CN117459985A

CN117459985A - Beam indication method, device and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN117459985A
Application number: CN202210833928.2A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 骆亚娟; 高秋彬; 李辉
Original assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Current assignee: Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd
Priority date: 2022-07-15
Filing date: 2022-07-15
Publication date: 2024-01-26

Abstract

The disclosure provides a beam indication method, a beam indication device and a storage medium. The method comprises the following steps: and measuring the reference signal indicated by the first TCI state according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result. And when the measurement result meets the triggering condition, sending beam indication information to the network equipment, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating the candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI state. The beam update mechanism is changed, the terminal equipment automatically performs beam measurement according to the configuration information, and when the measurement result is determined to meet the trigger condition, the terminal equipment actively transmits beam indication information to the network equipment so as to request the beam to be updated to the beam corresponding to the candidate TCI state, so that the interaction process required in the implementation process of the beam update can be effectively reduced, and the time delay of the beam update can be effectively reduced.

Description

Beam indication method, device and storage medium

Technical Field

The disclosure relates to the field of communication technologies, and in particular, to a beam indication method, a beam indication device and a storage medium.

Background

In a communication process such as high frequency communication, a network device and a terminal device communicate through a beam having directivity.

The current beam updating mechanism is that a network device sends resources required by beam measurement to a terminal device, the terminal device measures the resources sent by the network device and reports a measurement result to the network device, the network device determines an updated beam according to the measurement result reported by the terminal device and sends information of the updated beam to the terminal device, and the terminal device feeds back confirmation information to the network device, so that the updated beam can be confirmed to take effect.

Therefore, the beam update mechanism in the prior art needs to perform a complicated interaction process, which results in a larger delay of beam update.

Disclosure of Invention

The disclosure provides a beam indication method, a beam indication device and a storage medium.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a beam indicating method, including:

measuring a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result;

and when the measurement result meets the triggering condition, sending beam indication information to the network equipment, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating the candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI state.

In one embodiment, the configuration information includes first indication information, where the first indication information is used to indicate the first TCI state.

In one embodiment, the configuration information further includes the trigger condition;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the measurement result of each reference signal is larger than a first threshold;

the measurement of the presence of at least one reference signal is greater than the first threshold;

the difference between the maximum value of the measurement results of each reference signal and the average value of the measurement results of each reference signal is larger than a second threshold;

the difference between the minimum value in the measurement results of each reference signal and the average value of the measurement results of each reference signal is larger than the second threshold;

in the measurement results of the reference signals, the difference value of the measurement results of any two reference signals is larger than a third threshold;

in the measurement results of each reference signal, there is a difference between the measurement results of at least two reference signals greater than a third threshold.

In one embodiment, the sending the beam indication information to the network device includes:

determining a first PRACH resource corresponding to the candidate TCI state according to the corresponding relation between the PRACH resource and the TCI state, wherein the first PRACH resource comprises a first random access RA time and a first access preamble;

The first access preamble is transmitted on the first RA occasion to indicate the beam indication information to a network device.

and transmitting beam indication information to the network equipment on the first uplink resource configured by the terminal equipment by adopting the MAC CE.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises:

and sending a Scheduling Request (SR) to the network equipment, wherein the SR is used for requesting the network equipment to allocate the first uplink resource.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises:

receiving confirmation information from network equipment and determining the effective time of the candidate TCI state;

starting from the effective moment, adopting a candidate TCI state to communicate with the network equipment;

the effective time is a time corresponding to a first time length after the network device sends the sending time slot of the confirmation information, and the first time length is a preset beam effective time length.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a beam indicating method, including:

and receiving beam indication information sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating candidate TCI states, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI states.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises:

transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

the configuration information comprises first indication information, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating a first TCI state.

In one embodiment, the configuration information further includes a trigger condition;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

in the measurement results of the reference signals, the difference value of the measurement results of at least two reference signals is larger than a third threshold;

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

In one embodiment, the receiving the beam indication information sent by the terminal device includes:

Receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

and determining a candidate TCI state corresponding to a first PRACH resource according to the corresponding relation between the PRACH resource and the TCI state, wherein the first PRACH resource comprises the first RA time and the first access preamble.

and receiving the beam indication information sent by the terminal equipment on a first uplink resource configured to the terminal equipment by adopting the MAC CE.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises:

and receiving an SR sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the SR is used for requesting the network equipment to allocate the first uplink resource.

In one embodiment, the method further comprises:

transmitting confirmation information to the terminal equipment, and determining the effective time of the candidate TCI state;

starting from the effective moment, adopting a candidate TCI state to communicate with the terminal equipment;

In a third aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a beam pointing device comprising a memory, a transceiver, and a processor;

A memory for storing a computer program;

a transceiver for transceiving data under control of the processor;

a processor for reading the computer program in the memory and performing the following operations:

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

In one embodiment, the processor is configured to perform the following operations:

and transmitting beam indication information to the network equipment on the first uplink resource configured by the terminal equipment by adopting a Media Access Control (MAC) control unit (CE).

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a beam pointing apparatus, including a memory, a transceiver, and a processor;

a memory for storing a computer program;

a transceiver for transceiving data under control of the processor;

Transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

Receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

and receiving the beam indication information sent by the terminal equipment on a first uplink resource configured for the terminal equipment by adopting the MAC CE, wherein the MAC CE is transmitted on the first uplink resource configured for the terminal equipment by the network equipment.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a beam pointing apparatus, including:

the processing unit is used for measuring a reference signal indicated by a TCI state indicated by the first transmission configuration indication according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result;

and the sending unit is used for sending beam indication information to the network equipment when the measurement result meets the triggering condition, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating the candidate TCI state and is an indicator of the candidate TCI state.

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

In one embodiment, the transmitting unit is specifically configured to:

In one embodiment, the transmitting unit is further configured to:

In one embodiment, the processing unit is further configured to:

In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a beam pointing apparatus, including:

and the receiving unit is used for receiving beam indication information sent by the terminal equipment, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating the candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI state.

In one embodiment, the apparatus further comprises: a transmitting unit;

the transmitting unit is used for:

transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

In one embodiment, the receiving unit is specifically configured to:

receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

In one embodiment, the receiving unit is specifically configured to:

In one embodiment, the receiving unit is further configured to:

In one embodiment, the transmitting unit is further configured to:

In a seventh aspect, the present disclosure provides a computer readable storage medium storing a computer program for causing a computer to perform the method of the first or second aspect.

The invention provides a beam indication method, a device and a storage medium, in the method, beam measurement is performed by a terminal device according to configuration information, and when a measurement result is determined to meet a trigger condition, the terminal device actively transmits beam indication information to a network device so as to request to update a beam to be a beam corresponding to a candidate TCI state, wherein the configuration information can be configured in advance, so that the terminal device performs beam measurement, determines the candidate TCI state and transmits the beam indication information to the network device, and does not need to wait for indication and interaction of the network device, and an indicator of the TCI state is directly reported by the terminal device. Therefore, the technical scheme of the method and the device can effectively reduce the interaction process required in the implementation process of beam updating, and further can effectively reduce the time delay of beam updating.

It should be understood that the description of the invention above is not intended to limit key or critical features of embodiments of the invention, nor to limit the scope of the invention. Other features of the present invention will become apparent from the description that follows.

Drawings

For a clearer description of the present disclosure or of the prior art, the drawings that are used in the description of the embodiments or of the prior art will be briefly described, it being apparent that the drawings in the description below are some embodiments of the invention, and that other drawings may be obtained from these drawings without inventive faculty for a person skilled in the art.

