CN117750456A

CN117750456A - Cell switching method, cell switching equipment, storage medium, chip system and product

Info

Publication number: CN117750456A
Application number: CN202410186223.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘旭
Original assignee: Honor Device Co Ltd
Current assignee: Honor Device Co Ltd
Priority date: 2024-02-20
Filing date: 2024-02-20
Publication date: 2024-03-22

Abstract

The embodiment of the application provides a cell switching method, cell switching equipment, a storage medium, a chip system and a product, and relates to the technical field of communication. The method comprises the following steps: receiving a cell switching command, wherein the cell switching command is received under the condition that first indication information exists locally, and the cell switching command comprises a use condition for indicating a transmission configuration indication TCI state when cell switching is executed; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switching command is a mobility LTM cell switching command triggered by an execution layer; and executing the cell switching according to the cell switching command. In this way, the terminal equipment can timely determine the used TCI state through the TCI state use decision, so that effective management of the TCI state in a complex signaling scene is realized, and the terminal equipment can timely perform high-quality communication.

Description

Cell switching method, cell switching equipment, storage medium, chip system and product

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a cell handover method, a cell handover device, a storage medium, a chip system, and a product.

Background

In a communication system, a network device and a terminal device communicate via a beam. In order to solve the beam setting problem between the network device and the terminal device, an ICBM (inter-cell beam management ) mechanism and an LTM (Layer 1/2 triggered mobility, performing Layer triggered mobility) mechanism are specified in the communication system.

Some application scenarios of ICBM mechanism and LTM mechanism in a communication system are exemplified as follows: the terminal first receives an activation indication message (MAC CE, medium access control-control element) under the ICBM mechanism. The terminal then receives a handover command (cell switch MAC CE, cell switch medium access control-control element) in LTM mechanism. Wherein the activation indication information may indicate that the terminal activates a plurality of transmission configuration indication (transmission configuration indicator, TCI) states. The handover signaling may instruct the terminal to perform a serving cell change and activate a new TCI state.

Although the terminal can receive the activation indication information and the handover signaling successively, it is not further proposed how to decide the TCI state used by the terminal from the activation indication information and the handover signaling.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a cell switching method, cell switching equipment, a storage medium, a chip system and a product, which are applied to the technical field of communication. Under the condition that a switching command and activation indication information are received, the cell switching command is utilized to determine the transmission configuration indication state to be used, so that effective management of the transmission configuration indication state in a complex signaling scene is realized, and the terminal equipment can be ensured to perform high-quality communication in time.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application proposes a cell handover method. The method may be performed by the terminal device or may be performed by a component (e.g., a chip or a circuit) configured in the terminal device. The present application is not limited in this regard.

For example, the method includes: receiving a cell handover command, the cell handover command being received in the presence of the first indication information already locally, the cell handover command including a use case indicating a transmission configuration indication (transmission configuration indicator, TCI) state at the time of performing a cell handover; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switching command is a mobility LTM cell switching command triggered by an execution layer; and executing the cell switching according to the cell switching command.

Thus, for the TCI state of the cell handover command and the TCI state of the activation indication information, a usage decision is made to determine the TCI state used by the cell handover command. And further, cell switching is performed by utilizing the determined TCI state, and further, effective management of the TCI state in a complex signaling scene is realized, so that the terminal equipment can perform high-quality communication in time.

Optionally, the cell switch command is received in case the terminal device already has the first indication information.

Illustratively, under the ICBM mechanism, the network device may send a TCI state MAC CE to the UE, which may be the first indication information, and the TCI state MAC CE may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state. The terminal device also supports reception cell switch MAC CE. And cell switch MAC CE may also instruct the terminal device to activate the second TCI state.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first indication information is a medium access control-control element MAC CE or downlink control information (Downlink Control Information, DCI) under an inter-cell beam management ICBM mechanism; in the case where the first indication information is DCI, the first TCI state is one.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, performing cell handover according to a cell handover command may include: if the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, then cell switch is performed based on the at least one first TCI state. Or if a command received before the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, performing a cell switch based on the at least one first TCI state.

That is, the method further comprises receiving a command prior to the cell switch command. The command may be carried in a MAC CE or in a proprietary signaling or RRC message.

The above command or cell handover command indicates the use of at least one first TCI state, which may in particular be at least one first TCI state indicating the activation of a MAC CE using a medium access control-control element.

Further, the above command or the cell handover command is further used to indicate at least one of the following:

indicating an nth first TCI state of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE, N being less than or equal to a number of the at least one first TCI state;

indicating a set of TCI states of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE, the set of TCI states comprising M first TCI states;

The terminal device is instructed to select one of the at least one first TCI state of MAC CE activation.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, at least one of the following is further included:

performing a cell handover with the nth first TCI state in case the nth first TCI state is indicated to be used;

in case the use of the set of TCI states is indicated, performing a cell handover using one first TCI state of the set of TCI states;

in case the terminal device is instructed to select one of the first TCI states, a cell handover is performed using the first TCI state selected by the terminal device.

Optionally, performing cell handover using a first TCI state of the set of TCI states includes:

sending a first request to an original cell, wherein the first request comprises a first TCI state corresponding to a target cell identifier in a TCI state set;

and receiving a response message sent by the original cell, and accessing the target cell by using a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

The terminal equipment transmits a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier in the TCI state set to the original cell through the first request, the TCI state synchronization from the terminal equipment to the original cell is completed, the situation that switching identification or invalid switching occurs because the original cell cannot timely acquire the activated TCI state of the terminal equipment is avoided, and the switching success rate is effectively improved.

Optionally, before performing cell handover using the first TCI state selected by the terminal device, the method further includes:

and sending the first TCI state selected by the terminal equipment to the original cell.

In addition, the above command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, and may specifically be a first TCI state that indicates activation using downlink control information DCI.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementation manners of the first aspect, the method further includes:

and executing cell switching by using the first TCI state activated by the DCI.

Alternatively, the terminal device may select a first TCI state. The cell corresponding to the first TCI state is a target cell. The terminal equipment can timely complete cell switching by executing the selection of the TCI state, and user experience is improved.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the cell handover command includes a second TCI state, the second TCI state being a TCI state activated by the target cell;

executing the cell switch according to the cell switch command, including:

in case the first condition is fulfilled, a cell handover is performed based on the second TCI state.

Further comprises: whether the first condition is satisfied is determined according to the cell handover command, so that the cell handover is performed based on the second TCI state if the first condition is satisfied.

Optionally, the first condition is satisfied, including at least one of:

the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is not used;

the target cell exists in a cell corresponding to at least one first TCI state, and the second TCI state is different from the at least one first TCI state;

the target cell is not present in the cell to which the at least one first TCI state corresponds.

The presence of the target cell in the cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state may mean that the target cell is identical to the cell corresponding to a certain first TCI state. The target cell is not in a cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state, and may include: the target cell identity is different from the cell identity respectively corresponding to the at least one first TCI state.

By indicating whether to use or not use at least one first TCI state, active control of the use of at least one first TCI state activated by the first indication information may be performed, enabling efficient TCI state control.

With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, performing a cell handover based on the second TCI state includes:

if the second TCI state exists in the at least one first TCI state, cell switching is performed based on the same first TCI state as the second TCI state.

Optionally, the method further comprises:

in case the first condition is fulfilled, a deactivation is performed on the at least one first TCI state.

Further, performing deactivation of the at least one first TCI state may include, for example: the communication transmission using the at least one first TCI state is stopped or the at least one first TCI state is excluded from the reserved communication resources.

By performing deactivation on at least one first TCI state, communication resources can be released in time, waste of communication resources is avoided, and utilization rate of communication resources is improved.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first indication information is downlink control information DCI, and the method further includes:

if the target cell does not exist in the candidate cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state, a second request is sent to the original cell or the target cell, wherein the second request is used for requesting the original cell or the target cell to continuously keep the communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state indicated by DCI, and the communication transmission is used jointly with the communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated in the cell switching command.

In this embodiment, the terminal device uses the communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state indicated by the DCI and the communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated in the cell handover command to be used jointly, so that it is ensured that the terminal device can support both communication transmissions, and one of them is used when actually executing data transmission. The two kinds of communication transmission used jointly are mutually complemented, so that normal communication of the terminal equipment can be ensured, and user experience is improved.

In a second aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a cell handover method, which may be performed by a network device, or may also be performed by a component (e.g., a chip or a circuit) configured in the network device. The present application is not limited in this regard.

For example, the method includes: transmitting a cell switching command, wherein the cell switching command is transmitted under the condition that the terminal equipment has first indication information, and the cell switching command comprises a use condition of a transmission configuration indication TCI state when the terminal equipment is instructed to execute cell switching; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switch command is an execution layer triggered mobility LTM cell switch command.

Optionally, the method further comprises: before transmitting the cell switch command, a command is transmitted.

Optionally, the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, and then cell switch is performed based on the at least one first TCI state. Alternatively, the command sent before the cell handover command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, and the at least one first TCI state is used for cell handover of the terminal device.

Under the condition that the original network equipment determines that the terminal equipment executes LTM switching, the original network equipment can instruct the terminal equipment to activate at least one first TCI state through TCI state MAC CE under normal conditions. Or a first TCI state is activated by DCI indication. In addition, the terminal device supports reception cell switch MAC CE at the same time. And cell switch MAC CE may also instruct the terminal device to activate the second TCI state. At this time, the terminal device receives two signaling instructions to activate two TCI states, and if it is not clear which TCI state is specifically used, the TCI state activation of the terminal device is confused. On one hand, cell switching failure is caused, communication interruption or quality reduction is caused, user experience is affected, on the other hand, implementation complexity of terminal equipment is also caused, and power consumption of the terminal equipment is increased. And communication interruption or degradation can be avoided or reduced. Therefore, the technical scheme provided by the application provides a reasonable TCI state activation strategy for the terminal equipment in the LTM switching process, realizes normal activation of the TCI state, and is beneficial to improving user experience.

Optionally, indicating to use at least one first TCI state includes: at least one first TCI state indicating activation using a medium access control-control element MAC CE.

Further, at least one of the following is included:

In different indication states, different cell handover methods may be performed. That is, at least one of the following:

in case the use of the nth first TCI state is indicated, the nth first TCI state is used for performing a cell handover;

in case the use of the set of TCI states is indicated, one first TCI state of the set of TCI states is used for performing a cell handover;

in case the terminal device is instructed to select a first TCI state, the first TCI state selected by the terminal device is used for performing the cell handover.

With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes:

Receiving a first request, wherein the first request comprises a first TCI state corresponding to a target cell identifier in a TCI state set; and sending a response message to the terminal equipment, wherein the response message indicates the terminal equipment to access the target cell by using the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

The terminal equipment transmits a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier to the original cell through the first request, the TCI state synchronization from the terminal equipment to the original cell is completed, the situation that switching identification or invalid switching occurs because the original cell cannot timely acquire the activated TCI state of the terminal equipment is avoided, and the switching success rate is effectively improved.

In addition, in the case of performing a cell handover using the first TCI state selected by the terminal device, the method further includes:

and receiving the first TCI state sent by the terminal equipment. The terminal equipment sends the selected first TCI state to the original cell to realize the synchronization of the switched first TCI state.

Optionally, the cell handover command includes a second TCI state, which is a TCI state activated by the target cell, and the second TCI state is used for cell handover of the terminal device if the first condition is satisfied.

Illustratively, the cell handover command may carry a target cell identity by way of a predefined field, which may be used to determine the target cell. The message body corresponding to each TCI state may carry a cell identifier, and the cell identifier carried by each TCI state may be a candidate cell corresponding to the TCI state.

receiving a second request, wherein the second request is sent when the target cell does not exist in the candidate cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state; the second request is for continuing to keep the communication transmission corresponding to the TCI state indicated by the DCI between the terminal device and the original cell or the target cell, the communication transmission being used in combination with the communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated in the cell handover command.

In a third aspect, a communication apparatus is provided comprising respective modules or units for performing the method of the first aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a communications apparatus comprising means or units for performing the method of the second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect.

In a fifth aspect, a communication device is provided that includes a processor. The processor is coupled to the memory and operable to execute instructions in the memory to implement the method of the first aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a memory. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface.

In one implementation, the communication device is a terminal device. When the processing means of the candidate cell configuration information is a terminal device, the communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface.

In another implementation, the communication device is a chip configured in the terminal device. When the processing means of the candidate cell configuration information is a chip configured in the terminal device, the communication interface may be an input/output interface.

Alternatively, the transceiver may be a transceiver circuit. Alternatively, the input/output interface may be an input/output circuit.

