WO2022205338A1

WO2022205338A1 - User equipment, base station, and wireless communication method for mbs

Info

Publication number: WO2022205338A1
Application number: PCT/CN2021/085022
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ahmed MOHAMMED MIKAEIL; Jia SHENG
Original assignee: Tcl Communication(Ningbo)Co., Ltd.
Priority date: 2021-04-01
Filing date: 2021-04-01
Publication date: 2022-10-06
Also published as: CN117121515A

Abstract

A user equipment (UE), a base station, and wireless communication methods for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) are provided. A wireless communication method for MBS performed by the UE includes reporting, to a base station, a service interest of the UE and a beam quality measurement report of the UE, and receiving from the base station, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE, and monitoring the MCCH and the beam sweeping configuration to receive the related service interest. This can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, provide a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

Description

USER EQUIPMENT, BASE STATION, AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION METHOD FOR MBS

BACKGROUND OF DISCLOSURE

1. Field of the Disclosure

The present disclosure relates to the field of wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to a user equipment (UE) , a base station, and wireless communication methods for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) , which can provide a flexible control plane (CP) scheduling mechanism for efficient MBS delivery and reception.

2. Description of the Related Art

Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These wireless communication systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power) . Examples of such multiple-access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems such as long term evolution (LTE) systems and fifth generation (5G) systems which may be referred to as new radio (NR) systems. These systems may employ technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA) , time division multiple access (TDMA) , frequency division multiple access (FDMA) , orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) , or discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM) . A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or network access nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipments (UEs) . A wireless communication network may include a base station that can support communication for a UE. The UE may communicate with the base station via downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) . The DL refers to a communication link from the base station to the UE, and the UL refers to a communication link from the UE to the base station.

In a 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) cellular network, broadcast and multicast services may be transported via a transport service called multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) . A broadcast multicast service center (BM-SC) server is responsible to disseminate a media content to a group of subscribers. When a UE moves out of a network coverage, the UE may be unable to use the MBMS because uplink and downlink connections to the BM-SC server are no longer available. MBMS is a point-to-multipoint (PTM) interface specification designed to provide efficient delivery of broadcast and multicast services within 3GPP cellular networks. Examples of MBMS interface specifications include those described in universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) and long term evolution (LTE) communication specifications. For broadcast transmission across multiple cells, the specifications define transmission over single-frequency network configurations. Intended applications include mobile TV, news, radio broadcasting, file delivery, emergency alerts, and others. When services are broadcasted by MBMS, all cells inside a multimedia broadcast/multicast service single frequency network (MBSFN) area transmit the same MBMS service.

Users access these services and obtain the MBMS content through wireless communication devices such as cellular phones, tablets, laptops, and other devices with wireless transceivers that communicate with the base station within the communication system. The base station provides wireless service to the wireless communication devices, sometimes referred to as mobile devices or UEs, within cells. A user can access at least some multimedia services through a UE using either a point-to-point (PTP) connection or a PTM transmission. In 3GPP systems, PTP services can be provided using unicast techniques and PTM transmissions can be provided using MBMS communication, transmitted over an MBSFN or single cell point to multipoint (SC-PTM) communication. In systems operating in accordance with a revision of 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) communication specification, MBMS is provided using eMBMS. Accordingly, an MBMS service can be provided using either unicast service, MBSFN, or SC-PTM in an LTE system.

In radio access network (RAN) meeting #88-e held during June 29, 2020 to July 3, 2020, a new working item was approved to target a RAN support of multicast/broadcast services (MBS) in 5G. Aims of this working item is to provide the support in RAN to enable general MBS services over 5GS to support different MBS services such as public safety and mission critical, V2X applications, transparent IPv4/IPv6 multicast delivery, IPTV, software delivery over wireless, group communications, and IoT applications. One of key objectives of this RAN working item is to study and specify the support for basic mobility with service continuity for 5G new radio (NR) multicast/broadcast services (MBS) .

During recent 3GPP meetings (RAN-112e and RAN-113e) , there were wide discussions on MBS control plane (CP) issues for NR MBS. The discussions on the regard of MBS control plane design have focused on reusing LTE SC-PTM design for NR MBS (i.e. due to the similarity i.e., both LTE SC-PTM and NR MBS considers single cell only operation) . However, as per the requirements of the approved working in RAN #88-e meeting the design of NR MBS control plane should consider flexibility of scheduling to support dynamicity to support dynamic distribution of UEs within the area, dynamic control of the service area and the flexibility of configuration of MBS control channels to support different services with high degree of resource efficiency; or otherwise, more signalling overheads may happen e.g., if delay tolerant services and delay sensitive services are configured together in one control channel, whereby the control channel needs to be frequently scheduled in order to fulfil a latency requirement from the delay sensitive service.

Therefore, there is a need for a user equipment (UE) , a base station, and wireless communication methods, which can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS service, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

SUMMARY

An object of the present disclosure is to propose a user equipment (UE) , a base station, and a wireless communication method for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) , which can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, provide a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

In a first aspect of the present disclosure, a wireless communication method for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) performed by a user equipment (UE) comprises reporting, to a base station, a service interest of the UE and a beam quality measurement report of the UE, receiving, from the base station, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE, and monitoring the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE.

In a second aspect of the present disclosure, a wireless communication method for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) performed by a base station comprises receiving, from one or more user equipments (UEs) , a service interest of the one or more UEs and a beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs, determining a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs based on the service interest of the one or more UEs and the beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs, and configuring, to the one or more UEs, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs.

In a third aspect of the present disclosure, a user equipment (UE) comprises a memory, a transceiver, and a processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver. The processor is configured to report, to a base station, a service interest of the UE and a beam quality measurement report of the UE. The transceiver is configured to receive, from the base station, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE. The processor is configured to monitor the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE.