Fig. 1 is a schematic implementation diagram of a communication scenario provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 2 is a flowchart of a beam pointing method provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the implementation of the TCI state indicator according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an implementation of measurement results provided by an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of overhead of a beam report provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 6 is a schematic implementation diagram of a correspondence provided in an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a second schematic diagram of an implementation of the indicator of TCI state provided by an embodiment of the disclosure;

fig. 8 is a schematic implementation diagram of a reference signal corresponding to TCI state provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a third schematic diagram of an implementation of an indicator of TCI state provided by an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 11 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 12 is a schematic diagram III of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

In the embodiment of the invention, the term "and/or" describes the association relation of the association objects, which means that three relations can exist, for example, a and/or B can be expressed as follows: a exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone. The character "/" generally indicates that the context-dependent object is an "or" relationship.

The term "plurality" in the embodiments of the present disclosure means two or more, and other adjectives are similar thereto.

The following description of the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be made clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present disclosure, and it is apparent that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present disclosure, and not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments in this disclosure, all other embodiments that a person of ordinary skill in the art would obtain without making any inventive effort are within the scope of protection of this disclosure.

The embodiment of the disclosure provides a beam indication method and a device for reducing the time delay of beam update. The method and the device are based on the same application, and because the principles of solving the problems by the method and the device are similar, the implementation of the device and the method can be referred to each other, and the repetition is not repeated.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the disclosure can be suitable for various systems, in particular to a 5G system. For example, suitable systems may be global system for mobile communications (global system of mobile communication, GSM), code division multiple access (code division multiple access, CDMA), wideband code division multiple access (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, WCDMA) universal packet Radio service (general packet Radio service, GPRS), long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE), LTE frequency division duplex (frequency division duplex, FDD), LTE time division duplex (time division duplex, TDD), long term evolution-advanced (long term evolution advanced, LTE-a), universal mobile system (universal mobile telecommunication system, UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (worldwide interoperability for microwave access, wiMAX), 5G New air interface (New Radio, NR), and the like. Terminal devices and network devices are included in these various systems. Core network parts such as evolved packet system (Evloved Packet System, EPS), 5G system (5 GS) etc. may also be included in the system.

The terminal device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be a device that provides voice and/or data connectivity to a user, a handheld device with wireless connection functionality, or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, etc. The names of the terminal devices may also be different in different systems, for example in a 5G system, the terminal devices may be referred to as User Equipment (UE). The wireless terminal device may communicate with one or more Core Networks (CNs) via a radio access Network (Radio Access Network, RAN), which may be mobile terminal devices such as mobile phones (or "cellular" phones) and computers with mobile terminal devices, e.g., portable, pocket, hand-held, computer-built-in or vehicle-mounted mobile devices that exchange voice and/or data with the radio access Network. Such as personal communication services (Personal Communication Service, PCS) phones, cordless phones, session initiation protocol (Session Initiated Protocol, SIP) phones, wireless local loop (Wireless Local Loop, WLL) stations, personal digital assistants (Personal Digital Assistant, PDAs), and the like. The wireless terminal device may also be referred to as a system, subscriber unit (subscriber unit), subscriber station (subscriber station), mobile station (mobile), remote station (remote station), access point (access point), remote terminal device (remote terminal), access terminal device (access terminal), user terminal device (user terminal), user agent (user agent), user equipment (user device), and embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited.

The network device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be a base station, which may include a plurality of cells for providing services to terminals. A base station may also be called an access point or may be a device in an access network that communicates over the air-interface, through one or more sectors, with wireless terminal devices, or other names, depending on the particular application. The network device may be operable to exchange received air frames with internet protocol (Internet Protocol, IP) packets as a router between the wireless terminal device and the rest of the access network, which may include an Internet Protocol (IP) communication network. The network device may also coordinate attribute management for the air interface. For example, the network device according to the embodiments of the present disclosure may be a network device (Base Transceiver Station, BTS) in a global system for mobile communications (Global System for Mobile communications, GSM) or code division multiple access (Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA), a network device (NodeB) in a wideband code division multiple access (Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access, WCDMA), an evolved network device (evolutional Node B, eNB or e-NodeB) in a long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) system, a 5G base station (gNB) in a 5G network architecture (next generation system), a home evolved base station (Home evolved Node B, heNB), a relay node (relay node), a home base station (femto), a pico base station (pico), and the like, which are not limited in the embodiments of the present disclosure. In some network structures, the network device may include a Centralized Unit (CU) node and a Distributed Unit (DU) node, which may also be geographically separated.

Multiple-input Multiple-output (Multi Input Multi Output, MIMO) transmissions may each be made between a network device and a terminal device using one or more antennas, and the MIMO transmissions may be Single User MIMO (SU-MIMO) or Multiple User MIMO (MU-MIMO). The MIMO transmission may be 2D-MIMO, 3D-MIMO, FD-MIMO, or massive-MIMO, or may be diversity transmission, precoding transmission, beamforming transmission, or the like, depending on the form and number of the root antenna combinations.

For a better understanding of the technical solutions of the present disclosure, the related concepts related to the present disclosure are explained first.

1. Beam

The beam may be embodied in the NR protocol as a spatial filter (spatial domain filter), or spatial filter, or spatial parameter (spatial parameter). The beam used to transmit the signal may be referred to as a transmit beam (transmission beam, tx beam), may be referred to as a spatial transmit filter (spatial domaintransmission filter) or spatial transmit parameters (spatial transmission parameter); the beam used to receive the signal may be referred to as a receive beam (Rx beam), may be referred to as a spatial receive filter (spatial domain receive filter) or spatial receive parameters (spatial RX parameter).

The transmit beam may refer to a distribution of signal strengths formed in spatially different directions after signals are transmitted through the antennas, and the receive beam may refer to a distribution of signal strengths of wireless signals received from the antennas in spatially different directions.

Furthermore, the beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam, or other type of beam. The technique of forming the beam may be a beamforming technique or other technique. The beamforming technique may specifically be a digital beamforming technique, an analog beamforming technique, or a hybrid digital/analog beamforming technique, etc.

Alternatively, a plurality of beams having the same or similar communication characteristics may be regarded as one beam.

One beam corresponds to one or more antenna ports for transmitting data channels, control channels, and sounding signals, etc. One or more antenna ports corresponding to one beam may also be considered as one set of antenna ports.

In a high frequency communication system, in order to overcome the path loss, network devices and terminals typically use a high gain antenna array to form an analog beam with directivity for communication. When the directions of transmission and reception are aligned, normal communication can be achieved.

In downlink communication (network device transmission, terminal device reception), the transmission beam of the network device and the reception beam of the terminal device need to be aligned. In downlink communication, the aligned transmission beam of the network device and the reception beam of the terminal device may be simply referred to as a downlink beam pair, or downlink beam. The communication link formed by the downlink beam pair may be simply referred to as a downlink beam pair link.

In upstream communication (network device reception, terminal device transmission), the reception beam of the network device and the transmission beam of the terminal device need to be aligned. In uplink communication, the aligned receive beam of the network device and the transmit beam of the terminal device may be referred to simply as an uplink beam pair, or uplink beam. The communication link formed by the upstream beam pair may be referred to simply as an upstream beam pair link.

The transmit and receive beams of a network device are sometimes also referred to simply as network device beams. The transmit beam and the receive beam of the terminal device are sometimes also referred to simply as terminal device beams (or terminal beams).

When the relative positions of the network device and the terminal device change, for example, when the terminal device moves or rotates, the beams of the network device and the terminal device also change accordingly. The network device may send signaling to the terminal device about the beam change situation. After receiving the signaling sent by the network device, the terminal device updates the used beam according to the information indication of the network device.

The beams generally correspond to resources, for example, when performing beam measurement, the network device may use different beams to transmit signals on different resources, the terminal device uses different beams to receive signals on different resources, and the terminal device may feed back the quality of the signals measured on different resources to the network device, so that the network device knows the quality of the corresponding beams. At the time of data transmission, beam information is also indicated by its corresponding resource. For example, the network device indicates information of the terminal device physical downlink shared channel (physicaldownlink shared channel, PDSCH) beam by means of transmission configuration indication (transmissionconfiguration indicator, TCI) resources in the downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI).

