WO2022211529A1

WO2022211529A1 - Beam management method and device

Info

Publication number: WO2022211529A1
Application number: PCT/KR2022/004606
Authority: WO
Inventors: Bozhi Li; He Wang; Taekhoon KIM
Original assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Priority date: 2021-03-31
Filing date: 2022-03-31
Publication date: 2022-10-06
Also published as: CN115150843A

Abstract

The disclosure relates to a 5G or 6G communication system for supporting a higher data transmission rate. The application provides a beam management solution. The introduction of a beam mapping unit enables a user equipment to have a more flexible beam management capability, and in particular, improves an applicable scope and performance of Common Beam Management (CBM). The application also provides a corresponding configuration and a signaling reporting method, so that a network device can efficiently allocate beam management resources.

Description

BEAM MANAGEMENT METHOD AND DEVICE

The present disclosure relates to wireless communication, and more particularly, to beam management.

5G mobile communication technologies define broad frequency bands such that high transmission rates and new services are possible, and can be implemented not only in "Sub 6GHz" bands such as 3.5GHz, but also in "Above 6GHz" bands referred to as mmWave including 28GHz and 39GHz. In addition, it has been considered to implement 6G mobile communication technologies (referred to as Beyond 5G systems) in terahertz bands (for example, 95GHz to 3THz bands) in order to accomplish transmission rates fifty times faster than 5G mobile communication technologies and ultra-low latencies one-tenth of 5G mobile communication technologies.

At the beginning of the development of 5G mobile communication technologies, in order to support services and to satisfy performance requirements in connection with enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB), Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), and massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC), there has been ongoing standardization regarding beamforming and massive MIMO for mitigating radio-wave path loss and increasing radio-wave transmission distances in mmWave, supporting numerologies (for example, operating multiple subcarrier spacings) for efficiently utilizing mmWave resources and dynamic operation of slot formats, initial access technologies for supporting multi-beam transmission and broadbands, definition and operation of BWP (BandWidth Part), new channel coding methods such as a LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) code for large amount of data transmission and a polar code for highly reliable transmission of control information, L2 pre-processing, and network slicing for providing a dedicated network specialized to a specific service.

Currently, there are ongoing discussions regarding improvement and performance enhancement of initial 5G mobile communication technologies in view of services to be supported by 5G mobile communication technologies, and there has been physical layer standardization regarding technologies such as V2X (Vehicle-to-everything) for aiding driving determination by autonomous vehicles based on information regarding positions and states of vehicles transmitted by the vehicles and for enhancing user convenience, NR-U (New Radio Unlicensed) aimed at system operations conforming to various regulation-related requirements in unlicensed bands, NR UE Power Saving, Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) which is UE-satellite direct communication for providing coverage in an area in which communication with terrestrial networks is unavailable, and positioning.

Moreover, there has been ongoing standardization in air interface architecture/protocol regarding technologies such as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) for supporting new services through interworking and convergence with other industries, IAB (Integrated Access and Backhaul) for providing a node for network service area expansion by supporting a wireless backhaul link and an access link in an integrated manner, mobility enhancement including conditional handover and DAPS (Dual Active Protocol Stack) handover, and two-step random access for simplifying random access procedures (2-step RACH for NR). There also has been ongoing standardization in system architecture/service regarding a 5G baseline architecture (for example, service based architecture or service based interface) for combining Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) for receiving services based on UE positions.

As 5G mobile communication systems are commercialized, connected devices that have been exponentially increasing will be connected to communication networks, and it is accordingly expected that enhanced functions and performances of 5G mobile communication systems and integrated operations of connected devices will be necessary. To this end, new research is scheduled in connection with eXtended Reality (XR) for efficiently supporting AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), MR (Mixed Reality) and the like, 5G performance improvement and complexity reduction by utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), AI service support, metaverse service support, and drone communication.

Furthermore, such development of 5G mobile communication systems will serve as a basis for developing not only new waveforms for providing coverage in terahertz bands of 6G mobile communication technologies, multi-antenna transmission technologies such as Full Dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antennas and large-scale antennas, metamaterial-based lenses and antennas for improving coverage of terahertz band signals, high-dimensional space multiplexing technology using OAM (Orbital Angular Momentum), and RIS (Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface), but also full-duplex technology for increasing frequency efficiency of 6G mobile communication technologies and improving system networks, AI-based communication technology for implementing system optimization by utilizing satellites and AI (Artificial Intelligence) from the design stage and internalizing end-to-end AI support functions, and next-generation distributed computing technology for implementing services at levels of complexity exceeding the limit of UE operation capability by utilizing ultra-high-performance communication and computing resources.

An aspect of the disclosure is to provide a beam management method in an wireless communication system.

In order to solve problems such as described above, certain embodiments according to this disclosure propose a method performed by a terminal in wireless communication, the method comprising: determining a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier; determining a first beam for communicating with the first component carrier from the first candidate beams; selecting a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship; and communicating with the first component carrier through the first beam and communicating with the second component carrier through the second beam.

Meanwhile, according to various embodiments of the disclosure, A method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system, comprising: communicating with a terminal through a first component carrier and a second component carrier; wherein the terminal communicates with the first component carrier through a first beam and communicates with the second component carrier through a second beam which is determined according to the first beam; respectively and successively reducing a downlink power of the first component carrier and the second component carrier while ensuring that a difference between the downlink power or power spectral density of the first component carrier and the second component carrier is maintained within a first predetermined threshold at the same time until the first component carrier and the second component carrier reach a specific sensitivity at the same time; or when measuring one of the first component carrier and the second component carrier, carrying out the following steps: S1: lowering the downlink power of the other component carrier in the first component carrier and the second component carrier so that a downlink throughput of the other component carrier is below a first threshold; S2: adjusting the downlink power of the one component carrier to a second threshold and measuring the one component carrier; when obtaining a measurement result of the one component carrier, if the downlink throughput of the other component carrier is below a third threshold, confirming that the measurement result is valid, otherwise, performing the above steps S1 to S2 again.

Meanwhile, according to various embodiments of the disclosure, a beam management device, comprising: a beam mapping unit, configured to determine a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier; a beam management unit, configured to: determine a first beam in the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier; select a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship; and a transceiver, configured to communicate with the first component carrier through the first beam and to communicate with the second component carrier through the second beam.

Meanwhile, according to various embodiments of the disclosure, a terminal in wireless communication, the terminal comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor is configured to: determine a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier, determine a first beam for communicating with the first component carrier from the first candidate beams, select a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship, and control to perform a communication with the first component carrier through the first beam and communicating with the second component carrier through the second beam.

An embodiment of the disclosure may provide a method of providing an efficient signal transmission between a terminal and a base station in an wireless communication system.

Effects obtainable from the disclosure may not be limited to the above mentioned effects, and other effects which are not mentioned may be clearly understood, through the following descriptions, by those skilled in the art of the disclosure.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless network according to various embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2a illustrates example wireless transmission path according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 2b illustrates example wireless reception path according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 3a illustrates an example user equipment (UE) according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 3b illustrates an example base station according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic diagram of independent beam management and a schematic diagram of common beam management, respectively;

FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of independent beam management and a schematic diagram of common beam management, respectively;

FIG. 6 illustrates an overall structure diagram for beam management in carrier aggregation according to various embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 illustrates a schematic flow chart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 illustrates a schematic flow chart of a configuring method for RF requirement definition of a user equipment supporting common beam management according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 illustrates a schematic flow chart of another configuring method for RF requirement definition of a user equipment supporting common beam management according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 10 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of various embodiments of the disclosure as defined by the claims and their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the various embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions may be omitted for clarity and conciseness.

The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of various embodiments of the disclosure is provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the disclosure as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

It is to be understood that the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to "a component surface" includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.

For the same reason, in the accompanying drawings, some elements may be exaggerated, omitted, or schematically illustrated. Further, the size of each element does not completely reflect the actual size. In the drawings, identical or corresponding elements are provided with identical reference numerals.

The advantages and features of the disclosure and ways to achieve them will be apparent by making reference to embodiments as described below in detail in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. However, the disclosure is not limited to the embodiments set forth below, but may be implemented in various different forms. The following embodiments are provided only to completely disclose the disclosure and inform those skilled in the art of the scope of the disclosure, and the disclosure is defined only by the scope of the appended claims. Throughout the specification, the same or like reference numerals designate the same or like elements.