In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, a base station comprises a memory, a transceiver, and a processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver. The transceiver is configured to receive, from one or more user equipments (UEs) , a service interest of the one or more UEs and a beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs. The processor is configured to determine a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs based on the service interest of the one or more UEs and the beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs. The processor is configured to configure, to the one or more UEs, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE.

In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium has stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the above method.

In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, a chip includes a processor, configured to call and run a computer program stored in a memory, to cause a device in which the chip is installed to execute the above method.

In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, a computer readable storage medium, in which a computer program is stored, causes a computer to execute the above method.

In an eighth aspect of the present disclosure, a computer program product includes a computer program, and the computer program causes a computer to execute the above method.

In a ninth aspect of the present disclosure, a computer program causes a computer to execute the above method.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

In order to illustrate the embodiments of the present disclosure or related art more clearly, the following figures will be described in the embodiments are briefly introduced. It is obvious that the drawings are merely some embodiments of the present disclosure, a person having ordinary skill in this field can obtain other figures according to these figures without paying the premise.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one or more user equipments (UEs) and a base station (e.g., gNB) of communication in a communication network system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a wireless communication method for MBS performed by a UE according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a wireless communication method for MBS performed by a base station according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a wireless communication method for MBS performed by a base station and one or more UEs according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a wireless communication method for MBS performed by one or more UEs according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a wireless communication method for MBS performed by a base station according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of an MCCH configuration and an SSB or beam association configuration based on a UE report according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a single MCCH configuration according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a multiple MCCH configuration according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of an MBS control channel configuration based on a service interest and a beam report of a UE according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of MCCH according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of an association between PDCCH occasions in an MCCH search space and an SSB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of an association between PDCCH occasions in an MCCH search space and an SSB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a system for wireless communication according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail with the technical matters, structural features, achieved objects, and effects with reference to the accompanying drawings as follows. Specifically, the terminologies in the embodiments of the present disclosure are merely for describing the purpose of the certain embodiment, but not to limit the disclosure.

Multicast/broadcast services (MBSs) are expected to cover diversity of 5G applications and services ranging from public safety, mission critical, V2X, transparent IPv4/IPv6 multicast delivery, IPTV, software delivery over wireless to group communications and IoT applications. These applications and services have a variety of requirements in term of delay (e.g., mission critical and V2X) and reliability (i.e., lossless transamination such as software delivery) . On the top of that there is a high possibility that multiple set of these applications and services can be provided simultaneously to UEs within an MBS service area, besides the possibility that the UEs interest over theses provided service/services may fluctuate over to over time. In order to provide a flexible of scheduling to support both the diversity of 5G MBS services and the dynamicity of the user distribution within the service area as well as the dynamicity on the user service interest change, some embodiments of the present disclosure provide a new method that utilizes multi beam operations and flexible control plane (CP) configuration to provide efficient scheduling for better delivery and reception of 5G MBS to handle diverse requirements of different 5G NR MBS services.

FIG. 1 illustrates that, in some embodiments, one or more user equipments (UEs) 10 and a base station (e.g., gNB) 20 for communication in a communication network system 30 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure are provided. The communication network system 30 includes the one or more UEs 10 and the base station 20. The one or more UEs 10 may include a memory 12, a transceiver 13, and a processor 11 coupled to the memory 12 and the transceiver 13. The base station 20 may include a memory 22, a transceiver 23, and a processor 21 coupled to the memory 22 and the transceiver 23. The

processor

11 or 21 may be configured to implement proposed functions, procedures and/or methods described in this description. Layers of radio interface protocol may be implemented in the

processor

11 or 21. The

memory

12 or 22 is operatively coupled with the

processor

11 or 21 and stores a variety of information to operate the

processor

11 or 21. The

transceiver

13 or 23 is operatively coupled with the

processor

11 or 21, and the

transceiver

13 or 23 transmits and/or receives a radio signal.

The

processor

11 or 21 may include application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) , other chipset, logic circuit and/or data processing device. The

memory

12 or 22 may include read-only memory (ROM) , random access memory (RAM) , flash memory, memory card, storage medium and/or other storage device. The

transceiver

13 or 23 may include baseband circuitry to process radio frequency signals. When the embodiments are implemented in software, the techniques described herein can be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the functions described herein. The modules can be stored in the

memory

12 or 22 and executed by the

processor

11 or 21. The

memory

12 or 22 can be implemented within the

processor

11 or 21 or external to the

processor

11 or 21 in which case those can be communicatively coupled to the

processor

11 or 21 via various means as is known in the art.

In some embodiments, the processor 11 is configured to report, to the base station 20, a service interest of the UE 10 and a beam quality measurement report of the UE 10. The transceiver 13 is configured to receive, from the base station 20, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE 10. The processor 11 is configured to monitor the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE 10. This can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, provide a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

In some embodiments, the transceiver 23 is configured to receive, from the one or more UEs 10, a service interest of the one or more UEs 10 and a beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs 10. The processor 21 is configured to determine a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs 10 based on the service interest of the one or more UEs 10 and the beam quality measurement report of the UE 10. The processor 21 is configured to configure, to the one or more UEs 10, the multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs 10. This can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, provide a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

FIG. 2 illustrates a wireless communication method 200 for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) performed by a user equipment (UE) according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, the method 200 includes: a block 202, reporting, to a base station, a service interest of the UE and a beam quality measurement report of the UE, a block 204, receiving, from the base station, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE, and a block 206, monitoring the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE. This can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, provide a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

FIG. 3 illustrates a wireless communication method 300 for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) performed by a base station according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, the method 300 includes: a block 302, receiving, from one or more user equipments (UEs) , a service interest of the one or more UEs and a beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs, a block 304, determining a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs based on the service interest of the one or more UEs and the beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs, and a block 306, configuring, to the one or more UEs, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs. This can solve issues in the prior art, provide a flexible MBS scheduling, provide a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services, reduce a signalling overhead, reduce a UE complexity, and/or provide a good communication performance.

