here, this is not limiting, and depending on actual requirements, the base station may determine a plurality of IRSs as the first IRS to assist in communication between the base station and the UE in common.

The communication unit 201 may be configured to acquire the above information in one of the following ways: acquiring the information via an uplink communication link between the UE and the base station; the UE transmits the information to the corresponding IRS and the information is transmitted to the base station by the corresponding IRS. After the determining unit 202 determines the first IRS, the communication unit 201 is further configured to send a selection notification to the first IRS, such that the first IRS sends the selection notification to the UE. Wherein communication between the UE and the IRS may be achieved through D2D communication. The specific information flow has been described in detail in the first embodiment with reference to fig. 5 and will not be repeated here.

In addition, in order to enable the transmission and reception of broadcast information between the IRS and the UE and D2D communication, the communication unit 201 is further configured to configure resource information and specific parameters for communication between the IRS and the UE in advance. For example, the resource information and the specific parameters include one or more of the following: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control. Specifically, the frequency band range is used to specify a frequency bandwidth range used when the IRS communicates with the UE; the sending and receiving resource sets are used for designating subframes and resource blocks used when IRS and UE communicate; the physical resource block allocation is used for specifying physical resource allocation used when the IRS and the UE communicate; the broadcast information period is used for designating a transmission period of the IRS for transmitting broadcast information; the transmission power control is used to specify the transmission power range at which the IRS communicates with the UE.

Fig. 15 shows a schematic diagram of a base station configuring resource information and specific parameters for an IRS. It can be seen that the base station is configured by the controller. Fig. 16 shows a schematic diagram of a base station configuring resource information and specific parameters for a UE. For example, the base station may be preconfigured when a downlink channel is available or when initial access is made.

The IRS and the UE perform communication based on these resource information and specific parameters. For example, the IRS performs transmission of broadcast information, reception of UE report information, transmission of selection notification, and the like based on these resource information and specific parameters. The UE performs reception of broadcast information, information reporting to IRS, reception of selection notification, and the like based on these resource information and specific parameters. As previously described, the IRS and the UE may interact control signaling using D2D communication.

As described above, in an actual communication system, one IRS is likely to serve not one UE but a plurality of UEs at the same time. In this case, each time a new UE is added, the IRS needs to change its own reflection coefficient in order to allocate a beam thereto, which may affect the communication quality of the existing UE. It is therefore desirable to provide a solution to evaluate such effects and to take corresponding measures.

For example, after sending the selection notification to the first IRS, the communication unit 201 is further configured to send reference signals to all UEs served by the first IRS and obtain measurement reports to determine whether the newly joined UE affects the communication of the existing UE. For example, the determining unit 201 determines whether a report of measurement results of an existing UE for the reference signal is received, and if it is determined that the report is received, it is determined that communication of the existing UE is affected due to the joining of a new UE. The communication unit 201 notifies the first IRS of the side measurement result so that the first IRS notifies the newly joined UE to exit. Specific information flow may be found in fig. 6.

The reference signal is sent to the UE through the first IRS reflection, and the UE may report the measurement result to the base station by one of the following manners: transmitted via IRS reflection; sent to the IRS by D2D communication and sent by the IRS (e.g., via a controller) to the base station; directly to the base station via the uplink.

The communication unit 201 feeds back the measurement result to the first IRS, which keeps the reflection coefficient unchanged in case of no UE whose communication quality is affected. In the case where there is a UE whose communication quality is affected, the first IRS changes the reflection coefficient to a value before the new UE joins, and notifies the new UE to exit.

In addition, in the process of using the IRS for auxiliary communication, in order to ensure communication quality, the communication unit 201 may be further configured to periodically transmit a reference signal to the UE for auxiliary communication using the first IRS and acquire a measurement result of the periodic reference signal by the UE. The determination unit 202 determines, based on the measurement result, whether a reflective communication link via the first IRS has failed. In the event of determining that a failure has occurred, the communication unit 201 provides a failure notification to the UE.