Here, it will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions can be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks. These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer usable or computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer usable or computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means that implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operations to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions that execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide operations for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks.

Further, each block of the flowchart illustrations may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which includes one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the blocks may occur out of the order. For example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved.

As used herein, the "unit" refers to a software element or a hardware element, such as a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), which performs a predetermined function. However, the "unit" does not always have a meaning limited to software or hardware. The "unit" may be constructed either to be stored in an addressable storage medium or to execute one or more processors. Therefore, the "unit" includes, for example, software elements, object-oriented software elements, class elements or task elements, processes, functions, properties, procedures, sub-routines, segments of a program code, drivers, firmware, micro-codes, circuits, data, database, data structures, tables, arrays, and parameters. The elements and functions provided by the "unit" may be either combined into a smaller number of elements, or a "unit", or divided into a larger number of elements, or a "unit". Moreover, the elements and "units" or may be implemented to reproduce one or more central processing units (CPUs) within a device or a security multimedia card. Further, the "unit" in the embodiments may include one or more processors.

Hereinafter, the operation principle of the disclosure will be described in detail in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In the following description of the disclosure, a detailed description of known functions or configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the disclosure rather unclear. The terms which will be described below are terms defined in consideration of the functions in the disclosure, and may be different according to users, intentions of the users, or customs. Therefore, the definitions of the terms should be made based on the contents throughout the specification.

In the following description, terms for identifying access nodes, terms referring to network entities, terms referring to messages, terms referring to interfaces between network entities, terms referring to various identification information, and the like are illustratively used for the sake of convenience. Therefore, the disclosure is not limited by the terms as used below, and other terms referring to subjects having equivalent technical meanings may be used.

In the following description, the disclosure will be described using terms and names defined in the 3rd generation partnership project long term evolution (3GPP LTE) standards, the latest existing communication standards, for the convenience of description. However, the disclosure is not limited by these terms and names, and may be applied in the same way to systems that conform other standards. In particular, the disclosure may be applied to the 3GPP new radio (NR: 5G mobile communication standards) system.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless network 100 according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. The embodiment of the wireless network 100 shown in FIG. 1 is for illustration only. Other embodiments of the wireless network 100 can be used without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.

The wireless network 100 includes a gNodeB (gNB) 101, a gNB 102, and a gNB 103. gNB 101 communicates with gNB 102 and gNB 103. gNB 101 also communicates with at least one Internet Protocol (IP) network 130, such as the Internet, a private IP network, or other data networks.

Depending on a type of the network, other well-known terms such as "base station" or "access point" can be used instead of "gNodeB" or "gNB". For convenience, the terms "gNodeB" and "gNB" are used in this patent document to refer to network infrastructure components that provide wireless access for remote terminals. And, depending on the type of the network, other well-known terms such as "mobile station", "user station", "remote terminal", "wireless terminal" or "user apparatus" can be used instead of "user equipment" or "UE". For convenience, the terms "user equipment" and "UE" are used in this patent document to refer to remote wireless devices that wirelessly access the gNB, no matter whether the UE is a mobile device (such as a mobile phone or a smart phone) or a fixed device (such as a desktop computer or a vending machine).

gNB 102 provides wireless broadband access to the network 130 for a first plurality of User Equipments (UEs) within a coverage area 120 of gNB 102. The first plurality of UEs include a UE 111, which may be located in a Small Business (SB); a UE 112, which may be located in an enterprise (E); a UE 113, which may be located in a WiFi Hotspot (HS); a UE 114, which may be located in a first residence (R); a UE 115, which may be located in a second residence (R); a UE 116, which may be a mobile device (M), such as a cellular phone, a wireless laptop computer, a wireless PDA, etc. GNB 103 provides wireless broadband access to network 130 for a second plurality of UEs within a coverage area 125 of gNB 103. The second plurality of UEs include a UE 115 and a UE 116. In some embodiments, one or more of gNBs 101-103 can communicate with each other and with UEs 111-116 using 5G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-A, WiMAX or other advanced wireless communication technologies.

The dashed lines show approximate ranges of the

coverage areas

120 and 125, and the ranges are shown as approximate circles merely for illustration and explanation purposes. It should be clearly understood that the coverage areas associated with the gNBs, such as the

coverage areas

120 and 125, may have other shapes, including irregular shapes, depending on configurations of the gNBs and changes in the radio environment associated with natural obstacles and man-made obstacles.

As will be described in more detail below, one or more of gNB 101, gNB 102, and gNB 103 include a 2D antenna array as described in embodiments of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, one or more of gNB 101, gNB 102, and gNB 103 support codebook designs and structures for systems with 2D antenna arrays.

Although FIG. 1 illustrates an example of the wireless network 100, various changes can be made to FIG. 1. The wireless network 100 can include any number of gNBs and any number of UEs in any suitable arrangement, for example. Furthermore, gNB 101 can directly communicate with any number of UEs and provide wireless broadband access to the network 130 for those UEs. Similarly, each gNB 102-103 can directly communicate with the network 130 and provide direct wireless broadband access to the network 130 for the UEs. In addition,

gNB

101, 102 and/or 103 can provide access to other or additional external networks, such as external telephone networks or other types of data networks.

FIGs. 2a and 2b illustrate example wireless transmission and reception paths according to the present disclosure. In the following description, the transmission path 200 can be described as being implemented in a gNB, such as gNB 102, and the reception path 250 can be described as being implemented in a UE, such as UE 116. However, it should be understood that the reception path 250 can be implemented in a gNB and the transmission path 200 can be implemented in a UE. In some embodiments, the reception path 250 is configured to support codebook designs and structures for systems with 2D antenna arrays as described in embodiments of the present disclosure.

The transmission path 200 includes a channel coding and modulation block 205, a Serial-to-Parallel (S-to-P) block 210, a size N Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) block 215, a Parallel-to-Serial (P-to-S) block 220, a cyclic prefix addition block 225, and an up-converter (UC) 230. The reception path 250 includes a down-converter (DC) 255, a cyclic prefix removal block 260, a Serial-to-Parallel (S-to-P) block 265, a size N Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) block 270, a Parallel-to-Serial (P-to-S) block 275, and a channel decoding and demodulation block 280.

In the transmission path 200, the channel coding and modulation block 205 receives a set of information bits, applies coding (such as Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) coding), and modulates the input bits (such as using Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)) to generate a sequence of frequency-domain modulated symbols. The Serial-to-Parallel (S-to-P) block 210 converts (such as demultiplexes) serial modulated symbols into parallel data to generate N parallel symbol streams, where N is a size of the IFFT/FFT used in gNB 102 and UE 116. The size N IFFT block 215 performs IFFT operations on the N parallel symbol streams to generate a time-domain output signal. The Parallel-to-Serial block 220 converts (such as multiplexes) parallel time-domain output symbols from the Size N IFFT block 215 to generate a serial time-domain signal. The cyclic prefix addition block 225 inserts a cyclic prefix into the time-domain signal. The up-converter 230 modulates (such as up-converts) the output of the cyclic prefix addition block 225 to an RF frequency for transmission via a wireless channel. The signal can also be filtered at a baseband before switching to the RF frequency.

The RF signal transmitted from gNB 102 arrives at UE 116 after passing through the wireless channel, and operations in reverse to those at gNB 102 are performed at UE 116. The down-converter 255 down-converts the received signal to a baseband frequency, and the cyclic prefix removal block 260 removes the cyclic prefix to generate a serial time-domain baseband signal. The Serial-to-Parallel block 265 converts the time-domain baseband signal into a parallel time-domain signal. The Size N FFT block 270 performs an FFT algorithm to generate N parallel frequency-domain signals. The Parallel-to-Serial block 275 converts the parallel frequency-domain signal into a sequence of modulated data symbols. The channel decoding and demodulation block 280 demodulates and decodes the modulated symbols to recover the original input data stream.

Each of gNBs 101-103 may implement a transmission path 200 similar to that for transmitting to UEs 111-116 in the downlink, and may implement a reception path 250 similar to that for receiving from UEs 111-116 in the uplink. Similarly, each of UEs 111-116 may implement a transmission path 200 for transmitting to gNBs 101-103 in the uplink, and may implement a reception path 250 for receiving from gNBs 101-103 in the downlink.

