WO2017118097A1

WO2017118097A1 - Failure reporting method and device

Info

Publication number: WO2017118097A1
Application number: PCT/CN2016/099501
Authority: WO
Inventors: 张新
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2016-01-04
Filing date: 2016-09-20
Publication date: 2017-07-13
Also published as: CN106941717A; CN106941717B

Abstract

Disclosed are a failure reporting method and apparatus. The failure reporting method comprises: user equipment (UE) separately determines whether time alignment timers (TATs) of secondary timing advance groups (sTAGs) and a TAT of a primary timing advance group (pTAG) that are maintained by the UE time out; when a TAT of at least one of the sTAGs times out and the TAT of the pTAG does not time out, the UE obtains timeout information of the TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out; the UE sends the timeout information to a base station by using a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of any sTAG whose TAT does not time out or a PUSCH of the pTAG.

Description

Fault reporting method and device

Technical field

The present disclosure relates to the field of communication technologies, for example, to a fault reporting method and apparatus.

Background technique

In a Long Term Evolution (LTE) communication system and a LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) communication system, user equipment (UE) can be maintained during carrier aggregation. Timing Advance Group (TAG), each TAG has at least one serving cell, and at least one serving cell has a physical uplink shared channel. The UE maintains a Time Alignment Timer (TAT) for each of its TAGs. When the TAT of any TAG times out, the UE will stop the uplink transmission of the TAG serving cell. However, in the related art, only when the UE has no data transmission for a long time, the base station can identify the UE abnormality through the UE status monitoring function, which not only takes a long time, but also cannot accurately know whether the TAT of the TAG has timed out. The base station still performs scheduling on the Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) of the TAG that is time-out of the TAT, or performs measurement on the Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), resulting in accurate uplink maintenance of the UE by the base station. The degree is low.

Summary of the invention

The present disclosure provides a fault reporting method and apparatus, which can improve the accuracy of a base station to maintain uplink synchronization of a UE.

The present disclosure provides a fault reporting method, the fault reporting method including:

The user equipment UE determines whether the time alignment timer TAT of the secondary time advance group sTAG and the TAT of the primary time advance group pTAG are timed out respectively;

When the TAT of the at least one sTAG of the sTAG times out and the TAT of the pTAG does not time out, the UE acquires timeout information of the TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out;

The UE sends the timeout information to the base station by using any sTAG that does not time out the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.

Optionally, after the UE sends the timeout information to the base station by using the sTAG that is not timed out by the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of the pTAG, the fault reporting method further includes:

Receiving, by the UE, a control instruction returned by the base station based on the timeout information, where

The control instruction is used to instruct the UE to deactivate or delete a cell included in the sTAG that the TAT times out;

Alternatively, the control instruction is used to indicate that the UE restarts the TAT that times out.

Optionally, the sending, by the UE, the timeout information to the base station by using any sTAG that is not timed out by the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of the pTAG includes:

The UE sends the timeout information to the base station in the form of a media access control unit MAC CE through any sTAG that is not timed out by the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.

Optionally, after the user equipment UE determines that the TAT of the sTAG and the TTA of the pTAG that are maintained by the UE are timed out, the fault reporting method further includes:

When the TAT of the pTAG times out, the UE refreshes the hybrid automatic repeat request HARQ memory of the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG, and stops transmitting the monitoring on the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG. a reference signal SRS, releasing the sTAG and SRS resources of a cell included in the pTAG;

The UE initiates a random access procedure.

Optionally, the determining, by the user equipment UE, whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TTA of the pTAG that are maintained by the UE are timed out include:

Determining, by the UE, whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TAT of the pTAG are running to a timeout point, where the TAT of the pTAG times out when the TAT of the pTAG runs to a timeout point, and the sTAG of the sTAG TAT timeout; when the TAT of the sTAG runs to a timeout point, and the TAT of the pTAG does not run to the timeout point, the TAT of the sTAG times out;

Or, the UE determines whether the uplink transmission time difference between the sTAG and the pTAG is greater than a preset time difference, where the TAT of the sTAG times out when the uplink transmission time difference is greater than the preset time difference.

The present disclosure also provides a fault reporting apparatus, the fault reporting apparatus comprising:

The judging module is configured to respectively determine the auxiliary time advance group sTAG maintained by the user equipment UE Whether the TAT of the TAT and the primary time advance group pTAG times out;

Obtaining a module, configured to acquire a timeout information of a TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out when a TAT of at least one sTAG of the sTAG times out and a TAT of the pTAG does not time out;

The sending module is configured to send the timeout information to the base station by using an sTAG that does not time out by any TAT or a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.

Optionally, the fault reporting apparatus further includes a receiving module, configured to receive the timeout information after transmitting the timeout information to the base station by using an sTAG that does not time out by any TAT or a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG, a control instruction returned by the timeout information, wherein

Optionally, the sending module is further configured to send the timeout information to the base station in the form of a media access control unit MAC CE through any sTAG that is not timed out by the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.

Optionally, the fault reporting apparatus further includes a random access module, configured to refresh the sTAG when the TAT of the pTAG times out after determining whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TTAG of the pTAG are timed out respectively. And the hybrid automatic repeat request HARQ memory of the cell included in the pTAG, and stopping the UE to send a monitoring reference signal SRS on the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG, releasing the sTAG and the pTAG The SRS resources of the included cells; and the initiation of a random access procedure.