2. Resource(s)

In beam measurement, each beam of the network device corresponds to a resource, and thus the beam to which the resource corresponds can be uniquely identified by the identity (or index) of the resource.

The resource may be an uplink signal resource or a downlink signal resource.

The upstream signals include, but are not limited to: uplink random access sequence, sounding reference signal (sounding referencesignal, SRS), demodulation reference signal (demodulation reference signal, DMRS) (e.g., uplink control channel demodulation reference signal or uplink data channel demodulation reference signal), and uplink phase noise tracking signal.

The downstream signals include, but are not limited to: channel state information reference signals (channel state informationreference signal, CSI-RS), cell specific reference signals (cell specific reference signal, CS-RS), UE specific reference signals (user equipment specific reference signal, US-RS), demodulation reference signals (demodulation reference signal, DMRS) (e.g., downlink control channel demodulation reference signals or downlink data channel demodulation reference signals), downlink phase noise tracking signals, and synchronization signals/physical broadcast channel blocks (synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel block, SS/PBCH block). Wherein SS/PBCH block may be simply referred to as a synchronization signal block (synchronization signal block, SSB).

The resources may be configured by radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) signaling.

Further, beam management resources may refer to resources for beam management, and may be embodied as resources for calculating and measuring beam quality. Beam quality may include, for example, but is not limited to: layer-one received reference signal power (layer 1referencesignal received power, L1-RSRP), layer-one received reference signal quality (layer 1reference signal received quality, L1-RSRQ), layer-one signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (layer 1signal to interference and noise ratio, L1-SINR), and the like. For example, beam management resources may include: synchronization signals, broadcast channels, downlink channel measurement reference signals, tracking signals, downlink control channel demodulation reference signals, downlink shared channel demodulation reference signals, uplink sounding reference signals, uplink random access signals, and the like.

3. TCI state (TCI state)

The TCI state may be used to indicate a quasi co-location (QCL) relationship between two reference signals. The TCI state includes the type of QCL (multiple (e.g., two) different QCL types can be configured) and the reference signal for each QCL type. The reference signal may specifically include: a carrier component (carrier component, CC) Identity (ID) and/or a bandwidth part (BWP) ID, where the reference signal is located, and a number (or reference signal resource identity) of each reference signal resource. The number of the reference signal resource may be at least one of the following: non-zero power (NZP) CSI-RS reference signal resource identification (NZP-CSI-RS-resource id), non-zero power CSI-RS reference signal resource set identification (NZP-CSI-RS-resource id), or SSB Index (SSB-Index).

The information of the transmit beam (i.e., the transmit beam of the network device or the receive beam of the terminal device) may be indicated by the TCI state. Each TCI state includes an own index (TCI state Id) and two QCI information (QCIinformation, QCl-Info).

In the course of the communication thereafter, the terminal device may determine the receive beam based on the TCI state indicated by the network device, and the network device may determine the transmit beam based on the same TCI state.

Furthermore, the TCI state may be globally configured. In TCI states configured for different cells and different BWPs, if the indexes of the TCI states are the same, the configuration of the corresponding TCI states is the same.

And, in the NR protocol, QCL relations can be classified into the following four types based on different parameters:

type a (type a): doppler shift, doppler spread, average delay, delay spread;

type B (type B): doppler shift, doppler spread;

type C (type C): doppler shift, average delay; and

type D (type D): the parameters are received spatially.

On the basis of the above description, the communication scenario in the present disclosure is described below with reference to fig. 1, and fig. 1 is a schematic implementation diagram of the communication scenario provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 1, one network device 10 and a plurality of terminal devices (such as terminal device 201 and terminal device 202 shown in fig. 1) may be included in a communication scenario in the present disclosure, for example. Network device 110 may transmit data for multiple terminal devices by simultaneously transmitting multiple analog beams over multiple radio frequency channels. As shown in fig. 1, the network device transmits beam 1 and beam 2 simultaneously, wherein beam 1 is used to transmit data for terminal device 201 and beam 2 is used to transmit data for terminal device 202.

In general, the reception and the selection of the transmission beam by the terminal device need to depend on the indication information of the beam provided by the network device, for example, the network device sends a signaling to the terminal device, where the signaling may indicate the transmission beam of the physical uplink control channel (physical uplink control channel, PUCCH) resource of the terminal device, and the terminal device may determine the transmission beam of the PUCCH resource after receiving the signaling.

It will be appreciated that in some scenarios, for example when the relative positions of the terminal device and the network device change, the network device needs to update the transmit beam of the resource for the terminal device and transmit the beam update information to the terminal device. The following describes a beam update mechanism in the prior art, and the steps of the conventional beam update mechanism are as follows:

1. the network device transmits measurement resources for beam measurement to the terminal device.

2. And the terminal equipment measures the measurement resources according to the configuration of the network equipment and reports the measurement result to the network equipment.

3. And the network equipment receives the measurement result reported by the terminal equipment and performs TCI state updating according to the measurement result. For example, the measurement result reported by the terminal device in the step 2 includes: cri1+l1-rsrp1=3db, cri3+l1-rsrp3=5db. The network device may use CRI3 as a source reference signal in the new TCI state, for example.

4. The network device sends the MAC-CE/DCI to the terminal device, where the MAC-CE/DCI may be used to indicate the update of the TCI state, and the terminal device feeds back HARQ/ACK information after receiving the MAC-CE/DCI.

5. The new TCI state is in effect.

As will be appreciated from the foregoing description, the conventional beam update mechanism is currently controlled by the network device, and the network device must trigger the beam update procedure, specifically, the network device first transmits the beam measurement resource to the terminal device, so that the terminal device can perform the beam measurement. And the terminal equipment also needs to send a measurement result to the network equipment, the network equipment determines an updated beam based on the measurement result of the beam, and finally the network equipment instructs the terminal equipment to update the beam. And when the terminal equipment reports, the measurement result is specifically reported, wherein the content of the measurement result is more, so that the overhead of an air interface is larger.

And, when the terminal device reports the beam information to the network device, for example, cri+l1-RSRP can be reported, the space-time interface overhead of the currently reported beam information is relatively large.

Based on the above description, the present disclosure proposes the following technical ideas: the change is directly carried out from the mechanism of beam update, and the TCI state update is initiated and controlled autonomously by the terminal equipment. To implement this change of mechanism, the terminal device needs to know what to measure, after the measurement is completed, the terminal device needs to know what situation needs to report the beam update, and the terminal device needs to know how to report the beam update, which starts from these problems, the present application proposes a beam indication method.

The beam pointing method provided by the present disclosure is described below with reference to specific embodiments, and fig. 2 is a flowchart of the beam pointing method provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 2, the method includes:

s201, measuring a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result.

In this embodiment, the network device may configure relevant configuration information for performing reference signal measurement and triggering TCI state update for the terminal device, where the configuration information may include, for example, a first TCI state that needs to perform beam measurement, further may include, for example, a triggering condition, further may include, for example, a specific measurement metric, and this embodiment does not limit specific implementation of the configuration information. However, the information related to the reference signal measurement and the TCI state update may be used as configuration information in this embodiment, and specific contents included in the configuration information may be selected and set according to actual requirements.

The terminal device may measure the reference signal indicated by the first TCI state according to the configuration information, so as to obtain a measurement result. The reference signal indicated by the first TCI state may be, for example, CSI-RS, or may also be SSB, etc., and the specific implementation of the reference signal indicated by the first TCI state is not limited in this embodiment.

It may be understood that the first TCI state in this embodiment may be a TCI state indicated by the network device through the configuration information, where the terminal device needs to perform beam measurement.