In some embodiments, the beam quality measurement report of the UE comprises at least one of the followings: a UE best beam report; uplink channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs) ; or a measurement quality of uplink sounding reference signals (SRSs) . In some embodiments, the beam quality measurement report of the UE is periodic, semi-persistent, or aperiodic, and/or the uplink CSI-RSs is used for the UE in a radio resource control (RRC) connected mode and comprises a reference signal receive power (RSRP) measurement of a beam, a reference signal receive quality (RSRQ) measurement of the beam, or a channel quality indicator (CQI) measurement of the beam, and/or the measurement quality of the uplink SRSs is used for the UE in an RRC idle/inactive mode. In some embodiments, the base station configures, to the UE, the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration through an RRC signalling or a downlink control information (DCI) periodically, semi-persistently, or dynamically according to the UE report. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration based on a single MCCH or multiple MCCHs.

In some embodiments, the base station is configured to configure the single MCCH per cell or per area under the base station to provide a point-to-multipoint (PTM) control plane (CP) scheduling configuration for group-common (gc) -PDCCHs or gc-physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) which schedule multicast traffic channels (MTCHs) carrying MBS services. In some embodiments, the base station is configured to configure multiple MCCHs per cell or per area under the base station to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for gc-PDCCHs or gc-PDSCHs which schedule multicast traffic channels (MTCHs) carrying MBS services. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring an MCCH within an MBS defined system information block (SIB) , configuring a radio network terminal identifier (RNTI) for MCCH scheduling, and/or configuring an RNTI for MCCH notification change scheduling. In some embodiments, the base station is configured to configure a fixed RNTI for MCCH scheduling if there is a single MCCH per cell or per area under the base station (e.g., the area under the gNB distribution unit or gNB-DU) to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for MBS services.

In some embodiments, the base station is configured to configure multiple fixed MCCH RNTIs for scheduling of multiple MCCH scheduling, each MCCH RNTI is corresponding to an MCCH if multiple MCCHs are configured per cell or per area under the base station (e.g., the area under the gNB distribution unit or gNB-DU) to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for MBS services. In some embodiments, the base station is configured to flexibly configure a number of MCCH RNTIs according to a number of flexibly configured MCCHs per cell or per area under the base station to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for MBS services. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring an association between an MCCH search space, PDCCH occasions, and a synchronization signal block (SSB) for scheduling of an MCCH within an MBS SIB.

In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring an association between an MCCH scheduling and/or an MCCH change notification, PDCCH occasions, and an SSB for sweeping the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification into SSB directions. In some embodiments, the base station is configured to configure a new RNTI for MCCH change notification for MBS with no additional information (e.g., bits bitmap) for MCCH and area association as in LTE. In some embodiments, the base station is configured to configure a new RNTI for MCCH change notification with some additional information (e.g., x bits bitmap, where x ∈ 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc. ) for MCCH association with the best quality beam of the UE and/or the service interest of the UE.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a wireless communication method for MBS performed by a base station and one or more UEs according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a wireless communication method for MBS performed by one or more UEs according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a wireless communication method for MBS performed by a base station according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 4 to FIG. 6 illustrate that, in some embodiments, to achieve a flexible scheduling to support a diversity of 5G MBS services and a dynamicity of a user distribution within a service area as well as a dynamicity on a user service interest change, some embodiments of the present disclosure provide a new method/mechanism that utilizes multi beam operations and flexible control plane (CP) configuration to provide efficient scheduling to handle diverse requirements of different 5G NR MBS services. In some embodiments, one or more UEs report its/their service interest and its/their beam quality measurement report to a network/gNB. After gathering the beam quality measurement and the service interests’ related information from one or more UEs, the base station e.g., gNB determines an appropriate MBS control plane (CP) configuration (i.e., a service interest related MCCH scheduling configuration and beam related configuration for each UE) required to schedule an MBS user plane service traffic for each UE. After that, the base station e.g., gNB provides interest service related MCCH scheduling and configurations and the best beam sweeping configuration to the one or more UEs. Upon the reception of the scheduling configuration from the gNB, each UE monitors only the MCCH configuration associated with the service that the UE is interested to receive.

In some embodiments, the beam quality measurement report of the UE includes at least one of the followings: a UE best beam report; uplink channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs) , such as a reference signal receive power (RSRP) measurement of a beam, a reference signal receive quality (RSRQ) measurement of the beam, or a channel quality indicator (CQI) measurement of the beam (i.e., for radio resource control (RRC) connected UEs) ; or a measurement quality of uplink sounding reference signals (SRSs) (i.e., for RRC idle/inactive UEs) . Optionally, the beam quality measurement report of the UE is periodic. Optionally, the beam quality measurement report of the UE is semi-persistent. Optionally, the beam quality measurement report of the UE is aperiodic.

In some embodiments, the UE receives, form the base station, the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration through an RRC signalling or a downlink control information (DCI) periodically, semi-persistently, or dynamically. In details, in some embodiments, the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration is provided by a base station (such as gNB) to UEs. Optionally, the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration can be sent on an RRC signalling or a downlink control information (DCI) periodically (e.g., every 5 ms, 10 ms, or 20 ms, etc. ) or semi-persistently or dynamically based on reports of UEs.

