WO2016127657A1

WO2016127657A1 - Unlicensed-carrier activation method and apparatus

Info

Publication number: WO2016127657A1
Application number: PCT/CN2015/091293
Authority: WO
Inventors: 陈中明
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2015-02-12
Filing date: 2015-09-30
Publication date: 2016-08-18
Also published as: CN105992386A

Abstract

The present invention provides an unlicensed-carrier activation method and apparatus, said method also comprising: during the process of resource contention when a terminal launches one or a plurality of unlicensed carriers, the terminal activating, on its own, one or a plurality of unlicensed carriers, the process of resource contention comprising: a process of a terminal awaiting a specified time, and a process of a terminal contending for a resource, the specified time being a time interval between the previous instance of resource use by a terminal ending, and the terminal beginning to contend for a resource. The present invention solves the problem in the related art of the long time consumed between a terminal receiving an activation command and entering an activated state, thus the terminal utilizes to the greatest possible extent the resource for which it contended.

Description

Method and device for activating unlicensed carrier

Technical field

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular to an activation method and apparatus for an unlicensed carrier.

Background technique

In a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, a terminal in a connected state can communicate with a base station through only one serving cell, that is, a carrier. In order to provide higher data rates to mobile users, the Long Term Evolution Advance (LTE-A) proposes Carrier Aggregation (CA), which is designed for users with corresponding capabilities. The device UE provides greater bandwidth and increases the peak rate of the UE. In LTE, the maximum downlink transmission bandwidth supported by the system is 20 MHz. Carrier aggregation is to aggregate two or more component carriers (CCs) to support transmission bandwidths greater than 20 MHz and no more than 100 MHz. An LTE-A UE with carrier aggregation capability can transmit and receive data on multiple component carriers simultaneously. In the LTE-A system, after the terminal enters the connected state, it can communicate with the source base station through multiple component carriers (such as CC1 and CC2) at the same time. The base station specifies a primary component carrier (Primary) by explicit configuration or according to the protocol. Component Carrier (referred to as PCC), the other component carrier is called the Secondary Component Carrier (SCC), and the serving cell on the PCC is called the Primary Cell (Pcell). The serving cell is called a secondary cell (Scell).

Considering the bursting characteristics of the service, although the UE works at the highest rate, it is possible to use up to 5 carriers at most, but in the burst gap, the actual traffic of the UE is rarely or close to zero, and if the UE continues to be more Waiting to receive data on each carrier will result in higher power overhead. In order to extend the working time of the UE, the wireless transmitting and receiving device that is not necessarily turned on is turned off, and unnecessary battery consumption is reduced, and the concept of carrier activation deactivation is introduced in the LTE-A system. The UE performs data reception and transmission only on the activated carrier, such as the physical downlink control channel (Physical Downlink Control Channel, PDCCH for short); and for the temporarily unused carrier, the base station deactivates by explicit command notification or implicit rule. On the deactivated carrier, the UE does not monitor the PDCCH channel, does not receive data on the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), and does not send uplink data, thereby achieving power saving. The PCell will never be deactivated by the base station. The SCell can be activated and deactivated flexibly. The activation of the Scell is that the base station notifies the terminal through the MAC CE. The terminal needs to wait at least 8ms, even 24ms, 34ms from receiving the activation command to entering the activation state. time.

With the rapid growth of data services, the licensed spectrum will not be able to withstand such huge data in the near future. Therefore, LTE operators consider deploying LTE in unlicensed carriers to share data traffic in authorized carriers through unlicensed spectrum. Unlicensed carrier (exempted spectrum) refers to the spectrum (or carrier) that can be used directly without authorization, subject to the relevant regulations (radio control) of government agencies (eg, National Radio Regulatory Commission). For example, microwave ovens, remote control toy airplanes, wireless mice, wireless keyboards, and Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) use unlicensed carriers. In some cases, unlicensed carriers need to compete to be used. If the base station (including the WiFi access point) does not compete for resources, the unlicensed carrier cannot be used. 1 is a diagram of contention and usage time relationship of unlicensed carrier resources in the related art. As shown in FIG. 1, T2 to T5 is a complete resource competition and usage process. After the last resource usage is over, the terminal needs to wait for designation. Time, called interval time, T2 to T3. After the interval is over, the terminal starts resource competition. T3 to T4 are resource competition time. The resource competition ends. The terminal that competes for resources can start using resources, T4 to T5. When the terminal that competes with the resource uses the resource, the next process is restarted after the used resource is used. Among them, T2 to T3 may or may not be 0.