Optionally, the determining module is further configured to determine whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TAT of the pTAG are run to a timeout point, where the TTAG of the pTAG is when the TAT of the pTAG runs to a timeout point. Timeout, and the TAT of the sTAG is timed out; when the TAT of the sTAG is run to a timeout point, and the TAT of the pTAG is not running to the timeout point, the TAT of the sTAG times out;

Alternatively, the determining module is further configured to determine whether the uplink transmission time difference between the sTAG and the pTAG is greater than a preset time difference, where the TAT of the sTAG times out when the uplink transmission time difference is greater than the preset time difference. The present disclosure also provides a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions arranged to perform the above method.

The present disclosure also provides a user equipment of a fault reporting method, the user equipment comprising:

At least one processor;

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein

The memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor, the instructions being executed by the at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to perform the method described above.

In the related art, the base station detects the abnormality of the UE by using the UE status monitoring function, and then changes the uplink synchronization maintenance policy for the UE, which not only takes a long time, but also cannot accurately know whether the UE abnormality is caused by the TAT timeout. The fault reporting method and apparatus provided by the present disclosure enable the base station to obtain the timeout information of the TAT in time when the TAT of the UE is timed out, stop the scheduling or measurement operation of the sTAG that is timed out by the TAT, and avoid waste of processing resources. The uplink synchronization of the UE is restored according to the timeout information, thereby improving the accuracy of the base station maintaining the uplink synchronization of the UE.

DRAWINGS

1 is a schematic flow chart of a first embodiment of a fault reporting method according to the present disclosure;

2 is a diagram showing an example of a first MAC CE in a fourth embodiment of the fault reporting method of the present disclosure;

3 is a diagram showing an example of a second MAC CE in the fourth embodiment of the fault reporting method of the present disclosure;

4 is a schematic diagram of functional modules of a first embodiment of the fault reporting apparatus of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a hardware structure of an apparatus for performing a fault reporting method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

detailed description

It is understood that the embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the disclosure and are not intended to limit the disclosure.

The present disclosure provides a fault reporting method. Referring to FIG. 1, in a first embodiment of the fault reporting method of the present disclosure, a Time Alignment Group (TAG) includes a Secondary Time Alignment Group (sTAG). The fault reporting method includes the following steps.

In step 110, the user equipment UE determines whether the TAT of the Time Alignment Timer (TAT) and the Primary Time Alignment Group (pTAG) of the secondary time advance group sTAG maintained by the UE times out.

In this embodiment, user equipment (User Equipment, UE) may be distributed over the entire wireless network. The UE may be static or mobile. The UE may be a mobile station (MS), a subscriber unit (SU), a station, or the like, and may also be a cellular phone (CP), a personal digital assistant (PDA). ), wireless modems, wireless communication devices, handheld devices, laptops, cordless phones, wireless local loop (WLL) stations, and the like. The user equipment can communicate with base stations such as macro base stations, pico base stations, and femtocell base stations. In addition, the user equipment may further include a communication device that communicates with the base station and has a similar user equipment role. For example, when the relay node (RN) initially accesses the network, the RN accesses the network as a user equipment and communicates with the base station.

When there are multiple TAGs, the UE maintains an alignment timer Time Alignment Timer (TAT) for each TAG (the cells using the same Timing Advance (TA) belong to the same TAG), wherein the TAG can Including the pTAG and the sTAG, respectively, the PTAG including the primary cell and the TAT including the sTAG of the secondary cell are separately managed, and the related technology can only maintain the TAT in the primary cell, and the UE cannot directly learn the uplink synchronization status of the sTAG, and the UE may When the sTAG is in the out-of-synchronization state, the uplink transmission is performed, and the base station side cannot receive the uplink signals of the cells normally, which adapts to the demand for multiple TAs and multiple TAGs in the multi-carrier communication system, and can provide more accurate uplink for each TAG. The synchronization state control reduces the error and loss probability of the uplink transmission, and improves the service performance of the entire communication system. The UE does not maintain the TAT duration of the TAG when all the secondary cells in the TAG are deleted.

It should be noted that the TAT duration can be configured by Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, and the TAT duration corresponding to the sTAG can be configured differently from the TTA duration corresponding to the pTAG. Further, the TAT duration may be configured only in one cell of the TAG. For example, the TAT duration is configured in the cell configuration information, and the cell in which the cell configuration information is placed is used as the cell managing the TAT in the TAG. The UE may receive the length of the TAT configured by the base station for each TAG, and the TAT durations of different TAGs may be the same or different. In addition, the TAT duration may be configured or reconfigured according to the situation of the currently included cell in the TAG corresponding to the TAT, that is, when the base station performs adding, deleting, and reconfiguring a cell in the TAG, the TAT maintained by the UE The duration can be reconfigured according to the latest component cell status in the TAG.

In other embodiments, while the UE maintains the TAT duration of each TAG on the UE side for each TAG, the base station may maintain a corresponding TAT duration on the base station side for each of the foregoing TAGs, so that the TAT of the UE side is performed. The processing of the TAT on the base station side is consistent, which facilitates the base station to understand the TAT operation on the UE side. State, so that in the case where a partial trigger action occurs on the TAT on the UE side, corresponding processing can be performed.

In step 120, when the TAT of at least one sTAG of the sTAG times out and the TAT of the pTAG does not time out, the UE acquires timeout information of the TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out.