In a sixth aspect, a communication device is provided that includes a processor. The processor is coupled to the memory and operable to execute instructions in the memory to implement the method of the second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a memory. Optionally, the apparatus further comprises a communication interface, the processor being coupled to the communication interface.

In one implementation, the communication apparatus is a network device. When the communication means is a network device, the communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input/output interface.

In another implementation, the communication device is a chip configured in a network device. When the communication device is a chip configured in a network apparatus, the communication interface may be an input/output interface.

In a seventh aspect, there is provided a processor comprising: input circuit, output circuit and processing circuit. The processing circuitry is to receive signals through the input circuitry and to transmit signals through the output circuitry such that the processor performs the first or second aspect and the method in any one of the possible implementations of the first or second aspect.

In a specific implementation process, the processor may be one or more chips, the input circuit may be an input pin, the output circuit may be an output pin, and the processing circuit may be a transistor, a gate circuit, a flip-flop, various logic circuits, and the like. The input signal received by the input circuit may be received and input by, for example and without limitation, a receiver, the output signal may be output by, for example and without limitation, a transmitter and transmitted by a transmitter, and the input circuit and the output circuit may be the same circuit, which functions as the input circuit and the output circuit, respectively, at different times. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the specific implementation manner of the processor and the various circuits.

In an eighth aspect, a processing device is provided that includes a processor and a memory. The processor is configured to read instructions stored in the memory and is configured to receive a signal via the receiver and to transmit a signal via the transmitter to perform the method of the first or second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first or second aspect.

Optionally, the processor is one or more and the memory is one or more.

Alternatively, the memory may be integrated with the processor or the memory may be separate from the processor.

In a specific implementation process, the memory may be a non-transient (non-transitory) memory, for example, a Read Only Memory (ROM), which may be integrated on the same chip as the processor, or may be separately disposed on different chips.

It should be appreciated that the related data interaction process, for example, transmitting the indication information, may be a process of outputting the indication information from the processor, and the receiving the capability information may be a process of receiving the input capability information by the processor. Specifically, the data output by the processor may be output to the transmitter, and the input data received by the processor may be from the receiver. Wherein the transmitter and receiver may be collectively referred to as a transceiver.

The processing means in the eighth aspect described above may be one or more chips. The processor in the processing device may be implemented by hardware or may be implemented by software. When implemented in hardware, the processor may be a logic circuit, an integrated circuit, or the like; when implemented in software, the processor may be a general-purpose processor, implemented by reading software code stored in a memory, which may be integrated in the processor, or may reside outside the processor, and exist separately.

In a ninth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a terminal device, including a processor, a memory, and a transceiver, where the transceiver is configured to receive and transmit data, the memory is configured to store code instructions, the processor is configured to execute the code instructions, and the processor is configured to instruct the terminal device to perform the method described in any one of the foregoing first aspect and any possible implementation manner of the first aspect when the code instructions stored in the memory are executed.

In a tenth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a network device, including a processor, a memory, and a transceiver, where the transceiver is configured to receive and transmit data, the memory is configured to store code instructions, the processor is configured to execute the code instructions, and the processor is configured to instruct, when executing the code instructions stored in the memory, the terminal device to perform the method described in any one of the second aspect and the possible implementation manners of the second aspect.

In an eleventh aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a computer-readable storage medium, in which a computer program or instructions are stored which, when run on a computer, cause the computer to perform the method described in the first or second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first or second aspect.

In a twelfth aspect, the present application provides a chip or chip system comprising at least one processor and a communication interface, the communication interface and the at least one processor being interconnected by wires, the at least one processor being adapted to execute a computer program or instructions to perform the method of the first aspect or the second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect or the second aspect. The communication interface in the chip can be an input/output interface, a pin, a circuit or the like.

In a thirteenth aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a computer program product comprising a computer program which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of the first or second aspect and any one of the possible implementations of the first or second aspect.

In one possible implementation, the chip or chip system described above in the present application further includes at least one memory, where the at least one memory has instructions stored therein. The memory may be a memory unit within the chip, such as a register, a cache, etc., or may be a memory unit of the chip (e.g., a read-only memory, a random access memory, etc.).

It should be understood that the third aspect, the fifth aspect, and the ninth aspect of the present application correspond to the technical solutions of the first aspect of the present application, the fourth aspect, the sixth aspect, and the tenth aspect of the present application correspond to the technical solutions of the second aspect of the present application, and the seventh aspect, the eighth aspect, the eleventh aspect, and the thirteenth aspect of the present application correspond to the technical solutions of the first aspect or the second aspect of the present application, and the beneficial effects obtained by each aspect and the corresponding possible embodiments are similar and are not repeated.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system 100 provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a signaling diagram illustrating an LTM handoff procedure 200;

FIG. 3 is a signaling diagram illustrating an exemplary conditional handoff CHO method 300;

Fig. 4 is a signaling interaction diagram of a cell handover method 400 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective;

fig. 5 is a signaling interaction diagram of yet another cell handover method 500 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective;

fig. 6 is a signaling interaction diagram of yet another cell handover method 600 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective;

fig. 7 is a schematic flow chart diagram of yet another cell switching method 700 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective;

fig. 8 is a signaling interaction diagram of yet another cell handover method 800 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective;

fig. 9 is a schematic flowchart of a cell handover method 900 provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a signaling interaction diagram of yet another cell handover method 1000 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective;

fig. 11 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device 1100 provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a schematic diagram of a possible structure of a terminal device 2000 provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of a possible structure of a network device 3000 provided in an embodiment of the present application, for example, may be a schematic diagram of a base station.

Detailed Description

The technical solution of the embodiment of the application can be applied to various communication systems, for example: long term evolution (Long Term Evolution, LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (Frequency Division Duplex, FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (Time Division Duplex, TDD), universal mobile telecommunications system (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System, UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, wiMAX) telecommunications system, future fifth generation (5th Generation,5G) telecommunications system or new radio access technology (new radio Access Technology, NR), vehicle-to-other devices (Vehicle-to-X V X), where V2X may include Vehicle-to-internet (Vehicle to network, V2N), vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (Vehicle to infrastructure, V2I), vehicle-to-pedestrian (Vehicle to pedestrian, V2P), etc., workshop communication long term evolution technology (Long Term Evolution-Vehicle, LTE-V), vehicle networking, machine-type communications (Machine type communication, MTC), internet of things (Internet of Things, ioT), inter-Machine communication long term evolution technology (Long Term Evolution-Machine, LTE-M), machine-to-Machine (Machine to Machine, M2M), etc.

To facilitate an understanding of the embodiments of the present application, a communication system suitable for use in the embodiments of the present application will be described in detail with reference to fig. 1. Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a communication system suitable for use in the cell handover method and the communication apparatus according to the embodiments of the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system 100 may include at least two network devices, such as the network device 110 and the network device 120 shown in fig. 1; the communication system 100 may also include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 130 shown in fig. 1. Wherein the terminal device 130 may be mobile or stationary. Both network device 110 and network device 120 are devices that may communicate with terminal device 130, such as base stations or base station controllers, via wireless links. Each network device may provide communication coverage for a particular geographic area and may communicate with terminal devices located within that coverage area (cell).

Fig. 1 illustrates two network devices and one terminal device, alternatively, the communication system 100 may include at least one network device and may include other numbers of terminal devices within the coverage area of each network device, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

Each of the above communication devices, such as the network device 110, the network device 120, or the terminal device 130 in fig. 1, may be configured with a plurality of antennas. The plurality of antennas may include at least one transmitting antenna for transmitting signals and at least one receiving antenna for receiving signals. In addition, each communication device may additionally include a transmitter chain and a receiver chain, as will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, each of which may include a plurality of components (e.g., processors, modulators, multiplexers, demodulators, demultiplexers, antennas, etc.) associated with the transmission and reception of signals. Thus, communication between the network device and the terminal device may be via antenna technology.

Optionally, the wireless communication system 100 may further include a network controller, a mobility management entity, or other network entities such as a core network element, which the embodiments of the present application are not limited to.

In this embodiment of the present application, the network device may be any device having a wireless transceiver function. The apparatus includes, but is not limited to: an evolved Node B (eNB), a radio network controller (Radio Network Controller, RNC), a Node B (Node B, NB), a base station controller (Base Station Controller, BSC), a base transceiver station (Base Transceiver Station, BTS), a Home base station (Home evolved NodeB, or a Home Node B, HNB, for example), a Base Band Unit (BBU), an Access Point (AP) in a wireless fidelity (Wireless Fidelity, WIFI) system, a wireless relay Node, a wireless backhaul Node, a transmission Point (transmission Point, TP), or a transmission receiving Point (transmission and reception Point, TRP), etc., may also be 5G, e.g., NR, a gNB (the next Generation Node B, a next generation base station) in a system, or a transmission Point (TRP or TP), one or a group of antenna panels (including a plurality of antenna panels) of a base station in a 5G system, or may also be a network Node constituting a gNB or a transmission Point, such as a disbursed Unit (BBU), or a Distributed Unit (DU), etc.

In some deployments, the gNB may include a Centralized Unit (CU) and DUs. The gNB may also include an active antenna unit (active antenna unit, AAU). The CU implements part of the functionality of the gNB and the DU implements part of the functionality of the gNB, e.g. the CU is responsible for handling non-real time protocols and services, implementing radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC), packet data convergence layer protocol (packet data convergence protocol, PDCP) layer functions. The DUs are responsible for handling physical layer protocols and real-time services, implementing the functions of the radio link control (radio link control, RLC), medium access control (media access control, MAC) and Physical (PHY) layers. The AAU realizes part of physical layer processing function, radio frequency processing and related functions of the active antenna. Since the information of the RRC layer may eventually become information of the PHY layer or be converted from the information of the PHY layer, under this architecture, higher layer signaling, such as RRC layer signaling, may also be considered to be transmitted by the DU or by the du+aau. It is understood that the network device may be a device comprising one or more of a CU node, a DU node, an AAU node. In addition, the CU may be divided into network devices in an access network (radio access network, RAN), or may be divided into network devices in a Core Network (CN), which is not limited in this application.

The network device may provide services for a cell, where the terminal device communicates with the cell through transmission resources (e.g. frequency domain resources, or spectrum resources) allocated by the network device, where the cell may belong to a macro base station (e.g. macro ENB or macro gNB, etc.), or may belong to a base station corresponding to a small cell (small cell), where the small cell may include: urban cells (metro cells), micro cells (micro cells), pico cells (pico cells), femto cells (femto cells) and the like, and the small cells have the characteristics of small coverage area and low transmitting power and are suitable for providing high-rate data transmission services.

The terminal device of the embodiment of the application may include a handheld device, a vehicle-mounted device, and the like having a communication function. For example, some terminal devices are: a mobile phone, tablet, palm, notebook, mobile internet device (mobile internet device, MID), wearable device, virtual Reality (VR) device, augmented reality (augmented reality, AR) device, wireless terminal in industrial control (industrial control), wireless terminal in unmanned (self driving), wireless terminal in teleoperation (remote medical surgery), wireless terminal in smart grid (smart grid), wireless terminal in transportation security (transportation safety), wireless terminal in smart city (smart city), wireless terminal in smart home (smart home), cellular phone, cordless phone, session initiation protocol (session initiation protocol, SIP) phone, wireless local loop (wireless local loop, WLL) station, personal digital assistant (personal digital assistant, PDA), handheld device with wireless communication function, public computing device or other processing device connected to wireless modem, vehicle-mounted device, wearable device, terminal device in 5G network or evolving land mobile terminal (public land mobile network), and the like, without limiting the examples of this.

By way of example, and not limitation, in embodiments of the present application, the terminal device may also be a wearable device. The wearable device can also be called as a wearable intelligent device, and is a generic name for intelligently designing daily wear by applying wearable technology and developing wearable devices, such as glasses, gloves, watches, clothes, shoes and the like. The wearable device is a portable device that is worn directly on the body or integrated into the clothing or accessories of the user. The wearable device is not only a hardware device, but also can realize a powerful function through software support, data interaction and cloud interaction. The generalized wearable intelligent device includes full functionality, large size, and may not rely on the smart phone to implement complete or partial functionality, such as: smart watches or smart glasses, etc., and focus on only certain types of application functions, and need to be used in combination with other devices, such as smart phones, for example, various smart bracelets, smart jewelry, etc. for physical sign monitoring.

In addition, in the embodiment of the application, the terminal device may also be a terminal device in an internet of things (internet of things, ioT) system, and the IoT is an important component of future information technology development, and the main technical characteristic of the terminal device is that the article is connected with a network through a communication technology, so that an intelligent network for man-machine interconnection and internet of things interconnection is realized.