If the unlicensed carrier is enabled, the control information is sent through the authorized carrier, that is, the PCell is also the authorized carrier, and the unlicensed carrier can be used as the Scell. For the sake of distinction, we call it U-Scell. Then the activation process of U-Scell, if it still takes 8ms, even 24ms, 34ms, then most of the competing resources are used for activation, even if the activation process is not completed, it is very wasteful.

For the problem that the terminal takes a long time from receiving the activation command to entering the activation state in the related art, an effective solution has not been proposed yet.

Summary of the invention

The main purpose of the embodiments of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for activating an unlicensed carrier, so as to at least solve the problem that the terminal takes a long time from receiving the activation command to entering the activation state in the related art.

According to an aspect of the embodiments of the present invention, a method for activating an unlicensed carrier is provided, further comprising: when the terminal initiates resource competition of one or more unlicensed carriers, the terminal activates the one or more by itself An unlicensed carrier, where the resource contention process includes: a process in which the terminal waits for a specified time and a process in which the terminal competes for the resource, where the specified time is that the terminal ends the last resource usage to the terminal The interval at which to start competing for the resources.

Optionally, the activating the one or more unlicensed carriers by the terminal by itself: after the terminal contends to the resource, the terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.

Optionally, after the terminal contends to the resource, the terminal self-activation of the one or more unlicensed carriers includes: after waiting for the interval time, the terminal detects that the data is available for sending data. When the channel is idle, the terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.

Optionally, the activating the one or more unlicensed carriers by the terminal by itself: the terminal automatically activates the one or more unlicensed carriers at the beginning of the specified time.

Optionally, in the process of resource competition in which the terminal initiates one or more unlicensed carriers, the terminal self-activation of the one or more unlicensed carriers includes: at the end of the specified time, the terminal activates itself One or more unlicensed carriers are described.

Optionally, the activating, by the terminal, the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself: the terminal activating the one or more unauthorized ones at a predetermined time before the terminal competes with the resource moment a carrier, wherein the predetermined time is greater than a time required for the terminal to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers.

According to another aspect of the present invention, an activation device for an unlicensed carrier is provided on the terminal side, and includes: an activation module, configured to activate itself when a terminal initiates resource competition of one or more unlicensed carriers. The one or more unlicensed carriers, where the resource contention process includes: a process in which the terminal waits for a specified time and a process in which the terminal competes for the resource, where the specified time is the last resource of the terminal The use ends with an interval at which the terminal begins to compete for the resource.

Optionally, the activation module includes: a first activation unit, configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself after the terminal competes for the resource.

Optionally, the first activation unit is further configured to: when the terminal waits for the interval time, detects that there is an idle channel available for transmitting data, and activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.

Optionally, the activation module comprises: a second activation unit, configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when the specified time begins.

Optionally, the activation module includes: a third activation unit, configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when the specified time ends.

Optionally, the activation module includes: a fourth activation unit, configured to automatically activate the one or more unlicensed carriers when a predetermined time before the terminal competes with the resource moment, wherein the The predetermined time is greater than the time required for the terminal to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the terminal activates one or more unlicensed carriers in the process of initiating one or more unlicensed carrier resources. When the terminal competes for resources successfully, the terminal may directly send data through the contending resources. Or, the base station is notified by the base station to schedule the terminal to send data through the contending resources. In this manner, the problem that the terminal takes a long time from receiving the activation command to entering the activation state in the related art is solved, and the terminal can maximize the utilization of the contending resources. .

DRAWINGS

The drawings described herein are intended to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are intended to be a part of the invention. In the drawing:

1 is a diagram of a competition and usage time relationship of unlicensed carrier resources in the related art;

2 is a flowchart of a method for activating an unlicensed carrier according to an embodiment of the present invention;

3a-3d are block diagrams showing the structure of an activation device for an unlicensed carrier according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a flow chart of an activation method of an unlicensed carrier in accordance with an alternative embodiment of the present invention.

detailed description

It should be noted that the embodiments in the present application and the features in the embodiments may be combined with each other without conflict. The invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings in conjunction with the embodiments.