In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by mapping, by the base station, quality of service (QoS) flows of different MBS services of the service interest of the multiple UEs into a same MBS or multicast radio bearers (MRB) if the multiple UEs within a beam are interested to receive a same set of services. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring for each MRB a separate MCCH to guarantee that each UE can be configured to monitor the MCCH that carries a scheduling of MRB associated with QoS flows of service/services that the UE is interested to receive. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring, by the base station, based on the beam measurement quality report by the one or more UEs, multiple beams and configuring a single MCCH and/or a MCCH notification change with different scheduling configurations comprising diverse modification periods and repetition periods to support a scheduling of MRBs configured for each beam. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring, by the base station, for each of a configured MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification scheduling configuration, a specific RNTI with additional bitmap and associating a scheduling with a monitoring occasion.

In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring each of a configured MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification scheduling configuration monitoring occasion, a set of PDCCH repetitions associated with each monitoring occasion and associating each PDCCH repetition to an SSB. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring, by the base station, a beam sweeping for an MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification scheduling configuration to directions of associated SSBs by sweeping a configured PDCCH to associated SSB beam directions. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring the one or more UEs to acquire only one PDCCH to receive a configured MCCH or an MCCH change notification associated with the service interest of the one or more UEs. In some embodiments, the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring by the base station, based on the beam measurement quality report by the one or more UEs, multiple beams and configuring multiple MCCHs each with different scheduling configurations comprising modification periods and repetition periods to support a scheduling of MRBs configured for each beam.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of an MCCH configuration and an SSB or beam association configuration based on a UE report according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, the appropriate control plane scheduling as illustrated in FIG. 4 includes at least one of the following: configuring the appropriate control plane scheduling based on either single/one MCCH (i.e., with diverse modification periods and repetition periods) or multiple MCCHs (each with different modification periods and repetition periods, etc. ) ; configuring an appropriate scheduling pattern for the configured MCCH within an MBS defined system information block (SIB) , a radio network terminal identifier (RNTI) configuration for MCCH scheduling, and/or an RNTI for MCCH notification change scheduling; configuring an association between an MCCH search space (i.e., in a system information block (SIB) ) , physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) occasions, and a synchronization signal block (SSB) for a scheduling of MCCH within an MBS SIB; or configuring an association between an MCCH scheduling and/or an MCCH change notification, PDCCH occasions, and an SSB for sweeping the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification into specific SSB directions.

In details, in some embodiments, the service interest related MCCH and beam sweeping configuration which is provided by a gNB to UEs can be sent on an RRC signalling or a downlink DCI periodically (e.g., every 5 ms, 10 ms, or 20 ms, etc. ) or semi-persistently or dynamically based on reports of UEs.

In details, in some embodiments, the appropriate control plane (CP) scheduling configuration as illustrated in FIG. 7 includes at least one of the followings:

Configuring the appropriate control plane (CP) scheduling based on either single/one MCCH (i.e., with diverse modification periods and repetition periods) or multiple MCCHs (each with different modification periods and repetition periods etc. )

Configuring an appropriate scheduling pattern for a configured MCCH within an MBS defined system information block (SIB) , an RNTI configuration for MCCH scheduling, and/or an RNTI for MCCH notification change scheduling.

Configuring an association between an MCCH search space (i.e., in SIB) , PDCCH occasions, and an SSB for scheduling of MCCH within an MBS SIB.

Configuring an association between MCCH scheduling/MCCH change notification, PDCCH occasions, and a synchronization signal block (SSB) for sweeping the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification into specific SSB directions.

Regarding NR MBS PTM configuration control plane (CP) scheduling, MBS can adopt SC-PTM two-step based scheduling approach, i.e., by providing, on an SIB carried by BCCH, a scheduling configuration about a location of multicast control channel (MCCH) which is used to provide a scheduling of the MBS channel control plane for MBS services. The major benefit of the above two-step configuration provides a separate MCCH scheduling independent from SIB scheduling, in terms of e.g., a repetition period, a duration, and a modification period which is more flexible for providing different scheduling configuration for different MBS services. FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a single MCCH configuration according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a multiple MCCH configuration according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 illustrate that, in some embodiments, to handle diverse requirement of different MBS services in NR MBS delivery mode 2, the following options can be configured by a network such as a base station (such as gNB) based on service interest-related information collected interest from UE reports or provided by a core network.

Option 1: The network may configure a single MCCH per cell (or per the area under gNB-DU) to provide a PTM control plane (CP) scheduling configuration for gc-PDCCH (s) /gc-PDSCH (s) which schedule/carry MTCHs carrying MBS services as illustrated in FIG. 8.

Option 2: The network may configure multiple MCCHs per cell (or per the area under gNB-DU) to provide a PTM control plane (CP) scheduling configuration for gc-PDCCH (s) /gc-PDSCH (s) which schedule/carry MTCHs carrying MBS services as illustrated in FIG. 9.

In some embodiments, in the case of multiple MCCHs, in order for a base station (such as a gNB) to determine an appropriate number of MCCHs that can be configured to schedule MBS services of interest for different UEs within a beam, the base station (such as gNB) requires some knowledge about how these services are mapped into radio bearers since the radio bearers are the only channel available between the UE and the base station (such as gNB) from the perspective of data plane scheduling. For 5G NR QoS model for unicast transmission defined in TS 23.501, 5GC and NG-RAN ensure a downlink (DL) QoS by mapping DL packets to appropriate QoS flows and then to the radio bearers in two stage. In some examples, in the first stage, the 5GC associates DL packets of different services with QoS flows and QoS flow identifier (QFI) . In some examples, in the second stage, the NG-RAN maps DL QoS flows of different services into different data radio bearers (DRBs) . As for NR MBS, it has been agreed in RAN2-112e that the function of mapping of QoS flows to radio bearers in service data adaptation protocol (SDAP) is required for mapping between MBS DL QoS flows and MBS or multicast radio bearers (MRBs) . Therefore, the base station (such as gNB) may utilize the knowledge reported by UEs or acquired form 5G core (e.g., multicast) regarding the service interest of UEs to map the MBS DL OoS flows to appropriate MBS radio bearers (MRBs) using a SDAP function. The mapping can be in a way that the base station (such as gNB) maps the OoS flows of different MBS services into the same MRB if multiple UEs within the beam are interested to receive these same set of services. In this way, the base station (such as gNB) may configure for each MRB a separate MCCH (i.e., the number of MCCH per beam/cell is associated with the number of the configured MRB per beam/cell) . This can guarantee that each UE can be configured to monitor the MCCH that carries the scheduling of MRB associated with the QoS flows of service/services that the UE is interested to receive.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example of an MBS control channel configuration based on a service interest and a beam report of a UE according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 10, for the first beam, three MCCHs are configured for three services (such as service 1, service 2, and service 3) assuming that their QoS flows are mapped to three MRBs. For example, for the second beam, single MCCH is configure for a single MRB and for a service (such as for service 1) . For example, for the third beam, only two MCCHs are configured due to mapping QoS flows associated with two services (such as service 1 and service 2) into a single MRB because all UEs in the third beam are interested to receive these services (such as service 1 and service 2) .