The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may also be referred to as: a terminal device, a User Equipment (UE), a Mobile Station (MS), a Mobile Terminal (MT), an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent, a user equipment, or the like.

In the embodiment of the application, the terminal device or each network device includes a hardware layer, an operating system layer running above the hardware layer, and an application layer running above the operating system layer. The hardware layer includes hardware such as a central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), a memory management unit (memory management unit, MMU), and a memory (also referred to as a main memory). The operating system may be any one or more computer operating systems that implement business processes through processes, such as a Linux (Lin Nasi) operating system, a Unix operating system (Uniplexed Information and Computering System), an Android (Android) operating system, an iOS (Input Output System, mobile operating system) operating system, or a windows (windowed) operating system, etc. The application layer comprises applications such as a browser, an address book, word processing software, instant messaging software and the like.

The specific form of the terminal device is not limited in the present application.

In order to facilitate the clear description of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the following simply describes some terms and techniques related to the embodiments of the present application:

1. cell (cell): the cells are described by a higher layer from the point of view of resource management or mobility management or service units. The coverage area of each network device may be divided into one or more cells, each cell may correspond to one or more frequency points, or each cell may be considered as an area formed by the coverage area of one or more frequency points.

It should be noted that a cell may be an area where a coverage area of a wireless network of a network device is located. In the embodiments of the present application, different cells may correspond to the same or different network devices. For example, the network device to which the cell #1 belongs and the network device of the cell #2 may be different network devices, such as a base station. That is, cell 1# and cell #2 may be managed by different base stations. Alternatively, for another example, the network device managing the cell #1 and the network device managing the cell #2 may also be different radio frequency processing units of the same base station, for example, remote radio units (radio remote unit, RRU), that is, the cell #1 and the cell #2 may be managed by the same base station, in particular, the same baseband processing unit and intermediate frequency processing unit, but have different video processing units. Alternatively, for another example, the network device to which cell 1# belongs and the network device to which cell 2# belongs may be the same network device, such as a base station. That is, the cell 1# and the cell 2# may be managed by the same base station, and in this case, may be referred to as co-sited with the cell 1# and the cell 2# without being particularly limited thereto in this application.

As before, the gNB may include CUs and DUs in some possible deployments. In such a deployment, cell 1# and cell 2# may be managed by the same CU and the same DU, i.e., co-CU and co-DU; cell 1# and cell 2# may be managed by the same CU and different DUs, i.e. co-CU but not co-DU; cell #1 and cell #2 may also be managed by different CUs and different DUs, i.e. not co-CU and not co-DU.

2. And (3) switching: in a wireless communication system, when a terminal device moves/approaches from one cell to another, a handover is required in order to keep communication of the terminal device from terminating. In the embodiment of the application, the source cell represents a cell for providing service for the terminal equipment before switching, and the target cell represents a cell for providing service for the terminal equipment after switching. The related information of the target cell (such as physical cell identity, frequency information, random access resource information required for handover to the target cell, etc.) may be indicated by a handover message sent by the network device to which the source cell belongs (i.e. the source network device) to the terminal device.

The handoff may be an intra-station handoff or an inter-station handoff. Intra-station handover may refer to the source cell and the target cell belonging to the same network device (e.g., a base station), where the source cell and the target cell may be the same cell or different cells. Inter-station handover refers to a situation where the source cell and the target cell belong to different network devices (e.g., base stations). The present application is not limited in this regard.

It should be understood that a cell is a coverage area of a network device, a source cell corresponds to a source network device (e.g., a source base station), and a target cell corresponds to a target network device (e.g., a target base station).

It should also be appreciated that the source cell and the target cell may belong to the same network device, or alternatively, the source cell and the target cell may be co-sited. At this time, for a certain terminal device, the Timing advance (Timing advance TA) corresponding to the target cell may be equal to the TA corresponding to the source cell. The target cell may also be a small cell, where for a certain terminal device, the TA of the target cell may be 0.

3. Random access, is the process by which a terminal device starts to attempt to access a network device that transmits a random access preamble index (preamble index) to establish a connection between the terminal device and the network device. The random access procedure may occur, for example, in a handover, RRC re-establishment, etc. procedure.

Random access can be classified into contention-based random access (CBRA, contention Based Random Access) and non-contention random access (CFRA). Wherein the resources used by the CFRA are CFRA resources, which are dedicated RACH resources. The CFRA resources may include preamble index and time-frequency resources in particular. In NR, the CFRA resource may be a CFRA resource associated with a certain beam of a cell. If the network device configures CFRA resources for the terminal device, the terminal device may initiate a CFRA procedure using the CFRA resources. If the CFRA fails or CFRA resources are not configured, the terminal device may initiate a CBRA. CBRA resources can be understood as common resources, which can be used by terminal devices to initiate CBRA procedures in a contention manner. During the handover procedure, CFRA procedures and/or CBRA procedures may be performed.

The following briefly describes a contention-based random access procedure. The contention-based random access procedure may specifically include the following steps one to four.

Step one, the terminal equipment sends a random access preamble (or random access preamble sequence) index to the terminal equipment through a physical random access channel (physical random access channel, PRACH).

And step two, the network equipment sends a random access response to the terminal equipment. The random access response may include a timing advance TA, uplink Grant (UL Grant) information, a temporary cell radio network temporary identifier (cell-radio network temporary identifier, C-RNTI), and the like.

And step three, after the terminal equipment receives the message/data sent by the terminal equipment on the allocated UL grant resource, if no conflict (or no competition) exists, the network equipment sends a competition resolving message to the terminal equipment, for example, the network equipment sends an RRC establishment message to the terminal equipment. Thereafter, the terminal device may communicate with the network device.

And step four, after the network equipment receives the message/data sent by the terminal equipment on the allocated UL grant resource, if no conflict (or no competition) exists, the network equipment sends a competition resolving message to the terminal equipment, for example, the network equipment sends an RRC establishment message to the terminal equipment. Thereafter, the terminal device may communicate with the network device.

The CRFA flow may include, for example, the following steps (1) to (2).

Step (1): the terminal device transmits a random access preamble index (or random access preamble sequence) to the network device through the PRACH. In the non-contention random access procedure, the random access preamble index is assigned to the terminal device in advance by the network device. That is, the random access preamble index is dedicated.

Step (2): the network device sends a random access response to the terminal device. The random access response may include a TA, UL grant, and the like of the response.

4. Transmission configuration indication (Transmission Configuration Indicator, TCI) state (state): can be used to indicate a quasi co-located (Quasi Co Location, QCL) relationship between the two reference signals. Each TCI state may include an index (servicellindex) of a serving cell, a bandwidth part (BWP) Identifier (ID), and a reference signal resource identifier (reference signal resource identifier), which may include, for example, at least one of: non-zero power (NZP), CSI-RS (Channel State Information-Reference Signal, channel state information Reference Signal) resource identification (resource id), non-zero power (NZP) CSI-RS Reference Signal resource set identification (resource estid), or SSB (Synchronization Signal and PBCH (Physical Broadcast Channel, physical broadcast channel) block, synchronization Signal, and PBCH block) Index (Index).

The TCI may be used to indicate QCL information of a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, abbreviated PDCCH)/physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, abbreviated PDSCH), and specifically may be used to indicate to which reference signal the DMRS of the PDCCH/PDSCH meets the QCL relationship, and then the terminal may receive the PDCCH/PDSCH using spatial parameters (e.g., receiving beams) that are the same as or similar to the spatial parameters of the reference signal. The TCI may specifically indicate, through a reference signal index, which reference signal the DMRS of the PDCCH/PDSCH satisfies the QCL relationship.

The "beam" may also be replaced by other terms. For example, in both data transmission and channel measurement, beams correspond to reference signal resources, one for each reference signal resource. Therefore, the reference signal resource and the QCL relation are referred to herein, and the essential meaning is that the QCL relation is formed by which beam.

5. LTM (Layer triggered mobility, performing layer triggered mobility) handover: the source cell may pre-configure the candidate cells in the LTM handover procedure.

Fig. 2 is a signaling diagram of an LTM handoff procedure 200. In step 201, the terminal device may perform Layer (L) measurement reporting according to the configured candidate cell. The performing layer measurement report may include any layer measurement report such as layer 1 measurement report, layer 2 measurement report or layer 3 measurement report, which is described in the present application, but in practical application, the method for performing layer measurement report is not limited.

The candidate cells may refer to all neighboring cells that the terminal device can access. When the original cell receives the L3 measurement report sent by the terminal equipment, the LTM cell change is decided to be executed. In step 202, in the process of performing LTM, the primary cell may send an LTM handover request to the target cell and the potential target cell in the candidate cell. The target cell and potential target cells may respond to the LTM handover request of the original cell. The original cell receives the LTM switch request response. In step 203, the original cell may also send configuration information of the target cell and the potential target cell to the terminal device through an RRC reconfiguration message. In step 204, after receiving the configuration information of the candidate cells, the terminal device may perform downlink synchronization and uplink synchronization for each candidate cell, respectively. In step 205, the L3 measurements of the original cell and the candidate cell are reported by the original cell, the target cell is determined, and in step 206, an LTM handover command is issued to the UE. The LTM switch command may be carried in MAC CE signaling. The MAC CE may at least contain the following information: time Advance (TA), transmission configuration indication status (Transmission Configuration Indication state, TCI state) identity (Identity document, ID), CFRA resource information, candidate cell configuration information identity. Candidate cell configuration information identification. In step 207, the terminal device receives the MAC CE, and may disconnect from the original cell, perform a random access procedure, connect to the target cell, and perform data transmission through the target cell. And then determines that the LTM cell switch is completed, via step 208.

It should also be understood that the network device of the original cell and the network device of the target cell may be the same device, or the original cell and the target cell may be co-sited. The network device of the original cell and the network device of the target cell may be different devices or the original cell and the target cell may not be co-sited.

It should also be appreciated that the handover message and the above RRC message indicating a handover are described from different angles. The handover message is functionally descriptive and is intended to convey that the message is for instructing the terminal device to handover. RRC messages are described from the perspective of the message type, which is intended to express that the message is higher layer signaling. Wherein the RRC reconfiguration message is an enumeration of RRC messages. In other words, the handover message is issued to the terminal device by higher layer signaling.

It should also be understood that different RRC messages are listed above, such as RRC connection reconfiguration message in LTE, RRC reconfiguration message in NR, etc., which are merely examples for ease of understanding and should not constitute any limitation to this application. The specific name of the handover message for instructing the terminal device to send the handover procedure is not limited in this application.

6. Conditional handover (Conditional Handover, CHO) is a new handover procedure introduced in the R16 protocol: the UE is allowed to decide (by itself) to perform a handover when certain conditions are met, in the conventional handover procedure it is the responsibility of the network (RAN) to decide whether or not a handover should be performed.

Fig. 3 shows an example diagram of a conditional switch CHO method 300. Referring to fig. 3, the ue is under coverage of a serving cell.

Step 301, the UE may perform measurement reporting, such as L1, L2 or L3 measurement reporting, to the source cell.

Step 302, the source cell can make CHO decisions according to the measurement report results to obtain decision results.

Step 303, if the source cell decision result is CHO execution, the source cell requests the candidate cell (including the target cell and the potential target cell) for configuration of the candidate cell and configuration of execution conditions. The candidate cell may then feed back a handover request response to the original cell to send the configured candidate cell and the execution condition to the source cell.

Step 304, the source cell sends the configuration and execution conditions of the candidate cell to the UE through an RRC reconfiguration message; the UE may save the RRC reconfiguration message and perform corresponding configuration, and then the UE may send a feedback message of RRC reconfiguration completion to the original cell. The RRC reconfiguration message may configure a plurality of candidate cells and corresponding execution conditions. One candidate cell may be configured with one or more execution conditions (e.g., event A3/A5).

By way of example, event A3 may refer to: the quality of the adjacent cell is better than that of the original cell, and the handover can be triggered; event A5 may refer to: the quality of the original cell is less than an absolute threshold, while the quality of the neighboring cell is higher than an absolute threshold, which triggers the handover.

After receiving the RRC reconfiguration message sent by the original cell, the terminal may perform evaluation or detection of the conditional handover CHO in step 305, and when at least one candidate message meets the corresponding execution condition, may determine the target cell.

Then in step 306, the terminal device may disconnect the connection with the original cell and connect with the target cell, thereby completing cell handover. After the cell handover is completed, the terminal device may release configuration information of the conditional handover in step 307.