Each of the components in FIGs. 2a and 2b can be implemented using only hardware, or using a combination of hardware and software/firmware. As a specific example, at least some of the components in FIGs. 2a and 2b may be implemented in software, while other components may be implemented in configurable hardware or a combination of software and configurable hardware. For example, the FFT block 270 and IFFT block 215 may be implemented as configurable software algorithms, in which the value of the size N may be modified according to the implementation.

Furthermore, although described as using FFT and IFFT, this is only illustrative and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the present disclosure. Other types of transforms can be used, such as Discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) functions. It should be understood that for DFT and IDFT functions, the value of variable N may be any integer (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), while for FFT and IFFT functions, the value of variable N may be any integer which is a power of 2 (such as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.).

Although FIGs. 2a and 2b illustrate examples of wireless transmission and reception paths, various changes may be made to FIGs. 2a and 2b. For example, various components in FIGs. 2a and 2b can be combined, further subdivided or omitted, and additional components can be added according to specific requirements. Furthermore, FIGs. 2a and 2b are intended to illustrate examples of types of transmission and reception paths that can be used in a wireless network. Any other suitable architecture can be used to support wireless communication in a wireless network.

FIG. 3a illustrates an example UE 116 according to the present disclosure. The embodiment of UE 116 shown in FIG. 3a is for illustration only, and UEs 111-115 of FIG. 1 can have the same or similar configuration. However, a UE has various configurations, and FIG. 3a does not limit the scope of the present disclosure to any specific implementation of the UE.

UE 116 includes an antenna 305, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 310, a transmission (TX) processing circuit 315, a microphone 320, and a reception (RX) processing circuit 325. UE 116 also includes a speaker 330, a processor/controller 340, an input/output (I/O) interface 345, an input device(s) 350, a display 355, and a memory 360. The memory 360 includes an operating system (OS) 361 and one or more applications 362.

The RF transceiver 310 receives an incoming RF signal transmitted by a gNB of the wireless network 100 from the antenna 305. The RF transceiver 310 down-converts the incoming RF signal to generate an intermediate frequency (IF) or baseband signal. The IF or baseband signal is transmitted to the RX processing circuit 325, where the RX processing circuit 325 generates a processed baseband signal by filtering, decoding and/or digitizing the baseband or IF signal. The RX processing circuit 325 transmits the processed baseband signal to speaker 330 (such as for voice data) or to processor/controller 340 for further processing (such as for web browsing data).

The TX processing circuit 315 receives analog or digital voice data from microphone 320 or other outgoing baseband data (such as network data, email or interactive video game data) from processor/controller 340. The TX processing circuit 315 encodes, multiplexes, and/or digitizes the outgoing baseband data to generate a processed baseband or IF signal. The RF transceiver 310 receives the outgoing processed baseband or IF signal from the TX processing circuit 315 and up-converts the baseband or IF signal into an RF signal transmitted via the antenna 305.

The processor/controller 340 can include one or more processors or other processing devices and execute an OS 361 stored in the memory 360 in order to control the overall operation of UE 116. For example, the processor/controller 340 can control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of backward channel signals through the RF transceiver 310, the RX processing circuit 325 and the TX processing circuit 315 according to well-known principles. In some embodiments, the processor/controller 340 includes at least one microprocessor or microcontroller.

The processor/controller 340 is also capable of executing other processes and programs residing in the memory 360, such as operations for channel quality measurement and reporting for systems with 2D antenna arrays as described in embodiments of the present disclosure. The processor/controller 340 can move data into or out of the memory 360 as required by an execution process. In some embodiments, the processor/controller 340 is configured to execute the application 362 based on the OS 361 or in response to signals received from the gNB or the operator. The processor/controller 340 is also coupled to an I/O interface 345, where the I/O interface 345 provides UE 116 with the ability to connect to other devices such as laptop computers and handheld computers. I/O interface 345 is a communication path between these accessories and the processor/controller 340.

The processor/controller 340 is also coupled to the input device(s) 350 and the display 355. An operator of UE 116 can input data into UE 116 using the input device(s) 350. The display 355 may be a liquid crystal display or other display capable of presenting text and/or at least limited graphics (such as from a website). The memory 360 is coupled to the processor/controller 340. A part of the memory 360 can include a random access memory (RAM), while another part of the memory 360 can include a flash memory or other read-only memory (ROM).

Although FIG. 3a illustrates an example of UE 116, various changes can be made to FIG. 3a. For example, various components in FIG. 3a can be combined, further subdivided or omitted, and additional components can be added according to specific requirements. As a specific example, the processor/controller 340 can be divided into a plurality of processors, such as one or more central processing units (CPUs) and one or more graphics processing units (GPUs). Furthermore, although FIG. 3a illustrates that the UE 116 is configured as a mobile phone or a smart phone, UEs can be configured to operate as other types of mobile or fixed devices.

FIG. 3b illustrates an example gNB 102 according to the present disclosure. The embodiment of gNB 102 shown in FIG. 3b is for illustration only, and other gNBs of FIG. 1 can have the same or similar configuration. However, a gNB has various configurations, and FIG. 3b does not limit the scope of the present disclosure to any specific implementation of a gNB. It should be noted that gNB 101 and gNB 103 can include the same or similar structures as gNB 102.

As shown in FIG. 3b, gNB 102 includes a plurality of antennas 370a-370n, a plurality of RF transceivers 372a-372n, a transmission (TX) processing circuit 374, and a reception (RX) processing circuit 376. In certain embodiments, one or more of the plurality of antennas 370a-370n include a 2D antenna array. gNB 102 also includes a controller/processor 378, a memory 380, and a backhaul or network interface 382.

RF transceivers 372a-372n receive an incoming RF signal from antennas 370a-370n, such as a signal transmitted by UEs or other gNBs. RF transceivers 372a-372n down-convert the incoming RF signal to generate an IF or baseband signal. The IF or baseband signal is transmitted to the RX processing circuit 376, where the RX processing circuit 376 generates a processed baseband signal by filtering, decoding and/or digitizing the baseband or IF signal. RX processing circuit 376 transmits the processed baseband signal to controller/processor 378 for further processing.

The TX processing circuit 374 receives analog or digital data (such as voice data, network data, email or interactive video game data) from the controller/processor 378. TX processing circuit 374 encodes, multiplexes and/or digitizes outgoing baseband data to generate a processed baseband or IF signal. RF transceivers 372a-372n receive the outgoing processed baseband or IF signal from TX processing circuit 374 and up-convert the baseband or IF signal into an RF signal transmitted via antennas 370a-370n.

The controller/processor 378 can include one or more processors or other processing devices that control the overall operation of gNB 102. For example, the controller/processor 378 can control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of backward channel signals through the RF transceivers 372a-372n, the RX processing circuit 376 and the TX processing circuit 374 according to well-known principles. The controller/processor 378 can also support additional functions, such as higher-level wireless communication functions. For example, the controller/processor 378 can perform a Blind Interference Sensing (BIS) process such as that performed through a BIS algorithm, and decode a received signal from which an interference signal is subtracted. A controller/processor 378 may support any of a variety of other functions in gNB 102. In some embodiments, the controller/processor 378 includes at least one microprocessor or microcontroller.

The controller/processor 378 is also capable of executing programs and other processes residing in the memory 380, such as a basic OS. The controller/processor 378 can also support channel quality measurement and reporting for systems with 2D antenna arrays as described in embodiments of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, the controller/processor 378 supports communication between entities such as web RTCs. The controller/processor 378 can move data into or out of the memory 380 as required by an execution process.

The controller/processor 378 is also coupled to the backhaul or network interface 382. The backhaul or network interface 382 allows gNB 102 to communicate with other devices or systems through a backhaul connection or through a network. The backhaul or network interface 382 can support communication over any suitable wired or wireless connection(s). For example, when gNB 102 is implemented as a part of a cellular communication system, such as a cellular communication system supporting 5G or new radio access technology or NR, LTE or LTE-A, the backhaul or network interface 382 can allow gNB 102 to communicate with other gNBs through wired or wireless backhaul connections. When gNB 102 is implemented as an access point, the backhaul or network interface 382 can allow gNB 102 to communicate with a larger network, such as the Internet, through a wired or wireless local area network or through a wired or wireless connection. The backhaul or network interface 382 includes any suitable structure that supports communication through a wired or wireless connection, such as an Ethernet or an RF transceiver.

