CN117378281A

CN117378281A - Activation/deactivation mechanism for one SCG and multiple scells, and conditional PSCell change/addition

Info

Publication number: CN117378281A
Application number: CN202280035277.0A
Authority: CN
Inventors: K-E·苏内尔; 帕斯卡尔·爱德杰卡普; J·沃杰德斯; R·迪吉罗拉莫; 凯尔·潘
Original assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings Inc
Current assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings Inc
Priority date: 2021-03-31
Filing date: 2022-03-31
Publication date: 2024-01-09

Abstract

Methods, apparatus, and systems are described for assistance information from a UE to a network side, e.g., enabling faster decision making for secondary cell group deactivation in a 3GPP MR DC/CA deployment. According to some aspects, instructions for UE behavior upon MR DC/CA secondary cell group activation are provided in a secondary cell group deactivation message to reduce delay of UE-triggered secondary cell group activation. The RRC signaling ambiguity of conditional PSCell addition/change can be resolved by synchronization messages between the primary and secondary nodes to avoid delay and signaling errors.

Description

Activation/deactivation mechanism for one SCG and multiple scells, and conditional PSCell change/addition

Cross Reference to Related Applications

The present application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 63/168,707 entitled "Activation/De-Activation Mechanism for One SCG And SCELLS, and Conditional PSCELL Change/Addition (for Activation/deactivation mechanisms of one SCG and multiple scells, and conditional PSCell change/Addition)" filed on month 3, 2021, and U.S. provisional application No. 63/185,890 entitled "Activation/De-Activation Mechanism for One SCG And SCELLS, and Conditional PSCELL Change/Addition (for Activation/deactivation mechanisms of one SCG and multiple scells, and conditional PSCell change/Addition"), filed on month 5, 2021, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Background

An important design goal of 3GPP radio interface technology is to provide a solution for high data rate transmission to meet the requirements of mobile broadband services.

Carrier Aggregation (CA) is a widely deployed 3GPP radio interface feature for mobile radio broadband services (e.g., as introduced in UTRA (Rel-8) and EUTRA (Rel-10)). The CA splits data on the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer among a plurality of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) entities. The principle of CA is to use one common scheduler in one physical (and logical) node to aggregate data on multiple HARQ entities to increase the data throughput of the user experience.

Dual Connectivity (DC) was introduced in EUTRA for Rel-12 microcell enhancements to split data on the Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer. DC allows transmission and reception from multiple physical (and logical) nodes. DC generally provides similar benefits as CA, but DC also allows aggregation of data from multiple schedulers and nodes. These nodes are referred to as primary nodes (MN) and Secondary Nodes (SN), where MN is the primary control entity and SN is used for aggregation purposes to increase user throughput. CA and DC are not mutually exclusive because data splitting is done at different levels and they are typically all used in the same network deployment.

The NR radio technology supports both CA and DC. In contrast to UTRA and EUTRA, NR has a separate Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol termination point in both MN and SN. Which allows the SN to change, release and modify the aggregated cell without coordination from the MN. It also allows splitting the radio bearers for signaling, which significantly improves mobility robustness, e.g. reduces the risk of connection loss and failure during handover.

Another important difference of NR DC compared to earlier 3GPP technologies is that NR supports two different radio access technologies within the same DC framework. For example, EUTRA and NR radio technologies are supported. 3GPP represents support for multiple radio technologies as a multi-radio (MR) feature.

Cells belonging to the same node are referred to as a Cell Group (CG), and CGs belonging to MN and SN are referred to as MCG and SCG, respectively. Each CG has a primary cell controlling the CG. The primary cell of the SCG is called PSCell. The architecture of MR DC/CA includes an eNB and an en-gNB connected to an Evolved Packet Core (EPC). This EUTRA-NR (EN) scenario is denoted EN-DC in 3 GPP.

In EN-DC, UE and network power consumption may be a problem since two radio links are maintained simultaneously. When the UE data rate requirements change dynamically (e.g., from high to low), the SN may be considered (de) activated to save network and UE energy consumption.

Configuring activation/deactivation mechanisms and/or conditional PSCell changes/additions for one SCG and multiple scells in a 5G network may cover a wide variety of scenarios, servers, gateways, and devices, such as those described in: for example 3GPP TS 38.300,NR; general description of NR and NG-RAN; stage 2 (version 16), V16.4.0;3GPP TS 38.331, radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol Specification (release 16), V16.3.1; 3GPP TS 37.340,NR; a plurality of connections; a general description; stage 2 (version 16), V16.4.0.

Disclosure of Invention

Methods, apparatus, and systems for activation/deactivation mechanisms and/or conditional PSCell change/addition of an SCG and multiple scells are described herein.

According to some aspects, a method for estimating dynamic changes in data rate requirements in a user equipment is provided.

According to some aspects, a method for autonomously providing deactivation and activation related assistance information to a network node is provided.

According to some aspects, a method for requesting deactivation and activation related assistance information from a network node is provided.

According to some aspects, a method for responding to a request to deactivate and activate related auxiliary information is provided.

According to some aspects, a method for routing deactivation and activation related assistance information from one network node to another network node is provided.

According to some aspects, a method is provided for obtaining deactivation and activation decisions in a network node based on combined data rate estimation and deactivation related assistance information from a user equipment. In one aspect, the assistance information provides information about application performance, bandwidth consumption per application, energy consumption, and quality of service related attributes (such as latency, priority, and preemption).

According to some aspects, a method for providing instructions regarding user equipment behavior upon node activation is provided.

According to some aspects, a method for resolving signaling ambiguity when adding and changing pscells is provided.

According to some aspects, a User Equipment (UE) may receive a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message from a network node (e.g., a next generation node B). The UE and/or the network node may be an apparatus comprising a processor, communication circuitry, and memory. The memory may store instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform one or more operations.

The RRC message may include an indication of deactivation of a Secondary Cell Group (SCG) and a behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated. For example, the behavior of the UE in reactivating the SCG may be based on collective data rate requirements for running one or more applications in the UE's operating system. Further, the collective data rate requirements may be based at least in part on dynamic changes in one or more of the data rate, delay, or one or more other quality of service attributes. The collective data requirement may also be based on one or more of the following: termination of an application, termination of a service, termination of a task, change of an operation mode, start of an application, start of a service, or start of a task.

The UE may store information including the behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated. The UE may receive one or more further UE behavior instructions from the network node. For example, one or more additional UE behavior instructions may be included in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) reconfiguration message. According to some aspects, the RRC may include one or more configurations for radio measurements to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated. For example, the one or more radio measurement configurations may include an indication to reduce the measurements to be performed.

The UE may replace the behavior of the UE in the stored information when the SCG is re-activated with one or more additional UE instructions. According to some aspects, the UE may determine an evaluation metric. The evaluation metric may include significance of dynamic changes in the data rate or one or more quality of service attributes. For example, the UE may determine a threshold for the evaluation metric and the significance of the dynamic change may be determined based on a comparison of the evaluation metric to the determined threshold. According to some aspects, the UE may transmit the evaluation metrics to the network node, e.g., the behavior of the UE when reactivating the SCG may be based on the evaluation metrics.

According to some aspects, a network node may determine an indication of deactivation of an SCG. The network node may determine the behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated. Further, the network node may determine an RRC message and may transmit the RRC to the UE. The RRC message may include an indication of the deactivation of the SCG and the behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated.

According to some aspects, the network node may determine one or more further UE behavior instructions. The network node may determine an RRC reconfiguration message including, for example, one or more additional UE behavior instructions. As an example, the RRC reconfiguration message may include one or more radio measurement configurations to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated.

According to some aspects, the network node may transmit an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE. For example, the RRC reconfiguration message may include one or more configurations for radio measurements to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated.

This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary may not be intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may not be limited to features that solve any or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.

Drawings

A more detailed understanding of the description may be had by way of example only, given below in connection with the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of an MR DC/CA architecture;

FIG. 2 shows an example of activation/deactivation of SCSG in MR DC/CA;

fig. 3 shows an example of conditional addition and change (CPAC) of PSCell;

fig. 4 shows an example of conditional addition and change (CPAC) of PSCell;

fig. 5A illustrates an exemplary communication system.

Fig. 5B, 5C, and 5D are system diagrams of an exemplary RAN and core network. Fig. 5E illustrates another exemplary communication system.

Fig. 5F is a block diagram of an exemplary apparatus or device, such as a WTRU.

FIG. 5G is a block diagram of an exemplary computing system.

Detailed Description

Table 0.1 describes some abbreviations used herein.

TABLE 0.1 abbreviation

MR DC/CA

According to some aspects, an important design goal of 3GPP radio interface technology is to provide a solution for high data rate transmission to meet the requirements of mobile broadband services.

Carrier Aggregation (CA) introduced in UTRA (Rel-8) and EUTRA (Rel-10) is a widely deployed 3GPP radio interface feature for mobile radio broadband services. The CA splits data on the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer among a plurality of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) entities. According to some aspects, the main principle of CA is to use one common scheduler in one physical (and logical) node to aggregate data on multiple HARQ entities to increase the data throughput of the user experience.

Dual Connectivity (DC) was introduced in EUTRA for Rel-12 microcell enhancements to split data on the Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer. DC allows transmission and reception from multiple physical (and logical) nodes. It generally provides similar benefits as CA, but it also allows aggregation of data from multiple schedulers and nodes. These nodes are referred to as primary nodes (MN) and Secondary Nodes (SN), where MN is the primary control entity and SN is used for aggregation purposes to increase user throughput. CA and DC are not mutually exclusive, as data splitting is done at different levels, and therefore they are typically all used in the same network deployment.

The NR radio technology supports both CA and DC. In contrast to UTRA and EUTRA, they have separate Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol termination points in both MN and SN. Which allows the SN to change, release and modify the aggregated cell without coordination from the MN. It also allows splitting the radio bearers for signaling, which significantly improves mobility robustness, e.g. reduces the risk of connection loss and failure during handover.

According to some aspects, another important difference of NR DC compared to earlier 3GPP technologies is that NR supports two different radio access technologies within the same DC framework. To date, EUTRA and NR radio technologies are supported. 3GPP represents support for multiple radio technologies as a multi-radio (MR) feature.

Cells belonging to the same node are referred to as a Cell Group (CG), and CGs belonging to MN and SN are referred to as MCG and SCG, respectively. Each CG has a primary cell controlling the CG. The primary cell of the SCG is called PSCell. The architecture of MR DC/CA is shown in fig. 1, where the eNB and en-gNB are connected to an Evolved Packet Core (EPC). This EUTRA-NR (EN) scenario is denoted EN-DC in 3 GPP.

Further enhancement of MR DC/CA in 3GPP Release 17

In EN-DC, UE and network power consumption may be a problem, for example, because two radio links are maintained simultaneously. When the UE data rate requirements change dynamically (e.g., from high to low), the SN may be considered (de) activated to save network and UE energy consumption.

According to some aspects, the concept of activation/deactivation means that the RRC context of the UE can be maintained in the SN (e.g., not released upon deactivation). Furthermore, RRC connection setup/release may be a too slow mechanism to follow traffic changes due to the required random access, RRC signaling, and context setup/release from the Core Network (CN).