And, a reference signal is included in each TCI state, so that the terminal device may perform measurement for the reference signal indicated by the first TCI state when performing beam measurement, where a specific parameter of measurement may be, for example, L1-RSRP/L1-SINR/RSRQ, etc. The measurement result of the measurement may be a measurement of the parameter described above, accordingly. In the actual implementation process, parameters specifically required to be measured can be selected and set according to actual requirements.

And S202, when the measurement result meets the triggering condition, sending beam indication information to the network equipment, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating the candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI state.

After the measurement result is obtained, it may be determined whether the measurement result satisfies a trigger condition, which is a condition for measuring whether to perform beam update reporting in this embodiment. Therefore, when it is determined that the measurement result meets the trigger condition, the terminal device may send beam indication information to the network device, where the beam indication information in this embodiment is used to indicate the candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is used to request the network device to switch the transmission beam of the terminal device to the beam corresponding to the candidate TCI state.

In one possible implementation, the beam indication information may be an indicator of candidate TCI states, where the indicator may be a binary bit of 00, 01, etc., the specific number of bits of the indicator depending on the number of TCI states currently needed to be represented. Or in an alternative implementation manner, the beam indication information in this embodiment may also be an identifier of a candidate TCI state, an identifier of a reference signal included in the candidate TCI state, etc., where the specific implementation manner of the beam indication information is not limited in this embodiment, so long as the beam indication information may implement indication of the candidate TCI state.

In this embodiment, the terminal device directly reports the indicator of the TCI state, so as to inform the network device of the current TCI state. Compared with the implementation mode of reporting the measurement result by the terminal equipment in the prior art, the technical scheme of the application can effectively save the air interface overhead of reporting the information by the terminal equipment because the content of the measurement result is more, and can save the subsequent interaction process at the same time so as to reduce the time delay of beam updating.

It is understood that the candidate TCI state is one or more TCI states in the first TCI state, where the measurement result corresponding to the reference signal of the candidate TCI state must satisfy the trigger condition. In an alternative implementation, it is thus possible, for example, to determine the first TCI state for which the measurement result of the reference signal meets the trigger condition, and then to select the candidate TCI state again among this part of the first TCI states.

The specific selection mode can be selected according to actual requirements, for example, the selection mode can be selected randomly; or the first TCI state corresponding to the reference signal with larger measurement result can be selected according to the measurement result of the reference signal; or sorting can be performed according to the identification of the first TCI state, and then the first TCI state with the first sorting is selected. In this embodiment, the specific implementation manner of determining the candidate TCI state in the first TCI state is not limited, so long as it is ensured that the candidate TCI state selected from the first TCI state meets the triggering condition, and the specific selection number of the candidate TCI state may also be selected and set according to the actual requirement.

The beam indication method provided by the embodiment of the disclosure comprises the following steps: and measuring the reference signal indicated by the first TCI state according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result. And when the measurement result meets the triggering condition, sending beam indication information to the network equipment, wherein the beam indication information is used for indicating the candidate TCI state. By changing the beam updating mechanism, the terminal device actively performs beam measurement and triggers the reporting of beam updating. In the specific implementation process, the terminal equipment can perform beam measurement by itself according to the configuration information, and when the measurement result is determined to meet the trigger condition, the terminal equipment actively transmits beam indication information to the network equipment to request to update the beam to the beam corresponding to the candidate TCI state, so that a series of problems of the terminal equipment, such as measurement of what object, determination of what situation to report the beam update, reporting and the like, can be effectively solved, and further, the interaction process required in the implementation process of the beam update can be reduced, so that the time delay of the beam update is effectively reduced. Meanwhile, when the terminal equipment reports, the indicator of the TCI state is directly reported to the network equipment, and compared with the implementation mode of reporting the measurement result in the prior art, the method can also effectively save air interface overhead.

On the basis of the above description, possible implementations of the configuration information are described in further detail below.

In one possible implementation, the network device may inform the terminal device, for example, via configuration information, whether to perform the beam reporting in the conventional manner described above, or to perform the TCI state reporting initiated by the terminal device described in the present disclosure.

And, the configuration information may include, for example, a plurality of TCI states configured by the network device for the terminal device, for example, the network device may configure 2-3 TCI states for the terminal device. Or, for the case of MTRP (multi-transmission/reception point), the configuration information may further include a plurality of TCI state pairs configured by the network device for the terminal device.

The format of the TCI state configured by the network device for the terminal device may be as follows:

wherein the configuration of the TCI state may optionally include an additional PCU index (Additional PCI Index) in r 17.

It will be appreciated that the above-described TCI states configured by the network device for the terminal device are not TCI states requiring beam measurement, and thus, in an alternative implementation, the network device may further indicate, through the configuration information, the TCI states requiring beam measurement, that is, the first TCI states mentioned in this disclosure. It will be appreciated that the terminal device actually measures the reference signal indicated by the TCI state when performing beam measurements, but the network device indicates the TCI state when performing configuration.

In one possible implementation, the configuration information may include, for example, first indication information, where the first indication information is used to indicate a first TCI state, where the first TCI state includes a reference signal that needs to perform beam measurement. It will be appreciated that the first TCI state is one or more of the TCI states described above that the network device configures for the terminal device.

Possible implementations of the first indication information are described below:

in one possible implementation, the first indication information may be, for example, an identification of the first TCI state.

For example, the network device configures 5 TCI states for the terminal device, which are TCI state1, TCI state2, TCI state3, TCI state4, and TCI state5, respectively. And assuming that the current network device instructs the terminal device to perform beam measurements for TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5. Then TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5 are the first TCI state in this embodiment, and accordingly, the first indication information may be, for example, the identifications of the two TCI states, that is, TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5.

In another possible implementation, the first indication information may be, for example, an Indicator (Indicator) of the first TCI state.

In this embodiment, the respective corresponding indicators may be set for a plurality of TCI states set by the network device for the terminal device, and the indicators of TCI states are described herein in connection with a specific example.

It is also assumed that the network device configures 5 TCI states for the terminal device, TCI state1, TCI state2, TCI state3, TCI state4, TCI state5, respectively. Then the 5 TCI state indicators may be shown in fig. 3, for example, and fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating implementation one of the TCI state indicators provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure.

It can be determined with reference to fig. 3 that the indicator of TCI state1 is 000, the indicator of TCI state2 is 001, the indicator of TCI state3 is 010, the indicator of TCI state4 is 011, and the indicator of TCI state5 is 100.

As will be appreciated based on the present description, the TCI state indicator is actually a binary number of bits, where the number of bits depends on the number of TCI states, so long as the number of bits is sufficient to achieve a distinct representation of the TCI states, and in the actual implementation, the specific indicator of each TCI state may be selected and set according to the actual requirements.

Then in the present example it is also assumed that the network device instructs the terminal device to make beam measurements for TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5. Then TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5 are the first TCI state in this embodiment, and accordingly, the first indication information may be, for example, indicators of these three TCI states, namely 000, 011, 100.

In another possible implementation, the first indication information may be, for example, a whitelist (whitelist) indicating the first TCI state.

It will be appreciated that the whitelist is also composed of a plurality of bits, one TCI state for each bit. When the bit is 0, it indicates that the TCI state corresponding to the bit is the TCI state where beam measurement is required.

The same is described herein in connection with a specific example, again assuming that the network device configures 5 TCI states for the terminal device, TCI state1, TCI state2, TCI state3, TCI state4, TCI state5, respectively. And assuming that the current network device instructs the terminal device to perform beam measurements for TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5. Then TCI state1, TCI state4, TCI state5 are the first TCI state in this embodiment, and accordingly, the first indication information may be, for example, a white list indicating two TCI states, that is, 10011.

In the foregoing description, various implementation manners of indicating the first TCI state that needs to perform beam measurement in the configuration information are described, in the actual implementation process, the implementation manner of the first indication information used for indicating the first TCI state in the configuration information may also be selected and set according to the actual requirement, which is not limited in this embodiment, so long as the first indication information may implement the indication of the first TCI state.