The memory 380 is coupled to the controller/processor 378. A part of the memory 380 can include an RAM, while another part of the memory 380 can include a flash memory or other ROMs. In certain embodiments, a plurality of instructions, such as the BIS algorithm, are stored in the memory. The plurality of instructions are configured to cause the controller/processor 378 to execute the BIS process and decode the received signal after subtracting at least one interference signal determined by the BIS algorithm.

As will be described in more detail below, the transmission and reception paths of gNB 102 (implemented using RF transceivers 372a-372n, TX processing circuit 374 and/or RX processing circuit 376) support aggregated communication with FDD cells and TDD cells.

Although FIG. 3b illustrates an example of gNB 102, various changes may be made to FIG. 3b. For example, gNB 102 can include any number of each component shown in FIG. 3a. As a specific example, the access point can include many backhaul or network interfaces 382, and the controller/processor 378 can support routing functions to route data between different network addresses. As another specific example, although shown as including a single instance of the TX processing circuit 374 and a single instance of the RX processing circuit 376, gNB 102 can include multiple instances of each (such as one for each RF transceiver).

The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are further described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

The text and drawings are provided as examples only to help readers understand the present disclosure. They are not intended and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the present disclosure in any way. Although certain embodiments and examples have been provided, based on the content disclosed herein, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that modifications to the illustrated embodiments and examples can be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. It should be understood that, through the whole disclosure of the present application, a reference signal may refer to "a beam management reference signal", but is not limited only to this.

New Radio (NR) is adopted in the 5G communication system, in order to support a higher data rate, and the supported frequency is also higher. With the increase of frequency, especially in millimeter wave communication, in order to compensate for high space loss caused by the high frequency, antenna array and beamforming technology came into being, followed by, however, problems in the beam management.

Generally speaking, operators have spectrum resources in more than one frequency band. In order to use the spectrum efficiently and improve the data transmission rate, a carrier aggregation function is widely used. However, the increasing number of carriers in the carrier aggregation also causes the complexity of the beam management. At present, there are two beam management types in the beam management for carrier aggregation at the user equipment, one is Independent Beam Management (IBM) and the other is Common Beam Management (CBM). The user equipment supporting the Independent Beam Management (IBM) respectively generates independent beams according to the downlink reference signal to which different component carriers (CC) belongs, to communicate with different carriers; the user equipment supporting Common Beam Management (CBM) manages all beams for communication with all component carriers according to the downlink reference signal to which one component carrier belongs. FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 show schematic diagrams of the Independent Beam Management and the Common Beam Management, respectively.

As shown in FIG. 4, the Independent Beam Management (IBM) can support different beams to point in different directions, which has the advantage of high flexibility, but it also has some shortcomings such as a complex user equipment architecture, high consumption of beam management resources, high cost and high power consumption of the user equipment, etc. As shown in FIG. 5, the Common Beam Management (CBM) can use a single beam management resource to manage all beams pointing in one approximately same direction, and is suitable for a scene of co-location deployment, can reduce the complexity of the beam management, and lower the performance of the user equipment at the same time. However, conventional Common Beam Management (CBM) adopts a single radio frequency channel to support a plurality of component carriers, and can only be suitable for a carrier aggregation frequency band combination with smaller frequency separation of component carriers, such as the frequency band combination between the frequency band n257 and the frequency band n258, but cannot be suitable for the carrier frequency band combination with larger frequency intervals of component carriers, such as the frequency band combination between the frequency band n260 and the frequency band n261.

Thus, many shortcomings still exist in beam management in the carrier aggregation at present, and new technologies and methods are required to improve the flexibility of the beam management in the carrier aggregation and improve the equipment performance.

In one aspect of the disclosure, a new beam management scheme applied to carrier aggregation is provided. By introducing a beam mapping unit, the user equipment can have more flexible beam management capability, and especially, the applicable scope is expanded and the performance of Common Beam Management (CBM) is improved, and a corresponding configuration and a signaling reporting method are provided, so that a network device can efficiently configure the beam management resources.

The technical scheme of embodiments of the present application may be applied to various communication systems, such as a Global System For Mobile Communications (GSM) system, a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) system, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, a LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, a LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD), a Universal Mobile Telecommunications system (UMTS), a Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication system, a 5th Generation (5G) system or a New Radio (NR), etc. In addition, the technical scheme of the embodiment of the application may be applied to future-oriented communication technologies.

FIG. 6 shows an overall structure diagram for beam management in carrier aggregation according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. The embodiments of the wireless network 130 and the user equipment 140 shown in FIG. 6 are for illustration only. Other embodiments capable of using the wireless network 130 and the user equipment 140 do not depart from the scope of the present disclosure.

The wireless network 130 includes different component carrier configuration units. FIG. 6 shows a component carrier configuration unit 111 for generating a component carrier 1 and its downlink reference signal, and a component carrier configuration unit 121 for generating a component carrier 2 and its downlink reference signal. Preferably, frequencies used by the component carrier configuration unit 111 and the component carrier configuration unit 121 belong to different frequency bands. Although not shown in FIG. 6, the wireless network 130 may further include more units for configuring the component carriers and their downlink reference signals. The reference signal may include, for example, one or more of a synchronous broadcast reference signal (e.g., a Synchronous Signal Block (SSB)) and a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS). According to different network deployment situations, the component carrier configuration unit 111 and the component carrier configuration unit 121 may be implemented by the same or different base stations (for example, gNodeB (gNB)).

The user equipment (UE) 140 includes a beam generation unit (112,122), a beam mapping unit (150), a beam management unit (113 and/or 123), etc. When determining the beam used for communicating with a certain component carrier, the optimal beam for the corresponding component carrier is obtained by the beam management unit corresponding to the component carrier by measuring the downlink reference signal and/or through the indication of the network device, and an index of the optimal beam is sent to the beam generation unit corresponding to the component carrier, then a corresponding beam is generated and transmitted to the network device by the beam generation unit, thereby completing the communication with the corresponding component carrier. FIG. 6 shows the beam generation unit 112 and a beam management unit 113 communicating with the component carrier configuration unit 111 (the component carrier 1 and its downlink reference signal), and the beam generation unit 122 and a beam management unit 123 communicating with the component carrier configuration unit 121 (the component carrier 2 and its downlink reference signal).

When the beam management unit 113 and the beam management unit 123 work independently, the beam generation unit 112 and the beam generation unit 122 are respectively configured to generate independent beams to communicate with the network device 130, thus the carrier aggregation of the Independent Beam Management (IBM) is supported by the user equipment 140. The carrier aggregation of the Independent Beam Management (IBM) can support flexible network deployment, such as non-co-location deployment.

In most network deployment scenarios, such as co-location deployment, the carrier aggregation based on the Common Beam Management (CBM) can also meet the demand, and has the advantage of low beam management complexity, and can also avoid or reduce the disadvantages of complex user equipment architecture, high beam management resource consumption, high cost and high power consumption of the user equipment in the Independent Beam Management. However, the conventional Common Beam Management scheme can only be applied to the carrier aggregation frequency band combination with smaller frequency intervals of the component carrier, such as the band combination between a band n257 and a band n258, but cannot be applied to the carrier aggregation frequency band combination with larger frequency separation of the component carrier, such as the band combination between a band n260 and a band n261.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, by introducing the beam mapping unit 150 into the user equipment 140, one beam management unit can control two or more sets of beam generation units and can complete communication with two or more component carriers. For the sake of simplicity, the following description will take one beam management unit controlling two sets of beam generation units to complete the communication with two component carriers as an example. It should be understood that this is only an example, and it is not intended to limit the number of component carriers that can be controlled and managed by one beam management unit to 2, but may be more than 2.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam mapping unit realizes beam mapping between two component carriers, i.e., a mapping relationship is established between the beam of the component carrier 1 and the beam of the component carrier 2. After the beam corresponding to the component carrier 1 is known, the beam corresponding to the component carrier 2 can be known by searching the beam mapping unit 150. As shown in FIG. 6, both the beam generation unit 112 and the beam generation unit 122 are controlled by the beam management unit 113. The optimal beam corresponding to the component carrier 1 is obtained by the beam management unit 113 by measuring the downlink reference signal of the component carrier 1 in the component carrier configuration unit 111 and/or by the indication of the network device, and then the index of the optimal beam corresponding to the component carrier 1 is sent to the beam generation unit 112. In addition, the beam management unit 113 searches the beam index of the component carrier 2 associated with the index of the optimal beam corresponding to the component carrier 1 in the beam mapping unit 150, and sends the found beam index corresponding to the component carrier 2 to the beam generation unit 122. Based on this, the two

beam generation units

112 and 122 respectively generate two beams, thereby the communication with the component carrier 1 and the component carrier 2 is respectively completed.