For example, the communication unit 201 acquires a measurement result from the UE in a case where the measurement result of the periodic reference signal by the UE is continuously less than a predetermined threshold value a predetermined number of times. In this case, the communication unit 201, upon receiving the measurement result, the determination unit 202 will consider that the reflected communication link of the UE has failed. The communication unit 201 provides a fault notification to the UE to notify the UE to exit the current reflective communication link. For example, the communication unit 201 may send the fault notification to the first IRS, which sends the fault notification to the UE via D2D communication. The UE may then perform beam measurements of the direct link or may re-perform IRS selection. The specific information flow may be as shown with reference to fig. 7 and will not be repeated here.

In practice, there is also a possibility of communication failure between the IRS and the base station. In this case, the base station cannot receive the reflected signal from the IRS. In order to determine whether a communication failure has occurred between the IRS and the base station or between the UE, the communication unit 201 may transmit a request signal to the first IRS through a wireless channel, and the determination unit 202 determines that a wireless communication between the base station and the first IRS has failed if a response signal to the request signal is not received within a predetermined time. Conversely, if the determination unit 202 receives a response signal to the request signal within a predetermined time, it is considered that communication between the IRS and the UE has failed.

In the event of a failure of wireless communication between the base station and the first IRS, the communication unit 201 may send a failure notification to the first IRS through the controller. The first IRS, upon receiving the failure notification, issues a failure notification (exit notification) to all the serving UEs. The UE exits the reflective communication link in response to the failure notification and performs beam measurement of the direct link between the base station and the UE or causes the base station to re-determine the IRS for the auxiliary communication. The specific information flow may be as shown with reference to fig. 7 and will not be repeated here. For example, it is also possible to distinguish between the above-mentioned fault notifications in different situations.

Further, the base station can transmit signals to the UE using both the direct link and the reflected communication link, and thus it is necessary to distinguish between signals (hereinafter, direct signal and reflected signal) transmitted through the two links, respectively.

For example, the communication unit 201 may distinguish between a direct signal transmitted over a direct link between the base station and the UE and a reflected signal transmitted over a reflected communication link via the first IRS by one or more of: configuring a reference signal; beam directivity; control signaling; subcarrier spacing; bandwidth configuration; channel type. The details of the various ways have been described in the first embodiment with reference to fig. 9 to 13 and are not repeated here.

In summary, the electronic device 200 according to the present embodiment can implement beam fault recovery by means of IRS, effectively shortens the time required for beam fault recovery, and reduces signaling overhead. And the power of the received signal is increased, and the signal to noise ratio of the communication system is improved. In addition, through the selection of the IRS based on the broadcast information, the flexibility of the communication system is increased, and the problem of collision possibly caused when a plurality of UE use one IRS at the same time is avoided.

< third embodiment >

Fig. 17 shows a functional block diagram of an electronic device 300 for an intelligent reflective surface according to another embodiment of the application, as shown in fig. 17, the electronic device 300 comprising: a transmitting unit 301 configured to transmit broadcast information for determining an IRS used to assist communication between a base station and a UE to the UE; and a receiving unit 302 configured to receive a selection notification from the base station, the selection notification indicating that the IRS is selected for assisting communication between the base station and the UE.

The transmitting unit 301 and the receiving unit 302 may be implemented by one or more processing circuits, which may be implemented as chips, processors, for example. Also, it should be understood that each functional unit in the electronic device shown in fig. 17 is merely a logic module divided according to the specific function it implements, and is not intended to limit the specific implementation.

The electronic device 300 may be provided at or communicatively connected to an IRS, for example. Here, it should also be noted that the electronic device 300 may be implemented at a chip level or may also be implemented at a device level. For example, the electronic device 300 may operate as an IRS itself, and may also include external devices such as memory, transceivers (not shown), and the like. The memory may be used to store programs and related data information that the IRS needs to perform to implement various functions. The transceiver may include one or more communication interfaces to support communication with different devices (e.g., UEs, base stations, etc.), the implementation of the transceiver is not particularly limited herein.

