WO2022237612A1

WO2022237612A1 - Network conversion method and user equipment

Info

Publication number: WO2022237612A1
Application number: PCT/CN2022/090933
Authority: WO
Inventors: 常宁娟; 刘仁茂
Original assignee: 夏普株式会社; 常宁娟
Priority date: 2021-05-08
Filing date: 2022-05-05
Publication date: 2022-11-17
Also published as: CN115314965A

Abstract

The present invention provides a network conversion method and a user equipment (UE). The network conversion method comprises: the UE sends a network conversion indication message to a network side to inform/request stopping of a connected state, and releases a radio resource control (RRC) connection with the network side; and if a condition switching reconfiguration is configured for the UE, the UE stops the condition switching reconfiguration.

Description

Network switching method and user equipment

technical field

The present disclosure relates to the technical field of wireless communication, and more specifically, the present disclosure relates to a method for converting a user of a multi-user identification card between different networks and a corresponding user equipment.

Background technique

In recent years, multi-Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) (referred to as SIM card) equipment (multi-SIM device) has become more and more popular. For example, a user installs two USIM cards on a mobile phone supporting multiple USIM cards, one of which is used for subscribing private services, and the other USIM card is used for subscribing office services. Existing devices supporting multiple USIM cards are implemented based on manufacturers and have not yet been standardized by 3GPP. As a result, different manufacturers adopt different implementation methods, and the behaviors of the user equipment UE are also different. In the existing implementation, if these USIM cards are registered with the network respectively (can be registered to the same network or can be registered to two or more networks respectively), the user equipment (User Equipment,) UE needs to receive paging from these networks, Based on the sending and receiving capabilities of the UE, there may be a situation where another network initiates paging when the UE receives paging from the current network, or another network initiates paging when the UE is communicating with a network. If the UE switches between different networks without restriction, one result that may result is that the UE can no longer receive data from the current network when the UE switches to another network. This will damage the network performance, for example, the network sends a paging to the UE but the UE does not receive the paging due to switching to another network, or the UE switches to another network and cannot receive the current network's scheduling. Some manufacturers propose to standardize the network access behavior of UEs equipped with multiple SIM cards and the behavior of related networks. The advantage is that network performance can be improved based on predictable UE behavior.

Based on the above reasons, in December 2019, at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3rd Generation Partnership Project: 3GPP) RAN#86 plenary meeting, a work item for multi-SIM card devices of version 17 was proposed (see non-patent literature: RP-193263: New WID: Stupport of Multi-SIM devices in Rel-17), and approved.

The present disclosure is dedicated to solving the problems involved in network switching between different SIM cards for a UE configured with multiple SIM cards.

Contents of the invention

The purpose of the embodiments of the present disclosure is to solve the problem of network switching in a UE with multiple SIM cards. More specifically, the present disclosure proposes a solution to a multi-SIM card user's link problem (such as handover or wireless link failure caused by link quality deterioration) that occurs during the transition process from one network to another network. The embodiment of the present disclosure provides a method for user network conversion of multiple SIM cards performed in a user equipment and a corresponding user equipment.

According to the first aspect of the present disclosure, a network switching method is proposed, including: the user equipment UE sends a network switching indication message to the network side, for informing/requesting to leave the connected state, and release the radio resource control RRC connection with the network side; If the UE is configured with conditional handover reconfiguration, the UE stops conditional handover reconfiguration.

In the network switching method of the first aspect above, stopping the conditional handover reconfiguration may include: the UE stops evaluating the conditional handover reconfiguration, or releases the saved conditional handover reconfiguration.

In the network switching method of the first aspect above, if the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, the UE may stop or not execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.

In the network switching method of the first aspect above, a timer Tswitch may be started when the UE initiates the process of the network switching instruction message, and the timer Tswitch is used to define the time period for the UE to wait for the response message from the network. For the longest time, the response message is an RRC release message.

In the network switching method of the first aspect above, if the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, the UE performs at least one of the following operations: stop the timer Tswitch; consider the timer Tswitch to be overtime; perform autonomously to leave the network The operation of the RRC connected state; the operation of entering the RRC idle state is executed, and the initiated conditional switching reconfiguration execution process is not executed.

In the network switching method of the first aspect above, the connection state may be an RRC connection state, and the network switching indication message may be an RRC message.