7. Inter-cell beam management (inter-cell beam management, ICBM) may be used to manage beams. Wherein the UE may be under coverage of a serving cell, the TRP of the serving cell may send a message to the UE over a non-dedicated channel/signal. The TRP of a non-serving cell (e.g., neighbor cell) may make the transmission of dedicated information. In the LTE MAC layer, a MAC entity located at the UE may receive activation/deactivation MAC CEs of TCI states. When the MAC CE activates a plurality of TCI states, one of the TCI states needs to be indicated to be used through DCI. When a TCI state is activated, the terminal can use the beam corresponding to the TCI state to perform data transmission.

In the embodiments of the present application, the words "first," "second," and the like are used to distinguish between identical or similar items that have substantially the same function and effect. For example, the first chip and the second chip are merely for distinguishing different chips, and the order of the different chips is not limited. It will be appreciated by those of skill in the art that the words "first," "second," and the like do not limit the amount and order of execution, and that the words "first," "second," and the like do not necessarily differ.

It should be noted that, in the embodiments of the present application, words such as "exemplary" or "such as" are used to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. Any embodiment or design described herein as "exemplary" or "for example" should not be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. Rather, the use of words such as "exemplary" or "such as" is intended to present related concepts in a concrete fashion.

In the embodiments of the present application, "at least one" means one or more, and "a plurality" means two or more. "and/or", describes an association relationship of an association object, and indicates that there may be three relationships, for example, a and/or B, and may indicate: a alone, a and B together, and B alone, wherein a, B may be singular or plural. The character "/" generally indicates that the context-dependent object is an "or" relationship. "at least one of" or the like means any combination of these items, including any combination of single item(s) or plural items(s). For example, at least one (one) of a, b, or c may represent: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, wherein a, b, c may be single or plural.

Currently, the terminal device may support one or more communication protocols at the same time, and the terminal device may receive activation indication information of the TCI state, and may also receive handover signaling, such as cell handover medium access control-control element cell switch MAC CE signaling. The activation indication information of the TCI state may indicate that the terminal activates one or more TCI states, and cell switch MAC CE may also indicate that the terminal activates the TCI state. Therefore, how to determine which TCI state is specifically needed to be activated by the terminal device according to the activation indication information of the TCI state and the cell switch MAC CE information is a technical problem to be solved.

In order to enable the terminal device to activate the corresponding TCI state and perform data transmission normally, a usage decision may be made based on whether one or more TCI states indicated to be activated by the activation indication information of the TCI state and the TCI state indicated to be activated by cell switch MAC CE are the same. In the decision process, the cell handover is performed through the TCI state activated by cell switch MAC CE. The terminal equipment can timely determine the used TCI state, so that effective management of the TCI state in a complex signaling scene is realized, and the terminal equipment can timely perform high-quality communication.

The method provided by the embodiment of the application is described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

It should be understood that the following details of the method provided in the embodiments of the present application are given only for easy understanding and explanation, taking the interaction between the terminal device and the network device as an example. This should not be construed as limiting the subject matter of the methods provided herein. For example, the terminal device shown in the following embodiments may be replaced with a component (such as a chip or a circuit) or the like configured in the terminal device. The network device shown in the following embodiments may also be replaced with a component (such as a chip or a circuit) or the like configured in the network device.

The embodiments shown below are not particularly limited to the specific structure of the execution body of the method provided in the embodiments of the present application, as long as the communication can be performed by the method provided in the embodiments of the present application by running the program recorded with the code of the method provided in the embodiments of the present application, and for example, the execution body of the method provided in the embodiments of the present application may be a terminal device or a network device, or a functional module in the terminal device or the network device that can call the program and execute the program.

Fig. 4 is a schematic flow chart of a cell handover method provided in an embodiment of the present application, which is shown from the perspective of device interaction. As shown in fig. 4, the method 400 may include steps 410 through 460. The various steps of method 400 are described in detail below.

Step 410: the original cell sends a cell switching command, and correspondingly, the terminal equipment receives the cell switching command.

Wherein the cell switch command is received in case the terminal device already has the first indication information. The cell handover command may include a use case indicating a transmission configuration indication TCI state when performing a cell handover, and the first indication information is used to indicate activation of at least one first TCI state. The cell switch command is an execution layer triggered mobility LTM cell switch command.

The original cell may correspond to a network device that covers the original cell, or the original cell may be replaced with the original network device.

In one possible design, the first indication information may be a medium access control-control element MAC CE signaling or downlink control information DCI under an inter-cell beam management ICBM mechanism. In the case where the first indication information is DCI, the first TCI state is one. The first indication information may be specifically a MAC CE under the ICBM mechanism, where the MAC CE may be specifically a TCI state MAC CE, and may be configured to indicate multiple TCI states.

In addition, the first indication information may also be proprietary signaling. The proprietary signaling may refer to signaling specific to the terminal device for carrying data, as distinguished from a common signaling bearer shared by all UEs. The special signaling can be set to realize the specific transmission of the UE, and the data transmission efficiency of the UE is improved.

The first indication information may indicate that the terminal device activates at least one first TCI state. For example, the first indication information may predefine a field to indicate at least one first TCI state. For example, the first indication information may carry 8 first TCI state IDs through a predefined field.

It should be understood that, under the ICBM mechanism, the network device may send a TCI state MAC CE to the UE, where the TCI state MAC CE may be the first indication information, and the TCI state MAC CE may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state.

After receiving the first indication information, the terminal device may also receive a cell handover command cell Switch TCI state.

It should be understood that the terminal device may start the timer to start counting after receiving the first indication information, and receive the cell handover command within the effective duration of the timer. That is, the cell handover command may be received without the timer having expired. If the timer is overtime and the terminal equipment does not receive the cell switching command yet, the cell switching is executed according to at least one first TCI state indicated by the first indication information. That is, in the case where the timer expires, it is determined that the cell handover command reception fails.

For example, the timer may be, for example, a timing duration used by the terminal device at the time of handover, and may be, for example, timers T304, T310, etc. The timer types listed above are exemplary only and should not be construed as limiting the present application in any way.

In addition, a time interval between the time of receiving the first indication information and the time of receiving the cell handover command may be recorded, if the time interval is less than or equal to a preset time interval threshold, step 402 is executed, and if the time interval is greater than the time interval threshold, cell handover is executed according to at least one first TCI state indicated by the first indication information.

It should also be understood that after receiving the cell switch command, the terminal device may also receive second indication information, which may also instruct the terminal device to activate at least one third TCI state. The second indication information can be used as new first indication information to start the reactivation of the TCI state.

In this embodiment, the terminal device may first receive the first indication information and then receive the cell handover command. Step 420 thereafter: and the terminal equipment executes cell switching according to the cell switching command.

As above, the first indication information received by the terminal device is used to activate at least one first TCI state, and the cell handover command may or may not indicate to activate one second TCI state. And the terminal equipment determines a target TCI state according to the first indication information and the cell switching command, and then executes cell switching according to the determined target TCI state.

For example, after the terminal device determines to perform LTM handover, the terminal device may receive a TCI state MAC CE, where the TCI state MAC CE carries at least one first TCI state ID. The terminal device may save at least one first TCI state ID and activate, but does not actually use the first TCI state corresponding to the activated first TCI state ID. After this, the terminal device again receives cell switch MAC CE, which cell switch MAC CE may carry a second TCI state ID, to indicate the second TCI state by the second TCI state ID. While some first TCI state in the TCI state MAC CE or a second TCI state in cell switch MAC CE may be used to perform a cell handover.

Under the condition that the original cell determines that the terminal equipment executes LTM switching, the terminal equipment can be indicated to activate at least one first TCI state through a TCI state MAC CE under normal conditions. In addition, the terminal device supports reception cell switch MAC CE at the same time. And cell switch MAC CE may also instruct the terminal device to activate the second TCI state. At this time, the terminal device receives two signaling instructions to activate two TCI states, and if it is not clear which TCI state is specifically used, the TCI state activation of the terminal device is confused. On one hand, cell switching failure is caused, communication interruption or quality reduction is caused, user experience is affected, on the other hand, implementation complexity of terminal equipment is also caused, and power consumption of the terminal equipment is increased. And communication interruption or degradation can be avoided or reduced. Therefore, the technical scheme provided by the application provides a reasonable TCI state activation strategy for the terminal equipment in the LTM switching process, realizes normal activation of the TCI state, and is beneficial to improving user experience.

As above, the cell switch command is received in case the first indication information is already present, i.e. the terminal device may also receive the first indication information in step 430 before receiving the cell switch command. Correspondingly, the original cell can also send first indication information to the terminal equipment.

The decision to perform a cell switch by measurement reporting and LTM policy is made before receiving the cell switch command, i.e. the determination to trigger a cell change of the terminal device may also be made by means of the LTM mechanism before performing step 430. For a complete illustration of the flow of the embodiments, fig. 4 illustrates steps for triggering a cell handover by an LTM mechanism by a terminal device and an original cell, and the specific flow may refer to the related description of the LTM mechanism in the foregoing with reference to fig. 2, which is not repeated herein for brevity.

That is, before the terminal device receives the first indication information, in step 440, the terminal device may also perform measurement reporting to the original cell, for example, performing L1 or L2 or L3 measurement reporting. Correspondingly, the original cell can receive the measurement result reported by the terminal equipment and trigger the change of the UE serving cell according to the measurement result.

It should be understood that the original cell may determine that cell handover may be initiated by triggering handover condition CHO, so as to send a cell handover command to the terminal device.

Optionally, the original cell may perform cell sorting according to the communication quality of each candidate cell or perform cell selection according to a quality threshold, to obtain the first N candidate cells with the highest communication quality, where N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1. The top N candidate cells with the highest communication quality may include a target cell and a potential target cell. For example, the candidate cell with the highest communication quality may be used as the target cell, and the remaining N-1 candidate cells may be used as potential target cells.

After the original cell initiates the cell switch, a cell switch request may be sent to the candidate cell in step 450. Accordingly, the candidate cell may receive the cell switch request. The candidate cells may include target cells and potential target cells. That is, the target cell may receive the cell handover request. The potential target cell may receive a cell handover request. Of course, the candidate cells may also include other cells, which are not excessively limited in this embodiment.

After receiving the cell switching request, the target cell can send a response message of the cell switching request to the original cell if the terminal equipment can be accessed to the covered cell. After the potential target cell receives the cell switching request, if it is determined that the terminal device can access the covered cell, a response message of the cell switching request can also be sent to the original cell.

After receiving the response message sent by the candidate cell, the original cell may send an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE, and perform configuration of various parameters for the terminal device through the RRC reconfiguration message in step 460. And after the terminal equipment reconfiguration is completed, the RRC reconfiguration completion message can be fed back to the original cell.

It should be appreciated that the cell switch request is received after the first indication information. The cell switch request may carry one or more information. For example, the cell handover request may carry usage indication information indicating whether to use at least one first TCI state of the first indication information, or may carry a target cell identity, or may carry a second TCI state identity.

Optionally, the cell handover command may include at least one of the following information:

indication information indicating whether to use the at least one first TCI state that was originally activated;

a target cell identification;

the second TCI state flag.

The terminal device is further configured to receive a command, before the cell handover command, which may indicate whether to use the indication information of the at least one first TCI state that was originally activated and the target cell identity. The command may be carried in a MAC CE or a proprietary signaling or RRC message, for example.

Further, the usage configuration of the at least one first TCI state and the second TCI state may include any one of:

case 1: the cell switch command or a command received prior to the cell switch command indicates the use of the indication information of the at least one first TCI state that was originally activated and the target cell identity.

Case 2: the cell switch command or a command received prior to the cell switch command indicates that the indication information of the at least one first TCI state and the second TCI state identification that were originally activated are not used.

Case 3: the cell switch command carries a second TCI state identifier and a target cell identifier.

The cell switch command or the command received before the cell switch command may illustratively carry the indication information corresponding to any of the foregoing cases in a predefined field.

In the following, it is described in detail how at least one first TCI state is indicated by taking a cell switch command as an example, which can be indifferently replaced by a command received before the cell switch command.

Alternatively, the cell switch command may indicate, visually, whether at least one first TCI state is used. The cell switch command may carry indication information of whether to use at least one first TCI state, which may be carried in a predefined field of the cell switch command.

For example, the indication information may be an indication flag, which is set to a first value, may indicate that at least one first TCI state is used, and which is set to a second value, may indicate that at least one first TCI state is not used.

For another example, the indication information may be an indication signaling, which is set to a first message, then at least one first TCI state may be indicated to be used, and which is set to a second message, then at least one first TCI state may be indicated to be unused. The first message and the second message may be, for example, messages having different message meanings, and the specific expression form of the messages in this embodiment is not limited.

Illustratively, the first value may be 1 and the second value may be 0. Of course, the first value may also be 0, and the second value may be 1. The present application is not limited in this regard. In addition, the first value and the second value may be any other value or symbol, and the specific arrangement manner of the first value and the second value in this embodiment is not limited, and the first value and the second value are different, so that different indication information can be distinguished by the first value and the second value.