For user equipment that only supports Common Beam Management (CBM) carrier aggregation, beam management may be performed based on only one beam management unit (e.g., 113), and other beam management units (e.g., 123) may be omitted (e.g., other beam management units are not set, or other beam management units are deactivated if set). The above-mentioned beam management method of the Common Beam Management (CBM) carrier aggregation can reduce the resource overhead during the beam management, which is beneficial to the power saving of user equipment, and at the same time, it can apply the CBM carrier aggregation to more inter-band combinations, and achieve the performance equivalent to or close to that of the Independent Beam Management (IBM) carrier aggregation, i.e., it can improve the performance of equipment.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam mapping unit performs the mapping by making the beam of component carrier 1 and the beam of the component carrier 2 which are associated together have a specific pattern. In an implementation, the mapping makes the direction of the beam of the component carrier 1 and the associated beam of the component carrier 2 approximately the same, for example, the deviation of the directions of these beams is within a certain range. For example, the range of such deviation falls within the direction deviation range between beams in the co-location deployment scenario. Or, the mapping makes the direction of the beam of the component carrier 1 and the associated beam of the component carrier 2 be separated by a predetermined angular range, for example, the deviation between the directions of these beams has a predetermined interval, for example, the predetermined interval between the directions of these beams falls within the range of direction deviation between beams in a non-co-located deployment scenario. In addition, alternatively, the mapping may make the beam of the component carrier 1 and the associated beam of the component carrier 2 belong to a predetermined beam combination, for example, the beam combination may be a beam combination that can provide a better communication service according to previous experience. According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam mapping unit 150 may establish an mapping between one beam and another beam, and optionally, may also establish an mapping between one beam and two or more beams. When one beam corresponds to two or more beams, the multiple beams are arranged in priority order, and one or more associated beams at the top of the order is selected preferentially by the beam management unit for the component carrier 2. Optionally, beam optimization selection may be performed by the beam management unit 123 to select a beam for communication with the component carrier 2 from multiple beams associated with the beam mapping unit 150. In an implementation, the downlink reference signal of the component carrier 2 is measured by the beam management unit 123 by using the multiple beams associated with the beam mapping unit 150 respectively, and one or more beams with the optimal measurement results is selected for communication with the component carrier 2. According to the beam optimization method of the embodiment of the present disclosure, it avoids measuring more beams as in the Independent Beam Management (IBM) carrier aggregation, thereby reducing the measurement time of the user equipment, and accordingly, it can be supported that the network device configures for the user equipment less measurement resources, such as an L1-RSRP measurement resource applied to the measurement of the downlink reference signal of the component carrier 2.

According to the beam management method of the Common Beam Management (CBM) carrier aggregation of the embodiment of the present disclosure, beams of other component carriers can be managed based on the beam management unit of one component carrier. Wherein a mapping function required by the beam mapping unit for the managing of the component carrier 2 based on the component carrier 1 is different from that for the managing of the component carrier 1 based on the component carrier 2. Therefore, when configuring the carrier aggregation for the user equipment, the network device needs to know which carrier the user equipment will use as an anchor point for beam management. The following configuration methods for the beam management anchor point are provided in this embodiment:

(1) A beam management anchor point configuration signaling is issued by the network device to inform the user equipment which component carrier is used as the anchor point for beam management. After receiving this signaling, this anchor point component carrier is used by the user equipment for beam management, and the beams communicated with other component carriers are obtained by the beam mapping unit.

(2) The network device may also use the downlink reference signal as an indication of the beam management anchor point. For example, if the network device additionally configured a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) on a certain component carrier and only configured a Synchronization Reference Signal (SSB) on other component carriers, then beam management is performed by the user equipment with the component carrier configured with the CSI-RS as the anchor point, and the beams communicating with other component carriers are obtained through the beam mapping unit. In addition, the anchor component carrier may also be indicated by configuring other types of reference signals besides CSI-RS.

(3) it may also performed based on the way the user equipment applies to the network device, after configuring a certain frequency band combination, the component carrier preferred by the user equipment is sent by the user equipment to the network device as the anchor point for beam management. Preferably, the network device configures a specific reference signal, such as a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS), on the applied component carrier.

(4) In a case that no signaling or instruction on beam management anchor point configuration is received, the Primary Component Carrier (PCC) is used by the user equipment as the anchor point of beam management by default, and the beam of the Secondary Component Carrier (SCC) is obtained through the beam mapping unit.

(5) The user equipment selects the anchor point component carrier on it's own.

Accordingly, for the same carrier aggregation band combination, different beam management configurations may exist according to different anchor point carriers of beam management. Therefore, for the same carrier aggregation frequency band combination, different requirements of radio frequency and radio resource management may be formulated based on different configurations.

With respect to the carrier aggregation frequency band combination, according to the different capabilities of the user equipment, the user equipment can report its supporting beam management type (for example, beamManagementType) to the network device. Currently, the beam management type that can be reported is Independent Beam Management (IBM) or Common Beam Management (CBM), and the user reports one of the two types. According to embodiments of the present disclosure, there may be user equipment supporting only the Independent Beam Management (IBM), and there may also be user equipment supporting only the Common Beam Management (CBM), and also user equipment supporting both the Independent Beam Management (IBM) and the Common Beam Management (CBM). For terminals supporting two types of beam management at the same time, due to the limitation that only one type of beam management can be reported at present, the actual beam management capability of the user equipment cannot be fully known by the network device, which will affect the flexibility of the network device in beam management configuration.

In view of this, the present disclosure also proposes a method to solve the above problem of reporting beam management capability:

(1) The number of bits is increased in the reporting format of the user equipment beam management type, so that the user equipment can also report that it can simultaneously support Independent Beam Management (IBM) and Common Beam Management (CBM);

(2) Or, when the user equipment reports that it supports Independent Beam Management (IBM), the user equipment can add a signaling for capability reporting to inform the network device whether it supports Common Beam Management (CBM) at the same time, or vice versa, i.e., when the user equipment reports that it supports Common Beam Management (CBM), the user equipment can add a signaling for capability reporting to inform the network device whether it supports Independent Beam Management (IBM) at the same time;

(3) Or, Common Beam Management (CBM) is defined as a fallback mode of Independent Beam Management (IBM), i.e., when the user equipment reports that it supports Independent Beam Management (IBM), by default, the user equipment also has the capability to support Common Beam Management (CBM).

It can be seen from the above that the present disclosure is applicable to the user equipment supporting various beam management types. In addition, according to the different beam management capabilities of the user equipment, its performance requirements such as a Radio Frequency (RF) requirement and a Radio Resource Management (RRM) requirement will be different.

At present, for the user equipment supporting Independent Beam Management (IBM), when configured as downlink carrier aggregation, the performance requirement of the component carrier 1 is based on the fixed downlink power configuration of the component carrier 2, or vice versa, i.e. the performance requirement of the component carrier 2 is based on the fixed downlink power configuration of the component carrier 1. However, for the user equipment supporting Common Beam Management (CBM), the fixed downlink power configuration method is no longer applicable. In view of this, the present disclosure proposes a configuration method for Radio Frequency (RF) requirement definition of the user equipment supporting Common Beam Management (CBM), as follows. The following configuration method can be used by the network side to properly configure the component carriers, so that the user equipment can measure performance of a receiver of the component carriers. In some embodiments, the network side may be a related test instrument, such as a network simulator, and the user equipment may be a test UE. However, it should be understood that the present disclosure is not limited thereto, and the network side and the user equipment may also be network entities and user terminals in a communication network. A configuration method for RF requirement definition for the user equipment supporting Common Beam Management according to the present disclosure will be described in detail below.