Network triggered SCG activation and deactivation may be indicated to the UE via the MCG in 3 GPP. Similarly, the MN/SN/UE may request SCG activation and the MN/SN may request SCG deactivation. According to some aspects, the UE may provide some assistance information for the deactivation of SCGs. According to some aspects, a signaling message diagram of activation and deactivation is shown in fig. 2, wherein protocols are captured.

According to some aspects, another improvement may be Conditional PSCell Addition and Change (CPAC). CPAC can be conceptually compared to Rel-16 conditional handover, where the source cell prepares the UE for handover to a set of potential target cells. In contrast to conventional handover, this procedure may be triggered before any degradation of the radio propagation/interference conditions, which reduces the risk of handover failure. The handover configuration includes conditional execution criteria, wherein once the conditional execution criteria are met, the UE may be required to perform the handover, which shortens the handover delay. According to some aspects, the main principle of CPAC message exchange is shown in FIG. 3, where a source SN (S-SN) prepares several target SNs (T-SNs) for CPAC. The contract procedure of the CPAC can be specified in the following steps:

Step 1: the source SN may decide to initiate the CPC procedure based on, for example, an RRC measurement report received from the UE. The source SN may determine a set of target SNs for the CPC procedure. The source SN may initiate a conditional SN change procedure by sending an SgNB change request message (e.g., containing target SN information) and measurements related to the target SN. According to some aspects, sgNB refers in this context to SN, e.g., with the intention of more specifically stating that SN may be based on NR gNB. For each candidate target PSCell frequency, the source SN may determine a CPC execution condition. In the SN change requirement message, the source SN may provide information related to CPC configuration to the MN. In addition to the content of the regular SN change requirement message, CPC execution conditions for each candidate target PSCell frequency may also be included in the SN change requirement message.

Step 2: the MN initiates an SN addition procedure with the target SN set indicated in the SN change requirement. As a benchmark, the content of the SN addition request may be similar to a conventional SN addition request message.

Step 3: the target SN determines the target PSCell and generates rrcrecon configuration for the selected candidate PSCell ^** And request acknowledgement is added at the SNWhich is provided to the MN in the message.

Step 4: the MN generates an rrcrecon configuration including a CPC configuration (as MN configuration) to be provided to the UE, maps the execution condition configuration to rrcrecon configuration provided by the target SN for the candidate PSCell.

Step 5: the UE provides the rrcreconditionlnomplete message to the MN upon receipt of the rrcreconditionionmessage (to acknowledge receipt of the CPC configuration).

Statement of problem

Statement of problem #1: basis for SCG deactivation decisions for networks

Deactivation may be decided by the MN alone or based on an activity indication from the SN. Typically, data rate monitoring and estimation of data rate changes in network nodes are based on complex and slow processes, as this information may be based on application layer behavior. According to some aspects, the problem statement includes a decision whether such information can be obtained from the UE to assist in deactivation of SCG at the network side.

Statement of problem #2: signaling of UE actions at activation time when SCG activation may be indicated by UE

UE behavior for use cases of activatable SCGs may be indicated to the UE via the MCG. The indication includes information on whether the UE needs to perform random access at SCG activation. A problem arises because the option of UE behavior at activation can be signaled after a deactivation decision. If the UE can indicate deactivation to the MN, the UE needs to wait for an RRC configuration message from the MN to receive instructions for this behavior. In this scenario, placing the desired behavior upon SCG activation differently in another message may eliminate this latency.

Statement of problem #3: signaling ambiguity in indicating conditional PSCell addition/change

Although the concept of conditional handoffs can be easily applied to CPACs by replication from the conditional handoff procedure, there may still be an open problem in that the source SN may need to update its configuration according to candidate cells accepted by the target SN. The source SN may have configured the measurements taking into account the performance conditions of the CPC candidate target cell. The target SN may accept only some cells for CPC configuration and there may be some measurement configurations (configured by the source SN) that are no longer needed.

The current 3GPP technical work group protocol is that the SN can change these configurations after the UE receives the RRC configuration message. However, signaling ambiguity issues arise because the SN does not know the exact point in time at which the UE can receive the RRC configuration. Thus, there may be a risk of receiving the reconfiguration messages in the wrong order, wherein the changed configuration that would have been received from the SN after the original RRC reconfiguration is received from the SN before the original configuration.

Statement of problem #4: measurement of deactivated SCG

An important part of the energy consumption of the UE may be radio measurements. For example, the UE may need to perform radio resource management measurements and monitor the radio link and beam. Current NR standards also require such measurements to be made during deactivated SCG. It is necessary to determine how to relax the measurement requirements for deactivated SCGs to facilitate even higher energy consumption improvements in UEs.

Summary of solutions

According to some aspects, the following solutions are provided:

a method for estimating dynamic changes in data rate requirements in a user equipment;

a method for autonomously providing deactivation related assistance information to a network node;

a method for requesting deactivation related assistance information from a network node;

a method for responding to a request to deactivate related auxiliary information;

a method for routing deactivation-related assistance information from one network node to another network node;

a method for obtaining a deactivation decision based on combined data rate estimation and deactivation related assistance information from a user equipment;

a method for providing instructions on user equipment behavior upon node activation; and

a method for resolving signaling ambiguity when adding and changing pscells.

The following is an overview of the solution concept for performing SCG deactivation decisions based on assistance information.

According to some aspects, the mobile device, wireless router, or relay node may be configured to execute one or more instructions, including estimating collective data rate requirements and performance measurements for all running applications in an operating system of the device, wherein the estimating further comprises:

According to some aspects, a mobile device, wireless router, or relay node may be configured to execute one or more instructions, including determining a change, wherein the change may consist of one or more of: any dynamic change in data rate, delay, one or more other quality of service attributes, termination of an application, termination of a service, termination of a task, change in operating mode (e.g., an application entering/exiting a power saving mode or "dormant" mode), initiation of an application, initiation of a service, or initiation of a task.

According to some aspects, the mobile device, wireless router, or relay node may be configured to execute one or more instructions including evaluating whether the determined change is likely to be significant, whether the value of the estimated metric may be increased or decreased, how much the value may change, and how much the time of validity of the information may be, wherein the threshold for the significance evaluation may be determined by the mobile device, provided by the network node, or predefined and stored in the SIM card.

According to some aspects, a mobile device, wireless router, or relay node may be configured to execute one or more instructions, including sending the assessed information (e.g., from one or more previous aspects) to the network node as assistance information or autonomously sending the assistance information to the network node upon request from the network node.

According to some aspects, a network node may: monitoring a data transmission rate and a transmitter buffer level for data transmissions to the mobile device of one or more previous aspects; starting an inactivity timer when the transmitter buffer of the mobile device is observed to be empty; upon expiration of the inactivity timer, a decision to deactivate the SCG is made by indicating inactivity to another node (MN), or the SCG is deactivated by itself (MN); stopping the inactivity timer when a packet arrives and the inactivity timer may be running; requesting assistance information from the mobile device at any time including the time during the observed inactivity; starting a validity timer when auxiliary information is received; routing the assistance information to another network node; configuring a timer for the mobile device to perform numerical control on the frequency at which the mobile device can send auxiliary information; configuring a significance threshold for the mobile device for the UE to determine whether the observed change is likely to be significant; and/or when both the validity timer and the inactivity timer are observed to be running, deactivating the SCG and stopping both timers.

According to some aspects, the network node may issue a decision to deactivate the SCG in order to also issue a decision on the UE behavior when the SCG is reactivated in the future, and include an indication of the UE behavior when the SCG is reactivated in an RRC message indicating the deactivation of the SCG.

According to some aspects, a mobile device (e.g., a mobile device of one or more of the previous aspects) may store an indication of UE behavior to be used when reactivating SCG, and replace the stored information with any other UE behavior instructions signaled by the network node after the deactivation indication.

According to some aspects, a first network node (MN) may transmit an RRC reconfiguration message to a mobile device to configure a conditional PSCell addition or change and/or may send a message to an S-SN to indicate that RRC reconfiguration may be completed after receiving an RRC reconfiguration complete message from the mobile device.

According to some aspects, a second network node (S-SN) (e.g., a second network node of one or more of the previous aspects) may prepare an updated RRC reconfiguration message, the actions of which may include waiting for an indication from a first network node that the RRC reconfiguration message from the first network node may be completed by a mobile device (e.g., a mobile device of one or more of the previous aspects).

According to some aspects, a network node (MN) configures a mobile device to perform radio measurements in a deactivated SCG. Measurements during deactivation of SCG are configured as follows:

According to some aspects, the network reconfigures measurements during deactivation by configuring longer measurement periods. The measurement object information element is extended to include an indication of the relaxed radio resource management measurements and measurement parameters configurable in the deactivated SCG.

According to some aspects, the network configures longer measurement periods when configuring the SCG. When the SCG is deactivated, a longer measurement period is triggered. The measurement object information element is extended to include an indication of the relaxed radio resource management measurement and the measurement parameters. When the SCG is deactivated, the relaxed radio resource management measurements are triggered by the UE.

According to some aspects, the network reconfigures measurements in deactivated SCGs in a new RRC reconfiguration message dedicated to the SCG, or the measurement object information element is extended to include an indication of relaxed radio resource management measurements for the SCG and measurement parameters. When the SCG has been deactivated, the relaxed radio resource control measurements are configured.

Solution details

The detailed solutions described in the following sections may be used alone or in combination with each other.

Statement of problem #1 solution

UE side：

Unlike the network side, UEs may (e.g., relatively easily) obtain detailed information about applications (e.g., their data rate requirements), but so far such information cannot be provided to the network node over any 3GPP radio interface. If such information is provided to the network side, it can be used as an additional input for resource management in the network node to facilitate faster and more accurate decision-making in the network deployment. According to some aspects, a key issue may be how to obtain information about the application and its performance in terms of metrics (such as data rate, quality of service attributes, delay and dynamic change in failure rate), and then how to provide this information from the UE side to the network node. While the more assistance information is provided to the network side, the faster and more accurate the decision-making in the network is possible, it may be important to consider the overhead of such assistance information. When the UE provides a large amount of side information to the NW, a large overhead may occur. It also consumes spectrum. In addition, reporting frequency has also an effect, e.g., how often the UE should report assistance information, what mechanism and channel to use, reporting period, etc.

One possible solution may be for the UE to monitor the statistics of each application or process by means of an Application Programming Interface (API) of its operating system. Such APIs are generally available because all modern mobile phone operating systems are UNIX variants compatible with the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), where shell commands such as iftop, iftraf, and vnStat provide information about bandwidth usage and average rate per process. Similarly, UNIX flash shell commands (such as top or ps) compatible with POSIX may be utilized to obtain the state of all processes to see if the individual processes are running or idle.

The interface and shell commands described above may be used to develop algorithms and methods for estimating dynamically changing data rate requirements. The following steps (1-5) may provide information as to whether the total data rate has changed. The method requires that these steps be performed regularly and that the results be compared with previous results. For each iteration n, the following steps are performed:

step 1-creating a table wherein rows represent processes and individual columns contain information about process identity, average data rate and process status;

Step 2-if the process is likely to terminate or idle (or sleep), removing the corresponding row from the table;

step 3-calculating a cumulative average data rate by summing all the average data rate columns of the remaining rows;

step 4, storing the result of the iteration n; and

step 5-the process ends.