It should be noted that, in the actual engineering scenario, there are multiple reasons for the TAT to be timed out. For example, in the related art, the base station sends a TA command to the UE to indicate the UE by determining the timeout point of the TAT maintained by the UE before the TAT expires. Restart TAT to avoid TAT timeout. However, because the underlying network transport layer may have problems such as packet loss and congestion, in the actual maintenance process of the UE uplink synchronization, the TA command for instructing the UE to restart the TAT cannot reach the UE, or the UE cannot be reached on time. The TAT that caused the UE to maintain timeout.

In addition, when the uplink transmission time difference between the sTAG and the pTAG exceeds the maximum uplink transmission time difference between the TAGs that the UE can process, the TAT of the sTAG may also be timed out.

In this embodiment, the UE acquires a timeout information of a timeout TAT when it detects that the TAT of the sTAG that it maintains is timed out and the TAT of the pTAG does not time out. The timeout information includes at least a timeout TAT. The corresponding sTAG may also include the cause of the TAT timeout.

In step 130, the UE sends the timeout information to the base station through any sTAG that does not time out, or a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) of the pTAG.

In this embodiment, the base station may be an evolved Node B (eNB), a base station (BS), a 3G mobile base station (Node B), an access point (AP), or the like. The base station may be a macro base station, a medium base station, or a micro base station, such as a home base station. Each base station can provide communication coverage for a particular geographic area. In the following embodiments, the term "cell" may be the coverage area of a base station, and/or the coverage area served by a base station subsystem, depending on the context in which the term is used. The base station can provide communication coverage for macro cells, pico cells, femto cells, and/or other types of cells.

In this embodiment, when the timeout information of the timeout TAT is obtained, the UE sends the obtained timeout information to the base station, so that the base station maintains the uplink synchronization of the UE according to the timeout information. The UE sends the timeout information to the base station by using any sTAG that does not time out the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG. For example, the UE may send the timeout information to the base station by using the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of the pTAG that the TAT has not timed out. After receiving the timeout information sent by the UE, the base station stops the sTAG that expires in the TAT. On the PUSCH Scheduling and stopping the measurement on the Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) to avoid waste of processing resources; or, after receiving the timeout information sent by the UE, the base station may further send the TA command again. To the UE, to indicate that the UE restarts the TAT that times out.

Optionally, in this embodiment, the UE may stop the timeout of the TAT while acquiring the timeout information of the timeout TAT.

Optionally, in this embodiment, the foregoing step 130 includes:

It should be noted that, in the process of maintaining the TAT duration of each TAG, the TAT is timed out, and the UE is out of synchronization. The reasons for the TAT timeout include:

(1) When the TAT of the pTAG runs to the timeout point, the TTA of the pTAG times out, and the TAT of each sTAG maintained by the UE times out;

(2), when the TAT of any sTAG runs to the timeout point, and the TTAG of the pTAG does not run to the timeout point, the TAT of the sTAG times out, and does not affect the TAT of other sTAGs and pTAGs;

(3) When the uplink transmission time difference between any sTAG and pTAG exceeds the maximum uplink transmission time difference between the TAGs that can be processed by the UE (the preset time difference described in this embodiment), the TAT of the sTAG times out. The preset time difference depends on the performance of the UE processing the TAG.

Optionally, based on the first embodiment, in the second embodiment of the fault reporting method of the present disclosure, after the step 130, the fault reporting method may further include:

The control instruction is used to instruct the UE to deactivate or delete a cell included in an sTAG of a TAT timeout:

The following describes the embodiment in which the sTAG of the TAT timeout includes the cell 1 as an example.

In this embodiment, after receiving the timeout information reported by the UE, the base station determines, according to factors such as an uplink synchronization and maintaining algorithm, a resource scheduling algorithm, and a downlink channel quality, that the cell1 is out of synchronization, or because the scheduling algorithm is unreasonable. The TA command is not sent on the cell1 for a long time, or the UE does not correctly receive the TA command sent by the cell1 because the cell1 downlink channel is too poor, and different actions are taken. For example, when the cell 1 is out of synchronization, the base station may instruct the UE to perform random access on the cell 1 to reacquire the uplink synchronization according to the service requirement, or the base station may notify the UE to deactivate the cell 1 or notify the UE to directly delete the cell 1 If the scheduling algorithm is unreasonable and the TA command is not sent to the cell 1, the base station may continue to schedule the cell or send a new TA command to the UE. After receiving the new TA command, the UE restarts the cell1. The TAT re-maintains the uplink synchronization of the cell 1 and restarts the transmission and reception on the cell 1. If the downlink channel is too bad, the base station may notify the UE to activate the cell 1 or notify the UE to directly delete the configuration of the cell 1. Among them, deactivation or deletion can be set in advance according to actual needs.

In this embodiment, when the TAT times out, the timeout information is fed back to the base station by the UE, and the control instruction returned by the base station according to the timeout information is received, and the cell included in the sTAG with the TAT timeout is deactivated or deleted according to the received control command. The TAT of the timeout is restarted, the reliability of the uplink synchronization maintenance is enhanced, the continuity of the data transmission is ensured, and the UE can provide a good service experience.

Optionally, based on any of the foregoing embodiments, in the third embodiment of the fault reporting method that is proposed by the disclosure, the foregoing step 130 includes:

It can be understood by those skilled in the art that, in an actual engineering scenario, if the TTAG timeout of the pTAG causes the pTAG uplink to be out of synchronization, each sTAG of the UE will be out of synchronization, thereby causing the UE to Unable to communicate with the base station. In this embodiment, the UE may send the timeout information to the base station by using a PUSCH of any TAG that does not time out (including sTAG and pTAG that the TAT has not timed out), and only when the TAT of the sTAG is timed out. Optionally, the UE sends the timeout information to the base station by using a PUSCH of the pTAG in the form of a Media Access Control Cell (MAC CE).