In the following description, it will be described with the example of the network side configuring two component carriers (the component carrier 1 and the component carrier 2) for the user equipment. It should be understood that this is merely exemplary, and is for convenience of description only, and is not intended to be limiting. For example, the network side may also configure other number of component carriers for the user equipment.

The configuration of Radio Frequency (RF) requirement definition of the user equipment is usually performed by the UE under the test environment configured by the test instrument (e.g., the network simulator). Many users' RF receiver tests are required to be carried out under specific downlink power or power spectral density, for example, the downlink power needs to be configured so that the UE just reaches 95% of the peak throughput.

In the RF requirement measurement for CBM, a difference of downlink power or power spectral density between two component carriers should not be too large, otherwise it will make the two component carriers affect each other, so two progressive methods are proposed here to make the downlink power or power spectral density of the two component carriers approach. In method (1), the power of the component carriers needs to be gradually reduced for multiple rounds, but the advantage is that the RF requirement of the two component carriers can be measured simultaneously; in method (2), there are fewer rounds of power adjustment for the component carriers, but measurements are separately made.

Configuration method (1): The network side successively reduces the downlink power of the two component carriers, while ensuring that the difference of the downlink power or PSD of the two component carriers is maintained within a few dB (for example, 10dB) until the two component carriers reach a sensitivity state at the same time, and generally, for example, in the scenario where the network side is in wired connection with the user equipment, reaching a sensitivity state means a reference sensitivity level when the peak throughput reaches 95%. In addition, in the Over-The-Air (OTA) state (for example, in the scenario where the network side and the user equipment are in wireless connection), reaching the sensitivity state means an Equivalent Isotropical Sensitivity (EIS) when the corresponding component carrier reaches 95% of the peak throughput. After the network side completes the configuration through the above process, the user equipment can measure the receiver performance for the two component carriers.

With the above configuration method (1), after the network side adjusts the downlink power of the component carriers several times, the user equipment can simultaneously measure the receiver performance of the two component carriers, such as receiver sensitivity and receiver spherical coverage, etc.

Configuration method (2): Configure and measure the two component carriers respectively. The following description will take configuring and measuring the component carrier 1 as an example. The method of configuring and measuring the component carrier 2 is similar to that of configuring and measuring the component carrier 1. For example, if the receiver performance of the component carrier 1 is to be measured at present, the network side will lower the downlink power of the component carrier 2 until the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 reaches below a first threshold (e.g., less than or equal to 90% of the peak throughput, i.e., the first threshold is 90% of the peak throughput, but this is only an example, the first threshold may also be other values. For example, the first threshold may be a value between less than 95% and greater than 80% of the peak throughput), and then the downlink power of the component carrier 1 is adjusted to 95% of the peak throughput, where the user equipment measures the component carrier 1. When a measurement result of the component carrier 1 is obtained, it is also necessary to confirm the measurement result of the component carrier 1. When confirming the measurement result of the component carrier 1, it is necessary to check a status of the component carrier 2 again at the same time to ensure that the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 is below a second threshold (for example, the second threshold is a value less than 100% of the peak throughput, for example, a value within the range of 95%-100% of the peak throughput, for example, 99% of the peak throughput, etc.), so the measurement result of the component carrier 1 can be considered as a feasible (valid) measurement result. Otherwise, if the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 does not meet the second threshold (e.g., less than 100% of the peak throughput) when confirming the measurement result of the component carrier 1, the above steps need to be repeated until the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 reaches below the second threshold (e.g., less than 100% of the peak throughput) when confirming the measurement result of the component carrier 1.

It should be understood that when the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 does not meet the second threshold when confirming the measurement result of the component carrier 1, and therefore it is necessary to repeat the above steps, the lowering of the power of the component carrier 2 may be performed completely according to the above steps, or the downlink power of the component carrier 2 may be adjusted to another threshold (a third threshold) different from the first threshold in one embodiment, wherein the third threshold is larger than the first threshold, or it may also be smaller than the first threshold, which may depend on, for example, the difference between the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 and the second threshold when confirming the measurement result of the component carrier 1, or the difference between the component carrier 2 and the downlink power or Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the component carrier 1 when confirming the measurement result of the component carrier 1.

That is to say, in the configuration method (2), when configuring and measuring the component carrier 1, the downlink power of the component carrier 2 may be lowered every time according to the same or different thresholds before the measurement result of the component carrier 1 is confirmed to be valid.

After confirming that the measurement result of the component carrier 1 is valid, other component carriers (such as the component carrier 2) may be configured and measured. The process is similar to that of the component carrier 1, and will not be repeated here.

In the component carrier measurement for CBM, the difference of downlink power or the difference of Power Spectral Density between each component carrier (for example, two component carriers) cannot be too large. In the configuration method (2), when a final requirement of the component carrier 1 is sampled, it is necessary to check whether the throughput of the component carrier 2 is lower than a certain threshold (e.g., 100%, 99%, 95%, etc.), because the throughput lowering than a certain threshold indirectly ensures that the difference between the power of this carrier and the power or Power Spectral Density of the component carrier measured is not too large, thus not causing too much interference to the measurement of the component carrier measured.

According to the above configuration method (2), the measurement result of the component carriers may be measured and confirmed within a few adjustment rounds, and the user equipment is also required to measure each component carrier separately.

On the other hand, the beam management method based on the Common Beam Management (CBM) carrier aggregation architecture according to the embodiment of the present disclosure can also enhance Beam Correspondence of the uplink carrier aggregation and be applied to the beam management of the uplink carrier aggregation. The Beam Correspondence determines an uplink transmission beam by measuring the downlink reference signal of the belonged component carrier. In the beam management method of Common Beam Management (CBM) carrier aggregation, the measurement of the reference signal of the associated component carrier can be eliminated (or reduced), so that the Beam Correspondence of other component carriers can be realized based on the measurement of the downlink reference signal of the anchor point component carrier.

It should be understood that although FIG. 6 shows an example of carrier aggregation beam management, various changes may be made to FIG. 6. For example, the number of component carriers in a wireless device 130 may be increased to more than two, and different component carrier (CC) units may also be replaced by subcarrier units, and also may be replaced by Band units. The number of beam management units, beam generation units and beam mapping units in the user equipment may also be increased to more than two sets. In practice, the functions of different units may be realized by the same device entity, which is still an effective embodiment of this disclosure. Optionally, the units in the dashed line in FIG. 6 may or may not be configured during implementation, which are all effective embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 shows a schematic flow chart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the sequence of blocks shown in FIG. 7 is not intended to limit the execution steps of the method, but may be executed in other sequences that can achieve the technical effects of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 7, the beam management method according to the present disclosure includes the following steps:

Step 701: determine a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communication with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communication with a second component carrier is determined;

Step 702: determine a first beam for communication with the first component carrier among the first candidate beams; and

Step 703: Based on the first beam and the mapping relationship, select a second beam for communication with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams.

After determining the beams for communication with the first component carrier and the second component carrier, the user equipment can communicate with the first component carrier and the second component carrier respectively through the determined beams (step 704).

Beam management in this way can improve the flexibility of beam management, reduce the complexity of user equipment architecture, reduce the consumption of beam management resources, and reduce the cost and power consumption of the user equipment. At the same time, it can also reduce the complexity of beam management and improve the performance of the user equipment compared with the conventional Common Beam Management scheme. In addition, this beam management method can also be applied to more carrier aggregation frequency band combinations.

Next, a configuration method of RF requirement definition for user equipment supporting Common Beam Management will be described. In the subsequent description of this disclosure, the user equipment configured with two component carriers (the first component carrier and the second component carrier, or the component carrier 1 and the component carrier 2) is taken as an example. However, it should be understood that this is only for convenience of description, and the method described below can also be applied to scenarios where the user equipment is configured with other numbers of component carriers.

In the Common Beam Management, the network side (for example, the base station) communicates with the user equipment UE through the first component carrier and the second component carrier. Wherein the UE communicates with the first component carrier through the first beam and communicates with the second component carrier through the second beam, wherein the second beam is determined according to the first beam.