The cumulative average data rate of iteration n may be used as an estimate of the data rate requirements of the UE. If the estimate can be compared to the previous estimate(s), it can be inferred if the data rate requirement can be increased or decreased. A threshold may be used to determine if the change is likely to be significant. The threshold may be defined by the operating system or signaled from the network side when UE information is requested.

The following steps are performed after each iteration n, where n may be greater than 1:

step 1-calculating a data rate requirement change by subtracting the result of iteration n from the result of iteration n-1;

step 2—if the absolute value of the change in the data rate requirement may be above a threshold, the data rate requirement may be significant;

step 3-if the data rate requirement can be positive, the data rate requirement may be increasing; and

step 4-if the data rate requirement can be negative, the data rate requirement may be decreasing.

Step 5: the process ends.

The estimate may be exemplified as a data rate requirement estimate, but it may also be a quality of service (QoS) attribute measured in terms of delay or round trip time of each process. The same method can be used for estimation and signaling, regardless of the estimated metric. In general, the UE may provide the following information to the network side to assist in decision-making and resource management:

(1) Whether the value of the estimated metric can be increased or decreased;

(2) How much the value can change;

(3) Whether the change may be significant; and

(4) The validity time of the information.

This information can be signaled in a number of different ways. The exact coding of RRC signaling allows many possibilities depending on the data type, but the content and semantics of the provided information may still be the same. The estimated metrics may be illustrated in terms of data rate requirements hereinafter, but any other metrics may be used as well.

The UE may utilize the SCG deactivation assistance information element to indicate any change in data rate requirements and to provide a valid time for this information. The information element may be composed of optional fields to indicate changes in data rate requirements and validity time of the provided information. The significance of the data rate requirement may be indicated as a presence bit of the activity indication or as a separate field, but in essence the low-level coding may be the same, regardless of how the coding of the abstract syntax may be done. The fields of the exemplary information element may be populated using the following steps:

Step 1-if the data rate requirement change may be significant, indicating the presence of an active field;

step 2-if the data rate requirement may be increasing, the active field is set to an up value. Otherwise, the value is set to down;

step 3-populating the value of the validity timer; and

step 4-the process ends.

The SCG-Deactivation-Info contains auxiliary information for SCG Deactivation.

SCG-Deactivation-Info information element

SCG-DeactionInfo field description

Activity-there is a significant dynamic change indicating activity or data rate requirements. The up value indicates an increase in data rate requirements and the down value indicates a decrease in data rate requirements.

Validity timer—the validity time of activity information is indicated in milliseconds.

The activity field may also be designated as

(1) BOOLEAN (boost) data types, where the semantics of TRUE and FALSE define the change in data rate requirements, but in essence the encoding may be the same;

(2) Enumerating (ENUMERATED) data types with a single code point to indicate only increased or decreased data rate requirements, which means that only the presence of bits can be encoded;

(3) Enumerating (ENUMERATED) data types having a plurality of code points to indicate how much the data rate requirements have changed; and/or

(4) An INTEGER (inter) data type whose range of values indicates how much the data rate requirements have changed.

The validity timer may also be specified as an integer data type to indicate a range of values, but the encoding may be essentially the same as an enumerated data type having multiple code points.

If the network can request the UE information, the UE transmits a UE information response message including SCG deactivation information. Upon receiving the UE information request message, the UE includes the padded auxiliary information element in a UE response message with the following message extension;

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in the absence of the UE information request message, the UE may also autonomously transmit information elements included in the extension of the UE assistance information message in the following manner.

The transmission of UE assistance information may be configured by the network. The transmission of the auxiliary information may be controlled by a timer. Alternatively, the timer may be decided by the UE or preconfigured in the SIM card. The timer may be started by the UE when transmitting the assistance information to control overhead impact. The transmission of auxiliary information may be disabled when the timer may be running. The timer value may be configured by the network in an RRC reconfiguration message. If the UE prefers SCG deactivation, it may send assistance information when the timer may not be running.

The following methods may be used for auxiliary information transmission:

step 1-if the timer may be running, jump to 1;

step 2-if the UE prefers SCG deactivation, sending auxiliary information to the network and starting a timer; and

step 3-jump to 1.

UEAssistanceInformation

The UE assistance information message may be used to indicate UE assistance information to the network. Signaling radio bearers: SRB1, SRB3

RLC-SAP：AM

Logical channel: DCCH (DCCH)

The direction is: UE to network

UEAssistance information message

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Network side of wireless interface：

The network side of the radio interface may typically monitor user activity and data rate, but it typically takes a long time to obtain enough information for decision making. This design problem is typically attributed to a tradeoff between accurate estimation and accurate decision-making. In general, accurate estimation is preferred. The reason for the slowness may be that the data rate estimation requires a longer averaging window, a timer and monitoring of the transmitter buffer level. The present invention improves the decision-making at the network side by using the assistance information from the UE.

The network node may request assistance information about application performance and dynamically changing data rate requirements (as described above) by using the following extensions to the UE information request message. The introduction of a new field activityIndication triggers a request from the UE to indicate assistance information about the UE activity.

The ueinfomation request message may be used by the network to retrieve information from the UE.

Signaling radio bearers: SRB1

RLC-SAP：AM

Logical channel: DCCH (DCCH)

The direction is: network to UE

UEInformationRequest message

One possible example of a use case may be that the network node monitors the transmitter buffer level and performs the following steps. For each UE, the node performs the following steps after activating and reactivating the SCG:

step 1—if the transmitter buffer for the UE may be empty, then an inactivity timer is started and step 3 is skipped;

step 2-jump to step 1;

step 3-if the packet arrives at the transmitter buffer while the inactivity timer may be running, the inactivity timer is stopped and step 1 is skipped;

step 4-optionally requesting UE information;

step 5—if a UE response message (a response to a UE information request message) or a UE assistance information message (sent autonomously by the UE) can be received and contains assistance information about UE activity, starting a validity timer and optionally routing the assistance information to other network nodes (from MN to SN);

step 6-if the inactivity timer expires, a decision is made to send an SCG inactivity indication from the SN to the MN or deactivate the SCG, and step 10 is skipped;

Step 7—if both the inactivity timer and the validity timer are running and the assistance information indicates a significant decrease in data rate, then a decision is made to send an SCG inactivity indication from the SN to the MN or to deactivate the SCG, and a jump is made to step 10;

step 8-if the packet arrives at the transmitter buffer, the inactivity timer is stopped and step 1 is skipped;

step 9-jump to step 4; and

step 10-the process ends.

The usage of this method process is that the auxiliary information can arrive at any time and the auxiliary information content can be changed while the inactivity timer may be running.

The receiving network node may also route the assistance information to another network node at any time. If the node can be a MN, it can route information to the SN. The MN can also use the assistance information for decision making without routing the information to the SN.

Statement of problem #2 solution

According to some aspects, there are two possible options for the UE behavior when (re) activating SCG, depending on whether the UE should perform a random access procedure or not. The network indicates in the RRC message the UE behavior when SCG is activated. To accelerate this process, the UE may already be provided with instructions for the action at activation in the deactivation indication message. The message construction at the network side can be performed according to the following method:

Step 1-when deciding to deactivate SCG, also issuing a decision on UE behavior when re-activating SCG;

step 2-including an indication of UE behaviour when SCG is re-activated in an RRC message indicating deactivation of SCG; and

step 3-end of procedure

The additional value of this procedure may be that the UE already knows the expected behavior at reactivation before the actual reactivation and thus it does not need to wait for RRC configuration to acquire this information. This may be useful when the UE triggers a reactivation of the SCG. There is no benefit to the use case of network triggered reactivation of SCG.

UE actions upon receipt of an RRC message need to handle the case where UE actions may be stored in the UE for later use and possibly also be overwritten by another RRC message. The UE behavior may be as follows:

step 1-upon receipt of an SCG deactivation indication RRC message, storing any indicated UE behavior options to be used when reactivating the SCG;

step 1—if after the indication of SCG deactivation another received RRC reconfiguration message contains information about UE behaviour at reactivation, storing this information and replacing any collision information with new information;

Step 1—if SCG reactivation may not be indicated by NW or triggered by UE, jump to 2;

step 1-stored UE behavior when re-activated using SCG; and

step 1-the process ends.

Statement of problem #3 solution

The source SN (S-SN) may need to update its configuration according to candidate cells accepted by the target SN, and the prior art solution may be that the SN may change these configurations after the UE may receive the RRC configuration message. A downside of this solution may be that the updated reconfiguration message may be received before the original RRC reconfiguration, as the original message may be sent by the MN and the update may be sent by the SN.

According to some aspects, one possible solution may be to delay the transmission of the updated RRC configuration to ensure that the update can be received after the original RRC message; delay often has an adverse effect on system performance. Furthermore, since the UE may have already started to evaluate the handover execution conditions, it cannot be guaranteed that after a long delay, the reconfiguration of the update occurs before the handover. A message diagram of this solution may be shown in fig. 4, where an additional message 6 may be added to synchronize the S-SN with the MN. In this way, it can be ensured that any RRC reconfiguration message (6) and subsequent RRC reconfiguration complete message (7) will occur after the RRC reconfiguration message (5) from the MN.

The following method may inform the S-SN of the moment at which the RRC reconfiguration message from the MN may be completed by the UE and thus ensure that any further reconfiguration from the S-SN occurs after the reconfiguration message from the MN.

The following method may be performed by the MN:

step 1-transmitting an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE;

step 2, when receiving the RRC reconfiguration complete message from the UE, sending a message indicating that the RRC reconfiguration is likely to be completed to the S-SN; and

step 3-the process ends.

The following steps are performed by the S-SN:

step 1-if an RRC configuration update may be required, an updated RRC reconfiguration message is prepared. Otherwise, jumping to 4;

step 2-waiting for an indication from the MN that the RRC reconfiguration message from the MN can be completed by the UE;

step 3-transmitting an updated RRC reconfiguration message to the UE; and

step 4-the process ends.

Statement of problem #4 solution

Solution 1：

According to some aspects, the UE may perform RRM measurements based on the configured measurements during SCG deactivation. For example, reconfiguring measurements after deactivation may be implemented by the network. According to some aspects, RRC signaling may be extended to implement this solution in the following manner:

The network may configure a longer measurement period for the deactivated SCG in a new RRC reconfiguration message after SCG deactivation.

The measurement configuration information element may be extended to include a radio resource management measurement relaxation indication and parameters. The extension is included in a new RRC reconfiguration message after SCG deactivation. The relaxed radio resource management measurements may be configured by the UE and used for deactivated SCGs.

MeasObjectNR

The IE MeasObjectNR may specify information applicable to SS/PBCH block intra/inter-frequency measurements and/or CSI-RS intra/inter-frequency measurements.

MeasObjectNR information element

/>

CellsToAddMod field description

cellIndividualOffset

Cell individual offset applicable to a particular cell.

physCellId

Physical cell identity of cells in the cell list.