In the network switching method of the first aspect above, the network switching instruction message may reuse the existing UE assistance information message UEAssistanceInformation.

According to the second aspect of the present disclosure, a network switching method is proposed, including: UE sends a network switching instruction message to the network side, for informing/requesting to leave the connection state of the network; if the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, Then execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process; when the UE completes the handover to the target cell, the UE triggers the sending of a network switching instruction message, indicates to the target cell that it will leave the RRC connection state of the network, and switches to another network.

In the network switching method of the second aspect above, the timer Tswitch may be started when the UE initiates the process of the network switching instruction message, and the timer Tswitch is stopped when the UE executes the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process. Tswitch, the timer Tswitch is used to define the maximum time for the UE to wait for a response message from the network, and the response message is an RRC release message.

According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a user equipment, including: a processor; and a memory storing instructions; wherein the instructions execute the network conversion method according to the context when executed by the processor.

Description of drawings

For a more complete understanding of the present disclosure and its advantages, reference should now be made to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the flow of condition switching.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of the network switching method of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing another example of the network switching method of the present disclosure.

Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a user equipment UE involved in the present disclosure.

In the drawings, the same or similar structures are marked with the same or similar reference numerals.

Detailed ways

Other aspects, advantages and salient features of the present disclosure will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

In this disclosure, the terms "include" and "comprising" and their derivatives mean to include but not to limit; the term "or" is inclusive, meaning and/or.

In this specification, the various embodiments described below to describe the principles of the present disclosure are illustrative only and should not be construed in any way to limit the scope of the disclosure. The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure as defined by the claims and their equivalents. The following description includes numerous specific details to aid in understanding, but these should be considered as examples only. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure. Also, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted for clarity and conciseness. In addition, the same reference numerals are used for similar functions and operations throughout the drawings.

The following takes the Long Term Evolution (Long Term Evolution, LTE)/New Radio (New Radio, NR) mobile communication system and its subsequent evolution versions as an example application environment, and specifically describes multiple implementations according to the present disclosure. However, it should be pointed out that the present disclosure is not limited to the following embodiments, but is applicable to more other wireless communication systems. Unless otherwise specified, in this disclosure, the concepts of cell, base station, and radio access network (Radio Access Network, RAN) can be replaced with each other; a cell can also be a sector; a base station can be an eNB or a gNB. The LTE system is also used to refer to 5G and subsequent LTE systems (such as eLTE systems, or LTE systems that can be connected to the 5G core network), and LTE can use Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access) , E-UTRA) or Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network E-UTRAN. The present invention describes the embodiment by taking the user equipment UE configured with two SIM cards as an example, but it should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the application scenarios corresponding to the UE configured with two SIM Application scenarios of a SIM card. The user equipment UE configured with two SIM cards means that two SIM cards are configured on the UE. These two SIM cards can be registered in different networks or the same network and establish connections or send and receive with these two or the same network respectively. data user equipment UE. The network switch (Network Switch) refers to the network switching from using one SIM card to the network using another SIM card for a multi-SIM card user, such as from the connection state between SIM-A and network A (such as wireless resource Control (Radio Resource Control, RRC) connection state) to exit, switch to the connection state using SIM-B and network B, and execute data transmission and reception between SIM-B and network B. This is limited by the capabilities of the UE, limited by the capabilities of the UE's software and hardware. A multi-SIM card UE cannot simultaneously perform data transmission and reception operations with multiple networks through multiple SIM cards. Therefore, the UE needs to perform network switching to switch between different SIM cards. Time-sharing communication in the network corresponding to the card. Based on this understanding, network switching in the present disclosure is also called SIM card switching. The handover in Conditional Handover (CHO) refers to the connection handover between the same SIM card of the UE in the same cell or different cells in the same network (such as the above-mentioned network A). What is changed is the primary cell associated with the same SIM card. Wherein, the source cell is also called the source base station, and may also be the source beam (beam), the source transmission point (Transmission point, TRP), the source master cell group (Master Cell Group, MCG), and the target cell may also be called the target base station, It can also be a target beam, a target transfer point, or a target MCG. The handover command used to trigger the UE to perform handover is an RRC reconfiguration message including a synchronous reconfiguration (Reconfigurationwithsync) information element in the NR system. Furthermore, for the handover of the master cell, it is an RRC reconfiguration message including a synchronous reconfiguration (Reconfigurationwithsync) information element for the master cell group (Master Cell Group, MCG). At this time, handover may also be referred to as synchronous reconfiguration of the MCG. In the LTE system, it is an RRC connection reconfiguration message including a mobility control information (MobilityControlInformation) information element. Unless otherwise specified, handover (handover) in this disclosure refers to cell-level handover in the same network of the same SIM card, such as conditional handover; and network switch (Network Switch) refers to the network between the networks corresponding to multiple SIM cards Switch or SIM switch. For ease of description, the RRC reconfiguration message in this disclosure is equivalent to the RRC connection reconfiguration message; similarly, the response message RRC reconfiguration complete message is identical to the RRC connection reconfiguration complete message. The handover command is equivalent to the RRC message containing the handover command, and refers to the RRC message or the configuration in the RRC message that triggers the UE to perform handover. The switching configuration refers to all or part of the configuration in the switching command. Cancel, Release, Delete, Empty and Clear etc. can be substituted. Execution, use, and application are interchangeable. Configuration and reconfiguration can be replaced. Links and connections can be replaced. Monitor and detect are interchangeable.