And, a measurement metric (metric) for performing beam measurement may be further included in the configuration information, where the measurement metric may be at least one of the following, for example: L1-RSRP, L1-SINR, RSRQ. The specific choice of measurement metrics can be chosen and known according to the actual needs.

Based on the series of configuration information described above, the terminal device can actively measure the reference signal indicated by the first TCI state, thereby obtaining a measurement result.

Further, the terminal device needs to determine whether the measurement result meets the trigger condition, and when determining that the measurement result meets the trigger condition, the terminal device sends beam indication information to the network device.

A possible implementation of the trigger condition is described below in conjunction with fig. 4, and fig. 4 is a schematic implementation diagram of the measurement result provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure.

First, for a brief description of fig. 4, it is assumed that the first TCI state includes TCI state1, TCI state4, and TCI state5, and that each first TCI state includes a reference signal.

The terminal device measures the reference signal 1 in TCI state1, for example, to obtain a measurement result L1-rsrp1=10db. And the terminal device measures the reference signal 4 in the TCI state4, for example, to obtain a measurement result L1-rsrp4=2 dB. And the terminal device measures the reference signal 5 in the TCI state5, for example, to obtain a measurement result L1-rsrp5=3 dB.

On the basis of fig. 4, various possible implementations of the triggering conditions are described below.

In one possible implementation, the trigger condition may be: the measurement results of the reference signals are all larger than the first threshold.

Here, in conjunction with the example of fig. 4, assuming a first threshold of 3dB, the trigger condition is that the measurement results of the respective reference signals are all greater than 3dB. In the example of fig. 4, that is to say that the measurement results of reference signal 1, reference signal 4 and reference signal 5 are all required to be greater than 3dB. It can be determined in connection with fig. 4 that only the measurement result of the reference signal 1 in fig. 4 is greater than 3dB, and thus the measurement result shown in fig. 4 does not satisfy the trigger condition.

In another possible implementation, the trigger condition may be: the measurement of the presence of at least one reference signal is greater than a first threshold.

Also in connection with the example of fig. 4, assuming a first threshold of 3dB, the triggering condition is that the measurement of the at least one reference signal is greater than 3dB. In the example of fig. 4, that is to say that there is at least one measurement result of reference signal 1, reference signal 4 and reference signal 5 that is greater than 3dB. It can be determined in connection with fig. 4 that the measurement result of the reference signal 1 in fig. 4 is greater than 3dB, and thus the measurement result shown in fig. 4 satisfies the trigger condition.

In another possible implementation, the trigger condition may be: the difference between the maximum value of the measurement results of each reference signal and the average value of the measurement results of each reference signal is greater than the second threshold.

Also in connection with the example of fig. 4, assuming that the second threshold is also 3dB, the maximum value of the measurement results of the three reference signals in fig. 4 is the measurement result (10 dB) of the reference signal 1, and the average value of the measurement results of the three reference signals in fig. 4 is 5dB, wherein the difference between the maximum value of 10dB in the measurement results and the average value of 5dB of the measurement results is 5dB, which is greater than the second threshold, it can be determined that the measurement results of the example of fig. 4 satisfy the current trigger condition.

In another possible implementation, the trigger condition may be: the difference between the minimum value of the measurement results of each reference signal and the average value of the measurement results of each reference signal is greater than a second threshold

Also in connection with the example of fig. 4, assuming that the second threshold is also 3dB, the minimum value of the measurement results of the three reference signals in fig. 4 is the measurement result (2 dB) of the reference signal 4, and the average value of the measurement results of the three reference signals in fig. 4 is 5dB, wherein the difference between the minimum value of 2dB in the measurement results and the average value of 5dB in the measurement results is 3dB, which is not greater than the second threshold, it can be determined that the measurement results of the example of fig. 4 do not satisfy the current trigger condition.

In another possible implementation, the trigger condition may be: and in the measurement results of the reference signals, the difference value of the measurement results of any two reference signals is larger than a third threshold.

The trigger condition in the present example means that it is required to ensure that the difference between the measurement results of any two reference signals is greater than the third threshold. Also in connection with the example of fig. 4, it is assumed that the third threshold is also 3dB, and it is currently necessary to determine the difference between the measurement results of every two reference signals in fig. 4. Referring to fig. 4, wherein the difference between the measurement result (10 dB) of the reference signal 1 and the measurement result (2 dB) of the reference signal 4 is 8dB, the difference between the measurement result (10 dB) of the reference signal 1 and the measurement result (3 dB) of the reference signal 5 is 7dB, and the difference between the measurement result (2 dB) of the reference signal 4 and the measurement result (3 dB) of the reference signal 5 is 1dB. Because the difference between the measurement result of the reference signal 4 and the measurement result of the reference signal 5 is not greater than the third threshold, the measurement result shown in fig. 4 does not satisfy the trigger condition.

In another possible implementation, the trigger condition may be: among the measurement results of the reference signals, there is a difference between the measurement results of at least two reference signals greater than a third threshold.

The trigger condition in the present example means that there is any arbitrary difference between the measurement results of the two reference signals that is greater than the third threshold. Also in connection with the example of fig. 4, it is assumed that the third threshold is also 3dB, and the difference between the measurement results of every two reference signals in fig. 4 is currently determined, as in the case of the difference. Referring to fig. 4, the difference between the measurement result of the reference signal 1 and the measurement result of the reference signal 4 is 8dB, which is greater than the third threshold. And the difference between the measurement result of the reference signal 1 and the measurement result of the reference signal 5 is 7dB, which is larger than the third threshold, so that the difference between the measurement results of the at least two reference signals is larger than the third threshold, and thus the measurement result shown in fig. 4 is satisfied.

While various possible implementations of the trigger condition have been described above, it will be appreciated that a corresponding threshold may be included in the trigger condition, so that the terminal device may perform a corresponding determination. Thus in one possible implementation, the configuration information may further comprise threshold information, where the threshold information may comprise at least one of the first threshold, the second threshold, and the third threshold described above. In the actual implementation process, the specific threshold corresponding to the triggering condition can be selected and set according to the actual requirement.

And in the actual implementation process, the trigger condition can be also included in the configuration information, and the configuration information is configured to the terminal device by the network device. Or, the triggering condition may be pre-agreed by the network device and the terminal device, or the triggering condition may be dynamically indicated by the network device to the terminal device, and the specific configuration mode of the triggering condition is not limited in this embodiment, and may be selected and set according to actual requirements.

The foregoing describes a possible implementation of the content included in the configuration information, and in an actual implementation, the configuration information may be indicated by RRC signaling, for example, or it may be indicated by the remaining manner, which is not limited in this embodiment.

Based on the above-described configuration information, the terminal device may perform corresponding measurement and determination, and when determining that the measurement result meets the trigger condition, may determine the candidate TCI state, and send beam indication information to the network device.

It can be understood that the measurement result of the reference signal indicated by the candidate TCI state must meet the trigger condition described above, and on this basis, the specific implementation of selecting the candidate TCI state from the first TCI states meeting the trigger condition can be determined according to the actual requirement.

And, when the terminal device transmits the beam indication information to the network device, the beam indication information may include at least one of the following: identification of candidate TCI state, indicator of candidate TCI state, identification of reference signal indicated by candidate TCI state.

In a preferred implementation, at least the identity of the candidate TCI state and/or the indicator of the candidate TCI state should be included in the beam indication information, wherein the identity of the reference signal indicated by the candidate TCI state is optional.

It should be noted that, when the beam indication information includes the indicator of the candidate TCI state, the overhead of the air interface of the beam report can be effectively reduced.

For example, it can be understood with reference to fig. 5, and fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of overhead of beam reporting provided in an embodiment of the disclosure.