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of a configuration of MCCH according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 11 illustrates that, in some embodiments, for NR efficient scheduling of MCCH within SIBs, the LTE approach can be reused. Considering that the granularity of the scheduling in NR is a slot. Therefore, a base station (such as gNB) may configure an MBS specific system information block (e.g., MBS SIB or M-SIB) with an appropriate transmission window to carry MCCH. The configuration of the transmission window may compromise configuration of an MCCH repetition period (i.e., multiple NR slots) , an MCCH modification period, an MCCH radio frame offset with reference the system frame number (SFN) boundary, a first slot in a radio frame where MCCH can be scheduled, and a duration during which MCCH can be scheduled (e.g. expressed in the number of slots) as illustrated in FIG. 11.

Scheduling of MCCH:

According to LTE MBMS, a SC-PTM uses a SC-RNTI with a fixed value to schedule a transmission of SC-MCCH message. Due to the fact, the NR MBS is also scheduled within a cell, a similar configuration can be assumed for NR MBS, but it should take into consideration the facts that multiple MCCHs or single MCCH can be used. Therefore, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the following options can be considered for RNTI for MCCH scheduling in NR MBS.

Option 1: The network/base station (such as gNB) may configure a fixed RNTI for MCCH scheduling if there is a single MCCH per cell (or per the area under gNB) to provide a PTM control plane scheduling configuration for MBS services.

Option 2: The network/base station (such as gNB) may configure multiple fixed MCCH-RNTIs for scheduling of multiple MCCH scheduling, each MCCH RNTI is corresponding to an MCCH if multiple MCCHs are configured per cell (or per the area under gNB) to provide the PTM control plane scheduling configuration for MBS services.

Option3: The network/base station (such as gNB) may flexibly configure the number of MCCH-RNTIs according to the number of flexibly configured MCCHs per cell (or per the area under gNB) to provide the PTM control plane scheduling configuration for MBS services.

Change notification of MCCH:

In LTE, a change notification for single cell MCCH (SC-MCCH) uses a new introduced SC-N-RNTI and a DCI format for M-RNTI is reused for SC-N-RNTI, but only one bit in the 8-bit bitmap is used considering that there is only one SC-MCCH in a cell for SC-PTM. The SC-MCCH change notification scrambled by SC-N-RNTI can be transmitted in a first subframe of MCCH transmission window to notify the change of SC-MCCH scheduled in the same sub-frame. As for NR MBS, it was agreed In RAN2#113e that “assume that MCCH change notification mechanism is used to notify the changes of MCCH configuration due to session start for delivery mode 2 of NR MBS (other cases FFS, if any) ” . Therefore, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, for the notification change for NR MBS, taking LTE SC-PTM mechanisms as baseline, there are several options for MCCH change notification as flows:

Option 1: The network/base station (such as gNB) may configure a new RNTI for MCCH change notification for NR MBS with no additional information such as the 8 bits bitmap used in LTE.

Option 2: The base station (such as gNB) may configure a new RNTI for MCCH change notification with some additional information such as the 8 bits bitmap for MCCH association with beam and/or UE service of interest.

Association between an MCCH search space (in SIB) , PDCCH occasions, and an SSB:

In NR, for search spaces of common channels such as broadcast control channel (BCCH) and paging control channel (PCCH) , PDCCH occasions are associated with synchronization signal block (SSBs) in a pre-defined manner. Therefore, a network/base station (such as gNB) can sweep a PDCCH in beam directions associated with SSBs. In this way, if a UE is aware of the pre-defined mapping, the UE can receive system information (SI) messages and paging on PDCCH occasions according to its detected SSBs for the purpose of power saving. For NR MBS, MCCHs are also common channels and they are quite similar to BCCHs, MCCHs just carry different control messages (i.e. broadcast channel/multicast scheduling) . Therefore, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, for the search space of MCCH, the network/base station (such as gNB) can configure PDCCH occasions (i.e., in MBS SIB) for MCCH search space and associates them with SSBs in a pre-defined way, so that the UE can receive MCCH scheduling on PDCCH occasions within the SIB according to its detected SSB to save power.

Association between MCCH scheduling/MCCH change notification, PDCCH occasions, and an SSB:

Beam sweeping has been agreed for the NR MBS user plane data scheduling as stated in according to RAN1 103 agreements: For RRC_IDLE/RRC_INACTIVE UEs, beam sweeping is supported for group-common PDCCH/PDSCH. For efficient and unified service scheduling of MBS services, the user control plane scheduling can also support multi beam operations. In order to support beam sweeping for the MCCH and the MCCH change notification, a set of repetition PDCCHs can be configured for the monitoring occasion of the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification and can be associated to a SSB for sweeping the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification into a specific direction . However, the association configuration needs to take into account the design and configuration of MCCH (such as the single MCCH and multiple MCCH configuration) as well as the association of MCCH with service (s) of interest of UEs as detailed in some embodiments below.