The MAC CE may include a time advance group TAG identifier (ID) and a timeout type (Timeout Type), where the TAG ID is used to identify a TAG of a TAT timeout, and the Timeout Type is used to identify a cause of a TAT timeout. .

For example, suppose a UE supporting multiple TAs has PUSCH resources in the primary cell of the current subframe. The UE is configured with one pTAG and three sTAGs. TAG0 represents pTAG, and TAG1, TAG2, and TAG3 represent 3 sTAGs, respectively. The TTAG of pTAG does not time out, the TAT of TAG1 and TAG2 both time out, and the TAT of TAG3 does not time out. The reason for the TAT timeout of the TAG1 is that the uplink transmission time difference between the TAG1 and the TAG0 exceeds the preset transmission time difference (the maximum uplink transmission time difference between the TAGs that the UE can process); the TAT timeout reason of the TAG2 is that the TAT of the TAG2 runs to the timeout. Time point.

The UE sends a MAC CE carrying a timeout information on the PUSCH. The MAC CE has a total of 8 bits. As shown in FIG. 2, three sTAGs are respectively indicated by three bits, where the bit value “1” indicates that the TAT timeout of the sTAG is to be reported. The reason is that the bit value "0" indicates that the TAT timeout reason of the sTAG is not reported. Correspondingly, the bit indicating the TAG1 is filled with the value "1", indicating the bit of the TAG2, and the value "1" is filled in, indicating the bit of the TAG3. The value "0" is entered; for each sTAG of the three sTAGs, the timeout reason is indicated by 1 bit, and the above reason (3) is indicated by the padding value "1", and the padding value "0" is used to indicate that the reason (3) is excluded. The other causes the TAT timeout, correspondingly, the bit indicating TAG1 is filled with the value "1"; the bit indicating TAG2 is filled with the value "0".

It should be noted that, since the MAC CE is 8 bits, the temporarily undefined bit is recorded as a reserved bit, and is represented by R, and can be filled with any value; the timeout reason bit corresponding to the sTAG that does not report the TAT timeout reason of the sTAG is recorded as Invalid bit, denoted by P, can be arbitrarily filled with values.

For another example, assume that a UE supporting multiple TAs has PUSCH resources in the primary cell of the current subframe. The UE is configured with one pTAG and three sTAGs. TAG0 represents pTAG, and TAG1, TAG2, and TAG3 represent 3 sTAGs, respectively. The TTAG of pTAG does not time out, the TAT of TAG1 and TAG2 both time out, and the TAT of TAG3 does not time out. The reason for the TAT timeout of the TAG1 is that the uplink transmission time difference between the TAG1 and the TAG0 exceeds the preset transmission time difference (the maximum uplink between the TAGs that the UE can process) The difference in transmission time); the reason for the TAT timeout of TAG2 is that the TAT of TAG2 runs to the timeout point.

The UE sends a MAC CE carrying the timeout information on the PUSCH. The MAC CE has a total of 16 bits. As shown in FIG. 3, three sTAGs are respectively indicated by three bits, where the bit value “1” indicates that the sTAG is to be reported. The reason for the TAT timeout is that the bit value "0" indicates that the TAT timeout reason of the sTAG is not reported. Correspondingly, the bit indicating TAG1 is filled with the value "1", indicating the bit of TAG2, and the value "1" is filled in, indicating the bit of TAG3. Fill in the value "0"; for each sTAG of the three sTAGs, indicate the timeout reason with 2 bits, and use the padding value "11" to indicate the above reason (1), and the padding value "10" to indicate the foregoing reason (2) The reason (3) is indicated by the padding value "01", and the cause of the TAT timeout other than the foregoing reasons (1), (2), and (3) is indicated by the padding value "00", and accordingly, the TAG1 is indicated. The bit is filled with the value "01"; the bit indicating TAG2 is filled with the value "10".

It should be noted that, since the MAC CE is 16 bits, the temporarily undefined bit is recorded as a reserved bit, and is represented by R, and can be filled with any value; the timeout reason bit corresponding to the sTAG that does not report the TAT timeout reason of the sTAG is Invalid bit, denoted by P, can be arbitrarily filled with values.

Optionally, based on any of the foregoing embodiments, in the fourth embodiment of the fault reporting method that is proposed by the disclosure, after the step 110, the fault reporting method further includes:

When the TAT of the pTAG times out, the UE refreshes the Hybrid Automatic Repeat ReQuest (HARQ) memory of the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG, and stops at the sTAG and the pTAG. Transmitting a listening reference signal SRS on the included cell, releasing the SRS resource of the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG;

The UE initiates a random access procedure.

Based on the description of the foregoing embodiments, those skilled in the art can understand that, in the TAT timeout of the pTAG, the UE is out of synchronization in each cell and cannot communicate normally with the base station. Therefore, this embodiment provides a self-recovery scheme after the UE is out of synchronization. When the UE determines that the TAT timeout of the sTAG is caused by the TAT timeout of the pTAG, refreshing the HARQ of the cell included in each of the TAGs (including the sTAG and the pTAG), and stopping at the sTAG and the pTAG The SRS (Souding Reference Signal) is sent on the included cell, and the SRS resource of the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG is released, and then the random access procedure is initiated.