When the beam reporting is performed in the conventional manner described above, it is assumed that the terminal device performs differential reporting of L1-RSRP, for example, the terminal device may report 4L 1-rsrp+cri. Differential reporting herein means that the first L1-RSRP reported is an absolute value and the subsequent L1-RSRP is a relative value to the first L1-RSRP.

Thus, as shown in fig. 5, the first L1-RSRP is 7 bits and the first CRI is 3 bits (assuming 8 TCI states, each containing one CSI-RS). The first cri1+l1-RSRP1 has a number of bits of 7+3=10 bits.

And the other three L1-RSRPs (L1-RSRP 2, L1-RSRP3, L1-RSRP 4) are 4 bits, respectively, corresponding CRI2, CRI3, CRI3 being 3 bits, 3 bits. The second, third, and fourth cri+l1-RSRP are 4+3=7 bits, and 4+3=7 bits, respectively. Then the overhead of the air interface for one beam report is 31 bits in the conventional manner.

However, in the technical solution of the present disclosure, if the indicator of the TCI state is used to indicate the beam, and if the same is 8 TCI states, the indicator of the TCI state is 3 bits, so in the technical solution of the present disclosure, if the indicator of the TCI state is used, the beam reporting can be completed with only 3 bits of overhead. Therefore, the indicator of TCI state is adopted to indicate beam indication, so that the air interface overhead can be effectively reduced.

Based on the above description, a specific implementation manner of sending beam indication information to the network device by the terminal device is described in further detail below.

In one possible implementation, the PRACH may be employed to carry beam indication information, for example.

In this implementation, the correspondence between PRACH resources and TCI state needs to be preconfigured. The corresponding relation can be the corresponding relation between PRACH resource and TCI state mark; or, the correspondence may also be a correspondence between PRACH resources and an indicator of TCI state; or, the correspondence relationship may also be a correspondence relationship between PRACH resources and reference signals included in TCI state.

After determining the candidate TCI state, the terminal device may first determine a first PRACH resource corresponding to the candidate TCI state according to the correspondence described above, and then transmit beam indication information using the first PRACH resource.

Or if the network device allocates uplink resources to the terminal device, the terminal device may transmit beam indication information using MAC-CE on the uplink resources.

Or, for example, if the network device does not allocate uplink resources to the terminal device, the terminal device may request the network device to allocate uplink resources through the SR, and then send the beam indication information on the uplink resources allocated by the network device by using the MAC-CE.

After the terminal device sends the beam indication information, if the network device determines that the terminal device can use the current candidate TCI state, the terminal device can, for example, receive acknowledgement information from the network device, and then the terminal device can use the candidate TCI state to communicate with the network device.

The effective time of the candidate TCI state may be n+k, where n may be a time slot in which the network device sends acknowledgement information, and K may be a predefined beam effective duration.

Based on the above description, since there are three possible implementations of the terminal device transmitting the beam indication information, the overall flow of beam update will be described in further detail below in connection with three complete embodiments.

Example 1:

1. the network device may configure, through RRC, a beam reporting manner of the terminal device to report a beam triggered by the terminal device.

2. The network device configures two TCI states, TCI-state1 and TCI-state2, respectively, through RRC. The reference signal (reference signal) included in qcl-info in TCI-state1 is CSI-RS1, and the reference signal included in qcl-info in TCI-state2 is CSI-RS2.

3. The network equipment configures trigger conditions for the terminal equipment to update and report the TCI state. In the present example, the trigger condition may be, for example: the difference between the measurements of the reference signals contained in any two TCI-states is greater than a third threshold, say 3dB.

In the actual implementation process, the selection of the triggering condition can be set according to the actual requirement.

4. The network device configures a correspondence, where the correspondence may be, for example, a correspondence between PRACH resources and TCI state or a reference signal included in TCI state.

5. The terminal device measures L1-RSRP1 of CSI-RS1 contained in TCI-state1, assuming that the measurement result is L1-rsrp1=0 dB.

And the terminal device measures L1-RSRP2 of CSI-RS2 contained in TCI-state2, assuming that the measurement result is L1-rsrp2=15 dB.

6. The terminal equipment can determine that the measurement result meets the triggering condition, and then trigger the TCI state update reporting by the terminal equipment. In one possible implementation, TCI state2 may be determined as a candidate TCI state, for example.

Specifically, the terminal device may determine, for example, according to a preset correspondence, a first PARCH resource corresponding to the candidate TCI state.

The correspondence may be shown in fig. 6, for example, and fig. 6 is a schematic implementation diagram of the correspondence provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure.

Referring to fig. 6, a first PRACH resource corresponding to TCI state2 is included in the correspondence, wherein the first PRACH resource includes RA occasion (occalasion) =5, and index of access preamble (preableindex) =3.

After that, the terminal device may send beam indication information using the first PRACH resource, and specifically, the terminal device may send a preamble (preamble) corresponding to preamble index=3 on the determined RA occalasion=5.

6. The network device demodulates the preamble of index=3 on the time-frequency resource of RA occision=5. Then, based on the pre-configured correspondence, the network device may determine that the TCI state corresponding to RA ocvision=5 and preableindex=3 is TCI state2, and then the network device may determine that the TCI state selected by the terminal device is TCI state 2.

It will be appreciated that in the current implementation, the terminal device indicates the beam indication information by sending a corresponding preamble of preamble index=3 on RA occision=5.

7. The network device sends the confirmation information to the terminal device in the nth time slot to confirm the new TCI state reported by the terminal device.

8. Both the terminal device and the network device may determine the effective time of the new beam to be n+k OFDM symbol. Where K is a preset beam validation time period.

Thereafter, the network device may transmit PDSCH/PDCCH with TCI state2 after the n+kχ OFDM symbol. And, the terminal device may receive PDSCH/PDCCH transmitted by the base station with the reception beam of CSI-RS2 after the n+kth OFDM symbol.

An implementation manner of carrying beam indication information by using the MAC CE is described in connection with embodiment 2.

Example 2:

2. The network device configures 5 TCI states through RRC, which are respectively: TCI-state1, TCI-state12, TCI-state13, TCI-state24, TCI-state25.

The reference signals contained in qcl-info in these 5 TCI-states are: SSB1, SSB2, SSB3, SSB4, SSB5.

3. The network equipment configures trigger conditions for the terminal equipment to update and report the TCI state. In the present example, the trigger condition may be, for example: the difference between the maximum value of the measurements of the respective reference signal and the average value of the measurements of the respective reference signal is greater than a second threshold, which is say 3dB.

4. The network device indicates the relationship between the TCI-state and the Indicator through the MAC-CE, where the specific relationship may be shown in fig. 7, and fig. 7 is a second schematic implementation diagram of the Indicator of the TCI state according to the embodiment of the present disclosure.

5. The terminal device respectively measures the L1-RSRP of the SSB contained in each TCI-state, and the measurement results are assumed to be: l1_rsrp1=10 dB, l1_rsrp2=2 dB, l1_rsrp3=3 dB, l1_rsrp4=7 dB, l1_rsrp5=6 dB.

6. The terminal device may calculate the average value of all measurement results L1-RSRP to be L1-RSRP-avg= 6.5462dB. And, the maximum value in the measurement result of each reference signal is L1-rsrp1=10 dB.

The current terminal device may determine that L1-RSRP 1-L1-RSRP-avg=3.4538 db >3db, and thus may determine that the measurement result satisfies the trigger condition. And then the terminal equipment triggers the TCI state update report. In one possible implementation, TCI state1 may be determined as a candidate TCI state, for example.

7. The terminal equipment carries beam indication information corresponding to the TCI state1 on the MAC-CE.

The beam indication information may be, for example, an indicator corresponding to TCI state1, that is, as shown in fig. 7: 000; alternatively, the beam indication information may be information of SSB1 contained in TCI state 1; alternatively, the beam indication information may also be an identification of TCI state1, i.e., TCI state1.