The prior art involved in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be briefly described below.

Conditional switching/conditional reconfiguration mechanism:

A general handover process includes the following phases: Phase 1: Measurement phase. Based on the configured measurement configuration, the UE measures the radio link corresponding to the serving cell or the neighboring cell, and when the configured measurement reporting conditions are met, the UE sends a measurement report to the base station. Phase 2: Handover preparation phase. The base station determines to trigger handover for the UE based on the received measurement report and other factors such as base station load, and the source base station and the target base station obtain the handover command configured by the target base station through the handover preparation process. Phase 3: Switch execution phase. The source base station sends the handover command to the UE, and the UE that receives the handover command immediately applies the configuration of the handover command to perform handover. The UE detects the handover process through a timer T304. When the handover process is initiated, the UE starts the T304 timer; when the handover process is completed, the UE stops the timer T304; when the T304 times out, the UE considers the handover failure.

The purpose of conditional handover is to meet the "0ms" data interruption delay as much as possible during mobile handover, and improve the robustness of handover to meet the mobility requirements of seamless handover. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the flow of condition switching. In conditional handover, a relatively conservative measurement report threshold is set, so that the base station obtains the measurement results in advance, and performs handover preparations in advance according to the measurement results and the selected target base station, so that the base station can perform handover under real handover conditions (relative to the conservative Before the measurement report threshold) is met, the handover command including the handover candidate cell and the handover execution condition is sent to the UE in advance, which carries the handover execution condition of the UE. Different from the existing handover mechanism, after receiving the conditional handover command, the UE does not execute the handover immediately, but saves the configuration of the received handover command, and starts to monitor the link of the source cell according to the handover execution conditions carried in the handover command message. The road quality or the link quality of the target cell is used to evaluate whether the handover execution conditions are met. Only when it detects that the configured handover execution conditions are satisfied, the UE starts to execute the saved handover command and accesses the target cell. The UE can be configured with multiple conditional handover candidate cells at the same time. If multiple conditional handover candidate cells meet the handover execution conditions at the same time, the UE selects one of the candidate cells as the final conditional handover target cell and performs handover to this cell. In a word, conditional switching refers to a switching process that is executed only when one or more configured switching execution conditions are satisfied. Because the switching command is included in the RRC reconfiguration message, conditional switching is also called conditional reconfiguration (conditional reconfiguration). In the NR system, after the UE receives the RRC reconfiguration message containing the conditional handover command (ConditionalReconfiguration information element), the conditional handover command contains the conditional reconfiguration candidate cell list (condReconfigToAddModList information element), and the UE will reconfigure the conditional reconfiguration candidate cell The corresponding configuration is saved in the UE variable VarConditionalReconfig, which contains multiple items. Each item is identified by a conditional reconfiguration identifier (condReconfigId), including the execution condition (condExecutionCond) and the handover configuration of the target cell (condRRCReconfig). The cell identified by the cell identifier in the synchronous reconfiguration (reconfigurationWithSync information element) of the serving cell common configuration (servingCellConfigCommon information element) in the handover configuration of the target cell corresponds to a conditional reconfiguration candidate cell. The UE performs conditional reconfiguration evaluation on each conditional reconfiguration candidate cell according to the execution condition. The execution condition can contain one or two measurement identifiers (measID). Only when the measurement events (condEventA3 or CondEventA5 contained in the CondTriggerConfig information element) corresponding to all the measurement identifiers included in the execution condition are satisfied, the UE considers the corresponding The candidate cell is the trigger cell, and initiates the conditional reconfiguration execution process. During conditional reconfiguration execution, the UE applies the saved handover configuration (condRRCReconfig) corresponding to the cell to the selected trigger cell, and performs cell handover operations, such as starting timer T304, downlink synchronization to the target cell, and transfer to the target cell Initiate a random access procedure for uplink synchronization, and send an RRC reconfiguration completion message to the target cell (see Section 5.3.5.3 of 3GPP protocol specification document TS38.331 for details, which will not be described here).