The cell switch command may implicitly indicate whether at least one first TCI state is used. The second TCI state identifier may or may not be carried in the cell switch command. For example, if the second TCI state identifier is carried in the cell switch command, the cell switch command implicitly indicates that at least one first TCI state is not used. If the cell switch command does not carry the second TCI state identifier, the cell switch command implicitly indicates to use at least one first TCI state. Of course, the cell handover command may also use other indication means to indicate the use or non-use of at least one first TCI state, which is not limited in this embodiment.

As above, the first indication information may be TCI state MAC CE or DCI of the ICBM. Wherein the TCI state MAC CE may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state. The DCI may instruct the terminal device to activate a first TCI state. Based on the difference of the first indication information, the receiving scene of the cell switch command may be any one of the following:

scenario 1, TCI state MAC CE of candidate cell is received before receiving cell switch command.

Scenario 2, TCI state MAC CE received before receiving the cell switch command.

Scenario 3, DCI is received before receiving a cell handover command.

Several embodiments of the cell switching method of the present disclosure will be described in detail below in connection with different reception scenarios and information situations of cell switching commands.

In the first embodiment, when the situation 1 is the case 1, the cell handover is performed according to the indication information of the at least one first TCI state that is activated. The cell handover procedure when the scenario 1 satisfies the scenario 1 will be described in detail with reference to fig. 5.

Fig. 5 is a signaling interaction diagram of a cell handover method 500 provided in an embodiment of the present application, which is shown from a device interaction perspective. As shown in fig. 5, the method 500 may include steps 510 through 560. Steps 510-530 in fig. 5 schematically illustrate the flow of cell handover in the LTM mechanism, and the details of these steps may refer to the relevant contents of fig. 2 and fig. 4, which are not repeated here for brevity of description. The various steps of method 500 are described in detail below.

Step 510: the terminal device performs measurement reporting to the original cell, for example, the measurement reporting may be any one of L1 measurement reporting, L2 measurement reporting, or L3 measurement reporting.

Step 520: the original cell may send a cell handover request to the candidate cell. Accordingly, the candidate cell may receive the cell switch request. The candidate cells may include target cells and potential target cells. That is, the target cell may receive the cell handover request. The potential target cell may receive a cell handover request. Of course, the candidate cells may also include other cells, which are not excessively limited in this embodiment.

Step 530: the original cell may send an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE, and perform configuration of various parameters for the terminal device through the RRC reconfiguration message. And after the terminal equipment reconfiguration is completed, the RRC reconfiguration completion message can be fed back to the original cell.

It should be noted that steps 510-530 in the embodiment shown in fig. 5 exemplarily illustrate the flow of cell handover under the LTM mechanism, which is not necessary, and may be default in some embodiments.

Step 540: the original cell sends first indication information to the UE. The first indication information may be, for example, a TCI state MAC CE of the candidate cell, where the TCI state MAC CE may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state of the candidate cell. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive the first indication information and save at least one first TCI state of the activated candidate cell. That is, the terminal device may save only the activation information, but perform activation of the first TCI state.

Step 550: and the original cell determines to trigger cell switching according to the measurement report result executed by the UE. The original cell sends a cell switching command to the UE. The cell switch command may be cell switch MAC CE, for example. The cell switch command may be used to indicate the indication information and the target cell identity using the at least one first TCI state that was originally activated. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive a cell handover command.

The cell switch command is also to indicate use of a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state. The cell handover command also carries indication information for indicating the use of a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state.

Alternatively, the cell handover command may be used to indicate an nth first TCI state of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE, N being less than or equal to the number of the at least one first TCI state. Alternatively, a set of TCI states of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE is indicated, the set of TCI states comprising M first TCI states. Or, instruct the terminal device to select one of the at least one first TCI state of MAC CE activation. The target TCI state may be the nth first TCI state, or one of the set of TCI states, or one of the TCI states selected by the terminal device.

Step 560: the terminal device may perform a cell handover based on a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state.

In this embodiment, at least one first TCI state is activated through the first indication information, and under the condition that the cell switching is decided to be executed, the original cell sends a cell switching command to the terminal device, where the cell switching command may include multiple indication information, so that the cell switching command may indicate to use at least one first TCI state, and use a target TCI state in the at least one first TCI state, thereby implementing indication setting of the TCI state, and improving efficiency and accuracy of cell switching.

Fig. 6 is a signaling interaction diagram of a cell handover method 600 provided in an embodiment of the present application, which is shown from a device interaction perspective. As shown in fig. 6, the method 600 may include steps 610 through 670. Steps 610-630 in fig. 6 schematically illustrate the flow of cell handover in the LTM mechanism, and details of the above steps may refer to the relevant contents of fig. 2 and fig. 4, which are not repeated herein for brevity of description. The steps of method 600 are described in detail below.

Step 610: the terminal device performs measurement reporting to the original cell, for example, the measurement reporting may be any one of L1 measurement reporting, L2 measurement reporting, or L3 measurement reporting.

Step 620: the original cell may send a cell handover request to the candidate cell. Accordingly, the candidate cell may receive the cell switch request. The candidate cells may include target cells and potential target cells. That is, the target cell may receive the cell handover request. The potential target cell may receive a cell handover request. Of course, the candidate cells may also include other cells, which are not excessively limited in this embodiment.

Step 630: the original cell may send an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE, and perform configuration of various parameters for the terminal device through the RRC reconfiguration message. And after the terminal equipment reconfiguration is completed, the RRC reconfiguration completion message can be fed back to the original cell.

It should be noted that steps 610-630 in the embodiment shown in fig. 6 exemplarily show the flow of cell handover under the LTM mechanism, which is not necessary, and may be default in some embodiments.

Step 640: the original cell sends first indication information to the UE. The first indication information may be, for example, a TCI state MAC CE of the candidate cell, where the TCI state MAC CE may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state of the candidate cell. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive the first indication information and save at least one first TCI state of the activated candidate cell. That is, the terminal device may save only the activation information, but perform activation of the first TCI state.

Step 650: and the original cell determines to trigger cell switching according to the measurement report result executed by the UE. The original cell sends a command before sending a cell switch command to the terminal device. The command is to indicate use of a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state. The cell handover command also carries indication information for indicating the use of a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state. Accordingly, the terminal may receive the command.

Optionally, the command may be further configured to indicate an nth first TCI state of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE, N being less than or equal to the number of the at least one first TCI state; alternatively, a set of TCI states of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE is indicated, the set of TCI states comprising M first TCI states; or, instruct the terminal device to select one of the at least one first TCI state of MAC CE activation. The target TCI state may be the nth first TCI state, or one of the set of TCI states, or one of the TCI states selected by the terminal device.

Step 660: the original cell sends a cell switching command to the UE. The cell switch command may be cell switch MAC CE, for example. The cell switch command may be used to instruct the terminal device to perform a cell switch. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive a cell handover command.

Step 670: the terminal device may perform a cell handover based on a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state.

In this embodiment, at least one first TCI state is activated by the first indication information, and in the case of deciding to perform a cell handover, a command is further sent before sending a cell handover command, where the command may indicate which state of the at least one first TCI state is used, that is, a target TCI state of the at least one first TCI state may be indicated by the command. Therefore, the cell switching command is sent to the terminal equipment in the original cell, and the cell switching command can indicate to use at least one first TCI state, so that the terminal equipment can determine to use a target TCI state in the at least one first TCI state to perform cell matching, use and application setting of the target TCI state are realized, the target TCI state used in cell switching is ensured to be definite, the cell switching failure phenomenon caused by the undefined state indication can be avoided, and the cell switching efficiency and accuracy are improved.

As above, the first indication information may be TCI state MAC CE or DCI.

1. The first indication information may be TCI state MAC CE

Wherein the TCI state MAC CE may activate a plurality of first TCI states. Accordingly, the cell switch command or a command received before the cell switch command may indicate at least one first TCI state activated using the medium access control-control element MAC CE.

Alternatively, the cell switch command or a command received before the cell switch command may carry indication information to indicate at least one first TCI state activated using the medium access control-control element MAC CE. The indication method of the indication information may refer to the description of the indication information of the cell handover command, which is not described herein.

The specific manner in which the cell handover is performed for the at least one first TCI state activated by the MAC CE will be described in detail.

The handover pattern 1, the cell handover command, or a command received before the cell handover command may indicate an nth first TCI state of the at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE, N being less than or equal to the number of the at least one first TCI state.

Accordingly, the terminal device may perform cell handover with the nth first TCI state in case of indicating to use the nth first TCI state.

Alternatively, if the cell switch command or a command received before the cell switch command explicitly indicates that the nth first TCI state is used, the terminal device may directly use the nth first TCI state to perform the cell switch. I.e. the target cell is accessed using the beam corresponding to the nth first TCI state.

It should be appreciated that the at least one first TCI state of MAC CE activation may be carried in the MAC CE in the form of a table, sequence, array, or the like. N may be the ID, order, or location of the first TCI state. Taking the MAC CE to activate 8 first TCI states as an example, when N represents the order, then the 5 th first TCI state may be used to perform cell handover.

The handover pattern 2, the cell handover command, or a command received before the cell handover command may indicate a set of TCI states among at least one first TCI state activated using the MAC CE, the set of TCI states including M first TCI states. M is the number of TCI states in the TCI state set.

Accordingly, the terminal device may perform a cell handover using one first TCI state of the set of TCI states in case of indicating to use the set of TCI states.

Optionally, the cell handover command or a command received before the cell handover command may carry information such as a set identifier, a name or an index of a set of TCI states or a set of preset TCI states, and by indicating to use the set of TCI states, the terminal device may select one TCI state from M first TCI states of the set of TCI states to perform cell handover.

Optionally, the terminal device selects one TCI state from the M first TCI states of the TCI state set, which may specifically mean that the terminal device randomly selects one TCI state from the M first TCI states of the TCI state set. Or selecting the TCI state with highest communication quality from M first TCI states in the TCI state set. The above options are of course only exemplary, and the present application is not limited thereto.

Further, the terminal device may determine a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identity from the at least one first TCI state. Specifically, candidate cells in each first TCI state may be compared with the target cell identifier, and the first TCI state of the candidate cell having the same cell identifier as the target cell identifier may be determined as the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

In order to normally use one first TCI state of the set of TCI states, the terminal device may send a first request to the original cell. Accordingly, the original cell receives the first request. Wherein the first request includes a first TCI state in the set of TCI states corresponding to the target cell identity.

The original cell may then send a response message to the terminal device. The response message indicates the terminal device to access the target cell by using the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier. Correspondingly, the terminal equipment receives the response message sent by the original cell and accesses the target cell by using the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

That is, step 560 may specifically include that the terminal device accesses the target cell using the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

In one possible design, before the terminal device sends the first request to the original cell, the method further includes: a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identity is determined from the set of TCI states. That is, according to the cell identifiers corresponding to the first TCI states in the TCI state set, the first TCI state with the same cell identifier as the target cell identifier is determined. And generating a first request according to a first TCI state with the same cell identifier as the target cell identifier, wherein the first request can comprise the first TCI state with the same cell identifier as the target cell identifier in the TCI state set. After the original cell receives the first request, if it is determined that the target cell is available, a response message may be sent to the terminal device.

In this embodiment, the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier may include one or more. In order to make the access procedure of the target cell more clear, the following describes the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier:

1. if the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier is one, accessing the target cell based on the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier;

2. If the first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identification are multiple, accessing the target cell based on one of the first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identification.

Alternatively, the terminal device may first determine the number of first TCI states corresponding to the target cell. If the number is 1, accessing a target cell based on a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier; if the number is greater than 1, accessing the target cell based on one of a plurality of first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identification.

Illustratively, one of the plurality of first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identity may include being determined by: randomly determining one TCI state from a plurality of first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identifier; or determining the first TCI state corresponding to the cell with the highest communication quality from the cells corresponding to the plurality of first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identifier; or determining the first TCI state corresponding to the cell with the minimum distance with the terminal equipment from the cells respectively corresponding to the first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identification. Of course, the manner in which the above-described one TCI state is determined is merely exemplary and does not constitute a detailed limitation of the present disclosure.

The handover pattern 3, the cell handover command or a command received before the cell handover command may be that the terminal device selects one of the at least one first TCI state activated by the MAC CE.

Accordingly, the terminal device performs cell handover using the first TCI state selected by the terminal device in case of instructing the terminal device to select the first TCI state. That is, the command received at or before the cell handover command instructs the terminal device to select one of the at least one first TCI state of the MAC CE activation, the terminal device may directly select one of the at least one first TCI state of the MAC CE activation.