The process of the random access process initiated by the UE adopts an asynchronous access mode, that is, a process for the base station to estimate and adjust the TAT maintained by the UE when the UE has not obtained uplink synchronization or uplink out-of-synchronization. It is also used for the UE to request resource allocation from the base station. The base station responds to the UE's asynchronous random access Attempts to send a TA command to the UE to adjust the uplink transmission timing and allocate the PUSCH of the transmitted data or control signaling, and the TA command and the uplink data resource allocation may also be combined and transmitted to the UE.

The random access procedure can have two modes: contention based random access and contention free random access. Generally, there are 64 available preamble sequences in each cell. For a contention-based random access procedure, the UE randomly selects a preamble sequence to initiate a random access procedure to the base station, if multiple UEs use the same preamble at the same time. When the sequence initiates a random access procedure, a collision occurs, which may result in access failure. The contention-free random access uses the preamble sequence allocated by the base station to initiate a random access procedure, and the access success rate is high. Therefore, it is considered that the base station can know in advance that the UE needs to initiate a random access procedure only in the case of switching or having downlink data transmission. Therefore, non-contention random access can be used only in the two scenarios. For other application scenarios, Only contention-based random access can be used. It can be understood by those skilled in the art that, in this embodiment, the UE initiates a contention-based random access procedure.

The present disclosure also provides a fault reporting apparatus. Referring to FIG. 4, in the first embodiment of the fault reporting apparatus of the present disclosure, the fault reporting apparatus includes a determining module 10, an obtaining module 20, and a transmitting module 30.

The determining module 10 is configured to determine whether the time alignment timer TAT and the TAT of the primary time advance group pTAG of the secondary time advance group sTAG maintained by the user equipment UE are timed out respectively.

In this embodiment, the UE may be distributed throughout the wireless network, and the UE may be static or mobile. The UE may be a mobile station (MS), a subscriber unit (SU), a station, or the like, and may also be a cellular phone (CP), a personal digital assistant (PDA). ), wireless modems, wireless communication devices, handheld devices, laptops, cordless phones, wireless local loop (WLL) stations, and the like. The user equipment can communicate with base stations such as macro base stations, pico base stations, and femtocell base stations. In addition, the user equipment may further include a communication device that communicates with the base station and has a similar user equipment role. For example, when the relay node (RN) initially accesses the network, the RN accesses the network as a user equipment and communicates with the base station.

When there are multiple TAGs, the UE maintains one TAT for each TAG (the cells using the same timing advance TA belong to the same TAG), wherein the TAG may include pTAG and sTAG, pTAG including the primary cell and only The TAT of the sTAG of the secondary cell is separately managed. The related technology can only maintain the TAT in the primary cell, and the UE cannot directly learn the uplink synchronization status of the sTAG. The UE may perform uplink transmission when the sTAG is out of synchronization. Can't receive these smalls properly The problem of the uplink signal of the area adapts to the demand for multiple TAs and multiple TAGs in the multi-carrier communication system, and can provide more accurate control of the uplink synchronization state for each TAG, reduce the error and loss probability of the uplink transmission, and improve the whole Service performance of the communication system. The UE does not maintain the TAT duration of the TAG when all the secondary cells in the TAG are deleted.

It should be noted that the TAT duration can be configured by using RRC signaling, and the TAT duration corresponding to the sTAG can be configured differently from the TTA duration corresponding to the pTAG. Further, the TAT duration may be configured only in one cell of the TAG. For example, the TAT duration is configured in the cell configuration information, and the cell in which the cell configuration information is placed is used as the cell managing the TAT in the TAG. The UE may receive the length of the TAT configured by the base station for each TAG, and the TAT durations of different TAGs may be the same or different. In addition, the TAT duration may be configured or reconfigured according to the situation of the currently included cell in the TAG corresponding to the TAT, that is, when the base station performs adding, deleting, and reconfiguring a cell in the TAG, the TAT maintained by the UE The duration can be reconfigured according to the latest component cell status in the TAG.

In other embodiments, while the UE maintains the TAT duration of each TAG on the UE side for each TAG, the base station may maintain a corresponding TAT duration on the base station side for each of the foregoing TAGs, so that the TAT of the UE side is performed. The processing of the TAT on the base station side is consistent, so that the base station can understand the TAT running state of the UE side, so that the corresponding processing can be performed when the TAT of the UE side is partially triggered.

The obtaining module 20 is configured to obtain timeout information of the TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out when the TAT of the at least one sTAG of the sTAG times out and the TAT of the pTAG does not time out.

It should be noted that, in the actual engineering scenario, there are multiple reasons for the TAT to be timed out. For example, in the related art, the base station sends a TA command to the UE to indicate the UE by determining the timeout point of the TAT maintained by the UE before the TAT expires. Restart TAT to avoid TAT timeout. However, because the underlying network transport layer may have problems such as packet loss and congestion, in the actual maintenance process of the UE uplink synchronization, the TA command for instructing the UE to restart the TAT cannot reach the UE, or the UE cannot be reached on time. Will cause the TAT maintained by the UE to time out.

In this embodiment, when the determining module 10 detects that the TAT of the sTAG maintained by the UE is timed out and the TAT of the pTAG has not timed out, the acquiring module 20 acquires timeout information of the timeout TAT, where the The timeout information includes at least the sTAG corresponding to the timeout TAT, and may also include the cause of the TAT timeout.