The broadcast information includes, for example, one or more of the following: the identification of the IRS, the position information of the IRS, the number of the UE which the IRS is assisting in communication, and the estimated number of the UE which the IRS can also assist in communication. The description of the broadcast information has been given in the first embodiment, and is equally applicable here and will not be repeated.

For example, the transmission unit 301 is configured to transmit broadcast information using a specific antenna. In addition, D2D communication may be performed between the IRS and the UE to interact various control information. After the reflective communication link is established, the base station and the UE may communicate via reflection from the IRS, as shown in fig. 11.

The receiving unit 302 is further configured to obtain resource information and configuration of specific parameters for communication between the IRS and the UE from the base station. For example, the resource information and the specific parameters include one or more of the following: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control. Specifically, the frequency band range is used to specify a frequency bandwidth range used when the IRS communicates with the UE; the sending and receiving resource sets are used for designating subframes and resource blocks used when IRS and UE communicate; the physical resource block allocation is used for specifying physical resource allocation used when the IRS and the UE communicate; the broadcast information period is used for designating a transmission period of the IRS for transmitting broadcast information; the transmission power control is used to specify the transmission power range at which the IRS communicates with the UE.

For example, the receiving unit 301 may be configured to receive information for selection of IRS by the UE based on reception of broadcast information, and the transmitting unit 302 transmits the information to the base station. For example, in the event that an uplink communication link between the UE and the base station is unavailable, the information for selection of the IRS may be forwarded by the IRS to the base station.

After the base station determines the IRS for auxiliary communication, a selection notification is transmitted to the IRS, a transmission unit 302 of the IRS transmits the selection notification to the UE, and a beam is allocated to the location of the UE in response to the selection notification to establish a reflected communication link via the IRS. Specific information flows can be seen with reference to fig. 4.

In addition, during the secondary communication after the establishment of the reflected communication link, the transmitting unit 302 is further configured to transmit an exit notification to the UE. For example, in case the joining of a UE affects the communication of an existing UE of the IRS, the sending unit 302 sends out an exit notification to the UE. Meanwhile, the IRS modifies the reflection coefficient to a value before the UE joins. For example, the base station may send reference signals to all UEs of the IRS, and the UEs send measurement reports to the base station if the measurement results of the reference signals are below a given threshold. The receiving unit 301 receives a measurement report from the base station, thereby determining that the joining of the UE affects the communication of the existing UE of the IRS. The relevant information flow can be seen with reference to fig. 6.

Further, in the case where the wireless communication of the reflected communication link fails, the transmission unit 302 transmits an exit notification to the UE. As described in the first and second embodiments, it is possible that wireless communication between the IRS and the UE is failed, or that wireless communication between the IRS and the base station is failed. For example, the occurrence of a failure may be detected by the base station periodically transmitting a reference signal to the UE, and/or may be detected by the base station transmitting a request signal to the IRS and detecting a response signal. When the base station detects a failure, a failure notification may be sent to the IRS to cause the IRS to notify the UE to exit. The relevant information flow can be seen with reference to fig. 7 and 8.

As described above, the transmitting unit 301 and the receiving unit 302 may interact control signaling with the UE using D2D communication, and interact data with the UE using uplink and downlink communication using the reflective nature of the IRS. The control signaling here may include, for example, transmission of broadcast information, reception of UE report information, transmission of selection notification, reception of broadcast information, information report to IRS, reception of selection notification, and the like.

In summary, the electronic device 300 according to the embodiment of the present application can assist in performing beam fault recovery by sending broadcast information to the UE, effectively shortening the time required for beam fault recovery and reducing signaling overhead. And the power of the received signal is increased, and the signal to noise ratio of the communication system is improved. In addition, through the selection of the IRS based on the broadcast information, the flexibility of the communication system is increased, and the problem of collision possibly caused when a plurality of UE use one IRS at the same time is avoided.