Single MCCH configuration:

FIG. 12 illustrates an example of an association between PDCCH occasions in an MCCH search space and an SSB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 12 illustrates that, in some embodiments, for single MCCH configuration, The network/gNB may configure based on the reported beams measurement quality by UEs multiple beams and configuring a single MCCH and/or a MCCH notification change with different scheduling configurations (such as diverse modification periods and repetition periods etc. ) to support scheduling of the MRBs configured for each beam in order to support scheduling of multiple configured MRBs within a beam as illustrated in the above embodiments. The network/gNB may configure for each configured MCCH and/or the MCCH change notification scheduling configuration a specific RNTI with additional bitmap (e.g., 8 bits bitmap) and associate the scheduling with a monitoring occasion. The network/gNB may configure for each of the configured MCCH and/or MCCH change notification scheduling configuration monitoring occasion, a set of PDCCHs repetitions associated with the monitoring occasion and associate each PDCCH repetition to an SSB. The network/gNB may configure the beam sweeping for the MCCH and/or the MCCH change notification scheduling configuration to the directions of the associated SSBs by sweeping the configured PDCCH to the associated SSB beam directions. Thereby, the UE only needs to acquire one PDCCH to receive the configure MCCH or MCCH change notification. However, using only the above configurations the UE within a beam will end up monitoring more than one MCCH. To avoid this, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network/base station (such as gNB) may use the additional information e.g., 8 bits bitmap to differentiate the MCCH scheduling configurations for different services scheduled with the same MCCH for different UEs within the same beam

Multiple MCCHs configuration: .

FIG. 13 illustrates an example of an association between PDCCH occasions in an MCCH search space and an SSB according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 13 illustrates that, in some embodiments, for multiples MCCHs configurations, the network/gNB may configure based on the reported beams measurement quality by UEs multiple beams and configuring multiple MCCHs and/or MCCH change notifications each with different scheduling configurations (e., g., modification periods and repetition periods etc. ) to support scheduling of the MRBs configured for each beam. The network/gNB may configure for each of the configured MCCH and/or MCCH change notification an RNTI and associating each with a monitoring occasion. The network/gNB may configure for the configured monitoring occasion of the configured MCCH and/or the MCCH change notification, a set of PDCCHs repetitions and associating each PDCCH repetition to an SSB. The network/gNB may configure the beam sweeping for the MCCH and/or the MCCH change notification in the directions of the associated SSBs by sweeping the configured PDCCH to the associated SSB beam directions. Thereby, the UE only needs to acquire one PDCCH to receive the configured MCCH scheduling or MCCH change notification. Because the configured MCCH scheduling or MCCH change notification is associated with MRBs carrying the service of interest of the UEs, even if the UE monitors PDDCH blindly, the UE can only acquire MCCH that serves its service (s) of interest.

In summary, in some embodiments, major advantages and innovative aspects of the new flexible MBS control plane scheduling mechanism compared to the prior arts such as a reusing LTE MBMS SC-PTM mechanism as reported on most proposals submitted to RAN-13e include but not limited to:

1. In some embodiments, the new method provides a flexible MBS scheduling that capable of supporting the diversity of 5G MBS services and the dynamicity of the user distribution within the service area as well as the dynamicity on the user service interest change as required by the 3GPP documentation on NR MBS.

2. In some embodiments, the new method provides a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services which could help on reducing signalling overhead e.g., for delay tolerant services if these services are scheduled together along with the delay sensitive services are configured together using the same control plane configuration and scheduling.

3. In some embodiments, the new method allows the UE to monitor only the MCCH configuration associated with the service that the UE is interested to receive, and this can help in UE complexity reduction.

Commercial interests for some embodiments are as follows. 1. Solving issues in the prior art. 2. Providing a flexible MBS scheduling. 3. Providing a separate control plane scheduling for different MBS services. 4. Reducing a signalling overhead. 5. Reducing a UE complexity. 6. Providing a good communication performance. 7. Some embodiments of the present disclosure are used by 5G-NR chipset vendors, V2X communication system development vendors, automakers including cars, trains, trucks, buses, bicycles, moto-bikes, helmets, and etc., drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) , smartphone makers, communication devices for public safety use, AR/VR device maker for example gaming, conference/seminar, education purposes. Some embodiments of the present disclosure are a combination of “techniques/processes” that can be adopted in 3GPP specification to create an end product. Some embodiments of the present disclosure propose technical mechanisms.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of an example system 700 for wireless communication according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Embodiments described herein may be implemented into the system using any suitably configured hardware and/or software. FIG. 14 illustrates the system 700 including a radio frequency (RF) circuitry 710, a baseband circuitry 720, an application circuitry 730, a memory/storage 740, a display 750, a camera 760, a sensor 770, and an input/output (I/O) interface 780, coupled with each other at least as illustrated. The application circuitry 730 may include a circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processors may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors, such as graphics processors, application processors. The processors may be coupled with the memory/storage and configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications and/or operating systems running on the system.

The baseband circuitry 720 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processors may include a baseband processor. The baseband circuitry may handle various radio control functions that enables communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation, encoding, decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) and/or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN) , a wireless local area network (WLAN) , a wireless personal area network (WPAN) . Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

In various embodiments, the baseband circuitry 720 may include circuitry to operate with signals that are not strictly considered as being in a baseband frequency. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry may include circuitry to operate with signals having an intermediate frequency, which is between a baseband frequency and a radio frequency. The RF circuitry 710 may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 710 may include circuitry to operate with signals that are not strictly considered as being in a radio frequency. For example, in some embodiments, RF circuitry may include circuitry to operate with signals having an intermediate frequency, which is between a baseband frequency and a radio frequency.