Optionally, the cell switch command or a command received before the cell switch command may further enable the terminal device to select one of the at least one first TCI state activated by the MAC CE by an enable command. And enabling the TCI state selection of the terminal equipment through the enabling command, so that the terminal equipment is selected according to the requirement.

In case the terminal device is instructed to select a first TCI state, the first TCI state selected by the terminal device may also be sent to the original cell. The original cell receives the first TCI state selected by the terminal equipment, and further determines a target cell corresponding to the first TCI state to be switched by the terminal equipment.

2. The first indication information may be DCI

Wherein the DCI may activate a first TCI state. Accordingly, the cell switch command or a command received before the cell switch command may indicate the first TCI state activated using the downlink control information DCI.

The specific manner in which the cell handover is performed for one first TCI state activated by DCI will be described in detail.

On this basis, the above cell switching method may further include: and executing cell switching by using the first TCI state activated by the DCI. I.e. the terminal device performs a cell handover with the first TCI state activated by the DCI.

In case the DCI activates a first TCI state, the cell handover may be performed directly using the first TCI state.

In a further possible design, the terminal device performs a cell handover with the second TCI state if it does not receive the response message.

Alternatively, the timer may be started after the operation of the terminal device sending the first request to the original cell. The timer may refer to the description of the above embodiments, and will not be described herein. The terminal device receives the response message within the effective duration of the timer. In case the timer expires, it may be determined that no response message is received. As noted above, the target cell may be associated with a first TCI state. The access procedure of the target cell may have different operation methods or procedures based on the difference in the number of the first TCI states corresponding to the target cell identity.

In the second embodiment, in the case 1, when the information carried by the cell switching command satisfies the condition 2, the cell switching is performed according to the second TCI state. The cell handover procedure when case 2 is satisfied in scenario 1 will be described in detail with reference to fig. 7.

Fig. 7 is a signaling interaction diagram of a cell handover method 700 provided in an embodiment of the present application, which is shown from a device interaction perspective. As shown in fig. 7, the method 700 may include steps 710 through 760. Steps 710-630 in fig. 7 schematically illustrate the flow of cell handover in the LTM mechanism, and the details of the above steps may refer to the relevant contents of fig. 2 and fig. 4, which are not repeated herein for brevity of description. The various steps of method 700 are described in detail below.

Step 710: the terminal device performs measurement reporting to the original cell, for example, the measurement reporting may be any one of L1 measurement reporting, L2 measurement reporting, or L3 measurement reporting.

Step 720: the original cell may send a cell handover request to the candidate cell. Accordingly, the candidate cell may receive the cell switch request. The candidate cells may include target cells and potential target cells. That is, the target cell may receive the cell handover request. The potential target cell may receive a cell handover request. Of course, the candidate cells may also include other cells, which are not excessively limited in this embodiment.

Step 730: the original cell may send an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE, and perform configuration of various parameters for the terminal device through the RRC reconfiguration message. And after the terminal equipment reconfiguration is completed, the RRC reconfiguration completion message can be fed back to the original cell.

It should be noted that steps 710-730 in the embodiment shown in fig. 7 exemplarily illustrate the flow of cell handover under the LTM mechanism, which is not necessary, and may be default in some embodiments.

Step 740: the original cell sends first indication information to the UE. The first indication information may be, for example, a TCI state MAC CE, which may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive the first indication information and save the activated at least one first TCI state. That is, the terminal device may save only the activation information, but perform activation of the first TCI state.

Step 750: and the original cell determines to trigger cell switching according to the measurement report result executed by the UE. The original cell sends a cell switching command to the UE. The cell switch command may be cell switch MAC CE, for example. The cell switch command may be used to indicate that the indication information of the at least one first TCI state and the second TCI state identity that are not active are used.

Step 760: and the terminal equipment executes cell switching based on the target cell corresponding to the second TCI state identifier.

In the third embodiment, in the case 2, when the information carried by the cell handover command satisfies the condition 3, the cell handover is performed according to the indication information of the at least one first TCI state, the second TCI state identifier and the target cell identifier that are originally activated. The cell handover procedure when case 3 is satisfied in scenario 2 will be described in detail with reference to fig. 8.

Fig. 8 is a schematic flow chart diagram of a cell handover method 800 provided by an embodiment of the present application, shown from a device interaction perspective. As shown in fig. 8, the method 800 may include steps 810 through 880. Steps 810-830 in fig. 8 schematically illustrate the flow of cell handover in the LTM mechanism, and details of the above steps may refer to the relevant contents of fig. 2 and fig. 4, which are not repeated herein for brevity of description. The steps of method 800 are described in detail below.

Step 810: the terminal device performs measurement reporting to the original cell, for example, the measurement reporting may be any one of L1 measurement reporting, L2 measurement reporting, or L3 measurement reporting.

Step 820: the original cell may send a cell handover request to the candidate cell. Accordingly, the candidate cell may receive the cell switch request. The candidate cells may include target cells and potential target cells. That is, the target cell may receive the cell handover request. The potential target cell may receive a cell handover request. Of course, the candidate cells may also include other cells, which are not excessively limited in this embodiment.

Step 830: the original cell may send an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE, and perform configuration of various parameters for the terminal device through the RRC reconfiguration message. And after the terminal equipment reconfiguration is completed, the RRC reconfiguration completion message can be fed back to the original cell.

Step 840: the original cell sends first indication information to the UE. The first indication information may be, for example, MAC CE signaling, which may indicate that the UE activates at least one first TCI state. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive the first indication information and save the activated at least one first TCI state. That is, the terminal device may only save the activation information, but does not perform activation of the first TCI state.

Step 850: and the original cell determines to trigger cell switching according to the measurement report result executed by the UE. The original cell sends a cell switching command to the UE. The cell switch command may be cell switch MAC CE, for example. The cell switch command may indicate a second TCI state.

Alternatively, the cell switch command may not indicate whether at least one first TCI state is used. Of course, the cell switch command may also indicate that at least one first TCI state is used. In case the cell handover command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, the terminal device may further determine whether the first condition is met. So that in case it is determined that the first condition is fulfilled, a cell handover is performed according to the second TCI state.

Step 860: the terminal device may perform cell handover according to the second TCI state in case the first condition is satisfied.

Alternatively, the terminal device may determine whether the first condition is satisfied according to the cell handover command. And performing cell handover according to the second TCI state in case the first condition is satisfied. The first condition may refer to a precondition for performing a cell handover according to the second TCI state.

Specifically, the terminal device may determine whether the first condition is satisfied according to the indication information of the at least one first TCI state that is originally activated, the second TCI state identifier in the cell handover command, and the target cell identifier.

Step 870: and the terminal equipment and the target cell execute a random access procedure. After the random access procedure is executed, communication or data transmission can be performed between the terminal device and the target cell through the beam corresponding to the second TCI state.

In order to further reduce the power consumption of the device and achieve the purpose of saving resources, in step 880: the terminal device may perform a deactivation of the at least one first TCI state if the first condition is fulfilled. In case the cell handover command does not indicate whether at least one first TCI state is used, it may be determined whether the first condition is met by the cell handover command. And under the condition that the first condition is met, cell switching is executed according to the second TCI state, activation management of at least one first TCI state and at least one second TCI state indicated by the first indication information is realized, the phenomenon of disordered activation of the TCI state is avoided, communication interruption or failure is caused, and the cell switching success rate of the terminal equipment is improved.

In one possible design, cell switch MAC CE may not carry the indication usage information of the original active TCI state, but rather carry a second TCI state identification corresponding to the second TCI state. The second TCI state may be a TCI state activated by the target cell.

Fig. 9 is a schematic flow chart of a cell handover method 900 provided in an embodiment of the present application. The flow chart shown in fig. 9 may include steps 901 to 903.

After receiving the cell switch command, the terminal device determines in step 901 whether the terminal device satisfies a first condition. That is, the terminal device determines whether the first condition is satisfied according to the cell handover command.

Wherein satisfying the first condition may further include at least one of:

1. the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is not used.

That is, the detailed description of the cell handover command indicating not to use the at least one first TCI state or indicating to use the at least one first TCI state may refer to the description of the foregoing embodiments, and will not be repeated herein.

2. The target cell exists in a cell corresponding to at least one first TCI state, and the second TCI state is different from the at least one first TCI state.

The presence of the target cell in the cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state may mean that the target cell is identical to the cell corresponding to a certain first TCI state. The second TCI state being different from the at least one first TCI state may mean that the second TCI state ID is different from the at least one first TCI state ID carried in the cell handover command.

3. The target cell is not present in the cell to which the at least one first TCI state corresponds.

The target cell is not in a cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state, and may include: the target cell identity is different from the cell identity respectively corresponding to the at least one first TCI state.

Alternatively, in case the first condition is met, the terminal device may communicate or data transfer with the network device based on the beam corresponding to the second TCI state.

Optionally, performing cell handover based on the second TCI state includes: if the second TCI state exists in the at least one first TCI state, cell switching is performed based on the same first TCI state as the second TCI state.

The existence of the second TCI state in the at least one first TCI state may mean that the first TCI state ID identical to the second TCI state ID exists in the at least one first TCI state ID, or that the first TCI state name identical to the second TCI state name exists in the at least one first TCI state name.

The cell switch is performed based on the same first TCI state as the second TCI state, and the beam corresponding to the original first TCI state is used for communication or data transmission. The cell switching is performed by using the first TCI state which is the same as the second TCI state, so that the situation that the TCI state is repeatedly activated when the cell switching command is the same as the first TCI state which is originally activated, and resource waste is caused can be avoided.

In one possible design, if it is determined in step 901 that the terminal device satisfies the first condition, then in step 902 an operation is performed to perform a cell handover based on the second TCI state.

In step 901, when the terminal device performs cell handover, if the second TCI state exists in at least one first TCI state, the cell handover is performed based on the same first TCI state as the second TCI state.

It should be appreciated that the terminal device performing a cell handover may specifically comprise an LTM cell handover. The presence of the second TCI state in the at least one first TCI state may mean that the at least one first TCI state identifier has the same identifier as the second TCI state identifier. I.e. one of the first TCI state identifiers is identical to the second TCI state identifier.

Optionally, the second TCI state identifier may be carried in the cell handover command, so as to indicate the second TCI state through the second TCI state identifier.

In yet another possible design, if it is determined in step 901 that the terminal device satisfies the first condition, step 903 may be performed to perform a step of deactivating the at least one first TCI state.

Alternatively, the deactivation operation may be triggered by the network side. The original network device sends deactivation indication information to the terminal device, the deactivation indication information may instruct the terminal device to perform deactivation on at least one first TCI state. The terminal device may receive the deactivation indication information and perform deactivation of the at least one first TCI state under the indication of the deactivation indication information.

That is, the deactivation indication information may instruct the terminal device to exclude the at least one first TCI state from the reserved communication transmission resources or to exclude the at least one first TCI state from the reserved communication resources.

The deactivation indication information may be, for example, MAC CE signaling or proprietary signaling or RRC message, etc. The deactivation indication information may include at least one of: stopping using the indication information of the communication transmission of at least one first TCI state; indication information excluding at least one first TCI state from the reserved communication transmission resources.

Specifically, the deactivation indication information can carry the indication information through a preset field, so that the transmission of the deactivation indication is realized, and the terminal equipment releases the communication resource in time. The transmission efficiency and the transmission safety of the configuration information can be improved by transmitting the configuration information to the terminal equipment through the special signaling due to higher transmission efficiency and higher flexibility of the special signaling.

In yet another possible design, if it is determined in step 901 that the terminal device does not meet the first condition, then cell handover may be performed using at least one first TCI state. The step of performing the cell handover using the at least one first TCI state may be referred to above and will not be described herein.

As above, the network device may issue to the terminal device MAC CE signaling, where the MAC CE signaling may carry activation information, where the activation information may be used, for example, to instruct the UE to activate at least one TCI state, and the terminal device may store the activation information carried by the MAC CE, and may not actually use the TCI state activated by the activation information for communication transmission. On this basis, the network device may also issue downlink control information DCI. The downlink control information may carry a first TCI state.

In the fourth embodiment, in the case 3, when the information carried by the cell switching command satisfies the case 3, the cell switching is executed according to the first TCI state activated by the DCI, the second TCI state identifier and the target cell identifier. The cell handover procedure when case 3 is satisfied in scenario 3 will be described in detail with reference to fig. 10.

Fig. 10 is a signaling interaction diagram of a cell handover method provided in an embodiment of the present application, which is shown from the perspective of device interaction. As shown in fig. 10, the method 1000 may include steps 1010 through 1090. Steps 1010-1030 in fig. 10 exemplarily illustrate a procedure of cell handover under the LTM mechanism, and details of the above steps may refer to relevant contents in fig. 2 and fig. 4, which are not described herein for brevity of description. The steps of method 1000 are described in detail below.