The sending module 30 is configured to send the timeout information to the base station by using the sTAG that is not timed out by any TAT or the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of the pTAG, so that the base station maintains the uplink synchronization of the UE according to the timeout information.

In this embodiment, when the acquiring module 20 acquires the timeout information of the timeout TAT, the sending module 30 sends the timeout information acquired by the acquiring module 20 to the base station, so that the base station according to the timeout information Maintaining uplink synchronization of the UE. The sending module 30 sends the timeout information to the base station by using any sTAG that does not time out the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG. For example, the sending module 30 may send the timeout information to the base station by using the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) of the pTAG that does not time out, and the base station stops after receiving the timeout information sent by the sending module 30. Scheduling on the PUSCH of the sTAG that the TAT times out, and stops performing measurement on the Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) to avoid waste of processing resources; or the base station receives the timeout sent by the sending module 30. After the information, a TA command may also be sent to the UE again to instruct the UE to restart the TAT that times out.

Optionally, in this embodiment, the acquiring module 20 may stop the timeout of the TAT while acquiring the timeout information of the timeout TAT.

Optionally, in the embodiment, the determining module 10 is further configured to determine whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TAT of the pTAG are respectively run to a timeout point, where the TAT of the pTAG runs to a timeout period. The TAT of the pTAG times out, and the TAT of the sTAG times out; when the TAT of the sTAG runs to the timeout point, and the TTAG of the pTAG does not run to the timeout point, the TAT of the sTAG times out. ;

Or the determining module 10 is further configured to determine whether the uplink transmission time difference between the sTAG and the pTAG is greater than a preset time difference, where the TAT of the sTAG times out when the uplink transmission time difference is greater than the preset time difference .

It should be noted that, during the process of maintaining the TAT duration of each TAG, the TAT is timed out, and the UE is out of synchronization. The reasons for the TAT timeout include:

Optionally, based on the first embodiment, in the second embodiment of the fault reporting apparatus of the present disclosure, the fault reporting apparatus further includes a receiving module, configured to receive a control instruction returned by the base station based on the timeout information, among them,

The control instruction is used to instruct the UE to deactivate or delete a cell included in an sTAG of a TAT timeout; or the control instruction is used to indicate that the UE restarts the TAT that times out.

In this embodiment, after receiving the timeout information reported by the UE, the base station determines, according to factors such as an uplink synchronization and holding algorithm, a resource scheduling algorithm, and a downlink channel quality, that the cell1 is out of synchronization, or The reason is that the scheduling algorithm is unreasonable, and the TA command is not sent on the cell1 for a long time, or because the UE1 does not correctly receive the TA command sent by the cell1 due to the poor downlink channel of the cell1, and different actions are taken. For example, when the cell 1 is out of synchronization, the base station may instruct the UE to perform random access on the cell 1 to reacquire the uplink synchronization according to the service requirement, or the base station may notify the UE to deactivate the cell 1 or notify the UE to directly delete the cell 1 Configuration; if it is because If the scheduling algorithm is unreasonable, the TA command is not sent on the cell1 for a long time. The base station can continue to schedule the cell or send a new TA command to the UE. After receiving the new TA command, the UE restarts the TAT corresponding to the cell1. Maintaining the uplink synchronization of the cell1 and restarting the transmission and reception on the cell1; if the downlink channel is too bad, the base station may notify the UE to activate the cell1, or notify the UE to directly delete the configuration of the cell1. Among them, deactivation or deletion can be set in advance according to actual needs.

In this embodiment, when the TAT times out, the timeout information is fed back to the base station by the sending module 30, and the receiving module receives the control instruction returned by the base station according to the timeout information, for the UE to be activated according to the received control command or The cell included in the sTAG that the TAT expires is deleted, or the TAT that is timed out is restarted, the reliability of the uplink synchronization maintenance is enhanced, the continuity of the data transmission is ensured, and the UE can provide a good service experience.

Optionally, based on any preceding embodiment, in the third embodiment of the fault reporting apparatus provided by the disclosure, the sending module 30 is further configured to pass any TAT without timeout in the form of a media access control unit MAC CE. The physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the sTAG or the pTAG sends the timeout information to the base station.

It can be understood by those skilled in the art that, in an actual engineering scenario, if the TTAG of the pTAG times out, the pTAG uplink is out of synchronization, and each sTAG of the UE is uplink out of synchronization, thereby causing the UE to fail to perform with the base station. Communication. In this embodiment, the sending module 30 may send the timeout information to the base station by using a PUSCH of any TAG that does not time out (including sTAG and pTAG that the TAT has not timed out), and only when the TAT of the sTAG is timed out. Optionally, the sending module 30 sends the timeout information to the base station by using a PUSCH of the pTAG in the form of a media access control unit MAC CE.

The MAC CE may include a time advance group identifier TAG ID and a timeout type Timeout Type, where the TAG ID is used to identify a TAG of a TAT timeout, and the Timeout Type is used to identify a cause of a TAT timeout.