In various embodiments, the transmitter circuitry, control circuitry, or receiver circuitry discussed above with respect to the user equipment, eNB, or gNB may be embodied in whole or in part in one or more of the RF circuitry, the baseband circuitry, and/or the application circuitry. As used herein, “circuitry” may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) , an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) , and/or a memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the electronic device circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with the circuitry may be implemented by, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry, the application circuitry, and/or the memory/storage may be implemented together on a system on a chip (SOC) . The memory/storage 740 may be used to load and store data and/or instructions, for example, for system. The memory/storage for one embodiment may include any combination of suitable volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) ) , and/or non-volatile memory, such as flash memory.

In various embodiments, the I/O interface 780 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with the system and/or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interaction with the system. User interfaces may include, but are not limited to a physical keyboard or keypad, a touchpad, a speaker, a microphone, etc. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, and a power supply interface. In various embodiments, the sensor 770 may include one or more sensing devices to determine environmental conditions and/or location information related to the system. In some embodiments, the sensors may include, but are not limited to, a gyro sensor, an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, an ambient light sensor, and a positioning unit. The first positioning unit may also be part of, or interact with, the baseband circuitry and/or RF circuitry to communicate with components of a positioning network, e.g., a global positioning system (GPS) satellite.

In various embodiments, the display 750 may include a display, such as a liquid crystal display and a touch screen display. In various embodiments, the system 700 may be a mobile computing device such as, but not limited to, a laptop computing device, a tablet computing device, a netbook, an ultra book, a smartphone, a AR/VR glasses, etc. In various embodiments, system may have more or less components, and/or different architectures. Where appropriate, methods described herein may be implemented as a computer program. The computer program may be stored on a storage medium, such as a non-transitory storage medium.

A person having ordinary skill in the art understands that each of the units, algorithm, and steps described and disclosed in the embodiments of the present disclosure are realized using electronic hardware or combinations of software for computers and electronic hardware. Whether the functions run in hardware or software depends on the condition of application and design requirement for a technical plan. A person having ordinary skill in the art can use different ways to realize the function for each specific application while such realizations should not go beyond the scope of the present disclosure. It is understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art that he/she can refer to the working processes of the system, device, and unit in the above-mentioned embodiment since the working processes of the above-mentioned system, device, and unit are basically the same. For easy description and simplicity, these working processes will not be detailed.

It is understood that the disclosed system, device, and method in the embodiments of the present disclosure can be realized with other ways. The above-mentioned embodiments are exemplary only. The division of the units is merely based on logical functions while other divisions exist in realization. It is possible that a plurality of units or components are combined or integrated in another system. It is also possible that some characteristics are omitted or skipped. On the other hand, the displayed or discussed mutual coupling, direct coupling, or communicative coupling operate through some ports, devices, or units whether indirectly or communicatively by ways of electrical, mechanical, or other kinds of forms.

The units as separating components for explanation are or are not physically separated. The units for display are or are not physical units, that is, located in one place or distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units are used according to the purposes of the embodiments. Moreover, each of the functional units in each of the embodiments can be integrated in one processing unit, physically independent, or integrated in one processing unit with two or more than two units.

If the software function unit is realized and used and sold as a product, it can be stored in a readable storage medium in a computer. Based on this understanding, the technical plan proposed by the present disclosure can be essentially or partially realized as the form of a software product. Or, one part of the technical plan beneficial to the conventional technology can be realized as the form of a software product. The software product in the computer is stored in a storage medium, including a plurality of commands for a computational device (such as a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to run all or some of the steps disclosed by the embodiments of the present disclosure. The storage medium includes a USB disk, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM) , a random access memory (RAM) , a floppy disk, or other kinds of media capable of storing program codes.

While the present disclosure has been described in connection with what is considered the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is understood that the present disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiments but is intended to cover various arrangements made without departing from the scope of the broadest interpretation of the appended claims.

Claims

A wireless communication method for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) performed by a user equipment (UE) , comprising:

reporting, to a base station, a service interest of the UE and a beam quality measurement report of the UE;

receiving, from the base station, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE; and

monitoring the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the UE.
The wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the beam quality measurement report of the UE comprises at least one of the followings: a UE best beam report; uplink channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs) ; or a measurement quality of uplink sounding reference signals (SRSs) .
The wireless communication method of claim 2, wherein the beam quality measurement report of the UE is periodic, semi-persistent, or aperiodic, and/or the uplink CSI-RSs is used for the UE in a radio resource control (RRC) connected mode and comprises a reference signal receive power (RSRP) measurement of a beam, a reference signal receive quality (RSRQ) measurement of the beam, or a channel quality indicator (CQI) measurement of the beam, and/or the measurement quality of the uplink SRSs is used for the UE in an RRC idle/inactive mode.
The wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the UE receives, form the base station, the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration through an RRC signalling or a downlink control information (DCI) periodically, semi-persistently, or dynamically according to a report provided by the UE.
The wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration comprises a configuration based on a single MCCH or multiple MCCHs.
The wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration comprises a configured MCCH within an MBS defined system information block (SIB) , a radio network terminal identifier (RNTI) configuration for MCCH scheduling, and/or an RNTI for MCCH notification change scheduling.
The wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration comprises a configuration of an association between an MCCH search space, physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) occasions, and a synchronization signal block (SSB) for scheduling of an MCCH within an MBS SIB.
The wireless communication method of claim 1, wherein the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration comprises a configuration of an association between an MCCH scheduling and/or an MCCH change notification, PDCCH occasions, and an SSB for sweeping the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification into SSB directions.
A wireless communication method for multicast/broadcast service (MBS) performed by a base station, comprising:

receiving, from one or more user equipments (UEs) , a service interest of the one or more UEs and a beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs;