Step 1010: the terminal device performs measurement reporting to the original cell, for example, the measurement reporting may be any one of L1 measurement reporting, L2 measurement reporting, or L3 measurement reporting.

Step 1020: the original cell may send a cell handover request to the candidate cell. Accordingly, the candidate cell may receive the cell switch request. The candidate cells may include target cells and potential target cells. That is, the target cell may receive the cell handover request. The potential target cell may receive a cell handover request. Of course, the candidate cells may also include other cells, which are not excessively limited in this embodiment.

Step 1030: the original cell may send an RRC reconfiguration message to the UE, and perform configuration of various parameters for the terminal device through the RRC reconfiguration message. And after the terminal equipment reconfiguration is completed, the RRC reconfiguration completion message can be fed back to the original cell.

It should be noted that, in some embodiments of the present application, it is described that the terminal device may feed back the RRC reconfiguration complete message to the network device, but this feedback step may be unnecessary, for example, the original cell may start the transmission of the first indication information without receiving the RRC reconfiguration complete message. For another example, the original cell may start a predefined timer after sending the RRC message, and when the timer timing ends, the sending of the first indication information may be started. The type and duration of the timer are not limited.

In this embodiment, the configuration information is sent to the terminal device through the RRC message, and unnecessary channel overhead can be avoided by using existing signaling transmission, so that flexible and efficient information transmission can be implemented while communication resources are saved, and service performance is improved.

Step 1040: the original cell sends MAC CE signaling to the UE, which may instruct the terminal device to activate at least one first TCI state.

Step 1050: the original cell sends first indication information to the UE. The first indication information may be, for example, downlink control information DCI, which may indicate a first TCI state activated using the UE. Accordingly, the terminal device may receive the first indication information and save the activated first TCI state. At this time, the terminal device may perform communication transmission using the first TCI state.

Step 1060: and the original cell determines to trigger cell switching according to the measurement report result executed by the UE. The original cell sends a cell switching command to the UE. The cell switch command may be cell switch MAC CE, for example. The cell switch command may indicate a second TCI state.

Alternatively, the cell switch command may or may not indicate whether the first TCI state is used. The cell switch command may also carry the target cell identity.

Step 1070: the terminal device may perform cell handover according to the second TCI state in case the first condition is satisfied.

It should be noted that, the specific operation of performing the cell handover according to the second TCI state may be referred to the above description, and will not be repeated herein for the sake of brevity.

Step 1080: and the terminal equipment executes a random access procedure with the target cell corresponding to the second TCI state.

Step 1090: the terminal device may perform deactivation of at least one first TCI state activated by the MAC CE or maintain communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state of the DCI if the first condition is satisfied.

Optionally, the terminal device maintains a communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state of the DCI, which may be used in combination with a communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated by the terminal device through the cell handover command. In case the first indication information is DCI, the terminal device is further configured to: a second request is sent to the original cell or the target cell, which may be received accordingly.

The second request is used for requesting the original cell or the target cell to continuously keep the communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state indicated by the DCI, and the communication transmission is used jointly with the communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated in the cell switching command.

That is, the second request is sent in case the target cell is not present in the candidate cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state; the second request is for continuing to keep the communication transmission corresponding to the TCI state indicated by the DCI between the terminal device and the original cell or the target cell, the communication transmission being used in combination with the communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated in the cell handover command.

Optionally, the second request may carry the first TCI state indicated by the DCI to request to maintain a communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state indicated by the DCI. Before sending the second request to the original cell or the target cell, the terminal device activates the first TCI state indicated by the DCI and uses the beam determined by the first TCI state to perform communication transmission.

It should be noted that the combination of the different information combinations and the different receiving scenarios of the cell switch command described above is only exemplary and should not constitute a specific limitation, which is not limited in this embodiment.

The cell handover method provided in the embodiment of the present application is described in detail above with reference to fig. 4 to 10, and the apparatus provided in the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to fig. 11.

Fig. 11 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device 1100 provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 11, the communication apparatus 1100 may include a processing unit 1101 and a transceiving unit 1102.

In one possible design, the communication apparatus 1100 may implement the operations of the corresponding terminal device in the above method embodiments, for example, the communication apparatus may be a terminal device, or a component configured in a terminal device, such as a chip or a circuit.

The communication device may implement the corresponding operation of the terminal device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 4 to 10. For example, the transceiver unit 1102 may perform steps 410, 430, 440, etc. in the method 400, and the processing unit 1101 may perform steps 420, etc. in the method 400. And each of the units in the communication device 1100 and the other operations and/or functions described above are respectively intended to implement a corresponding flow in the method embodiment shown in fig. 4.

Specifically, when the communication apparatus 1100 is configured to perform the cell handover method shown in fig. 4, the transceiver unit 1102 may be configured to: receiving a cell switching command, wherein the cell switching command is received under the condition that first indication information exists locally, and the cell switching command comprises a use condition of a Transmission Configuration Indication (TCI) state when the cell switching is executed; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switching command is a mobility LTM cell switching command triggered by an execution layer; and executing the cell switching according to the cell switching command.

Optionally, the processing unit 1102 may be further configured to: if the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, then cell switch is performed based on the at least one first TCI state. Alternatively, if a command received before the cell switch command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, cell switch is performed based on the at least one first TCI state.

Specifically, the cell handover command carries the target cell identifier, and the transceiver unit 1101 is further configured to: transmitting a first request to an original cell, wherein the first request comprises a first TCI state corresponding to a target cell identifier; and receiving a response message sent by the original cell, and accessing the target cell by using a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

Further, the transceiver unit 1101 is further configured to: and sending the first TCI state selected by the terminal equipment to the original cell.

In addition, the processing unit 1102 is further configured to perform cell handover using the DCI activated first TCI state.

In yet another possible design, the cell handover command includes a second TCI state, the second TCI state being a TCI state activated by the target cell; the processing unit 1102 is further configured to: in case the first condition is fulfilled, a cell handover is performed based on the second TCI state.

Optionally, the first condition is satisfied, including at least one of:

Further, the processing unit 1102 is further configured to: if the second TCI state exists in the at least one first TCI state, cell switching is performed based on the same first TCI state as the second TCI state.

In yet another possible design, the processing unit 1102 is further configured to: in case the first condition is fulfilled, a deactivation is performed on the at least one first TCI state.

In yet another possible design, the first indication information is downlink control information DCI, and the processing unit 1102 is further configured to: if the target cell does not exist in the candidate cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state, a second request is sent to the original cell or the target cell, wherein the second request is used for requesting the original cell or the target cell to continuously keep the communication transmission corresponding to the first TCI state indicated by DCI, and the communication transmission is used jointly with the communication transmission corresponding to the target cell indicated in the cell switching command.

In one possible design, the communication apparatus 1100 may implement the operations of the corresponding network device in the above method embodiments, for example, the communication apparatus may be a network device, or a component configured in a network device, such as a chip or a circuit.

The communication device may implement the corresponding operation of the network apparatus in the method embodiments shown in fig. 4 to 9. For example, the transceiver unit 1102 may perform steps 410, 430, 440, etc. in the method 400, and the processing unit 1101 may perform steps 420, etc. in the method 400. And each of the units in the communication device 1000 and the other operations and/or functions described above are respectively intended to implement a corresponding flow in the method embodiment shown in fig. 4.

Specifically, when the communication apparatus 1100 is configured to perform the cell handover method shown in fig. 4, the transceiver unit 1102 may be configured to: transmitting a cell switching command, wherein the cell switching command is transmitted under the condition that the terminal equipment has first indication information, and the cell switching command comprises a use condition of a transmission configuration indication TCI state when the terminal equipment is instructed to execute cell switching; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switch command is an execution layer triggered mobility LTM cell switch command.

In yet another possible design, the processing unit 1102 is further configured to: if the cell switching command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, the at least one first TCI state is used for cell switching of the terminal equipment;

alternatively, if the command received before the cell handover command indicates that at least one first TCI state is used, the at least one first TCI state is used for cell handover of the terminal device.

Further, the transceiver unit 1101 is further configured to: receiving a first request, wherein the first request comprises a first TCI state corresponding to a target cell identifier; and sending a response message to the terminal equipment, wherein the response message indicates the terminal equipment to access the target cell by using the first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

In addition, the transceiver 1101 is further configured to: and receiving the first TCI state sent by the terminal equipment.

It should be noted that, the interaction between the cell and the terminal device in the foregoing embodiment may refer to the interaction between the network device covering the cell and the terminal device, and thus, the cell may be replaced with the network device without distinction. For example, the original cell may be replaced with the original network device, the target cell may be replaced with the target network device indifferently, and the potential target cell may be replaced with the potential target network device indifferently. Of course, the above device names are merely exemplary, and in practical applications, names of network elements, CUs, base stations, etc. may be used instead, which is not limited in this disclosure.

It should be understood that the specific process of each unit performing the corresponding steps has been described in detail in the above method embodiments, and is not described herein for brevity.

It should be further understood that the division of the modules in the embodiments of the present application is merely illustrative, and there may be another division manner in actual implementation, and in addition, each functional module in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated in one processor, or may exist separately and physically, or two or more modules may be integrated in one module. The integrated modules may be implemented in hardware or in software functional modules.

It should be appreciated that the communications apparatus 1100 may correspond to the terminal device 130 or the network devices 110-120 in the communications system 100 shown in fig. 1. The processing unit 1101 in the communication apparatus 1100 may correspond to a processor in the terminal device 130 or the network devices 110-120, and may call the instructions stored in the memory through the processor in the terminal device 130 or the network devices 110-120 to implement the above functions, such as network coding, acquiring an original packet, and so on; the transceiver unit 1102 may correspond to an interface in the terminal device 130 or the network devices 110-120, and may implement the above-described functions of receiving and/or transmitting data in response to instructions from the processor.

It should also be understood that the transceiving unit 1102 in the communication apparatus 1100 may be implemented by a transceiver or a communication interface, for example, may correspond to the transceiver 2020 in the terminal device 2000 shown in fig. 12 and the transceiver 3100 in the network device 3000 shown in fig. 13. The processing unit 1101 in the communication apparatus 1100 may be implemented by at least one processor, and may correspond to the processor 2010 in the terminal device 2000 shown in fig. 12 and the processor 3200 in the network device 3000 shown in fig. 13, for example.

Fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device 2000 provided in an embodiment of the present application. The terminal device 2000 may be applied to a system as shown in fig. 1, and perform the functions of the terminal device in the above-described method embodiment. As shown in fig. 12, the terminal device 2000 includes a processor 2010 and a transceiver 2020. Optionally, the terminal device 2000 further comprises a memory 2030. Wherein the processor 2010, the transceiver 2020 and the memory 2030 may communicate with each other via an internal connection path, transferring control and/or data signals, the memory 2030 is used for storing a computer program, and the processor 2010 is used for calling and running the computer program from the memory 2030 to control the transceiver 2020 to transceive signals. Optionally, the terminal device 2000 may further include an antenna 2040 for transmitting uplink data and uplink control signaling output by the transceiver 2020 through a wireless signal.

The processor 2010 and the memory 2030 may be combined into a single processing device, and the processor 2010 is configured to execute program codes stored in the memory 2030 to implement the functions described above. In particular implementations, the memory 2030 may also be integrated within the processor 2010 or separate from the processor 2010. The processor 2010 may correspond to the processing unit 1101 in fig. 11.

The transceiver 2020 may correspond to the transceiver unit 1102 in fig. 11. The transceiver 2020 may include a receiver (or receiver, receiving circuitry) and a transmitter (or transmitter, transmitting circuitry). Wherein the receiver is for receiving signals and the transmitter is for transmitting signals.

It should be understood that the terminal device 2000 shown in fig. 12 is capable of implementing the respective processes related to the terminal device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 4 to 10. The operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the terminal device 2000 are respectively for implementing the corresponding flows in the above-described method embodiment. Reference is specifically made to the description in the above method embodiments, and detailed descriptions are omitted here as appropriate to avoid repetition.

The above-described processor 2010 may be used to perform the actions described in the previous method embodiments as being performed internally by the terminal device, while the transceiver 2020 may be used to perform the actions described in the previous method embodiments as being transmitted to or received from the network device by the terminal device. Please refer to the description of the foregoing method embodiments, and details are not repeated herein.

Optionally, the terminal device 2000 may also include a power supply 2050 for providing power to various devices or circuits in the terminal device.