The present invention relates to a process for competing for unlicensed carrier resources. The process includes: (1) when the base station finds that the terminal has a large amount of downlink data to be transmitted, and the current cell does not have too many resources to use; the terminal needs to be notified to preempt unauthorized access. The carrier resources need to preempt the resources when the terminal has a large amount of uplink data to be sent, and notify the base station to perform resource preemption. (2) The terminal initiates the resource competition process on the unlicensed carrier. In this process, the terminal activates itself. The unlicensed carrier may; (3) the terminal contends to the resource, notifies the base station, the base station schedules the terminal, or the terminal transmits the data to be transmitted through the resource. The invention is exemplified below in conjunction with the embodiments of the invention;

This embodiment provides a method for activating an unlicensed carrier. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method for activating an unlicensed carrier according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the steps of the method include:

Step S202: When the terminal has a large amount of downlink data or a large amount of uplink data transmission, the base station notifies the terminal to compete for resources or the terminal competes for resources and notifies the base station;

Step S204: The terminal activates one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when the terminal initiates resource competition of one or more unlicensed carriers.

The resource competition process includes: a process in which the terminal waits for a specified time and a process in which the terminal competes for resources, and the specified time is an interval between the last use of the resource and the time when the terminal starts competing for resources.

Step S206: The terminal transmits data by using the one or more unlicensed carriers.

With this embodiment, the terminal activates itself during the contention process of starting one or more unlicensed carrier resources. One or more unlicensed carriers can directly transmit data through the contending resources when the terminal contends for the resources, or notify the base station to schedule the terminal to send data through the contending resources, and the related technology is solved by the method. The problem that the terminal takes a long time from receiving the activation command to entering the activation state can enable the terminal to make maximum use of the resources that are competing.

It should be noted that the specified time involved in this embodiment may be zero or have a certain waiting time according to actual conditions.

The process of initiating the competition of one or more unlicensed carrier resources involved in the embodiment includes: a process in which the terminal waits for a specified time and a process in which the terminal competes for resources, and the specified time is that the terminal starts competing for resources after the last use of the resource ends. Interval, therefore, for the method for the terminal to activate one or more unlicensed carriers by itself in the embodiment, the method will be exemplified in the following with reference to several alternative embodiments of the embodiment;

Optional Embodiment 1: After the terminal competes for resources, that is, after the terminal waits for an interval, it detects that there is an idle channel available for transmitting data, and the terminal activates one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.

Alternative Embodiment 2: The terminal activates one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when the specified time is reached.

Optional Embodiment 3: At the end of the specified time, the terminal activates one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.

Alternate Embodiment 4: The terminal activates one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when the terminal is scheduled to compete for the resource time, wherein the predetermined time is greater than the time required for the terminal to activate one or more unlicensed carriers. Wherein, the predetermined time is greater than the required time, and the corresponding adjustment can be performed as needed.

It should be noted that the above four optional implementation manners do not constitute a limitation of the present invention. At other moments in the process of starting one or more unlicensed carrier resource competition, the terminal may also activate the one or more non-self according to the needs. Authorized carrier

In this embodiment, an activation device for an unlicensed carrier is also provided, and the device is used to implement the foregoing embodiments and optional implementations, and details are not described herein. As used below, the term "module" "unit" may implement a combination of software and/or hardware of a predetermined function. Although the apparatus described in the following embodiments is preferably implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware, is also possible and contemplated.

3a-3d are block diagrams showing the structure of an activation device for an unlicensed carrier according to an embodiment of the present invention. The device is located at the terminal side, and the device includes: an activation module 32, configured to initiate a resource competition process of one or more unlicensed carriers at the terminal. One or more unlicensed carriers are activated by themselves, wherein the resource contention process includes: a process in which the terminal waits for a specified time and a process in which the terminal competes for resources, and the specified time is an interval between the last use of the resource and the time when the terminal starts competing for resources. .

As shown in FIG. 3a, the activation module 32 includes: a first activation unit 322, configured to compete in the terminal. After the source, one or more unlicensed carriers are activated by themselves.

Optionally, the first activation unit 322 is further configured to: when the terminal detects that there is an idle channel available for transmitting data, wait for an interval, and activate one or more unlicensed carriers.