determining a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs based on the service interest of the one or more UEs and the beam quality measurement report of the one or more UEs; and

configuring, to the one or more UEs, a multicast control channel (MCCH) and beam sweeping configuration related to the service interest of the one or more UEs.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by mapping, by the base station, quality of service (QoS) flows of different MBS services of the service interest of the multiple UEs into a same MBS or multicast radio bearers (MRB) if the multiple UEs within a beam are interested to receive a same set of services.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring for each MRB a separate MCCH to guarantee that each UE can be configured to monitor the MCCH that carries a scheduling of MRB associated with QoS flows of service/services that the UE is interested to receive.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring, by the base station, based on the beam measurement quality report by the one or more UEs, multiple beams and configuring a single MCCH and/or a MCCH notification change with different scheduling configurations comprising diverse modification periods and repetition periods to support a scheduling of MRBs configured for each beam.
The wireless communication method of claim 12, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring, by the base station, for each of a configured MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification scheduling configuration, a specific RNTI with additional bitmap and associating a scheduling with a monitoring occasion.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring by the base station, based on the beam measurement quality report by the one or more UEs, multiple beams and configuring multiple MCCHs each with different scheduling configurations comprising modification periods and repetition periods to support a scheduling of MRBs configured for each beam.
The wireless communication method of claim 14, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring by the base station for each of a configured MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification, an RNTI without additional bitmap and associating each with a monitoring occasion.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring each of a configured MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification scheduling configuration monitoring occasion, a set of PDCCH repetitions associated with each monitoring occasion and associating each PDCCH repetition to an SSB.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration, by configuring, by the base station, a beam sweeping for an MCCH and/or an MCCH change notification scheduling configuration to directions of associated SSBs by sweeping a configured PDCCH to associated SSB beam directions.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring the one or more UEs to acquire only one PDCCH to receive a configured MCCH or an MCCH change notification associated with the service interest of the one or more UEs.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the beam quality measurement report of the UE comprises at least one of the followings: a UE best beam report; uplink channel state information reference signals (CSI-RSs) ; or a measurement quality of uplink sounding reference signals (SRSs) .
The wireless communication method of claim 19, wherein the beam quality measurement report of the UE is periodic, semi-persistent, or aperiodic, and/or the uplink CSI-RSs is used for the UE in a radio resource control (RRC) connected mode and comprises a reference signal receive power (RSRP) measurement of a beam, a reference signal receive quality (RSRQ) measurement of the beam, or a channel quality indicator (CQI) measurement of the beam, and/or the measurement quality of the uplink SRSs is used for the UE in an RRC idle/inactive mode.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station configures, to the UE, the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration through an RRC signalling or a downlink control information (DCI) periodically, semi-persistently, or dynamically.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration based on a single MCCH or multiple MCCHs.
The wireless communication method of claim 22, wherein the base station is configured to configure the single MCCH per cell or per area under the base station comprising the area under a gNB distribution unit to provide a point-to-multipoint (PTM) control plane (CP) scheduling configuration for group-common (gc) -PDCCHs or gc-physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) which schedule multicast traffic channels (MTCHs) carrying MBS services.
The wireless communication method of claim 22, wherein the base station is configured to configure multiple MCCHs per cell or per area under the base station comprising the area under a gNB distribution unit to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for gc-PDCCHs or gc-PDSCHs which schedule multicast traffic channels (MTCHs) carrying MBS services.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring an MCCH within an MBS defined system information block (SIB) , configuring a radio network terminal identifier (RNTI) for MCCH scheduling, and/or configuring an RNTI for MCCH notification change scheduling.
The wireless communication method of claim 25, wherein the base station is configured to configure a fixed RNTI for MCCH scheduling if there is a single MCCH per cell or per area under the base station to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for MBS services.
The wireless communication method of claim 25, wherein the base station is configured to configure multiple fixed MCCH RNTIs for scheduling of multiple MCCH scheduling, each MCCH RNTI is corresponding to an MCCH if multiple MCCHs are configured per cell or per area under the base station comprising the area under a gNB distribution unit to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for MBS services.
The wireless communication method of claim 25, wherein the base station is configured to flexibly configure a number of MCCH RNTIs according to a number of flexibly configured MCCHs per cell or per area under comprising the area under a gNB distribution unit the base station to provide a PTM CP scheduling configuration for MBS services.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring an association between an MCCH search space, PDCCH occasions, and a synchronization signal block (SSB) for scheduling of an MCCH within an MBS SIB.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station determines the MCCH and beam sweeping configuration by configuring an association between an MCCH scheduling and/or an MCCH change notification, PDCCH occasions, and an SSB for sweeping the MCCH scheduling and/or the MCCH change notification into a specific direction.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station is configured to configure a new RNTI for MCCH change notification for MBS with no additional information.
The wireless communication method of claim 9, wherein the base station is configured to configure a new RNTI for MCCH change notification with some additional information for MCCH association with a best quality beam of the UE and/or the service interest of the UE.
A user equipment (UE) , comprising:

a memory;

a transceiver; and

a processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver;

wherein the processor is configured to execute the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.
A base station, comprising:

a memory;

a transceiver; and

a processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver;

wherein the processor is configured to execute the method of any one of claims 9 to 32.
A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 32.
A chip, comprising:

a processor, configured to call and run a computer program stored in a memory, to cause a device in which the chip is installed to execute the method of any one of claims 1 to 32.
A computer readable storage medium, in which a computer program is stored, wherein the computer program causes a computer to execute the method of any one of claims 1 to 32.
A computer program product, comprising a computer program, wherein the computer program causes a computer to execute the method of any one of claims 1 to 32.
A computer program, wherein the computer program causes a computer to execute the method of any one of claims 1 to 32.