And, the MAC CE for carrying the Beam indication information may be, for example, a defined new MAC CE, for example, may be referred to as a Beam-Switching-MAC CE, that is, a MAC CE dedicated to carrying the Beam indication information. Alternatively, the MAC CE for carrying the beam indication information may be a multiplexing existing MAC CE, which is not limited in this embodiment.

And, the MAC CE is transmitted on a corresponding PUSCH resource, where the PUSCH resource is allocated by the network device for the terminal device.

8. The network device demodulates the beam indication information contained in the MAC-CE on the corresponding PUSCH resource, for example, the demodulated beam indication information is the indicator of TCI-state 1: 000, the network device may determine that the candidate TCI state selected by the terminal device is TCI state1.

9. The network device sends the confirmation information to the terminal device in the nth time slot to confirm the new TCI state reported by the terminal device.

10. Both the terminal device and the network device may determine the effective time of the new beam to be n+k OFDM symbol. Where K is a preset beam validation time period.

Thereafter, the network device may transmit PDSCH/PDCCH with TCI state 2 after the n+kχ OFDM symbol. And, the terminal device may receive PDSCH/PDCCH transmitted by the base station with the reception beam of CSI-RS2 after the n+kth OFDM symbol.

An implementation of transmitting an SR request to allocate resources to a terminal device and then transmitting beam indication information on the allocated resources is described below in connection with embodiment 3.

Example 3:

The reference signals contained in qcl-info in these 5 TCI-states are: CSI-RS1, CSI-RS2, CSI-RS3, CSI-RS4, CSI-RS5.

4. The network device indicates the relationship between TCI-state and Indicator through MAC-CE, where the specific relationship may be as shown in fig. 7, for example.

5. The terminal equipment respectively measures the L1-RSRP of the CSI-RS contained in each TCI-state, and the measurement results obtained are assumed to be: l1_rsrp1=10 dB, l1_rsrp2=2 dB, l1_rsrp3=3 dB, l1_rsrp4=7 dB, l1_rsrp5=6 dB.

7. Assuming that the network device does not configure the first uplink resource to the terminal device, the terminal device may send an SR to the network device requesting the network device to allocate the first uplink resource for transmission of the beam indication information.

Wherein, the PUCCH resource for sending the SR is configured to the terminal by the network equipment through RRC signaling.

And, the SR herein may be, for example, a newly defined SR, for example, may be referred to as SR-beam-switching, or may be multiplexing an existing SR, which is not limited in this embodiment.

8. The network device receives the SR request sent by the terminal device, and sends an UL grant (uplink grant) in the nth time slot, so as to allocate resources for uplink transmission for the terminal device.

9. The terminal device receives UL grant (DCI format 0_1) sent by the network device, and allocates time-domain and frequency-domain resources for uplink transmission in the UL grant, so that the terminal device may transmit beam indication information on the UL grant according to the time-domain and frequency-domain resources scheduled in the UL grant.

In one possible implementation, the beam indication information may be carried by, for example, transmitting a MAC CE, where the MAC CE is similar to that described above and will not be repeated here. Or, the beam indication information can be carried by the rest information, and the specific implementation mode can be selected according to the actual requirement, so long as the beam indication information is ensured to be transmitted on the uplink resource allocated by the network equipment.

And, the beam indication information is also similar to the above description, where the beam indication information may be, for example, an indicator corresponding to TCI state1, that is, as shown in fig. 7: 000; alternatively, the beam indication information may be information of SSB1 contained in TCI state 1; alternatively, the beam indication information may also be an identification of TCI state1, i.e., TCI state1.

10. After receiving the beam indication information, the network device sends acknowledgement information to the terminal device, for example, in the n+m time slot, so as to acknowledge the new TCI state reported by the terminal device.

11. Both the terminal device and the network device may determine the effective time of the new beam to be n+m+k OFDM symbol. Where K is a preset beam validation time period.

Thereafter, the network device may transmit PDSCH/PDCCH with TCI state 2 after the n+m+k OFDM symbol. And, the terminal device may receive PDSCH/PDCCH transmitted by the base station with the reception beam of CSI-RS2 after the n+m+k OFDM symbol.

In addition, in the foregoing embodiments 1 to 3, the case where the network device configures a single TCI state for the terminal device is described as an example, and it may be determined based on the description that the network device may also configure a TCI state pair for the terminal device. Next, a case of configuring a TCI state pair will be described with a specific example in conjunction with embodiment 4.

Example 4:

2. The network device configures 5 TCI state pairs through RRC, respectively: { TCI state11, TCI state12}, { TCI state21, TCI state22}, { TCI state31, TCI state32}, { TCI state41, TCI state42}, { TCI state51, TCI state52}.

The reference signal included in qcl-info in each TCI-state may be shown in fig. 8, for example, and fig. 8 is a schematic implementation diagram of the reference signal corresponding to the TCI state provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure.

Referring to fig. 8, the reference signal corresponding to TCI state11 may be CSI-RS1, the reference signal corresponding to TCI state12 may be CSI-RS2, and the rest are similar, and will not be described herein.

And, the indicator corresponding to each TCI-state is shown in fig. 9, and fig. 9 is a schematic diagram III of implementation of the indicator of TCI state according to the embodiment of the present disclosure.

Referring to fig. 9, for example, the indicator corresponding to TCI-state11 is 0000, the indicator corresponding to TCI-state12 is 0001, and so on. And will not be described in detail herein.

And assuming that the network device has two TRPs, TRP1 and TRP2, respectively. In one possible implementation, the network device may associate TRP1, TRP2 with the corresponding beam, for example, by a corresponding relationship of coresetpoinolindex and TCI state in CORESET.

3. The network equipment configures trigger conditions for the terminal equipment to update and report the TCI state. In the present example, the trigger condition may be, for example: the measurement result of the reference signals corresponding to the two TCI states in any one TCI pair is greater than a fourth threshold, which is, for example, 5dB.

The specific implementation of the triggering condition is not limited in this embodiment, for example, the triggering condition may also be: the measurement results of the reference signals corresponding to the two TCI states in each TCI pair are larger than a fourth threshold.

4. The terminal equipment respectively measures the L1-RSRP of the CSI-RS contained in each TCI-state, and the measurement results obtained are assumed to be:

L1-RSRP11＝10dB、L1-RSRP12＝2dB、L1-RSRP21＝7dB、L1-RSRP22＝8dB、L1-RSRP31＝8dB、L1-RSRP32＝3dB、L1-RSRP41＝7dB、L1-RSRP42＝2dB、L1-RSRP51＝10dB、L1-RSRP52＝3dB。

6. the terminal device may compare the measurement results of the reference signals corresponding to the two TCI states in each TCI-state pair with the fourth threshold.

Wherein both L1-RSRP21 and L1-RSRP22 are greater than the fourth threshold, it may be determined that the current measurement result meets the trigger condition. And then the terminal equipment triggers the TCI state update report. In one possible implementation, for example, the TCI state21 and TCIstate22 may be determined as candidate TCI states.

7. The terminal equipment carries beam indication information corresponding to the TCI state21 and the TCIstate22 on the MAC-CE.

The beam indication information may be, for example, indicators corresponding to the TCI state21 and the tcist 22, that is, as shown in fig. 9: 0010. 0011; alternatively, the beam indication information may also be information of CSI-RS contained in TCI state21 and tcist 22; alternatively, the beam indication information may also be the identities of TCI state21 and tcist 22.

The MAC CE is similar to that described in the above embodiment 2, and will not be described here again.

8. The network device demodulates the beam indication information contained in the MAC-CE on the corresponding PUSCH resource, for example, the demodulated beam indication information is the indicator of TCI state21 and tcist 22: 0010. 0011, the network device may determine that the candidate TCI states selected by the terminal device are TCI state21 and tcist 22.