FIG. 8 shows a schematic flow chart of a configuration method of RF requirement definition for user equipment supporting Common Beam Management according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the sequence of blocks shown in FIG. 8 is not intended to limit the execution steps of the method, but they may be executed in other sequences that can achieve the technical effects of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 8, the configuration method according to the present disclosure includes the following steps:

Step 801: The network side successively reduces the downlink power of the two component carriers, and ensures that the difference of the downlink power or Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the two component carriers is maintained within a threshold, for example, several dB, and the threshold may be a predefined threshold;

Step 802: The network side determines whether both component carriers have reached the sensitivity state; and

Step 803: If the determination result by the network side in step 802 is Yes, the user equipment measures the receiver performance for the two component carriers. Otherwise, return to the step 801.

It should be understood that in the above description, two component carriers have been described as an example, but this is only an example and is not intended to limit the number of the component carriers. The method may also be applied to other number of component carriers.

Through the configuration method shown in FIG. 8, after the network side adjusts the downlink power of the component carriers several times, the user equipment can simultaneously measure the receiver performance of the two component carriers, such as receiver sensitivity and receiver spherical coverage.

FIG. 9 shows a schematic flow chart of another configuration method of RF requirement definition for user equipment supporting Common Beam Management according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the sequence of blocks shown in FIG. 9 is not intended to limit the execution steps of the method, but they may be executed in other sequences that can achieve the technical effects of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 9, when configuring and measuring for the component carrier 1, the configuration method according to the present disclosure includes the following steps:

Step 901: The downlink power of the component carrier 2 is lowered by the network side until the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 reaches below the first threshold, for example, less than or equal to 90% of the peak throughput. The first threshold is, for example, 90% of the peak throughput. However, this is only an example, and the first threshold may also be other values, for example, a value between less than 95% of the peak throughput and more than 80% of the peak throughput.

Step 902: The downlink power of the component carrier 1 is lowered by the network side to a first preset value, which is, for example, but not limited to, 95% of the peak throughput. Here, component carrier 1 is measured by the user equipment;

Step 903: The network side checks the status of the component carrier 2. The network side determines whether the downlink throughput of the component carrier 2 is below the second threshold. The second threshold is, for example, a value less than 100% of the peak throughput. For example, the second threshold is a value within the range of 95%-100% of the peak throughput, for example, 99% of the peak throughput, etc.; and

Step 904: If the determination result by the network side in step 903 is Yes, the user equipment confirms the confirmation result of the component carrier 1, and the configuration and measurement process of the component carrier 1 ends. Otherwise, return to step 901.

The method shown in FIG. 9 can be similarly used to continue the configuration and measurement of other component carriers (e.g., the component carrier 2), and will not be repeated here.

It should be understood that in the above description, two component carriers have been described as an example, but this is only an example and is not intended to limit the number of component carriers. The method may also be applied to other number of component carriers.

FIG. 10 shows a simplified block diagram of a communication device 1000 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. It should be understood that, for the sake of brevity, only the components directly related to the present disclosure are shown, and other components that may be required are omitted in the drawings so as not to obscure the main points of the present disclosure.

As shown in FIG. 10, the communication device 1000 includes a transceiver 1001, a memory 1002, and a processor 1003.

The transceiver 1001 is configured to receive and/or transmit signals.

The processor 1003 is operatively connected to the transceiver 1001 and the memory 1002. The processor 1003 may be implemented as one or more processors for operating according to any one or more of the methods described in various embodiments of the present disclosure.

The memory 1002 is configured to store computer programs and data. The memory 1002 may include a non-transitory memory for storing operations and/or code instructions executable by the processor 1003. The memory 1002 may include non-transitory programs and/or instructions readable by the processor, which, when executed, cause the processor 1003 to implement the steps of any one or more of the methods according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. The memory 1002 may also include random access memory or buffer (s) to store intermediate processing data from various functions performed by the processor 1003.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, it is provided a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in wireless communication, comprising: determining a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier; determining the first beam for communicating with the first component carrier among the first candidate beams; selecting the second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship; and communicating with the first component carrier through the first beam and communicating with the second component carrier through the second beam.

In an implementation, the mapping relationship between the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier and the second candidate beams for communicating with the second component carrier includes one of the following:

deviation of each beam in the first candidate beams from a corresponding beam in the second candidate beams in direction is within a predetermined range;

each beam in the first candidate beams deviates from the corresponding beam in the second candidate beams by a predetermined interval in direction; and

each beam in the first candidate beams and the corresponding beam in the second candidate beams belong to a predetermined beam group.

In an implementation, the first component carrier is determined by one of the following methods:

receiving a configuration signaling from a network side, wherein the configuration signaling contains information indicating the first component carrier;

determining a component carrier configured with a predetermined reference signal as the first component carrier;

sending a request message to the network side, wherein the request message is used to request that a predetermined component carrier be used as the first component carrier;

determining a primary component carrier (PCC) as the first component carrier; and

selecting the first component carrier from component carriers.

In an implementation, the beam corresponding to the first beam in the second candidate beams includes one or more beams; if the beam corresponding to the first beam in the second candidate beams includes a plurality of beams, selecting the second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship comprises: sequencing the plurality of beams according to priority, and selecting a predetermined number of beams with the highest priority as the second beam; or measuring the reference signal of the second component carrier by using the plurality of beams respectively, and selecting a predetermined number of beams with the optimal measurement result as the second beam.

In an implementation, it also includes reporting a supported beam management type to the network side in one of the following ways:

reporting the supported beam management type to the network side through a field in the beam management type reporting format, wherein the number of bits of the field is greater than 1;

reporting an ability of supporting independent beam management to the network side, and reporting a signaling for informing whether to support common beam management at the same time to the network side; and

in a case of supporting both the common beam management and the independent beam management at the same time, reporting the independent beam management to the network side.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, the method performed by the UE further comprises: deactivating a mapping if the independent beam management is supported; and determining the second beam for communicating with the second component carrier independently of the first beam.

In an implementation, the determining the first beam among the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier comprises determining the first beam by at least one of the following: measuring the reference signal of the first component carrier; or receiving an indication from the network side.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, it is provided a method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system, comprising: communicating with a user equipment (UE) through a first component carrier and a second component carrier; wherein the UE communicates with the first component carrier through a first beam and communicates with the second component carrier through a second beam which is determined according to the first beam; respectively and successively reducing a downlink power of the first component carrier and the second component carrier while ensuring that a difference between the downlink power or power spectral density of the first component carrier and the second component carrier is maintained within a first predetermined threshold at the same time until the first component carrier and the second component carrier reach a specific sensitivity at the same time; or when measuring one of the first component carrier and the second component carrier, performing the following steps: S1: lowering the downlink power of the other component carrier in the first component carrier and the second component carrier so that a downlink throughput of the other component carrier is below a first threshold; S2: adjusting the downlink power of the one component carrier to a second threshold and measuring the one component carrier; when obtaining a measurement result of the one component carrier, if the downlink throughput of the other component carrier is below a third threshold, confirming that the measurement result is valid, otherwise, performing the above steps S1 to S2 again.

In an implementation, the first threshold is 90% of a peak throughput, the second threshold is 95% of the peak throughput, and the third threshold is 100% of the peak throughput or 99% of the peak throughput.

In an implementation, when steps S1 to S2 are performed again, a different first threshold is adopted.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, it is provided a beam management device, comprising: a beam mapping unit, configured to determine a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier; a beam management unit, configured to determine a first beam in the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier; select a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship; and a transceiver unit, configured to communicate with the first component carrier through the first beam and to communicate with the second component carrier through the second beam.

receiving a configuration signaling from a network side, wherein the configuration signaling contains information indicating a first subcarrier;

sending a request message to the network side, wherein the request message is used for requesting that a predetermined subcarrier be used as the first component carrier;

selecting the first component carrier from component carriers.

In an implementation, it also includes reporting a supported beam management type to the network side in one of the following ways: reporting the supported beam management type to the network side through a field in the beam management type reporting format, wherein the number of bits of the field is greater than 1; reporting an ability of supporting independent beam management to the network side, and reporting a signaling for informing whether to support common beam management at the same time to the network side; and in a case of supporting both the common beam management and the independent beam management at the same time, reporting the independent beam management to the network side.