< fourth embodiment >

In describing the electronic device for wireless communication and the electronic device for IRS 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 and an electronic device for IRS, these methods do not necessarily employ or are not necessarily performed by those components described. For example, embodiments of the electronic device for wireless communication and the electronic device for IRS may be implemented partially or entirely using hardware and/or firmware, while the methods for wireless communication discussed below may be implemented entirely by computer-executable programs, although such methods may also employ hardware and/or firmware of the electronic device for wireless communication and the electronic device for IRS.

Fig. 18 shows a flow chart of a method for wireless communication according to an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 18, the method includes: in the event of a beam failure, receiving broadcast information from one or more IRS (S11); and assisting communication between the base station and the UE using the first IRS determined based on the reception of the broadcast information (S12). The method may be performed, for example, at the UE side.

For example, the broadcast information may include one or more of the following: the IRS identifies, the location information of the IRS, the number of user equipment the IRS is assisting in communication, and the IRS can also assist in estimating the number of user equipment in communication. The broadcast information is transmitted, for example, by the IRS using a specific antenna.

Although not shown in the drawings, the above method further includes the steps of: information for selection of the IRS based on the reception of the broadcast information is provided to the base station such that the base station determines the first IRS based on the information.

For example, the information for selection of IRSs may include at least a portion of a received signal quality indication for each IRS. Alternatively, one or more candidate IRSs may be determined based on the reception of the broadcast information, and the related information of the determined one or more candidate IRSs may be used as the information for selection of the IRSs.

The information may be provided to the base station in one of the following ways: providing information via an uplink communication link between the UE and the base station; the information is sent to the corresponding IRS and the information is sent by the corresponding IRS to the base station.

For example, step S12 may include: a selection notification is received from the first IRS and a beam of the UE is directed to the first IRS in response to the selection notification to establish a reflective communication link via the first IRS.

In addition, the method may further include: receiving an exit notification from the first IRS, exiting the reflective communication link in response to the exit notification; and causing the base station to re-determine an IRS for assisting communication between the base station and the UE or to make beam measurements of a direct link between the base station and the UE. For example, the exit notification is received in case the joining of the UE affects an existing UE of the first IRS or in case the wireless communication of the reflective communication link fails.

As an example, during the secondary communication using the reflective communication link, a periodic reference signal from the base station is also measured and reported to the base station, the measurement of the periodic reference signal being indicative of the communication quality of the reflective communication link. For example, in case that the measurement result of the periodic reference signal is lower than the predetermined threshold value a predetermined number of times in succession, the measurement result is reported to the base station. The base station determines that the reflected communication link is faulty, the UE obtains a fault notification from the base station, exits the reflected communication link in response to the fault notification, and performs beam measurement of the direct link between the base station and the UE or causes the base station to re-determine an IRS for assisting communication between the base station and the UE.

For example, the direct signal transmitted over the direct link between the base station and the UE and the reflected signal transmitted over the reflected communication link via the first IRS may be distinguished based on one or more of: configuring a reference signal; beam directivity; control signaling; subcarrier spacing; bandwidth configuration; channel type.

As previously described, the control signaling may be interacted with the first IRS using D2D communications and the data is interacted with the first IRS using uplink and downlink communications utilizing the reflective nature of the first IRS. The resource information and specific parameters for communication between the IRS and the UE may be preconfigured by the base station.

Fig. 19 shows a flow chart of a method for wireless communication according to an embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 19, the method includes: in case of beam failure, acquiring information for selection of IRS obtained by the UE by receiving broadcast information from one or more IRS (S21); and determining a first IRS based on the information to facilitate communication between the base station and the UE (S22). The method may be performed, for example, at the base station side.

For example, the information for selection of IRSs may include at least a portion of a received signal quality indication for each IRS. Alternatively, the information for selection of the IRS may include information regarding one or more candidate IRSs determined by the UE based on receipt of the broadcast information. The information may be acquired in step S21 in one of the following ways: acquiring the information via an uplink communication link between the UE and the base station; the UE transmits the information to the corresponding IRS and the information is transmitted to the base station by the corresponding IRS.

In step S22, an optimal one of the IRSs may be determined as the first IRS based on the information in combination with the current operating state of the respective IRS.