The sending module 30 sends a MAC CE carrying the timeout information on the PUSCH. The MAC CE has a total of 8 bits. As shown in FIG. 2, three sTAGs are respectively indicated by three bits, where the bit value “1” indicates that the sTAG is to be reported. The reason for the TAT timeout is that the bit value "0" indicates that the TAT timeout reason of the sTAG is not reported. Correspondingly, the bit indicating TAG1 is filled with the value "1", indicating the bit of TAG2, and the value "1" is filled in, indicating the bit of TAG3. Fill in the value "0"; for each sTAG of the three sTAGs, use 1 bit to indicate the timeout reason, and use the padding value "1" to indicate the above reason (3), and use the padding value "0" to indicate the above reason (3) Other than the cause of the TAT timeout, correspondingly, the bit indicating TAG1 is filled with the value "1"; the bit indicating TAG2 is filled with the value "0".

For another example, assume that a UE supporting multiple TAs has PUSCH resources in the primary cell of the current subframe. The UE is configured with one pTAG and three sTAGs. TAG0 represents pTAG, and TAG1, TAG2, and TAG3 represent 3 sTAGs, respectively. The TTAG of pTAG does not time out, the TAT of TAG1 and TAG2 both time out, and the TAT of TAG3 does not time out. The reason for the TAT timeout of the TAG1 is that the uplink transmission time difference between the TAG1 and the TAG0 exceeds the preset transmission time difference (the maximum uplink transmission time difference between the TAGs that the UE can process); the TAT timeout reason of the TAG2 is that the TAT of the TAG2 runs to the timeout. Time point.

The sending module 30 sends a MAC CE carrying the timeout information on the PUSCH. The MAC CE has a total of 16 bits. As shown in FIG. 3, three sTAGs are respectively indicated by three bits, where the bit value “1” indicates that the sTAG is to be reported. The reason for the TAT timeout is that the bit value "0" indicates that the TAT timeout reason of the sTAG is not reported. Correspondingly, the bit indicating TAG1 is filled with the value "1", indicating the bit of TAG2, and the value "1" is filled in, indicating the bit of TAG3. Fill in the value "0"; for each sTAG of the three sTAGs, indicate the timeout reason with 2 bits, and use the padding value "11" to indicate the above reason (1), and the padding value "10" to indicate the foregoing reason (2) The reason (3) is indicated by the padding value "01", and the cause of the TAT timeout other than the foregoing reasons (1), (2), and (3) is indicated by the padding value "00", and accordingly, the TAG1 is indicated. The bit is filled with the value "01"; the bit indicating TAG2 is filled with the value "10".

Optionally, based on any of the foregoing embodiments, the fourth embodiment of the fault reporting apparatus proposed by the present disclosure The fault reporting apparatus further includes a random access module, configured to: after determining whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TTA of the pTAG that are maintained by the UE are timed out, refreshing the sTAG and the The HARQ memory of the cell included in the pTAG, and stops transmitting the interception reference signal SRS on the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG, releasing the SRS resource of the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG; and initiating a random connection Into the process.

Based on the description of the foregoing embodiments, those skilled in the art can understand that, in the TAT timeout of the pTAG, the UE is out of synchronization in each cell and cannot communicate normally with the base station. Therefore, this embodiment provides a self-recovery scheme after the UE is out of synchronization. When the determining module 10 determines that the TAT timeout of the sTAG is caused by the TAT timeout of the pTAG, the random access module refreshes the HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) of the cell included in each of the TAGs (including the sTAG and the pTAG). Retransmitting the request to the memory, and stopping the UE from transmitting an SRS (Souding Reference Signal) on the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG, releasing the sTAG and the SRS of the cell included in the pTAG Resources, and then actively initiate a random access process.

The random access procedure initiated by the random access module adopts an asynchronous access mode, that is, a process for the base station to estimate and adjust the TAT maintained by the UE when the UE has not obtained uplink synchronization or uplink out-of-synchronization. This process is also used for the UE to request resource allocation from the base station. The base station responds to the UE's asynchronous random access attempt, sends a TA command to the UE to adjust the uplink transmission timing, and allocates the PUSCH of the transmitted data or control signaling, and the TA command and the uplink data resource allocation may also be combined and sent. Go to the UE.

The random access procedure can have two modes: contention based random access and contention free random access. Generally, there are 64 available preamble sequences in each cell. For a contention-based random access procedure, the UE randomly selects a preamble sequence to initiate a random access procedure to the base station, if multiple UEs use the same preamble at the same time. When the sequence initiates a random access procedure, a collision occurs, which may result in access failure. The contention-free random access uses the preamble sequence allocated by the base station to initiate a random access procedure, and the access success rate is high. Therefore, it is considered that the base station can know in advance that the UE needs to initiate a random access procedure only in the case of switching or having downlink data transmission. Therefore, non-contention random access can be used only in the two scenarios. For other application scenarios, Only contention-based random access can be used. It can be understood by those skilled in the art that the random access module in this embodiment initiates a contention based random access procedure.

The present disclosure also provides a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions arranged to perform the method of any of the above embodiments.

The present disclosure also provides a hardware structure diagram of a user equipment that performs a fault reporting method. Referring to FIG. 5, the user equipment includes:

At least one processor 40, exemplified by a processor 40 in FIG. 5;

Memory 50.

The user equipment may further include: an input device 60 and an output device 70. The processor 40, the memory 50, the input device 60, and the output device 70 in the device may be connected by a bus or other means, and the bus connection is taken as an example in FIG.

The memory 50 is a computer readable storage medium and can be used to store software programs, computer executable programs, and program instructions/modules corresponding to the methods in the embodiments of the present disclosure. The processor 40 executes the function application and the data processing by executing software programs, instructions, and modules stored in the memory 50, that is, implementing the fault reporting method in the above method embodiments.