In addition, in order to make the functions of the terminal device more complete, the terminal device 2000 may further include one or more of an input unit 2060, a display unit 2070, an audio circuit 2080, a camera 2090, a sensor 2100, and the like, and the audio circuit may further include a speaker 2082, a microphone 2084, and the like.

Fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided in the embodiment of the present application, for example, may be a schematic structural diagram of a base station/CU. The base station 3000 may be applied to the system shown in fig. 1, and perform the functions of the network device in the above method embodiment. As shown in fig. 13, the base station 3000 may include one or more radio frequency units, such as a remote radio frequency unit (remote radio unit, RRU) 3100 and one or more baseband units (BBUs) (also referred to as Distributed Units (DUs)) 3300.RRU 3100 may be referred to as a transceiver unit, corresponding to transceiver unit 1102 in fig. 11. Alternatively, the transceiver unit 3100 may also be referred to as a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, or a transceiver, etc., which may include at least one antenna 3101 and a radio frequency unit 3102. Alternatively, the transceiving unit 3100 may include a receiving unit, which may correspond to a receiver (or receiver, receiving circuit), and a transmitting unit, which may correspond to a transmitter (or transmitter, transmitting circuit). The RRU 3100 is mainly configured to receive and transmit a radio frequency signal and convert the radio frequency signal to a baseband signal, for example, to send indication information to a terminal device. The BBU 3300 portion is mainly used for baseband processing, control of a base station, and the like. The RRU 3100 and BBU 3300 may be physically located together or may be physically separate, i.e., a distributed base station.

BBU 3300 is a control center of a base station, and may also be referred to as a processing unit, and may correspond to processing unit 1101 in fig. 11, and is mainly configured to perform baseband processing functions, such as channel coding, multiplexing, modulation, spreading, and so on. For example, the BBU (processing unit) may be configured to control the base station to perform the operation procedure with respect to the network device in the above-described method embodiment, for example, to generate the above-described indication information, etc.

In one example, BBU 3300 may be formed by one or more single boards, where the multiple single boards may support a single access system radio access network (e.g., an LTE network) together, or may support different access systems radio access networks (e.g., an LTE network, a 5G network, or other networks) respectively. BBU 3300 further comprises memory 3201 and processor 3202. Memory 3201 is used to store the necessary instructions and data. The processor 3202 is configured to control the base station to perform necessary actions, for example, to control the base station to perform the operation procedures related to the network device in the above-described method embodiment. Memory 3201 and processor 3202 may serve one or more boards. That is, the memory and the processor may be separately provided on each board. It is also possible that multiple boards share the same memory and processor. In addition, each single board can be provided with necessary circuits.

It should be understood that the base station 3000 shown in fig. 13 is capable of implementing various processes related to the target network device in the method embodiments shown in fig. 2 to 10. The operations and/or functions of the respective modules in the base station 3000 are respectively for implementing the corresponding flows in the above-described method embodiments. Reference is specifically made to the description in the above method embodiments, and detailed descriptions are omitted here as appropriate to avoid repetition.

The BBU 3300 described above may be used to perform actions described in the foregoing method embodiments as being implemented internally by the network device, and the RRU 3100 may be used to perform actions described in the foregoing method embodiments as being transmitted to or received from the terminal device by the network device. Please refer to the description of the foregoing method embodiments, and details are not repeated herein.

It should be understood that the base station 3000 shown in fig. 13 is only one possible architecture of a network device, and should not constitute any limitation to the present application. The method provided by the application can be applied to network devices of other architectures. For example, network devices containing CUs, DUs and active antenna units (active antenna unit, AAU), etc. The specific architecture of the network device is not limited in this application. The embodiment of the application also provides a processing device, which comprises a processor and an interface; the processor is configured to perform the method of any of the method embodiments described above. It should be understood that the processing means described above may be one or more chips. For example, the processing device may be a field programmable gate array (field programmable gate array, FPGA), an application specific integrated chip (application specific integrated circuit, ASIC), a system on chip (SoC), a central processing unit (central processor unit, CPU), a network processor (network processor, NP), a digital signal processing circuit (digital signal processor, DSP), a microcontroller (micro controller unit, MCU), a programmable controller (programmable logic device, PLD) or other integrated chip.

In implementation, the steps of the above method may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or by instructions in the form of software. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be embodied directly in a hardware processor for execution, or in a combination of hardware and software modules in the processor for execution. The software modules may be located in a random access memory, flash memory, read only memory, programmable read only memory, or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, etc. as well known in the art. The storage medium is located in a memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory and, in combination with its hardware, performs the steps of the above method. To avoid repetition, a detailed description is not provided herein.

It should be noted that the processor in the embodiments of the present application may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capability. In implementation, the steps of the above method embodiments may be implemented by integrated logic circuits of hardware in a processor or instructions in software form. The processor may be a general purpose processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, or discrete hardware components. The disclosed methods, steps, and logic blocks in the embodiments of the present application may be implemented or performed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present application may be embodied directly in hardware, in a decoded processor, or in a combination of hardware and software modules in a decoded processor. The software modules may be located in a random access memory, flash memory, read only memory, programmable read only memory, or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers, etc. as well known in the art. The storage medium is located in a memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory and, in combination with its hardware, performs the steps of the above method.

It will be appreciated that the memory in embodiments of the present application may be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or may include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. The nonvolatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a Programmable ROM (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically Erasable EPROM (EEPROM), or a flash memory. The volatile memory may be random access memory (random access memory, RAM) which acts as an external cache. By way of example, and not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as Static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SLDRAM), and direct memory bus RAM (DR RAM). It should be noted that the memory of the systems and methods described herein is intended to comprise, without being limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the application, the application further provides a computer program product, which comprises: computer program code which, when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of any of the embodiments shown in fig. 2 to 10.

According to the method provided in the embodiments of the present application, there is further provided a computer readable medium storing a program code, which when run on a computer, causes the computer to perform the method of any one of the embodiments shown in fig. 2 to 10.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the application, the application further provides a system, which comprises the one or more terminal devices and the one or more network devices.

The network device in the above-mentioned respective apparatus embodiments corresponds entirely to the network device or the terminal device in the terminal device and method embodiments, the respective steps are performed by respective modules or units, for example, the steps of receiving or transmitting in the method embodiments are performed by the communication unit (transceiver), and other steps than transmitting and receiving may be performed by the processing unit (processor). Reference may be made to corresponding method embodiments for the function of a specific unit. Wherein the processor may be one or more.

As used in this specification, the terms "component," "module," "system," and the like are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, firmware, a combination of hardware and software, or software in execution. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a computing device and the computing device can be a component. One or more components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed between 2 or more computers. Furthermore, these components can execute from various computer readable media having various data structures stored thereon. The components may communicate by way of local and/or remote processes such as in accordance with a signal having one or more data packets (e.g., data from two components interacting with one another in a local system, distributed system, and/or across a network such as the internet with other systems by way of the signal).

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative logical blocks (illustrative logical block) and steps (steps) described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented as electronic hardware, or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

It will be clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, specific working procedures of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to corresponding procedures in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not repeated herein.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices, and methods may be implemented in other manners. For example, the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, e.g., the division of elements is merely a logical functional division, and there may be additional divisions of actual implementation, e.g., multiple elements or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not performed. Alternatively, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed with each other may be an indirect coupling or communication connection via some interfaces, devices or units, which may be in electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate units may or may not be physically separate, and units shown as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed over a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated in one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units may be integrated in one unit.

In the above-described embodiments, the functions of the respective functional units may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions (programs). When the computer program instructions (program) are loaded and executed on a computer, the processes or functions in accordance with the embodiments of the present application are fully or partially produced. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable apparatus. The computer instructions may be stored in or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another, for example, by wired (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, digital subscriber line (digital subscriber line, DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) means from one website, computer, server, or data center. Computer readable storage media can be any available media that can be accessed by a computer or data storage devices, such as servers, data centers, etc., that contain an integration of one or more available media. Usable media may be magnetic media (e.g., floppy disks, hard disks, magnetic tapes), optical media (e.g., high-density digital video discs (digital video disc, DVDs)), or semiconductor media (e.g., solid State Disks (SSDs)), or the like.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application may be embodied essentially or in a part contributing to the prior art or in a part of the technical solution, in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium, including several instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to perform all or part of the steps of the methods of the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (random access memory, RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, or other various media capable of storing program codes.

The foregoing is merely specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily think about changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and the changes and substitutions are intended to be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for cell handover, comprising:

receiving a cell switching command, wherein the cell switching command is received under the condition that first indication information exists locally, and the cell switching command comprises a use condition for indicating a transmission configuration indication TCI state when cell switching is executed; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switching command is a mobility LTM cell switching command triggered by an execution layer;

and executing the cell switching according to the cell switching command.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said performing a cell handover according to said cell handover command comprises:

if the cell switch command indicates to use the at least one first TCI state, performing a cell switch based on the at least one first TCI state;

or if a command received before the cell handover command indicates to use the at least one first TCI state, performing a cell handover based on the at least one first TCI state.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the indicating to use the at least one first TCI state comprises:

The at least one first TCI state indicating activation using a medium access control-control element, MAC CE.

4. A method according to claim 3, further comprising at least one of:

the terminal device is instructed to select one of the at least one first TCI state activated by the MAC CE.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising at least one of:

performing a cell handover using one first TCI state of the set of TCI states, in case the use of the set of TCI states is indicated;

and under the condition that the terminal equipment is instructed to select one first TCI state, performing cell switching by using the first TCI state selected by the terminal equipment.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the cell switch command carries a target cell identity, and wherein the performing cell switch using one of the first TCI states in the set of TCI states comprises:

sending a first request to an original cell, wherein the first request comprises a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier in the TCI state set;

7. The method of claim 5, wherein prior to performing a cell handover using the first TCI state selected by the terminal device, further comprising:

8. The method of claim 2, wherein the indicating to use the at least one first TCI state comprises:

and indicating a first TCI state activated by using the downlink control information DCI.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, further comprising:

and executing cell switching by using the first TCI state activated by the DCI.

10. The method according to any of claims 1-9, wherein the cell handover command comprises a second TCI state, the second TCI state being a target cell activated TCI state;

The executing the cell switching according to the cell switching command comprises the following steps:

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the meeting a first condition comprises at least one of:

the cell switch command indicates that the at least one first TCI state is not used;

the target cell exists in a cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state, and the second TCI state is different from the at least one first TCI state;

the target cell is not present in the cell corresponding to the at least one first TCI state.

12. A method for cell handover, comprising:

transmitting a cell switching command, wherein the cell switching command is transmitted under the condition that first indication information exists in terminal equipment, and the cell switching command comprises a service condition for indicating a transmission configuration indication TCI state when the terminal equipment executes cell switching; the first indication information is used for indicating at least one first TCI state which is activated; the cell switching command is a mobility LTM cell switching command triggered by an execution layer.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, further comprising:

if the cell handover command indicates that the at least one first TCI state is used, the at least one first TCI state is used for cell handover of the terminal device;

alternatively, the command sent before the cell handover command indicates that the at least one first TCI state is used, and the at least one first TCI state is used for cell handover of the terminal device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the indicating to use the at least one first TCI state comprises:

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising at least one of:

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising at least one of:

in case the terminal device is instructed to select a first TCI state, the first TCI state selected by the terminal device is used for performing a cell handover.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the cell handover command includes a target cell identity, and wherein, if the TCI state set is indicated to be used, further comprising:

receiving a first request, wherein the first request comprises a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier in the TCI state set;

and sending a response message to the terminal equipment, wherein the response message indicates the terminal equipment to access the target cell by using a first TCI state corresponding to the target cell identifier.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein in case of performing a cell handover using the first TCI state selected by the terminal device, further comprising:

And receiving a first TCI state sent by the terminal equipment.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the indicating to use the at least one first TCI state comprises:

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the DCI-activated first TCI state is used for the terminal device to perform a cell handover.

21. A terminal device, comprising: a processor and a memory;

the memory stores computer-executable instructions;

the processor executing computer-executable instructions stored in the memory to cause the terminal device to perform the cell handover method according to any one of claims 1-11.

22. A network device, comprising: a processor and a memory;

the memory stores computer-executable instructions;

the processor executing computer-executable instructions stored in the memory to cause the network device to perform the cell handover method of any one of claims 12-20.

23. A computer readable storage medium storing a computer program, which when executed by a processor performs the method of any one of claims 1-20.

24. A system on a chip comprising at least one processor and a communication interface, the communication interface and the at least one processor being interconnected by a wire, the at least one processor being configured to execute a computer program or instructions to perform the method of any of claims 1-20.

25. A computer program product comprising a computer program which, when run, causes a computer to perform the method of any of claims 1-20.