Although not shown in the drawings, the above method may further include: a selection notification is sent to the first IRS such that the first IRS sends the selection notification to the UE.

In addition, the method further comprises the following steps: and sending reference signals to all the UEs served by the first IRS, determining whether reporting of measurement results of the existing UEs for the reference signals is received, determining that communication of the existing UEs is affected due to the addition of the new UEs under the condition that the reporting is received, and informing the first IRS of the measurement results, so that the first IRS informs the newly added UEs to exit.

The method may also periodically transmit a reference signal to a UE using the first IRS for auxiliary communication during auxiliary communication and acquire a measurement result of the periodic reference signal by the UE; determining, based on the measurement, whether a reflective communication link via the first IRS is faulty; and providing a fault notification to the UE in the event of a determination that a fault has occurred. For example, in the case where the measurement result of the periodic reference signal by the UE is lower than a predetermined threshold value a predetermined number of times in succession, the measurement result is acquired from the UE.

On the other hand, when the wireless communication between the base station and the first IRS fails, a failure notification may be sent to the first IRS via the controller. For example, a request signal may be transmitted to the first IRS through a wireless channel, and it is determined that wireless communication between the base station and the first IRS is failed if a response signal to the request signal is not received within a predetermined time.

Furthermore, the IRS and the UE may be configured with resource information and specific parameters for communication therebetween in advance. The resource information and the specific parameters include, for example, one or more of the following: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control.

For example, the direct signal transmitted over the direct link between the base station and the UE may be distinguished from the reflected signal transmitted over the reflected communication link via the first IRS by one or more of: configuring a reference signal; beam directivity; control signaling; subcarrier spacing; bandwidth configuration; channel type.

FIG. 20 shows a flowchart of a method for IRS according to one embodiment of the application. As shown in fig. 20, the method includes: transmitting broadcast information to the UE, the broadcast information being used to determine an IRS used to assist communication between the base station and the UE (S31); and receiving a selection notification from the base station, the selection notification indicating that the IRS is selected for assisting communication between the base station and the UE (S32). The method is performed, for example, on the IRS side.

Wherein broadcast information may be transmitted using a particular antenna. The broadcast information may include one or more of the following: the IRS identifies, the location information of the IRS, the number of the UE which the IRS is assisting in communication, and the IRS can also assist in estimating the number of the UE which the IRS is assisting in communication. Information for selection of the IRS by the UE based on the reception of the broadcast information may be received and transmitted to the base station.

The method also includes transmitting a selection notification to the UE and assigning a beam to the location of the UE in response to the selection notification to establish a reflective communication link via the IRS.

An exit notification may also be sent to the UE. For example, the exit notification is sent in case of an existing UE whose joining affects the IRS, or in case of a failure of the wireless communication of the reflective communication link.

For example, control signaling may be interacted with the UE using D2D communication, and data may be interacted with the UE using uplink and downlink communication using the reflective nature of the IRS.

The above method may further include acquiring resource information and configuration of specific parameters for communication between the IRS and the UE from the base station. The resource information and the specific parameters include one or more of the following: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control.

Note that the above-described respective methods may be used in combination or alone, and the details thereof have been described in detail in the first to third embodiments and are not repeated here.

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

For example, the electronic device 200 may be implemented as various base stations. 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 user equipment may operate as a base station by temporarily or semi-permanently performing base station functions.

The electronic device 100 may be implemented as various 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. 21 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. 21, 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. 21 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 L1, 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. 21, 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. 21, 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. 21 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. 21, the transceiver unit 101 and the transceiver of the electronic device 100 may be implemented by the wireless communication interface 825. At least a portion of the functions may also be implemented by the controller 821. For example, the controller 821 may implement beam fault recovery by means of IRS by performing functions of the transceiving unit 101 and the auxiliary communication unit 102.

(second application example)

Fig. 22 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. 22, 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. 22 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. 21.

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. 21, 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. 22, 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. 22 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. 22, 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. 22 shows an example in which the wireless communication interface 863 includes a plurality of RF circuits 864, the wireless communication interface 863 may also include a single RF circuit 864.