MeasObjectNR field specification

absThreshCSI-RS-Consolidation

The absolute threshold of the measurement results for each CSI-RS resource from the L1 filter is combined. This field is used for the derivation of cell measurements as described in 5.5.3.3 and reporting of beam measurement information for each CSI-RS resource as described in 5.5.5.2.

absThreshSS-BlocksConsolidation

The absolute thresholds of the measurements from each SS/PBCH block of the L1 filter are combined. This field is used for the derivation of cell measurements as described in 5.5.3.3 and reporting of beam measurement information per SS/PBCH block index as described in 5.5.5.2.

blackCellsToAddModList

Cell list to be added/modified in cell blacklist. It is only applicable to SSB resources.

blackCellsToRemoveList

Cell list to be removed from cell blacklist.

cellEdgeEvaluation

The criteria for the UE to detect that it is not at the cell edge are indicated in order to relax the measurement requirements (see TS 38.304[20], clause 5.2.4.9.2).

cellsToAddModList

A cell list to be added/modified in the cell list.

cellToRemoveList

A cell list to be removed from the cell list.

combineRelaxedMeasCondition

When both the lowmobile evaluation standard and the celledgeevaluation standard exist in SIB2, the parameter configures the UE to meet both standards in order to relax the measurement requirements. If this field does not exist, the UE is allowed to relax the measurement requirements for cell reselection when one or both of these criteria are met. (see TS 38.304[20], clause 5.2.4.9.0)

freqBandIndicatorNR

The frequency band in which the SSB and/or CSI-RS indicated in the MeasObjectNR are located, and the UE should perform RRM measurement according to the frequency band. This field is always provided when the network configures the MeasObjectNR for measurement.

highPriorityMeasRelax

Indicating whether the measurement can be relaxed on high priority frequencies (see TS 38.304[20], clause 5.2.4.9.0). If this field does not exist, the UE should not relax the measurement to exceed "the high priority_search" on the high priority frequency (see TS 38.133[14], clause 4.2.2.7).

lowMobilityEvaluation

The criteria for the UE to detect low mobility are indicated in order to relax the measurement requirements (see TS 38.304[20], clause 5.2.4.9.1).

measCycleCell

This parameter is only used when SCell is configured on the frequency indicated by measObjectNR and in a deactivated state, see TS 38.133[14]. The gNB configures the parameter whenever the SCell is configured on the frequency indicated by measObjectNR, but may also signal this field when the SCell is not configured. The value sf160 corresponds to 160 subframes, the value sf256 corresponds to 256 subframes, and so on.

nrofCSInrofCSI-RS-ResourcesToAverage

Indicating the maximum number of measurements per beam based on CSI-RS resources to be averaged. The same value applies to each detected cell associated with the MeasObjectNR.

nrofSS-BlocksToAverage

Indicating the maximum number of measurements per beam based on SS/PBCH blocks to be averaged. The same value applies to each detected cell associated with the MeasObject.

offsetMO

The offset values applicable to all measurement cells having the reference signal indicated in the MeasObjectNR.

quantityConfigIndex

The nth element of the qualityconfignr list provided in MeasConfig is indicated.

referenceSignalConfig

RS configuration for SS/PBCH blocks and CSI-RS.

refFreqCSI-RS

Point A, which is used to map the CSI-RS to the physical resource according to TS 38.211[16] clause 7.4.1.5.3.

relaxedMeasurement

Allowing for a relaxation of the configuration of RRM measurement requirements for deactivated secondary cell groups (see TS 38.133 clauses 4.2.2.9 and 4.2.2.10 and TS 38.304 clause 5.2.4.9).

smtc1

The timing configuration is mainly measured. (see clause 5.5.2.10).

smtc2

Auxiliary measurement timing configuration of the SS corresponding to the MeasObjectNR with PCI listed in the PCI list. For these SSs, periodicity is indicated by periodicity in smtc2, and the timing offset is equal to the offset indicated in periodicityAndOffset modulo periodicity. The periodicity in smtc2 can only be set to a value strictly shorter than the periodicity indicated by the periodicityAndOffset in smtc1 (e.g. if the periodicityAndOffset indicates sf10, the periodicity can only be set to sf5, if the periodicityAndOffset indicates sf5, the smtc2 cannot be configured).

smtc3list

A measurement timing configuration list for the SS corresponding to the IAB-MT. This is used to enable the IAB node to discover other IAB nodes and IAB donor DUs.

ssbFrequency

Indicating the frequency of the SS associated with the MeasObjectNR. For shared spectrum channel access operation, if the reportType within the corresponding ReportConfigNR is set to reportCGI, this field is shifted from the synchronization raster by k x 30kHz, where k=0, 1, 2, and so on (see TS 38.211[16], clause 7.4.3.1). If frequencies are also identifiable with GSCN values, then those frequencies are considered to be on a synchronous raster (see TS 38.101-1[15 ]).

ssb-PositionQCL-Common

The QCL relationship between SS/PBCH blocks of all measured cells is indicated as specified in TS 38.213[13], clause 4.1.

ssbSubcarrierSpacing

Subcarrier spacing of SSB. Only values of 15kHz or 30kHz (FR 1) and 120kHz or 240kHz (FR 2) are applicable.

s-SearchDeltaP

The parameter "SSearchDeltaP" in TS 38.304[20 ]. The value dB3 corresponds to 3dB, the value dB6 corresponds to 6dB, and so on.

s-SearchThresholdP

The parameter "SSearchThresholder" in TS 38.304[20 ]. The network configures s-SearchThresholder to be less than or equal to s-IntraSearchP and s-NonIntraSearchP.

s-SearchThresholdQ

The parameter "SSearchThresholdQ" in TS 38.304[20 ]. The network configures s-SearchThreshold to be less than or equal to s-IntraSearchQ and s-NonIntraSearchQ.

t-SearchDeltaP

The parameter "TSearchDeltaP" in TS 38.304[20 ]. Values are in seconds. The value s5 represents 5 seconds, the value s10 represents 10 seconds, and so on.

whiteCellsToAddModList

Cell list to be added/modified in cell white list. It is only applicable to SSB resources.

whiteCellsToRemoveList

A list of cells to be removed from the cell white list.

RMTC-Config field description

measDurationSymbols

The physical layer reports the number of consecutive symbols of the RSSI samples (see TS 38.215[9], clause 5.1.21). The value sym1 corresponds to one symbol, sym14or12 corresponds to 14 symbols of the reference numerology of NCP and 12 symbols of ECP, and so on.

ref-SCS-CP

Indicating the reference subcarrier spacing and cyclic prefix to be used for RSSI measurements (see TS 38.215[9 ]). The value kHz15 corresponds to 15kHz, kHz30 corresponds to 30kHz, the value kHz60-NCP corresponds to 60kHz using the Normal Cyclic Prefix (NCP), and kHz60-ECP corresponds to 60kHz using the Extended Cyclic Prefix (ECP).

rmtc-Frequency

Indicating the center frequency of the measured bandwidth (see TS 38.215[9], clause 5.1.21).

rmtc-Periodicity

The RSSI Measurement Timing Configuration (RMTC) periodicity is indicated (see TS 38.215[9], clause 5.1.21).

rmtc-SubframeOffset

Indicating the RSSI Measurement Timing Configuration (RMTC) subframe offset for that frequency (see TS 38.215[9], clause 5.1.21). For inter-frequency measurements this field is optional and if it is not configured, the UE selects a random value as rmtc-subframe offset for measduration symbols, which should be selected with equal probability between 0 and configured rmtc-Periodicity.

ReferenceSignalConfig field description

csi-rs-ResourceConfigMobility

CSI-RS resources to be used for CSI-RS based RRM measurements.

ssb-ConfigMobility

SSB configuration for mobility (nominal SSB, timing configuration).

SSB-ConfigMobility field description

deriveSSB-IndexFromCell

If this field is set to true, the UE assumes SFN and frame boundary alignment between cells on the same frequency carrier, as specified in TS 38.133[14 ]. Thus, if the UE is configured with a serving cell that makes (abruptfrequencyssb, subsearriersspacing) in ServingCellConfigCommon equal to (ssbsfrequency, ssbsearriersspacing) in the measobjectinr, this field indicates whether the UE can derive the index of the SS block transmitted by the neighboring cell with the timing of the serving cell. Otherwise, this field indicates whether the UE can use the timing of any detected cells on the target frequency to derive SSB indices for all neighboring cells on that frequency.

ssb-ToMeasure

The SS block set to be measured for SMTC measurement duration. The first/leftmost bit corresponds to SS/PBCH block index 0, the second bit corresponds to SS/PBCH block index 1, and so on. A value of 0 in the bitmap indicates that the corresponding SS/PBCH block is not measured, and a value of 1 indicates that the corresponding SS/PBCH block is to be measured (see TS 38.215[9 ]). When this field is not configured, the UE makes measurements on all SS blocks. No SS/PBCH blocks outside of the applicable smtc are measured, regardless of the value of this field. See TS 38.215 clause [9] 5.1.1.

SSB-PositionQCL-CellsToAddMod field description

physCellId

Physical cell identity of cells in the cell list.

ssb-PositionQCL

The QCL relationship between SS/PBCH blocks of a particular cell is indicated as specified in TS 38.213[13] clause 4.1. If provided, the cell specific value overwrites a value signaled by the ssb-locationqcl-Common.

Solution 2：

According to some aspects, the RRC configuration of the CSG includes a radio measurement configuration to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated.

According to some aspects, the network configures a longer measurement period for the deactivated SCG in the same RRC reconfiguration message that the SCG was configured with.

The measurement configuration information element may be extended to include a radio resource management measurement relaxation indication and parameters. According to some aspects, the criteria for measurement relaxation is to trigger a relaxed measurement only in deactivated SCGs. In this way, relaxed radio resource management measurements may be configured by the UE and used for deactivated SCGs.

MeasObjectNR

The IE MeasObjectNR specifies information applicable to SS/PBCH block intra/inter-frequency measurements and/or CSI-RS intra/inter-frequency measurements.

MeasObjectNR information element

/>

CellsToAddMod field description

cellIndividualOffset

Cell individual offset applicable to a particular cell.

physCellId

Physical cell identity of cells in the cell list.

MeasObjectNR field specification

absThreshCSI-RS-Consolidation

absThreshSS-BlocksConsolidation

blackCellsToAddModList

blackCellsToRemoveList

Cell list to be removed from cell blacklist.

cellEdgeEvaluation

cellsToAddModList

A cell list to be added/modified in the cell list.

cellToRemoveList

A cell list to be removed from the cell list.

combineRelaxedMeasCondition

freqBandIndicatorNR

highPriorityMeasRelax

lowMobilityEvaluation

measCycleCell

nrofCSInrofCSI-RS-ResourcesToAverage

nrofSS-BlocksToAverage

offsetMO

quantityConfigIndex

referenceSignalConfig

RS configuration for SS/PBCH blocks and CSI-RS.

refFreqCSI-RS

relaxedMeasurement

Allowing for a relaxation of the configuration of RRM measurement requirements for deactivated secondary cell groups (see TS 38.133 clauses 4.2.2.9 and 4.2.2.10 and TS 38.304 clause 5.2.4.9). This parameter is only used when the SCell is in a deactivated state.

smtc1

The timing configuration is mainly measured. (see clause 5.5.2.10).

smtc2

smtc3list

ssbFrequency

ssb-PositionQCL-Common

ssbSubcarrierSpacing

s-SearchDeltaP

s-SearchThresholdP

s-SearchThresholdQ

t-SearchDeltaP

whiteCellsToAddModList

whiteCellsToRemoveList

A list of cells to be removed from the cell white list.