The memory 50 may include a storage program area and an storage data area, wherein the storage program area may store an operating system, an application required for at least one function; the storage data area may store data created according to usage of the terminal device, and the like. Moreover, memory 50 can include high speed random access memory, and can also include non-transitory memory, such as at least one magnetic disk storage device, flash memory device, or other non-transitory solid state storage device. In some examples, memory 50 can include memory remotely located relative to processor 40, which can be connected to the terminal device over a network. Examples of such networks include, but are not limited to, the Internet, intranets, local area networks, mobile communication networks, and combinations thereof.

Input device 60 can be configured to receive input numeric or character information and to generate key signal inputs related to user settings and function control of the terminal. Output device 60 can include a display device such as a display screen.

The one or more modules are stored in the memory 50 and, when executed by the one or more processors 40, perform the operations in the above methods.

Industrial applicability

The fault reporting method and apparatus provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure improve the accuracy of the base station maintaining the uplink synchronization of the user equipment.

Claims

A fault reporting method, including:

The user equipment UE determines whether the time alignment timer TAT of the secondary time advance group sTAG and the TAT of the primary time advance group pTAG are timed out respectively;

When the TAT of the at least one sTAG of the sTAG times out and the TAT of the pTAG does not time out, the UE acquires timeout information of the TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out;

The UE sends the timeout information to the base station by using any sTAG that does not time out the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.
The fault reporting method according to claim 1, after the UE sends the timeout information to the base station through the sTAG of the TMT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG, the fault reporting method further includes:

Receiving, by the UE, a control instruction returned by the base station based on the timeout information, where

The control instruction is used to instruct the UE to deactivate or delete a cell included in an sTAG of a TAT timeout;

Alternatively, the control instruction is used to indicate that the UE restarts the TAT that times out.
The fault reporting method of claim 1, wherein the sending, by the UE, the timeout information to the base station by using the sTAG that is not time-out of the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG includes:

The UE sends the timeout information to the base station in the form of a media access control unit MAC CE through any sTAG that is not timed out by the TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.
The fault reporting method of claim 1, after the user equipment UE determines whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TTA of the pTAG are timed out by the UE, the fault reporting method further includes:

When the TAT of the pTAG times out, the UE refreshes the sTAG and the hybrid automatic repeat request HARQ memory of the cell included in the pTAG, and stops at the sTAG and the Transmitting a sounding reference signal SRS on a cell included in the pTAG, releasing the SRS resource of the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG;

The UE initiates a random access procedure.
The fault reporting method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the user equipment UE determines whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TTA of the pTAG that are maintained by the UE respectively time out include:

Determining, by the UE, whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TAT of the pTAG are running to a timeout point, where the TAT of the pTAG times out when the TAT of the pTAG runs to a timeout point, and the sTAG of the sTAG TAT timeout; when the TAT of the sTAG runs to a timeout point, and the TAT of the pTAG does not run to the timeout point, the TAT of the sTAG times out;

Or, the UE determines whether the uplink transmission time difference between the sTAG and the pTAG is greater than a preset time difference, where the TAT of the sTAG times out when the uplink transmission time difference is greater than the preset time difference.
A fault reporting device includes:

The determining module is configured to determine whether the time alignment timer TAT of the secondary time advance group sTAG and the TAT of the primary time advance group pTAG are timed out respectively;

Obtaining a module, configured to acquire a timeout information of a TAT of the at least one sTAG that times out when a TAT of at least one sTAG of the sTAG times out and a TAT of the pTAG does not time out;

The sending module is configured to send the timeout information to the base station by using an sTAG that does not time out by any TAT or a physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG.
The fault reporting apparatus of claim 6, the fault reporting apparatus further comprising a receiving module configured to transmit the timeout information to the base station after the sTAG that has not timed out by any TAT or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG Receiving, by the base station, a control instruction returned based on the timeout information, where

The control instruction is used to instruct the UE to deactivate or delete a cell included in an sTAG of a TAT timeout;

Alternatively, the control instruction is used to indicate that the UE restarts the TAT that times out.
The fault reporting apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the transmitting module is further configured to pass the sTAG of the TBT not timeout or the physical uplink shared channel PUSCH of the pTAG to the base station in the form of a medium access control unit MAC CE. Send the timeout information.
The fault reporting apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the fault reporting apparatus further comprises a random access module configured to determine a TAT of the pTAG after determining whether the TAT of the sTAG maintained by the UE and the TAT of the pTAG are timed out respectively. After the timeout, the sTAG and the hybrid automatic repeat request HARQ memory of the cell included in the pTAG are refreshed, and the interception reference signal SRS is stopped on the sTAG and the cell included in the pTAG, and the sTAG is released. And an SRS resource of the cell included in the pTAG; and initiating a random access procedure.
The fault reporting apparatus according to any one of claims 6-9, wherein the determining module is further configured to determine whether the TAT of the sTAG and the TAT of the pTAG are respectively run to a timeout point, wherein the pTAG is When the TAT runs to the timeout point, the TTA of the pTAG times out, and the TAT of the sTAG times out; when the TAT of the sTAG runs to the timeout point, and the TTAG of the pTAG does not run to the timeout point, The TAT of the sTAG times out;

Alternatively, the determining module is further configured to determine whether the uplink transmission time difference between the sTAG and the pTAG is greater than a preset time difference, where the TAT of the sTAG times out when the uplink transmission time difference is greater than the preset time difference.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions arranged to perform the method of any of claims 1-6.