The beam management device provided according to the embodiment of the present disclosure, further comprising: one or more additional beam management units, wherein if the independent beam management is supported, the beam mapping unit is deactivated and the additional beam management units are activated; and if the independent beam management is not supported, the beam mapping unit is activated and the additional beam management unit is deactivated.

In an implementation, determining the first beam for communicating with the first component carrier in the first candidate beams comprises: determining the first beam by measuring the reference signal of the first component carrier and/or by receiving an indication from the network side.

According to yet another aspect of the present disclosure, it is provided a communication device, comprising: a transceiver, configured to transmit and/or receive signals; and a processor, configured to control, so as to perform the method according to the method provided in any embodiment of the various implementations of the present disclosure.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the description of the configuration and measurement method of the present disclosure is only illustrative and is not intended to be limiting in any way. Other embodiments will readily occur to those of ordinary skill in the art benefited from this disclosure.

For the sake of clarity, not all conventional features of embodiments of the beam management and/or configuration and measurement method and devices of the present disclosure are shown and described. Of course, it should be understood that in the development of any such practical implementation of beam management and/or configuration and measurement methods and devices, in order to achieve the specific goals of developers, such as conforming to the constraints related to an application, a system, a network and a business, many implementation-specific decisions may need to be made, and these specific goals will vary with different implementations and developers.

The modules, processing operations and/or data structures described according to the present disclosure may be implemented using various types of operating systems, computing platforms, network devices, computer programs and/or general-purpose machines. In addition, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that less general devices, such as a hardwired device, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc., may also be used. In a case where a method including a series of operations and sub-operations is implemented by a processor, a computer or a machine, and those operations and sub-operations can be stored as a series of non-transitory code instructions readable by the processor, the computer or the machine, they may be stored on tangible and/or non-transient media.

The modules of the methods and devices described herein may include a software, a firmware, a hardware or any combination (s) of a software, a firmware or a hardware suitable for the purposes described herein.

In the method described herein, various operations and sub-operations may be performed in various sequences, and some of the operations and sub-operations may be optional.

Although the foregoing disclosure of this application has been made by non-limiting illustrative embodiments, these embodiments may be arbitrarily modified within the scope of the appended claims without departing from the spirit and essence of this disclosure.

Claims

A method performed by a terminal in wireless communication, the method comprising:

determining a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier;

determining a first beam for communicating with the first component carrier from the first candidate beams;

selecting a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship; and

communicating with the first component carrier through the first beam and communicating with the second component carrier through the second beam.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the mapping relationship between the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier and the second candidate beams for communicating with the second component carrier comprises one of the following:

deviation in the direction of each beam in the first candidate beams from a corresponding beam in the second candidate beams is within a predetermined range;

each beam in the first candidate beams deviates from the corresponding beam in the second candidate beams by a predetermined interval in direction; and

each beam in the first candidate beams and the corresponding beam in the second candidate beams belong to a predetermined beam group.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining a first beam further comprises:

receiving a configuration signaling from a network side, wherein the configuration signaling contains information indicating the first component carrier;

determining the component carrier configured with a predetermined reference signal as the first component carrier;

transmitting a request message to the network side, wherein the request message is used to request that a predetermined component carrier be used as the first component carrier;

determining a primary component carrier PCC as the first component carrier; and

selecting the first component carrier from component carriers.
The method according to claim 1,

wherein the beam corresponding to the first beam in the second candidate beams includes one or more beams, and

wherein, in case that the beam corresponding to the first beam in the second candidate beams includes a plurality of beams, selecting the second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship further comprises:

sequencing the plurality of beams according to priority, and selecting a predetermined number of beams with a highest priority as the second beam; or

measuring the reference signal of the second component carrier by using the plurality of beams respectively, and selecting a predetermined number of beams with an optimal measurement result as the second beam.
The method according to claim 1, further comprising reporting a supported beam management type to the network side in one of the following ways:

reporting the supported beam management type to the network side through a field in the beam management type reporting format, wherein a number of bits of the field is greater than 1;

reporting an ability of supporting independent beam management to the network side, and reporting a signaling for informing whether to support common beam management at the same time to the network side; and

in a case of supporting both the common beam management and the independent beam management at the same time, reporting the independent beam management to the network side.
The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the first beam among the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier comprises at least one of the following:

measuring the reference signal of the first component carrier; or

determining the first beam by receiving an indication from the network side.
A method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system, comprising:

communicating with a terminal through a first component carrier and a second component carrier; wherein the terminal communicates with the first component carrier through a first beam and communicates with the second component carrier through a second beam which is determined according to the first beam;

respectively and successively reducing a downlink power of the first component carrier and the second component carrier while ensuring that a difference between the downlink power or power spectral density of the first component carrier and the second component carrier is maintained within a first predetermined threshold at the same time until the first component carrier and the second component carrier reach a specific sensitivity at the same time; or

when measuring one of the first component carrier and the second component carrier, carrying out the following steps: S1: lowering the downlink power of the other component carrier in the first component carrier and the second component carrier so that a downlink throughput of the other component carrier is below a first threshold; S2: adjusting the downlink power of the one component carrier to a second threshold and measuring the one component carrier; when obtaining a measurement result of the one component carrier, if the downlink throughput of the other component carrier is below a third threshold, confirming that the measurement result is valid, otherwise, performing the above steps S1 to S2 again.
The method according to claim 7, wherein the first threshold is 90% of a peak throughput, the second threshold is 95% of the peak throughput, and the third threshold is 100% of the peak throughput or 99% of the peak throughput.
A beam management device, comprising:

a beam mapping unit, configured to determine a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier;

a beam management unit, configured to:

determine a first beam in the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier;

select a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship; and

a transceiver, configured to communicate with the first component carrier through the first beam and to communicate with the second component carrier through the second beam.
The beam management device according to claim 9, wherein the mapping relationship between the first candidate beams for communicating with the first component carrier and the second candidate beams for communicating with the second component carrier comprises one of the following:

deviation of each beam in the first candidate beams from a corresponding beam in the second candidate beams in direction is within a predetermined range;

each beam in the first candidate beams deviates from the corresponding beam in the second candidate beams by a predetermined interval in direction; and

each beam in the first candidate beams and the corresponding beam in the second candidate beams belong to a predetermined beam group.
The beam management device according to claim 9, wherein the first component carrier is determined by one of the following methods:

receiving a configuration signaling from a network side, wherein the configuration signaling contains information indicating a first subcarrier;

determining a component carrier configured with a predetermined reference signal as the first component carrier;

sending a request message to the network side, wherein the request message is used for requesting that a predetermined subcarrier be used as the first component carrier;

determining a primary component carrier (PCC) as the first component carrier; and

selecting the first component carrier from component carriers.
The beam management device according to claim 9, wherein,

the beam corresponding to the first beam in the second candidate beams includes one or more beams;

if the beam corresponding to the first beam in the second candidate beams includes a plurality of beams, selecting the second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship comprises:

sequencing the plurality of beams according to priority, and selecting a predetermined number of beams with the highest priority as the second beam; or

measuring the reference signal of the second component carrier by using the plurality of beams respectively, and selecting a predetermined number of beams with the optimal measurement result as the second beam.
The beam management device according to claim 9, further comprising reporting a supported beam management type to the network side in one of the following ways:

reporting the supported beam management type to the network side through a field in the beam management type reporting format, wherein a number of bits of the field is greater than 1;

reporting an ability of supporting independent beam management to the network side, and reporting a signaling for informing whether to support common beam management at the same time to the network side; and

in a case of supporting both the common beam management and the independent beam management at the same time, reporting the independent beam management to the network side.
The beam management device according to claim 9, wherein determining the first beam for communication with the first component carrier among the first candidate beams comprises:

determining the first beam by measuring the reference signal of the first component carrier or by receiving an indication from the network side.
A terminal in wireless communication, the terminal comprising:

a transceiver; and

at least one processor is configured to:

determine a mapping relationship between first candidate beams for communicating with a first component carrier and second candidate beams for communicating with a second component carrier,

determine a first beam for communicating with the first component carrier from the first candidate beams,

select a second beam for communicating with the second component carrier from the second candidate beams based on the first beam and the mapping relationship, and

control to perform a communication with the first component carrier through the first beam and communicating with the second component carrier through the second beam.