RMTC-Config field description

measDurationSymbols

ref-SCS-CP

rmtc-Frequency

rmtc-Periodicity

rmtc-SubframeOffset

ReferenceSignalConfig field description

csi-rs-ResourceConfigMobility

CSI-RS resources to be used for CSI-RS based RRM measurements.

ssb-ConfigMobility

SSB configuration for mobility (nominal SSB, timing configuration).

SSB-ConfigMobility field description

deriveSSB-IndexFromCell

ssb-ToMeasure

SSB-PositionQCL-CellsToAddMod field description

physCellId

Physical cell identity of cells in the cell list.

ssb-PositionQCL

Solution 3：

According to some aspects, the UE performs measurements in the deactivated SCG based on a new RRC configuration message dedicated to SCG reconfiguration, or wherein RRM measurements are relaxed as follows:

the measurement configuration information element may be extended to include a radio resource management measurement relaxation indication and parameters. When the CSG has been deactivated, a measurement relaxation is triggered upon receipt of a measurement configuration extension. In this way, relaxed radio resource management measurements may be configured by the UE and used for deactivated SCGs.

MeasObjectNR

MeasObjectNR information element

/>

CellsToAddMod field description

cellIndividualOffset

Cell individual offset applicable to a particular cell.

physCellId

Physical cell identity of cells in the cell list.

MeasObjectNR field specification

absThreshCSI-RS-Consolidation

absThreshSS-BlocksConsolidation

blackCellsToAddModList

blackCellsToRemoveList

Cell list to be removed from cell blacklist.

cellEdgeEvaluation

cellsToAddModList

A cell list to be added/modified in the cell list.

cellToRemoveList

A cell list to be removed from the cell list.

combineRelaxedMeasCondition

freqBandIndicatorNR

highPriorityMeasRelax

lowMobilityEvaluation

measCycleCell

nrofCSInrofCSI-RS-ResourcesToAverage

nrofSS-BlocksToAverage

offsetMO

quantityConfigIndex

referenceSignalConfig

RS configuration for SS/PBCH blocks and CSI-RS.

refFreqCSI-RS

relaxedMeasurement

smtc1

The timing configuration is mainly measured. (see clause 5.5.2.10).

smtc2

smtc3list

ssbFrequency

ssb-PositionQCL-Common

ssbSubcarrierSpacing

s-SearchDeltaP

s-SearchThresholdP

s-SearchThresholdQ

t-SearchDeltaP

whiteCellsToAddModList

whiteCellsToRemoveList

A list of cells to be removed from the cell white list.

RMTC-Config field description

measDurationSymbols

ref-SCS-CP

rmtc-Frequency

rmtc-Periodicity

rmtc-SubframeOffset

ReferenceSignalConfig field description

csi-rs-ResourceConfigMobility

CSI-RS resources to be used for CSI-RS based RRM measurements.

ssb-ConfigMobility

SSB configuration for mobility (nominal SSB, timing configuration).

SSB-ConfigMobility field description

deriveSSB-IndexFromCell

ssb-ToMeasure

SSB-PositionQCL-CellsToAddMod field description

physCellId

Physical cell identity of cells in the cell list.

ssb-PositionQCL

Exemplary communication System

The 3 rd generation partnership project (3 GPP) developed technical standards for cellular telecommunication network technology including radio access, core transport network and service capabilities, including research on codec, security and quality of service. The latest Radio Access Technology (RAT) standards include WCDMA (commonly referred to as 3G), LTE (commonly referred to as 4G), LTE advanced standards and new air interface (NR) (which may also be referred to as "5G"). The development of the 3GPP NR standard may be expected to continue and include the definition of the next generation radio access technology (new RAT), which may be expected to provide new flexible radio access below 7GHz and new ultra mobile broadband radio access above 7 GHz. The flexible radio access may be expected to consist of new non-backward compatible radio access in a new spectrum below 7GHz, and it may be expected to include different modes of operation that may be multiplexed together in the same spectrum to address a broad set of 3GPP NR usage scenarios with different requirements. Ultra mobile broadband may be expected to include centimeter and millimeter wave spectra that may provide opportunities for ultra mobile broadband access for indoor applications and hotspots, for example. In particular, ultra mobile broadband may be expected to share a common design framework with flexible radio access below 7GHz, with centimeter wave and millimeter wave specific design optimizations.

3GPP has identified a variety of use cases that NR may be expected to support, resulting in a wide variety of user experience requirements for data rate, delay, and mobility. The use cases include the following general categories: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC), large-scale machine type communication (mctc), network operations (e.g., network slicing, routing, migration and interworking, energy saving), and enhanced vehicle-to-vehicle (eV 2X) communication, which may include any of vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2I), vehicle-to-network communication (V2N), vehicle-to-pedestrian communication (V2P), and vehicle communication with other entities. Specific services and applications in these categories include, for example, monitoring and sensor networks, device remote control, two-way remote control, personal cloud computing, video streaming, cloud-based wireless offices, first-responder connections, car emergency calls, disaster alerts, real-time games, multi-person video calls, autonomous driving, augmented reality, haptic internet, virtual reality, home automation, robotics, and drones, among others. All of these and other uses are contemplated herein.

Fig. 5A illustrates an exemplary communication system 100 in which the systems, methods, and apparatus described and claimed herein may be used. The communication system 100 may include wireless transmit/receive units (WTRUs) 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, 102e, 102f, and/or 102g, which are commonly or collectively referred to as WTRU 102 or WTRUs 102. The communication system 100 may include Radio Access Networks (RANs) 103/104/105/103b/104b/105b, core networks 106/107/109, public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN) 108, the internet 110, other networks 112, and network services 113. 113. Web services 113 may include, for example, V2X servers, V2X functions, proSe servers, proSe functions, ioT services, video streaming, and/or edge computation, etc.

It should be appreciated that the concepts disclosed herein may be used with any number of WTRUs, base stations, networks, and/or network elements. Each of the WTRUs 102 may be any type of apparatus or device configured to operate and/or communicate in a wireless environment. In the example of fig. 5A, each of WTRUs 102 may be depicted in fig. 8A-8E as a handheld wireless communication device. It should be appreciated that in various use cases contemplated for wireless communications, each WTRU may include or be included in any type of apparatus or device configured to transmit and/or receive wireless signals, including, by way of example only: user Equipment (UE), mobile station, fixed or mobile subscriber unit, pager, cellular telephone, personal Digital Assistant (PDA), smart phone, laptop, tablet, netbook, notebook, personal computer, wireless sensor, consumer electronics, wearable device (such as a smart watch or smart garment), medical or electronic health device, robot, industrial equipment, drone, carrier (such as a car, bus or truck, train or airplane, etc.).

Communication system 100 may also include a base station 114a and a base station 114b. In the example of fig. 5A, each base station 114a and 114b may be depicted as a single element. In practice, base stations 114a and 114b may include any number of interconnected base stations and/or network elements. The base station 114a may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c to facilitate access to one or more communication networks, such as the core networks 106/107/109, the internet 110, the network services 113, and/or the other networks 112. Similarly, the base station 114B may be any type of device configured to interface, wired and/or wireless, with at least one of the Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) 118a, 118B, transmission and Reception Points (TRPs) 115A, 115B, and/or roadside units (RSUs) 120a and 120B to facilitate access to one or more communication networks, such as the core networks 106/107/109, the internet 110, other networks 112, and/or the network services 113. The RRHs 118a, 118b may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of the WTRUs 102 (e.g., the WTRU 102 c) to facilitate access to one or more communication networks (such as the core networks 106/107/109, the internet 110, the network services 113, and/or the other networks 112).

The TRPs 115A, 115B may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of the WTRUs 102d to facilitate access to one or more communication networks, such as the core networks 106/107/109, the internet 110, the network services 113, and/or the other networks 112. RSUs 120a and 120b may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of WTRUs 102e or 102f to facilitate access to one or more communication networks, such as core networks 106/107/109, internet 110, other networks 112, and/or network services 113. As an example, the base stations 114a, 114B may be Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs), node bs, evolved node bs, home evolved node bs, next generation node bs (gNode bs), satellites, site controllers, access Points (APs), wireless routers, and the like.

Base station 114a may be part of RANs 103/104/105 that may also include other base stations and/or network elements (not shown), such as Base Station Controllers (BSCs), radio Network Controllers (RNCs), relay nodes, and the like. Similarly, base stations 114b may be part of RANs 103b/104b/105b, which may also include other base stations and/or network elements (not shown), such as BSCs, RNCs, relay nodes, and the like. Base station 114a may be configured to transmit and/or receive wireless signals within a particular geographic area, which may be referred to as a cell (not shown). Similarly, the base station 114b may be configured to transmit and/or receive wired and/or wireless signals within a particular geographic area, which may be referred to as a cell (not shown). The cell may be further divided into cell sectors. For example, a cell associated with base station 114a may be divided into three sectors. Thus, for example, base station 114a may include three transceivers, e.g., one for each sector of a cell. Base station 114a may employ multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology and thus may utilize multiple transceivers for each sector of a cell, for example.

The base station 114a may communicate with one or more of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, and 102g over an air interface 115/116/117, which may be any suitable wireless communication link (e.g., radio Frequency (RF), microwave, infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), visible light, centimeter wave, millimeter wave, etc.). Any suitable Radio Access Technology (RAT) may be used to establish the air interfaces 115/116/117.

The base station 114B may communicate with one or more of the RRHs 118a and 118B, TRPs 115A and 115B, and/or RSUs 120a and 120B over a wired or air interface 115B/116B/117B, which may be any suitable wired communication link (e.g., cable, fiber optic, etc.) or wireless communication link (e.g., RF, microwave, IR, UV, visible light, centimeter wave, millimeter wave, etc.). Any suitable RAT may be used to establish the air interfaces 115b/116b/117b.

The RRHs 118a, 118B, TRPs 115A, 115B, and/or RSUs 120a, 120B may communicate with one or more of the WTRUs 102c, 102d, 102e, 102f over an air interface 115c/116c/117c, which may be any suitable wireless communication link (e.g., RF, microwave, IR, ultraviolet UV, visible, centimeter wave, millimeter wave, etc.). The air interfaces 115c/116c/117c may be established using any suitable RAT.

The WTRUs 102 may communicate with each other over a direct air interface 115d/116d/117d, such as a side link communication, which may be any suitable wireless communication link (e.g., RF, microwave, IR, ultraviolet UV, visible, centimeter wave, millimeter wave, etc.). Any suitable RAT may be used to establish the air interfaces 115d/116d/117d.

Communication system 100 may be a multiple access system and may employ one or more channel access schemes, such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA, or the like. For example, a base station 114a in RAN 103/104/105 and a WTRU 102a, 102B, 102c, or RRHs 118a, 118B, TRPs 115A, 115B and/or RSUs 120a and 120B in RAN 103B/104B/105B and a WTRU 102c, 102d, 102e and 102f may implement a radio technology such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) terrestrial radio access (UTRA) that may use Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) to establish air interfaces 115/116/117 and/or 115c/116c/117c, respectively. WCDMA may include communication protocols such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and/or evolved HSPA (hspa+). HSPA may include High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and/or High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA).