Wireless link failure recovery mechanism

When the RLF of the primary cell group occurs, the UE will initiate an RRC connection re-establishment process to re-establish/restore the connection with the network side. During the initiated RRC connection re-establishment process, the UE first performs the cell selection process to select a suitable cell. If the UE is configured with an enable indication (attemptCondReconfig information element) that can perform CHO after a link failure, and the cell selection process is due to monitoring of MCG RLF or MCG handover failure (that is, synchronous reconfiguration failure in NR system ) and the selected cell is a conditional handover candidate cell (the synchronization reconfiguration information element reconfigurationWithSync corresponding to the cell is included in the MasterCellGroup information element in the saved conditional reconfiguration variable), then the UE The handover configuration performs a handover to the cell; otherwise, the UE attempts to restore the connection with the network side by sending an RRC connection re-establishment request to the selected cell. When the UE receives the response message as the RRC connection re-establishment message, the UE re-establishes the RRC message according to the configuration in the RRC connection re-establishment message, and feeds back the RRC connection re-establishment completion message to the base station, and successfully ends the RRC connection re-establishment process . If the RRC re-establishment process fails, the UE leaves the RRC connected state and enters the RRC idle state.

Network switching mechanism for multi-SIM UE

Take a UE installed with two SIM cards as an example. SIM-A and SIM-B are installed on the UE. The UE obtains the service of network A through SIM-A, and obtains the service of network B through SIM-B. As mentioned above, limited by the software and hardware capabilities of the UE, the UE cannot perform data transmission and reception on network A and network B at the same time. It is worth pointing out that network A and network B may also be the same network. A typical scenario is that UE-A corresponding to SIM-A is in the connection state of network A (such as RRC connection state) to perform data reception and transmission, and UE-B corresponding to SIM-B is in the RRC idle state of network B or RRC is inactive State (RRC inactive state), wherein UE-A and UE-B are UE parts (or protocol stack architecture parts) corresponding to SIM-A and SIM-B respectively installed in the same multi-SIM card UE. That is to say, UE-A and network A are in a connection state for normal data transmission and reception, and UE-B and network B are in a state of no RRC connection.

In order to maintain the resident state of SIM-B in network B, UE needs to periodically or aperiodically switch to network B to perform downlink measurement, network location update (such as tracking area update or wireless network area update), and receive network B cell system information, receive paging from network B, etc. In addition, for example, if the UE receives a paging from network B to UE-B, and the service corresponding to the paging of network B has a higher priority, the UE may decide to leave the connection state with network A and interrupt SIM-A. For services with network A, perform network switching, establish a connection between SIM-B and network B, and enter the connection state of network B to receive or send services with higher priority.