As shown in Figure 3b, the activation module 32 includes a second activation unit 324 configured to self-activate one or more unlicensed carriers upon arrival of the specified time.

As shown in Figure 3c, the activation module 32 includes a third activation unit 326 arranged to self-activate one or more unlicensed carriers at the end of the specified time.

As shown in FIG. 3d, the activation module 32 includes a fourth activation unit 328 configured to activate one or more unlicensed carriers upon a predetermined time before the terminal competes for the resource time, wherein the predetermined time is greater than the terminal activation. The time required for multiple or more unlicensed carriers.

The invention will now be described in connection with an alternative embodiment of the invention;

The optional embodiment provides an activation method for an unlicensed carrier, and the implementation manner of the method includes:

Manner 1: The terminal activates itself after robbing the resource, that is, the terminal detects that the channel is idle after waiting for the interval, and can send data, then activate the unlicensed carrier by itself.

Manner 2: The terminal performs the activation process when the resource is preempted, that is, the terminal has data ready to be sent or receives notification from the base station that needs to contend for resources. When the waiting interval is started, the unlicensed carrier is activated by itself. After detecting that the channel state is idle, the data is sent immediately.

Manner 3: The terminal performs the activation process when the resource is preempted, that is, the terminal has data ready to be sent or receives notification from the base station that needs to contend for resources. After the waiting interval ends, the unlicensed carrier is activated by itself. After detecting that the channel state is idle, the data is sent immediately.

Mode 4: The terminal guarantees that the data is sent at the first time when the resource is robbed. The terminal decides to activate the unlicensed carrier at its own time. For example, if the self-activation requires 4 ms, then the time for robbing the resource is pushed forward for 4 ms.

Before this, the terminal competes for resources, and after the terminal preempts the resources, the eNB resources are notified to be used, and the eNB re-schedules the terminal.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a method for activating an unlicensed carrier according to an alternative embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, the steps of the method include:

Step S402: The terminal initiates a radio resource control (Radio Resource Control abbreviated as RRC) connection establishment process in the authorized carrier cell, and enters a connected state.

Step S404: The base station configures the terminal with an unlicensed carrier due to the increase of the traffic volume, and the terminal will be unauthorized. The wave and the cell perform carrier aggregation, and the unlicensed carrier is in a deactivated state.

Step S406: The base station finds that the terminal has a large amount of downlink data to be sent, and the current cell does not have too many resources to be used. Therefore, the terminal needs to preempt the resources of the unlicensed carrier, and may include information that needs to be preempted, such as occupation time and occupied bandwidth.

Or the terminal finds that a large amount of uplink data needs to be sent, and needs to preempt the resources, and notifies the base station that resource preemption is being performed, and may include information that needs to preempt the resources, such as occupation time and occupied bandwidth;

Step S408: The terminal initiates a resource competition process on the unlicensed carrier. In this process, in combination with FIG. 1, the manner in which the terminal activates the unlicensed carrier by itself includes:

Optional example one:

1) At time T2, the terminal starts to enter waiting for the specified interval time;

2) At time T3, the specified interval is over, and the terminal starts the competition process of resources;

3) At time T4, the competition process ends, the terminal seizes the resource successfully, and data transmission can be performed to activate the unlicensed carrier by itself. If the terminal does not compete for resources, the unlicensed carrier continues to be deactivated.

Optional example two:

1) At time T2, the terminal starts to wait for a specified interval and activates the unlicensed carrier by itself;

3) At time T4, the competition process ends, and the terminal seizes the resource successfully. If the terminal does not compete for resources, the non-authorized carrier is deactivated by itself;

Optional example three:

2) At time T3, when the specified interval is over, the terminal starts the resource competition process and activates the unlicensed carrier by itself;

Optional example four:

It takes 4 ms for the terminal to activate the unlicensed carrier by itself. If the terminal finds that the unlicensed carrier has not been activated, the terminal determines that there is still 4 ms at the time of the distance T4, and activates the unlicensed carrier by itself. It should be noted that the 4 ms may be changed according to the time state, or Can be pre-configured;

1) At time T2, the terminal starts to enter the waiting interval. If the terminal finds that the unlicensed carrier has not been activated, the terminal judges that there is still 4 ms from the time T4, and activates the unlicensed carrier by itself;

2) At time T3, the specified interval is over, the terminal starts the resource competition process. If the terminal finds that the unlicensed carrier has not been activated, the terminal judges that there is still 4 ms from the time T4, and activates the unlicensed carrier by itself;

Step S410: The terminal contends to the resource, notifies the base station, and may include time information, bandwidth information, and the like of the contending resource;

Step S412: The base station schedules the terminal.