In the eNB 830 shown in fig. 22, the transceiver unit 101, transceiver of the electronic device 100 may be implemented by the wireless communication interface 855 and/or the wireless communication interface 863. At least a portion of the functionality may also be implemented by the controller 851. For example, the controller 851 may implement beam fault recovery by means of IRS by performing functions of the transceiving unit 101 and the auxiliary communication unit 102.

[ application example with respect to user Equipment ]

(first application example)

Fig. 23 is a block diagram showing an example of a schematic configuration of a smartphone 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. 23, the wireless communication interface 912 may include a plurality of BB processors 913 and a plurality of RF circuits 914. Although fig. 23 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. 23, the smart phone 900 may include a plurality of antennas 916. Although fig. 23 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. 23 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. 23, the communication unit 201 and the transceiver of the electronic device 200 may be implemented by a 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 implement beam fault recovery by means of IRS by performing the functions of the communication unit 201 and the determination unit 202.

(second application example)

Fig. 24 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. 24, wireless communication interface 933 may include a plurality of BB processors 934 and a plurality of RF circuits 935. Although fig. 24 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. 24, the car navigation device 920 can include a plurality of antennas 937. Although fig. 24 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. 24 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. 24, the communication unit 201, transceiver of the electronic device 200 may be implemented by a 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 implement beam fault recovery by means of IRS by performing the functions of the communication unit 201 and the determination unit 202.

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 present disclosure 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 present disclosure can be understood by those skilled in the art to be implemented in any computing device (including processors, storage media, etc.) or network of computing devices, in hardware, firmware, software, or combinations thereof, which would be enabled by the basic circuit design knowledge or basic programming skills of those skilled in the art upon reading the description of the present disclosure.

Moreover, the present disclosure also proposes a program product storing machine-readable instruction codes. The instruction code, when read and executed by a machine, may perform the methods described above in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

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 disclosure. Including but not limited to floppy disks, optical disks, magneto-optical disks, memory cards, memory sticks, and the like.

In the case of implementing the present disclosure 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 2500 shown in fig. 25) having a dedicated hardware structure, which can execute various functions and the like when various programs are installed.

In fig. 25, a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 2501 executes various processes according to a program stored in a Read Only Memory (ROM) 2502 or a program loaded from a storage portion 2508 to a Random Access Memory (RAM) 2503. In the RAM 2503, data necessary when the CPU 2501 executes various processes and the like is also stored as needed. The CPU 2501, ROM 2502, and RAM 2503 are connected to each other via a bus 2504. An input/output interface 2505 is also connected to the bus 2504.

The following components are connected to the input/output interface 2505: an input portion 2506 (including a keyboard, a mouse, and the like), an output portion 2507 (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 portion 2508 (including a hard disk, and the like), and a communication portion 2509 (including a network interface card such as a LAN card, a modem, and the like). The communication section 2509 performs communication processing via a network such as the internet. The drive 2510 may also be connected to the input/output interface 2505 as needed. A removable medium 2511 such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like is installed on the drive 2510 as necessary, so that a computer program read out therefrom is installed into the storage section 2508 as necessary.

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 2511.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that such a storage medium is not limited to the removable medium 2511 shown in fig. 25 in which the program is stored, which is distributed separately from the device to provide the program to the user. Examples of the removable medium 2511 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 2502, a hard disk contained in the storage portion 2508, 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 devices, methods, and systems of the present disclosure, components or steps may be disassembled and/or assembled. Such decomposition and/or recombination should be considered equivalent to the present disclosure. 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 the element.