Base station 114a in RAN 103/104/105 and WTRUs 102a, 102B, 102c and 102g, or RRHs 118a and 118B, TRPs 115A and 115B and/or RSUs 120a and 120B in RAN 103B/104B/105B and WTRUs 102c, 102d may implement a radio technology such as evolved UMTS terrestrial radio Access (E-UTRA) that may use, for example, long Term Evolution (LTE) and/or LTE advanced (LTE-A) to establish air interfaces 115/116/117 or 115c/116c/117c, respectively. The air interfaces 115/116/117 or 115c/116c/117c may implement 3GPP NR techniques. LTE and LTE-a technologies may include LTE D2D and/or V2X technologies and interfaces (such as side link communications, etc.). Similarly, 3GPP NR techniques can include NR V2X techniques and interfaces (such as side link communications, etc.).

Base station 114a in RAN 103/104/105 and WTRUs 102a, 102B, 102c, and 102g, or RRHs 118a and 118B, TRPs 115A and 115B, and/or RSUs 120a and 120B in RAN 103B/104B/105B and WTRUs 102c, 102d, 102e, and 102f may implement radio technologies such as: IEEE 802.16 (e.g., worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX)), CDMA2000 1X, CDMA EV-DO, tentative standard 2000 (IS-2000), tentative standard 95 (IS-95), tentative standard 856 (IS-856), global system for mobile communications (GSM), enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (EDGE), GSM EDGE (GERAN), and the like.

The base station 114c in fig. 5A may be, for example, a wireless router, home node B, home evolved node B, or access point, and may utilize any suitable RAT to facilitate wireless connections in local areas such as businesses, homes, carriers, trains, antennas, satellites, factories, campuses, and the like. Base station 114c and WTRU 102 (e.g., WTRU 102 e) may implement a radio technology such as IEEE 802.11 to establish a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). Similarly, the base station 114c and the WTRU 102 (e.g., WTRU 102 d) may implement a radio technology such as IEEE 802.15 to establish a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN). The base station 114c and WRTU 102 (e.g., WTRU 102 e) may utilize a cellular-based RAT (e.g., WCDMA, CDMA2000, GSM, LTE, LTE-A, NR, etc.) to establish a pico cell or femto cell. As shown in fig. 5A, the base station 114c may have a direct connection with the internet 110. Thus, the base station 114c may not need to access the Internet 110 via the core network 106/107/109.

The RANs 103/104/105 and/or the RANs 103b/104b/105b may communicate with a core network 106/107/109, which may be any type of network configured to provide voice, data, messages, authorization and authentication, applications, and/or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services to one or more of the WTRUs 102. For example, core networks 106/107/109 may provide call control, billing services, mobile location based services, prepaid calls, internet connections, packet data network connections, ethernet connections, video distribution, etc., and/or perform advanced security functions such as user authentication.

Although not shown in fig. 5A, it should be appreciated that RANs 103/104/105 and/or RANs 103b/104b/105b and/or core networks 106/107/109 may communicate directly or indirectly with other RANs that employ the same RAT as RANs 103/104/105 and/or RANs 103b/104b/105b or a different RAT. For example, in addition to being connected to the RAN 103/104/105 and/or the RAN 103b/104b/105b that may be utilizing an E-UTRA radio technology, the core network 106/107/109 may also communicate with another RAN (not shown) employing a GSM or NR radio technology.

The core networks 106/107/109 may also act as gateways for the WTRU 102 to access the PSTN 108, the internet 110, and/or other networks 112. PSTN 108 may include circuit-switched telephone networks that provide Plain Old Telephone Services (POTS). The internet 110 may include a global system for interconnecting computer networks and devices using common communication protocols, such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), user Datagram Protocol (UDP), and Internet Protocol (IP) in the TCP/IP internet protocol suite. Other networks 112 may include wired or wireless communication networks owned and/or operated by other service providers. For example, network 112 may include any type of packet data network (e.g., an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet network) or another core network connected to one or more RANs, which may employ the same RAT as RAN 103/104/105 or RAN 103b/104b/105b or a different RAT.

Some or all of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, 102e, and 102f in the communication system 100 may include multi-mode capabilities, e.g., the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, 102e, and 102f may include multiple transceivers for communicating with different wireless networks over different wireless links. For example, the WTRU 102g shown in fig. 5A may be configured to communicate with the base station 114a, which may employ a cellular-based radio technology, and with the base station 114c, which may employ an IEEE 802 radio technology.

Although not shown in fig. 5A, it should be understood that the user equipment may be wired to the gateway. The gateway may be a Residential Gateway (RG). The RG may provide connectivity to the core network 106/107/109. It should be appreciated that many of the ideas contained herein are equally applicable to UEs that are WTRUs and UEs that connect to a network using a wired connection. For example, the ideas applied to wireless interfaces 115, 116, 117 and 115c/116c/117c are equally applicable to wired connections.

Fig. 5B may be a system diagram of an exemplary RAN 103 and core network 106. As described above, RAN 103 may communicate with WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c over air interface 115 using UTRA radio technology. RAN 103 may also communicate with core network 106. As shown in fig. 5B, RAN 103 may include node bs 140a, 140B, and 140c, which may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with WTRUs 102a, 102B, and 102c over air interface 115. Node bs 140a, 140B, and 140c may each be associated with a particular cell (not shown) within RAN 103. RAN 103 may also include RNCs 142a, 142b. It should be appreciated that RAN 103 may include any number of node bs and Radio Network Controllers (RNCs).

As shown in fig. 5B, the node bs 140a, 140B may communicate with the RNC 142 a. In addition, node B140c may communicate with RNC 142B. Node bs 140a, 140B, and 140c may communicate with respective RNCs 142a and 142B via Iub interfaces. The RNCs 142a and 142b may communicate with each other via an Iur interface. Each of the RNCs 142a and 142B may be configured to control a respective node B140 a, 140B, and 140c to which it may be connected. Furthermore, each of the RNCs 142a and 142b may be configured to perform or support other functionality, such as outer loop power control, load control, admission control, packet scheduling, handover control, macro diversity, security functions, data encryption, and the like.

The core network 106 shown in fig. 5B may include a Media Gateway (MGW) 144, a Mobile Switching Center (MSC) 146, a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) 148, and/or a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) 150. Although each of the foregoing elements are depicted as part of the core network 106, it should be understood that any of these elements may be owned and/or operated by an entity other than the core network operator.

The RNC 142a in the RAN 103 may be connected to the MSC 146 in the core network 106 via an IuCS interface. The MSC 146 may be connected to the MGW 144. The MSC 146 and the MGW 144 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to a circuit-switched network, such as the PSTN 108, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c and conventional landline communication devices.

The RNC 142a in the RAN 103 may also be connected to the SGSN 148 in the core network 106 via an IuPS interface. SGSN 148 may be coupled to GGSN 150.SGSN 148 and GGSN 150 may provide WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to packet-switched networks, such as internet 110, to facilitate communications between WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c and IP-enabled devices.

The core network 106 may also be connected to other networks 112, which may include other wired or wireless networks owned and/or operated by other service providers.

Fig. 5C may be a system diagram of an exemplary RAN 104 and core network 107. As noted above, the RAN 104 may communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c over the air interface 116 using an E-UTRA radio technology. RAN 104 may also communicate with core network 107.

RAN 104 may include enodebs 160a, 160B, and 160c, but it should be understood that RAN 104 may include any number of enodebs. The enode bs 160a, 160B, and 160c may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRUs 102a, 102B, and 102c over the air interface 116. For example, the evolved node bs 160a, 160B, and 160c may implement MIMO technology. Thus, the enode B160 a may use multiple antennas to transmit wireless signals to and receive wireless signals from the WTRU 102a, for example.

Each of the evolved node bs 160a, 160B, and 160c may be associated with a particular cell (not shown) and may be configured to process radio resource management decisions, handover decisions, user scheduling in the uplink and/or downlink, and so on. As shown in fig. 5C, the enode bs 160a, 160B, and 160C may communicate with each other over an X2 interface.

The core network 107 shown in fig. 5C may include a mobility management gateway (MME) 162, a serving gateway 164, and a Packet Data Network (PDN) gateway 166. Although each of the foregoing elements are depicted as part of the core network 107, it should be appreciated that any of these elements may be owned and/or operated by an entity other than the core network operator.

MME 162 may be connected to each of evolved node bs 160a, 160B, and 160c in RAN 104 via an S1 interface and may function as a control node. For example, the MME 162 may be responsible for authenticating users of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c, bearer activation/deactivation, selecting a particular serving gateway during initial attach of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c, and the like. MME 162 may also provide control plane functionality for switching between RAN 104 and other RANs (not shown) employing other radio technologies, such as GSM or WCDMA.

Service gateway 164 may be connected to each of evolved node bs 160a, 160B, and 160c in RAN 104 via an S1 interface. The serving gateway 164 may generally route and forward user data packets to/from the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102 c. The serving gateway 164 may also perform other functions such as anchoring the user plane during inter-enode B handover, triggering paging when downlink data is available for the WTRUs 102a, 102B, and 102c, managing and storing the contexts of the WTRUs 102a, 102B, and 102c, and so on.

The serving gateway 164 may also be connected to a PDN gateway 166 that may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to a packet-switched network, such as the internet 110, to facilitate communication between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and IP-enabled devices.

The core network 107 may facilitate communication with other networks. For example, the core network 107 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to a circuit-switched network (such as the PSTN 108) to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c and conventional landline communication devices. For example, the core network 107 may include or may communicate with an IP gateway (e.g., an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) server) that serves as an interface between the core network 107 and the PSTN 108. In addition, the core network 107 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to the network 112, which may include other wired or wireless networks owned and/or operated by other service providers.

Fig. 5D may be a system diagram of an exemplary RAN 105 and core network 109. RAN 105 may communicate with WTRUs 102a and 102b over an air interface 117 using NR radio technology. RAN 105 may also communicate with core network 109. A non-3 GPP interworking function (N3 IWF) 199 may communicate with WTRU 102c over air interface 198 using non-3 GPP radio technology. The N3IWF 199 may also be in communication with the core network 109.

RAN 105 may include next generation node bs 180a and 180B. It should be appreciated that the RAN 105 may include any number of next generation node bs. The next generation node bs 180a and 180B may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRUs 102a and 102B over the air interface 117. When using integrated access and backhaul connections, the same air interface may be used between the WTRU and the next generation node B, which may be the core network 109 via one or more gnbs. The next generation node bs 180a and 180B may implement MIMO, MU-MIMO, and/or digital beamforming techniques. Thus, the next generation node B180a may, for example, use multiple antennas to transmit wireless signals to the WTRU 102a and to receive wireless signals from the WTRU 102 a. It should be appreciated that other types of base stations, such as enode bs, may be employed by RAN 105. It should also be appreciated that the RAN 105 may employ more than one type of base station. For example, the RAN may employ an evolved node B and a next generation node B.

The N3IWF 199 may include a non-3 GPP access point 180c. It should be appreciated that the N3IWF 199 may include any number of non-3 GPP access points. The non-3 GPP access point 180c can include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRU 102c over the air interface 198. The non-3 GPP access point 180c can communicate with the WTRU 102c over the air interface 198 using an 802.11 protocol.