Step S414: After the resource preempted by the terminal is used, calculate the next activation time, for example, for mode 1, the next activation time is T4, and if the specified threshold is exceeded (for example, 10 ms, it can be default or configured), the unlicensed carrier is deactivated. Wait until the next activation time T4 to reactivate. If the specified threshold is not exceeded (for example, 10ms, it can be default or configured), the unlicensed carrier activation state is maintained. Other ways and so on, will not be repeated.

In this alternative embodiment, the manner in which the terminal activates the unlicensed carrier by itself is adopted, so that the competing resources can be better utilized with respect to the manner in the related art.

In another embodiment, software is also provided for performing the technical solutions described in the above embodiments and preferred embodiments.

In another embodiment, a storage medium is further provided, wherein the software includes the above-mentioned software, including but not limited to: an optical disk, a floppy disk, a hard disk, an erasable memory, and the like.

Obviously, those skilled in the art should understand that the above modules or steps of the present invention can be implemented by a general-purpose computing device, which can be concentrated on a single computing device or distributed over a network composed of multiple computing devices. Alternatively, they may be implemented by program code executable by the computing device such that they may be stored in the storage device for execution by the computing device and, in some cases, may be performed in a different order than herein. The steps shown or described are either made separately into individual integrated circuit modules, or a plurality of modules or steps are fabricated as a single integrated circuit module. Thus, the invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software.

The above is only an alternative embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes can be made to the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and scope of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Industrial applicability

Claims

A method for activating an unlicensed carrier, further comprising:

The terminal itself activates the one or more unlicensed carriers in a resource competition process in which the terminal initiates one or more unlicensed carriers, where the resource contention process includes: a process and a process in which the terminal waits for a specified time. The process of the terminal competing for the resource, the specified time is an interval between the last use of the resource by the terminal and the time when the terminal starts to compete for the resource.
The method of claim 1, wherein the activating the one or more unlicensed carriers by the terminal comprises:

After the terminal competes for the resource, the terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.
The method according to claim 2, wherein, after the terminal competes for the resource, the terminal self-activation of the one or more unlicensed carriers includes:

After the terminal waits for the interval time and detects that there is an idle channel available for transmitting data, the terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.
The method of claim 1, wherein the activating the one or more unlicensed carriers by the terminal comprises:

The terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself at the beginning of the specified time.
The method according to claim 1, wherein, in the process of resource competition in which the terminal initiates one or more unlicensed carriers, the terminal self-activation of the one or more unlicensed carriers includes:

At the end of the specified time, the terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.
The method of claim 1, wherein the activating the one or more unlicensed carriers by the terminal comprises:

The terminal activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when a predetermined time before the terminal competes with the resource time, wherein the predetermined time is greater than the terminal activates the one or more non- The time required to authorize the carrier.
An activation device for an unlicensed carrier, located on the terminal side, includes:

The activation module is configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when the terminal initiates resource competition of one or more unlicensed carriers, where the resource contention process includes: the process in which the terminal waits for a specified time The process of competing with the terminal for the resource, where the specified time is an interval between the last use of the resource and the interval at which the terminal starts to compete for the resource.
The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the activation module comprises:

The first activation unit is configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself after the terminal competes for the resource.
The device according to claim 8, wherein

The first activation unit is further configured to: when the terminal waits for the interval time, detects that there is an idle channel available for transmitting data, and activates the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself.
The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the activation module comprises:

The second activation unit is configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself at the beginning of the specified time.
The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the activation module comprises:

The third activation unit is configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself at the end of the specified time.
The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the activation module comprises:

a fourth activation unit, configured to activate the one or more unlicensed carriers by itself when a predetermined time before the terminal competes for the resource time, wherein the predetermined time is greater than the terminal activates the one The time required for multiple or more unlicensed carriers.