Although the embodiments of the present disclosure 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 disclosure and not limiting thereof. 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 disclosure. The scope of the disclosure is, therefore, indicated only by the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

An electronic device for wireless communication, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

in the event of a beam failure, receiving broadcast information from one or more intelligent reflective surfaces; and

communication between the base station and the user equipment is assisted by a first smart reflective surface determined based on receipt of the broadcast information.
The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the broadcast information comprises one or more of: the identification of the intelligent reflecting surface, the position information of the intelligent reflecting surface, the number of the user equipment which the intelligent reflecting surface is assisting in communication, and the intelligent reflecting surface can also assist in estimating the number of the user equipment which the intelligent reflecting surface is assisting in communication.
The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the broadcast information is transmitted by the smart reflective surface with a particular antenna.
The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to provide information for selection of a smart reflective surface based on receipt of the broadcast information to the base station to cause the base station to determine the first smart reflective surface based on the information.
The electronic device of claim 4, wherein the information for selection of smart reflective surfaces comprises at least a portion of a received signal quality indication for each smart reflective surface.
The electronic device of claim 4, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine one or more candidate smart reflective surfaces based on receipt of the broadcast information and to treat information related to the determined one or more candidate smart reflective surfaces as the information for selection of smart reflective surfaces.
The electronic device of claim 4, wherein the processing circuit is configured to provide the information to the base station in one of: providing the information via an uplink communication link between the user equipment and the base station; the information is sent to the respective smart reflective surface and the information is sent by the respective smart reflective surface to the base station.
The electronic device of claim 4, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to receive a selection notification from the first smart reflective surface and to direct a beam of the user device at the first smart reflective surface in response to the selection notification to establish a reflective communication link via the first smart reflective surface.
The electronic device of claim 8, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to receive an exit notification from the first smart reflective surface, exit the reflective communication link in response to the exit notification; and causing the base station to re-determine a smart reflecting surface for assisting communication between the base station and a user equipment or to make beam measurements of a direct link between the base station and the user equipment.
The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the processing circuit receives the exit notification in the event that the joining of the user device affects an existing user device of the first smart reflective surface or in the event that wireless communication of the reflective communication link fails.
The electronic device of claim 8, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to measure a periodic reference signal from the base station and report the measurement to the base station during secondary communication utilizing the reflective communication link, the measurement of the periodic reference signal being indicative of a communication quality of the reflective communication link.
The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to report the measurement result to the base station if the measurement result of the periodic reference signal is below a predetermined threshold a predetermined number of times in succession.
The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to obtain a failure notification from the base station, exit the reflective communication link in response to the failure notification, and make a beam measurement of a direct link between the base station and the user device or cause the base station to re-determine a smart reflective surface for assisting communication between the base station and the user device.
The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to distinguish between direct signals transmitted over a direct link between the base station and the user device and reflected signals transmitted over a reflected communication link via the first smart reflective surface based on one or more of: configuring a reference signal; beam directivity; control signaling; subcarrier spacing; bandwidth configuration; channel type.
The electronic device of claim 8, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to interact control signaling with the first smart reflective surface using D2D communication and to interact data with the first smart reflective surface using uplink and downlink communication using reflective properties of the first smart reflective surface.
An electronic device for wireless communication, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

in case of beam failure, acquiring information for selection of the intelligent reflection surfaces, which is obtained by the user equipment by receiving broadcast information from one or more intelligent reflection surfaces; and

a first smart reflective surface is determined based on the information to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the information for selection of smart reflective surfaces comprises at least a portion of a received signal quality indication for each smart reflective surface.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the information for selection of smart reflective surfaces comprises information regarding one or more candidate smart reflective surfaces determined by the user device based on receipt of the broadcast information.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine an optimal one of the smart reflective surfaces as the first smart reflective surface based on the information in combination with a current operating state of each of the smart reflective surfaces.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to obtain the information in one of: acquiring the information via an uplink communication link between the user equipment and the base station; the user equipment sends the information to the corresponding smart reflective surface and the information is sent by the corresponding smart reflective surface to the base station.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to send a selection notification to the first smart reflective surface to cause the first smart reflective surface to send the selection notification to the user device.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to pre-configure the smart reflective surface and the user device with resource information and specific parameters for communication therebetween.
The electronic device of claim 22, wherein the resource information and specific parameters include one or more of: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control.
The electronic device of claim 21, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to send a reference signal to all user devices served by the first smart reflective surface and determine whether a report of measurement results for the reference signal by an existing user device is received,

in case the processing circuit determines that a report is received, the processing circuit determines that the communication of the existing user equipment is affected by the joining of the new user equipment and informs the first smart reflecting surface of the measurement result, so that the first smart reflecting surface informs the newly joined user equipment to exit.
The electronic device of claim 21, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to:

Periodically transmitting a reference signal to user equipment using the first intelligent reflecting surface for auxiliary communication and acquiring a measurement result of the user equipment on the periodic reference signal;

determining, based on the measurement, whether a reflective communication link via the first smart reflective surface is malfunctioning; and

providing a fault notification to the user equipment in case a fault is determined to occur.
The electronic device of claim 25, wherein the processing circuit is configured to obtain measurements from the user device if the measurements of the periodic reference signal by the user device are below a predetermined threshold a predetermined number of times in succession.
The electronic device of claim 21, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to send a fault notification to the first smart reflective surface via a controller when wireless communication between the base station and the first smart reflective surface fails.
The electronic device of claim 27, wherein the processing circuit is configured to send a request signal to the first smart reflective surface over a wireless channel and determine that wireless communication between the base station and the first smart reflective surface fails if a response signal to the request signal is not received within a predetermined time.
The electronic device of claim 16, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to distinguish between direct signals transmitted over a direct link between the base station and the user device and reflected signals transmitted over a reflected communication link via the first smart reflective surface by one or more of: configuring a reference signal; beam directivity; control signaling; subcarrier spacing; bandwidth configuration; channel type.
An electronic device for an intelligent reflective surface, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

transmitting broadcast information to the user equipment, the broadcast information being used to determine an intelligent reflecting surface used to assist in communication between the base station and the user equipment; and

a selection notification is received from the base station indicating that the smart reflective surface is selected to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.
The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to transmit the broadcast information with a particular antenna.
The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the broadcast information comprises one or more of: the identification of the intelligent reflecting surface, the position information of the intelligent reflecting surface, the number of the user equipment which the intelligent reflecting surface is assisting in communication, and the intelligent reflecting surface can also assist in estimating the number of the user equipment which the intelligent reflecting surface is assisting in communication.
The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to obtain resource information and configuration of specific parameters for communication between the smart reflective surface and a user device from the base station.
The electronic device of claim 33, wherein the resource information and specific parameters include one or more of: frequency band range, set of transmission and reception resources, physical resource block allocation, broadcast information period, transmission power control.
The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to receive information for selection of a smart reflective surface by the user device based on receipt of the broadcast information and to transmit to the base station.
The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to send the selection notification to the user device and to allocate a beam at a location of the user device in response to the selection notification to establish a reflective communication link via the smart reflective surface.
The electronic device of claim 36, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to send an exit notification to the user device.
The electronic device of claim 37, wherein the processing circuit sends the exit notification in the event that a joining of the user device affects an existing user device of the smart reflective surface or in the event that wireless communication of the reflective communication link fails.
The electronic device of claim 30, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to interact control signaling with the user device using D2D communication and to interact data with the user device using uplink and downlink communication utilizing reflective properties of the smart reflective surface.
A method for wireless communication, comprising:

in the event of a beam failure, receiving broadcast information from one or more intelligent reflective surfaces; and

communication between the base station and the user equipment is assisted by a first smart reflective surface determined based on receipt of the broadcast information.
A method for wireless communication, comprising:

in case of beam failure, acquiring information for selection of the intelligent reflection surfaces, which is obtained by the user equipment by receiving broadcast information from one or more intelligent reflection surfaces; and

a first smart reflective surface is determined based on the information to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.
A method for a smart reflective surface, comprising:

transmitting broadcast information to the user equipment, the broadcast information being used to determine an intelligent reflecting surface used to assist in communication between the base station and the user equipment; and

a selection notification is received from the base station indicating that the smart reflective surface is selected to facilitate communication between the base station and the user equipment.
A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions which when executed perform the method for wireless communication according to claim 40 or 41 or the method for a smart reflective surface according to claim 42.