Thereafter, the network device may send PDSCH/PDCCH with TCI state21 at TRP1 and PDSCH/PDCCH with TCI state22 at TRP2 after the n+kχ OFDM symbol. And, the terminal device may receive the downlink signal from TRP1 with the reception beam of CSI-RS21 after the n+kth OFDM symbol. The downlink signal from TRP2 is received with CSI-RS 22.

In summary, according to the beam indicating method provided by the present disclosure, a series of information and trigger conditions are configured for the terminal device, so that the terminal device can autonomously perform beam measurement and report beam update, thereby effectively changing the beam update mechanism, effectively saving the interaction flow in the traditional beam reporting manner, and further effectively shortening the time delay of the beam update process. And when the beam indication information is sent to the network equipment, the beam indicator can be sent in the technical scheme of the present disclosure, wherein the beam indicator can effectively save the air interface overhead required by beam reporting compared with other reporting information.

It can be understood that the actions at the network device side correspond to the actions at the terminal device side, and the specific implementation at the network device side may refer to the implementation at the terminal device side described above, which is not described herein.

Fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 10, the apparatus includes: including a memory 1001, a transceiver 1002, and a processor 1003.

A memory 1001 for storing a computer program;

a transceiver 1002 for transceiving data under the control of the processor 1003;

a processor 1003 for reading a computer program stored in the memory 1001 and performing the following operations:

measuring a reference signal indicated by a TCI state of the first transmission configuration indication according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

and transmitting beam indication information to the network equipment on a first uplink resource configured by the terminal equipment by adopting a Media Access Control (MAC) control unit (CE), wherein the MAC CE is transmitted on the first uplink resource configured by the network equipment for the terminal equipment.

It should be noted that, the above device provided in the present disclosure can implement all the method steps implemented by the terminal in the method embodiment, and can achieve the same technical effects, and detailed descriptions of the same parts and beneficial effects as those in the method embodiment in this embodiment are omitted.

Fig. 11 is a schematic diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 11, the apparatus includes: including a memory 1101, a transceiver 1102, and a processor 1103.

A memory 1101 for storing a computer program;

a transceiver 1102 for transceiving data under the control of the processor 1103;

a processor 1103 for reading the computer program stored in the memory 1101 and performing the following operations:

transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

It should be noted that, the above device provided in the present disclosure can implement all the method steps implemented by the network device in the method embodiment, and can achieve the same technical effects, and the same parts and beneficial effects as those of the method embodiment in the present embodiment are not described in detail herein.

Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 12, the apparatus includes:

a processing unit 1201, configured to measure a reference signal indicated by a TCI state indicated by the first transmission configuration indication according to the configuration information, to obtain a measurement result;

and a sending unit 1202, configured to send, when the measurement result meets a trigger condition, beam indication information to a network device, where the beam indication information is used to indicate a candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI state.

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

In one embodiment, the transmitting unit 1202 is specifically configured to:

In one embodiment, the sending unit 1202 is further configured to:

In one embodiment, the processing unit 1201 is further configured to:

Fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a beam pointing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 13, the apparatus includes:

a receiving unit 1301, configured to receive beam indication information sent by a terminal device, where the beam indication information is used to indicate a candidate TCI state, and the beam indication information is an indicator of the candidate TCI state.

In one embodiment, the apparatus further comprises: a transmitting unit 1302;

the transmitting unit 1302 is configured to:

transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

In one embodiment, the receiving unit 1301 is specifically configured to:

receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

In one embodiment, the receiving unit 1301 is specifically configured to:

In one embodiment, the receiving unit 1301 is further configured to:

In one embodiment, the transmitting unit 1302 is further configured to:

It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the division of the units is schematic, which is merely a logic function division, and other division manners may be actually implemented. In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present disclosure may be integrated in one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units may be integrated in one unit. The integrated units may be implemented in hardware or in software functional units.

The integrated units described above, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as stand-alone products, may be stored in a processor-readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present disclosure may be embodied in essence or a part contributing to the prior art or all or part of the technical solution in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, including several instructions to cause a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor (processor) to perform all or part of the steps of the methods of the embodiments of the present disclosure. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a random access Memory (Random Access Memory, RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, or other various media capable of storing program codes.

The embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a computer readable storage medium, where a computer program is stored, where the computer program is configured to cause a computer to execute the method executed by the terminal or the base station in the above method embodiment.

Computer-readable storage media can be any available media or data storage device that can be accessed by a computer including, but not limited to, magnetic memory (e.g., floppy disks, hard disks, magnetic tape, magneto-optical disks (MOs), etc.), optical memory (e.g., CD, DVD, BD, HVD, etc.), and semiconductor memory (e.g., ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, nonvolatile memory (NAND FLASH), solid State Disk (SSD)), etc.

The embodiment of the disclosure also provides a computer program product, which comprises a computer program, and the computer program realizes the method executed by the terminal or the base station in the method embodiment when being executed by a processor.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that embodiments of the present disclosure may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present disclosure may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment, or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present disclosure may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, magnetic disk storage, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The present disclosure is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the disclosure. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer-executable instructions. These computer-executable instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These processor-executable instructions may also be stored in a processor-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the processor-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These processor-executable instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the present disclosure without departing from the spirit or scope of the disclosure. Thus, the present disclosure is intended to include such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.

Claims

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

measuring a reference signal indicated by a TCI state of a first transmission configuration indication state according to the configuration information to obtain a measurement result;

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration information includes first indication information, wherein the first indication information is used to indicate the first TCI state.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the trigger condition is further included in the configuration information;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

in the measurement results of the reference signals, the difference value of the measurement results of any two reference signals is larger than a third threshold; or (b)

4. A method according to any of claims 1-3, wherein said transmitting beam indication information to a network device comprises:

5. A method according to any of claims 1-3, wherein said transmitting beam indication information to a network device comprises:

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the method further comprises:

7. The method according to any one of claims 1-6, further comprising:

8. A beam pointing method for use with a network device, the method comprising:

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

10. The method according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the configuration information further comprises a trigger condition;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

11. The method according to any one of claims 8-10, wherein the receiving beam indication information sent by the terminal device includes:

receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

12. The method according to any one of claims 8-10, wherein the receiving beam indication information sent by the terminal device includes:

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the method further comprises:

14. The method according to any one of claims 8-13, further comprising:

15. A beam pointing apparatus comprising a memory, a transceiver, and a processor;

a memory for storing a computer program;

a transceiver for transceiving data under control of the processor;

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the configuration information includes first indication information, wherein the first indication information is used to indicate the first TCI state.

17. The apparatus according to claim 15 or 16, wherein the trigger condition is further included in the configuration information;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

18. The apparatus of any of claims 15-17, wherein the processor is configured to:

19. The apparatus of any of claims 15-17, wherein the processor is configured to:

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the processor is configured to:

21. The apparatus of any of claims 15-20, wherein the processor is configured to:

22. A beam pointing apparatus comprising a memory, a transceiver, and a processor;

a memory for storing a computer program;

a transceiver for transceiving data under control of the processor;

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the processor is configured to:

Transmitting configuration information to terminal equipment;

24. The apparatus according to claim 22 or 23, wherein the configuration information further comprises a trigger condition;

the triggering condition includes at least one of:

the reference signal is a reference signal indicated by the first TCI state.

25. The apparatus of any of claims 22-24, wherein the processor is configured to:

Receiving a first access preamble on a first RA occasion;

26. The apparatus of any of claims 22-24, wherein the processor is configured to:

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the processor is configured to:

28. The apparatus of any of claims 22-27, wherein the processor is configured to:

29. A beam pointing apparatus, comprising:

30. A beam pointing apparatus, comprising:

31. A processor-readable storage medium, characterized in that the processor-readable storage medium stores a computer program for causing the processor to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 14.