Each of the next generation node bs 180a and 180B may be associated with a particular cell (not shown) and may be configured to process radio resource management decisions, handover decisions, user scheduling in the uplink and/or downlink, and so on. As shown in fig. 5D, the next generation node bs 180a and 180B may communicate with each other, for example, through an Xn interface.

The core network 109 shown in fig. 5D may be a 5G core network (5 GC). The core network 109 may provide a variety of communication services to clients interconnected by a radio access network. The core network 109 includes a plurality of entities that perform the functionality of the core network. As used herein, the term "core network entity" or "network function" refers to any entity that performs one or more functions of the core network. It should be appreciated that such core network entities may be logical entities implemented in the form of computer-executable instructions (software) stored in and executed on a processor of an apparatus or computer system configured for wireless and/or network communications, such as system 90 shown in fig. 5G.

In the example of fig. 5D, the 5G core network 109 may include an access and mobility management function (AMF) 172, a Session Management Function (SMF) 174, user Plane Functions (UPFs) 176a and 176b, a user data management function (UDM) 197, an authentication server function (AUSF) 190, a Network Exposure Function (NEF) 196, a Policy Control Function (PCF) 184, a non-3 GPP interworking function (N3 IWF) 199, and a User Data Repository (UDR) 178. Although each of the foregoing elements are depicted as part of the 5G core network 109, it should be understood that any of these elements may be owned and/or operated by an entity other than the core network operator. It should also be understood that a 5G core network may not consist of all of these elements, may consist of additional elements, and may consist of multiple instances of each of these elements. Fig. 5D shows the network functions directly connected to each other, however, it should be understood that they may communicate via routing agents such as diameter routing agents or message buses.

In the example of fig. 5D, the connection between network functions may be implemented via a set of interfaces or reference points. It should be appreciated that a network function may be modeled, described, or implemented as a set of services invoked or called by other network functions or services. Invocation of the network function service may be accomplished via a direct connection between network functions, message exchange over a message bus, invocation of a software function, and the like.

AMF 172 may be connected to RAN 105 via an N2 interface and may function as a control node. For example, AMF 172 may be responsible for registration management, connection management, reachability management, access authentication, access authorization. The AMF may be responsible for forwarding the user plane tunnel configuration information to the RAN 105 via the N2 interface. AMF 172 may receive user plane tunnel configuration information from the SMF via the N11 interface. The AMF 172 may generally route and forward NAS packets to/from the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c via the N1 interface. The N1 interface may not be shown in fig. 5D.

SMF 174 may be connected to AMF 172 via an N11 interface. Similarly, the SMF may be connected to PCF 184 via an N7 interface and to UPFs 176a and 176b via an N4 interface. The SMF 174 may be used as a control node. For example, the SMF 174 may be responsible for session management, IP address assignment for the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c, management and configuration of traffic steering rules in the UPF 176a and the UPF 176b, and generation of downlink data notifications to the AMF 172.

The UPFs 176a and 176b may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to a Packet Data Network (PDN), such as the internet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c and other devices. The UPFs 176a and 176b may also provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to other types of packet data networks. For example, the other network 112 may be an ethernet network or any type of network that exchanges data packets. UPF 176a and UPF 176b may receive traffic steering rules from SMF 174 via an N4 interface. The UPFs 176a and 176b may provide access to the packet data network by connecting to the packet data network via an N6 interface or by connecting to each other and to other UPFs via an N9 interface. In addition to providing access to the packet data network, the UPF 176 may be responsible for packet routing and forwarding, policy rule enforcement, quality of service processing for user plane traffic, downlink packet buffering.

AMF 172 may also be connected to N3IWF 199, for example, via an N2 interface. The N3IWF facilitates the connection between the WTRU 102c and the 5G core network 170, for example, via radio interface technologies that are not defined by 3 GPP. The AMF may interact with the N3IWF 199 in the same or similar manner as it interacts with the RAN 105.

PCF 184 may be connected to SMF 174 via an N7 interface, AMF 172 via an N15 interface, and Application Function (AF) 188 via an N5 interface. The N15 and N5 interfaces are not shown in fig. 5D. PCF 184 may provide policy rules to control plane nodes such as AMF 172 and SMF 174, allowing the control plane nodes to enforce these rules. PCF 184 may send policies for WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c to AMF 172 such that the AMF may deliver the policies to WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c via an N1 interface. Policies may then be enforced or applied at the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102 c.

UDR 178 may act as a repository of authentication credentials and subscription information. The UDR may be connected to a network function so that the network function may add to, read from and modify data that may be in the repository. For example, UDR 178 may be connected to PCF 184 via an N36 interface. Similarly, UDR 178 may be connected to NEF 196 via an N37 interface, and UDR 178 may be connected to UDM 197 via an N35 interface.

The UDM 197 may serve as an interface between the UDR 178 and other network functions. The UDM 197 may grant network functions access to the UDR 178. For example, UDM 197 may be connected to AMF 172 via an N8 interface, and UDM 197 may be connected to SMF 174 via an N10 interface. Similarly, UDM 197 may be connected to AUSF 190 via an N13 interface. UDR 178 and UDM 197 may be tightly integrated.

AUSF 190 performs authentication related operations and is connected to UDM 178 via an N13 interface and AMF 172 via an N12 interface.

The NEF 196 exposes the capabilities and services in the 5G core network 109 to the Application Function (AF) 188. Exposure may occur on the N33 API interface. The NEF may be connected to the AF 188 via an N33 interface and may be connected to other network functions in order to expose the capabilities and services of the 5G core network 109.

The application functions 188 may interact with network functions in the 5G core network 109. Interaction between the application function 188 and the network function may occur via a direct interface or may occur via the NEF 196. The application functions 188 may be considered part of the 5G core network 109 or may be deployed outside of the 5G core network 109 and by an enterprise having a business relationship with the mobile network operator.

Network slicing may be a mechanism by which a mobile network operator may support one or more "virtual" core networks behind the operator's air interface. This involves "slicing" the core network into one or more virtual networks to support different RANs or different service types running across a single RAN. Network slicing enables operators to create networks tailored to provide optimized solutions for different market scenarios requiring a wide variety of requirements, e.g., in terms of functionality, performance, and isolation.

3GPP has designed 5G core networks to support network slicing. Network slicing may be a good tool that network operators can use to support a variety of 5G usage scenarios (e.g., large-scale IoT, critical communications, V2X, and enhanced mobile broadband) that require very diverse and sometimes extreme requirements. Without the use of network slicing techniques, the flexibility and scalability of the network architecture may not be sufficient to effectively support a wider range of use case requirements when each use case has its own set of specific requirements for performance, scalability, and availability. In addition, new network services should be introduced more efficiently.

Referring again to fig. 5D, in a network slice scenario, the WTRU 102a, 102b, or 102c may connect to the AMF 172 via an N1 interface. An AMF may be a logical portion of one or more slices. The AMF may coordinate the connection or communication of the WTRU 102a, 102b, or 102c with one or more of the UPFs 176a and 176b, the SMF 174, and other network functions. Each of the UPFs 176a and 176b, the SMF 174, and other network functions may be part of the same slice or different slices. When they are part of different slices, they may be isolated from each other in the sense that they may utilize different computing resources, security credentials, etc.

The core network 109 may facilitate communications with other networks. For example, the core network 109 may include or may communicate with an IP gateway, such as an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) server, that serves as an interface between the 5G core network 109 and the PSTN 108. For example, the core network 109 may include or be in communication with a Short Message Service (SMS) service center that facilitates communication via a short message service. For example, the 5G core network 109 may facilitate the exchange of non-IP data packets between WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c and a server or application function 188. In addition, the core network 170 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, and 102c with access to the network 112, which may include other wired or wireless networks owned and/or operated by other service providers.

The core network entities described herein and shown in fig. 8A, 8C, 8D, and 8E are identified by the names given to these entities in some existing 3GPP specifications, but it should be understood that these entities and functions may be identified by other names in the future, and that some entities or functions may be combined in specifications that are disclosed by the 3GPP in the future, including future 3GPP NR specifications. Thus, the particular network entities and functions described and illustrated in fig. 8A, 8B, 8C, 8D, and 8E are provided by way of example only, and it should be understood that the subject matter disclosed and claimed herein may be embodied or implemented in any similar communication system, whether currently defined or defined in the future.

Fig. 5E illustrates an exemplary communication system 111 in which the systems, methods, and apparatus described herein may be used. The communication system 111 may include a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) A, B, C, D, E, F, a base station gNB 121, a V2X server 124, and Road Side Units (RSUs) 123a and 123b. Indeed, the concepts presented herein may be applied to any number of WTRUs, base stations gNB, V2X networks, and/or other network elements. One or several or all of the WTRUs a, B, C, D, E and F may be outside the range of the access network coverage 131. WTRUs a, B, and C form a V2X group, where WTRU a may be the group leader and WTRUs B and C are group members.

If WTRUs a, B, C, D, E, and F are within access network coverage 131, they may communicate with each other over Uu interface 129 via the gNB 121. In the example of fig. 5E, WTRUs B and F are shown within access network coverage 131. WTRUs a, B, C, D, E, and F may communicate directly with each other via a side-link interface (e.g., PC5 or NR PC 5), such as interfaces 125a, 125b, or 128, whether they are within access network coverage 131 or outside access network coverage 131. For example, in the example of fig. 5E, WRTU D, which may be outside of access network coverage 131, communicates with WTRU F, which may be inside of coverage 131.

WTRUs a, B, C, D, E, and F may communicate with RSUs 123a or 123b via a vehicle-to-network (V2N) 133 or a side-link interface 125 b. WTRUs a, B, C, D, E, and F may communicate with V2X server 124 via a vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) interface 127. WTRUs a, B, C, D, E, and F may communicate with another UE via a vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) interface 128.

Fig. 5F may be a block diagram of an exemplary apparatus or device WTRU 102 (such as the WTRU 102 of fig. 5A, 8B, 8C, 8D, or 8E) that may be configured for wireless communication and operation in accordance with the systems, methods, and apparatus described herein. As shown in fig. 5F, the exemplary WTRU 102 may include a processor 118, a transceiver 120, a transmit/receive element 122, a speaker/microphone 124, a keypad 126, a display/touchpad/indicator 128, non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132, a power source 134, a Global Positioning System (GPS) chipset 136, and/or other peripheral devices 138. It should be appreciated that the WTRU 102 may include any sub-combination of the foregoing elements. In addition, base stations 114a and 114B and/or nodes that base stations 114a and 114B may represent, such as, but not limited to, transceiver stations (BTSs), node bs, site controllers, access Points (APs), home node bs, evolved home node bs (enodebs), home evolved node bs (henbs), home evolved node B gateways, next generation node bs (gNode-bs), proxy nodes, and the like, may include some or all of the elements depicted in fig. 5F and described herein.

The processor 118 may be a general purpose processor, a special purpose processor, a conventional processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in association with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) circuits, any other type of Integrated Circuit (IC), a state machine, or the like. The processor 118 may perform signal coding, data processing, power control, input/output processing, and/or any other functions that enable the WTRU 102 to operate in a wireless environment. The processor 118 may be coupled to a transceiver 120, which may be coupled to a transmit/receive element 122. Although fig. 5F depicts the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 as separate components, it should be understood that the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 may be integrated together in an electronic package or chip.

The transmit/receive element 122 of a UE may be configured to transmit signals to or receive signals from a base station (e.g., base station 114a of fig. 5A) over air interfaces 115/116/117, or to transmit signals to or receive signals from another UE over air interfaces 115d/116d/117 d. For example, the transmit/receive element 122 may be an antenna configured to transmit and/or receive RF signals. The transmit/receive element 122 may be an emitter/detector configured to emit and/or receive, for example, IR signals, UV signals, or visible light signals. The transmit/receive element 122 may be configured to transmit and receive both RF signals and optical signals. It should be appreciated that the transmit/receive element 122 may be configured to transmit and/or receive any combination of wireless signals or wired signals.

Further, although the transmit/receive element 122 may be depicted as a single element in fig. 5F, the WTRU 102 may include any number of transmit/receive elements 122. More specifically, the WTRU 102 may employ MIMO technology. Accordingly, the WTRU 102 may include two or more transmit/receive elements 122 (e.g., multiple antennas) for transmitting and receiving wireless signals over the air interfaces 115/116/117.

The transceiver 120 may be configured to modulate signals to be transmitted by the transmit/receive element 122 and demodulate signals received by the transmit/receive element 122. As noted above, the WTRU 102 may have multi-mode capabilities. Thus, the transceiver 120 may include multiple transceivers for enabling the WTRU 102 to communicate via multiple RATs (e.g., NR and IEEE 802.11 or NR and E-UTRA) or with the same RAT via multiple beams to different RRH, TRP, RSU or nodes.

The processor 118 of the WTRU 102 may be coupled to and may receive user input data from a speaker/microphone 124, a keypad 126, and/or a display/touchpad/indicator 128 (e.g., a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) display unit or an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display unit), the processor 118 may also output user data to the speaker/microphone 124, the keypad 126, and/or the display/touchpad/indicator 128.

The processor 118 may receive power from the power source 134 and may be configured to distribute and/or control power to other components in the WTRU 102. The power source 134 may be any suitable device for powering the WTRU 102. For example, the power source 134 may include one or more dry cell batteries, solar cells, fuel cells, and the like.

The processor 118 may also be coupled to a GPS chipset 136, which may be configured to provide location information (e.g., longitude and latitude) regarding the current location of the WTRU 102. In addition to or in lieu of information from the GPS chipset 136, the WTRU 102 may receive location information from base stations (e.g., base stations 114a, 114 b) over the air interface 115/116/117 and/or determine its location based on the timing of signals received from two or more nearby base stations. It should be appreciated that the WTRU 102 may obtain the location information by any suitable location determination method.

The processor 118 may also be coupled to other peripheral devices 138, which may include one or more software modules and/or hardware modules that provide additional features, functionality, and/or wired or wireless connections. For example, the peripheral device 138 may include various sensors, such as accelerometers, biometric (e.g., fingerprint) sensors Sensor, electronic compass, satellite transceiver, digital camera (for photo or video), universal Serial Bus (USB) port or other interconnect interface, vibration device, television transceiver, hands-free headset,Modules, frequency Modulation (FM) radio units, digital music players, media players, video game player modules, internet browsers, and the like.

The WTRU 102 may be included in other apparatuses or devices such as sensors, consumer electronics, wearable devices (such as smart watches or smart clothing), medical or electronic health devices, robots, industrial equipment, drones, vehicles (such as automobiles, trucks, trains, or planes). The WTRU 102 may connect to other components, modules, or systems of such apparatuses or devices via one or more interconnect interfaces, such as an interconnect interface that may include one of the peripherals 138.

Fig. 5G may be a block diagram of an exemplary computing system 90 in which one or more devices of the communication networks shown in fig. 8A, 8C, 8D, and 8E, such as some nodes or functional entities in RANs 103/104/105, core networks 106/107/109, PSTN 108, internet 110, other networks 112, or network services 113, may be embodied. The computing system 90 may comprise a computer or server and may be controlled primarily by computer readable instructions, which may be in the form of software, wherever such software is stored or accessed by whatever means. Such computer readable instructions may be executed within processor 91 to cause computing system 90 to operate. Processor 91 may be a general-purpose processor, a special-purpose processor, a conventional processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in association with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) circuits, any other type of Integrated Circuit (IC), a state machine, or the like. Processor 91 may perform signal encoding, data processing, power control, input/output processing, and/or any other functionality that enables computing system 90 to operate in a communication network. Coprocessor 81 may be an optional processor, different from main processor 91, that may perform additional functions or assist processor 91. Processor 91 and/or coprocessor 81 may receive, generate, and process data related to the methods and apparatus disclosed herein.

In operation, processor 91 fetches instructions, decodes and executes instructions, and transfers information to and from other resources via the main data transfer path (system bus 80) of the computing system. Such a system bus connects the components in computing system 90 and defines a medium for data exchange. The system bus 80 typically includes data lines for transmitting data, address lines for transmitting addresses, and control lines for transmitting interrupts and for operating the system bus. An example of such a system bus 80 may be a PCI (peripheral component interconnect) bus.

The memory coupled to the system bus 80 includes Random Access Memory (RAM) 82 and Read Only Memory (ROM) 93. Such memories include circuitry that allows information to be stored and retrieved. ROM 93 typically contains stored data that cannot be easily modified. The data stored in RAM 82 may be read or changed by processor 91 or other hardware device. Access to RAM 82 and/or ROM 93 may be controlled by memory controller 92. The memory controller 92 may provide address translation functionality that translates virtual addresses into physical addresses as instructions are executed. The memory controller 92 may also provide memory protection functions that isolate processes within the system and isolate system processes from user processes. Thus, a program running in the first mode may only access memory mapped by its own process virtual address space; unless memory sharing between processes has been set, it cannot access memory within the virtual address space of another process.

In addition, the computing system 90 may contain a peripheral controller 83 responsible for delivering instructions from the processor 91 to peripheral devices, such as a printer 94, keyboard 84, mouse 95, and disk drive 85.

The display 86, which may be controlled by the display controller 96, may be used to display visual output generated by the computing system 90. Such visual outputs may include text, graphics, animated graphics, and video. The visual output can be provided in the form of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The display 86 may be implemented with a CRT-based video display, an LCD-based flat panel display, a gas plasma-based flat panel display, or a touch pad. The display controller 96 includes the electronics necessary to generate the video signals that may be sent to the display 86.

Further, the computing system 90 may contain communications circuitry such as, for example, a wireless or wired network adapter 97 that may be used to connect the computing system 90 to external communications networks or devices such as the RANs 103/104/105, core networks 106/107/109, PSTN 108, internet 110, WTRU 102, or other networks 112 of fig. 8A, 8B, 8C, 8D, and 8E to enable the computing system 90 to communicate with other nodes or functional entities of those networks. Communication circuitry alone or in combination with processor 91 may be used to perform the transmit and receive steps of certain apparatus, nodes or functional entities described herein.

It should be understood that any or all of the apparatus, systems, methods, and processes described herein can be embodied in the form of computer-executable instructions (e.g., program code) stored on a computer-readable storage medium, which when executed by a processor (such as processor 118 or 91) cause the processor to perform and/or implement the systems, methods, and processes described herein. In particular, any of the steps, operations, or functions described herein may be implemented in the form of such computer-executable instructions executed on a processor of a computing system or device configured for wireless and/or wired network communications. Computer-readable storage media include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any non-transitory (e.g., tangible or physical) method or technology for storage of information, but such computer-readable storage media do not include signals. Computer-readable storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital Versatile Disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other tangible or physical medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by a computing system.

Claims

1. A method, the method comprising:

receiving, by a User Equipment (UE), a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message from a network node, the RRC message including an indication of deactivation of a Secondary Cell Group (SCG) and a behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated;

storing, by the UE, information comprising the behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated;

receiving, by the UE, one or more further UE behavior instructions from the network node; and

replacing, by the UE in the stored information, the behavior of the UE when reactivating the SCG with the one or more additional UE instructions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more additional UE behavior instructions are included in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) reconfiguration message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the RRC further comprises one or more radio measurement configurations to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more radio measurement configurations include an indication to reduce measurement of radio resource management parameters.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the behavior of the UE when reactivating the SCG is based on collective data rate requirements of one or more applications running in an operating system of the UE.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the collective data rate requirement is based at least in part on dynamic changes in one or more of data rate, delay, or one or more quality of service attributes.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the collective data rate requirements are based at least in part on one or more of termination of an application, a change in an operating mode, or a start-up of an application.

8. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

determining, by the UE, an evaluation metric comprising significance of dynamic changes in data rate or one or more quality of service attributes; and

transmitting, by the UE, the evaluation metric to the network node, wherein the behavior of the UE upon reactivating the SCG is based on the evaluation metric.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining, by the UE, a threshold value of the evaluation metric, wherein the significance of the dynamic change is determined based on a comparison of the evaluation metric to the determined threshold value.

10. An apparatus, the apparatus being a User Equipment (UE) comprising a processor, communication circuitry, and memory, the memory comprising instructions that when executed by the processor cause the apparatus to:

Receiving a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, the RRC message including an indication of deactivation of a Secondary Cell Group (SCG) and a behavior of the UE when the SCG is re-activated;

storing information comprising the behavior of the UE when reactivating the SCG;

receiving one or more further UE behaviour instructions; and

replacing the behavior of the UE upon reactivation of the SCG with the one or more further UE instructions in the stored information.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more additional UE behavior instructions are included in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) reconfiguration message.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the RRC further comprises one or more radio measurement configurations to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more radio measurement configurations comprise an indication to reduce measurement of radio resource management parameters.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the behavior of the UE when reactivating the SCG is based on collective data rate requirements of one or more applications running in an operating system of the UE.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the collective data rate requirement is based at least in part on dynamic changes in one or more of data rate, delay, or one or more quality of service attributes.

16. The device of claim 14, wherein the collective data rate requirements are based at least in part on dynamic changes in one or more of termination of an application, termination of traffic, change of operating mode, or start-up of an application.

17. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the instructions further cause the apparatus to:

determining an evaluation metric comprising significance of dynamic changes in the data rate or one or more quality of service attributes; and

the evaluation metric is transmitted, wherein the behavior of the UE upon reactivation of the SCG is based on the evaluation metric.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the instructions further cause the device to determine a threshold value for the evaluation metric, wherein the significance of the dynamic change is determined based on a comparison of the evaluation metric to the determined threshold value.

19. An apparatus, the apparatus being a next generation node B (gNB) comprising a processor, communication circuitry, and memory, the memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to:

Determining an indication of deactivation of a Secondary Cell Group (SCG);

determining a behavior of a User Equipment (UE) when reactivating the SCG;

determining a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, the RRC message including the indication of the deactivation of the SCG and the behavior of the UE when reactivating the SCG;

transmitting the RRC to the UE;

determining one or more additional UE behavior instructions;

determining a Radio Resource Control (RRC) reconfiguration message including the one or more further UE behaviour instructions; and

transmitting the RRC reconfiguration message to the UE.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the RRC reconfiguration message includes one or more radio measurement configurations to be performed by the UE when the SCG is deactivated.