If the UE decides to leave the connection state with network A, the UE sends a switch notification (or leave request or release request) to network A to inform network A that it wants to leave the RRC connection state, and network A sends a connection to UE Release the message in response. When receiving a connection release message (such as an RRC release message) from network A, the UE performs an operation to leave the connected state, releases the connection with network A, and according to the instructions in the connection release message (whether it carries suspendconfig configuration information) element) to enter the RRC inactive state or the RRC idle state. In the current 3GPP discussion, in order to prevent the UE from receiving the connection release message and waiting for the RRC release message endlessly and unable to leave the connection state of the network A to switch to the network B, there is a timing-based method for the UE to leave the connection state of the network A The network conversion method of the device. In this method, when the UE sends a switching instruction to network A or after sending the switching instruction, the UE starts a timer, and if the UE receives the aforementioned connection release message during the running of the timer, the UE stops the running timer device, and perform the operation of leaving the connected state according to the content of the RRC connection release message. If the timer expires, the UE no longer waits for the RRC release message from the network side, but autonomously leaves the RRC connected state, enters the RRC idle state, and performs operations when entering the RRC idle state. From the perspective of the UE, the preferred state when leaving network A is to enter the RRC inactive state from the connected state. This is because considering the subsequent return to the connected state with network A, and returning from the RRC inactive state The connected state to network A saves more time and signaling overhead. However, in the current 3GPP discussions, based on the method of autonomously leaving the network connected state after the timer expires, the UE leaves the connected state and enters the idle state, because there is no configuration on the network side (the configuration of the RRC release message) and cannot enter RRC Inactive state; and only when the configuration based on RRC release message, UE can enter RRC inactive state, so UE expects to receive RRC release message from the network side, and the way of leaving the network autonomously based on timer can be understood as It is a supplementary method for leaving the network connection state due to failure to receive the RRC release message under abnormal circumstances. The timer can be called a switch timer (switch timer), denoted as Tswitch, which defines the time for the UE to wait for the network side to respond to the RRC connection release message after sending the switch instruction. Network A can configure/enable the use of the timer and configure the value of the timer to the UE through an RRC message. In addition, the value of the timer may also be default or pre-configured, and may also be configured by the core network through a non-access stratum (Non-Access Statrum, NAS) message. In another way, the use of Tswitch and its value are determined by the UE, and can be included in the network transition instruction message to inform the network that the UE is enabled to leave the RRC connected state autonomously or leave after the time indicated by Tswitch expires. The connection state of the network.

Consider a situation where a UE that is normally sending and receiving data while connected to network A is configured with conditional reconfiguration by network A, and the UE will perform conditional reconfiguration measurement and evaluation according to the saved conditional reconfiguration. If the UE wants to leave the connection of the network A at this time, for example, to access the network B to perform receiving or sending of higher priority services, the UE sends a switching instruction to the network A and starts the switching timer Tswitch. During the operation of Tswitch, the candidate cells configured in the conditional reconfiguration are triggered (that is, the configured switching conditions are satisfied). Then how to deal with the triggered conditional switching becomes the concern of this disclosure.

In another situation, the multi-SIM UE is sending and receiving data with the network A in the connected state, and is in the idle state/inactive state with the network B. If the UE wants to leave the connection of the network A at this time, for example, to access the network B to perform receiving or sending of higher priority services, the UE sends a switching instruction to the network A and starts the switching timer Tswitch. During the operation of Tswitch, UE is waiting for the connection release message of network A. If the connection between UE and network A detects a radio link failure (Radio Link Failure, RLF) at this time, the RRC link recovery process (RRC re-establishment) is triggered. process). Then how to deal with the triggered RRC link recovery process becomes the concern of this disclosure.

The present disclosure mainly provides solutions to the problems described above. Through one aspect of the method described in the present disclosure, during the operation of Tswitch waiting for network A to respond to the RRC connection release message, if a conditional handover trigger or a radio link failure RLF occurs, the UE ends the waiting process in advance and can switch as soon as possible The connection state to network B performs reception and transmission of higher priority traffic. According to another aspect of the method described in the present disclosure, during the operation of Tswitch waiting for network A to respond to the RRC connection release message, if a conditional handover trigger or radio link failure RLF occurs, the UE can continue to perform conditional handover or network A In the wireless link recovery process, during the conditional handover with network A and the wireless link recovery process, the operating state of the Tswitch is ignored, so as to avoid the conditional handover with network A and the failure of the wireless link recovery process caused thereby, to achieve Try to expect to receive the RRC release message from network A and leave the RRC connected state according to the instruction of network A.

Hereinafter, several embodiments in the present disclosure are described in detail. The following examples are only given for easy understanding of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the present invention.

Example 1

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, it stops the conditional reconfiguration evaluation, thereby avoiding triggering conditional handover to perform unnecessary conditional handover evaluation measurements while waiting for the connection release message from the network and the signaling overhead and UE energy consumption brought by the corresponding handover process.

As an example, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of the network switching method of the present disclosure.

Step 1: The UE initiates the RRC process of the network switching instruction message, and sends the network switching instruction message to the network side, which is used to inform/request to leave the connection status of the network, and release the RRC connection with the network side.

Preferably, the connection state is an RRC connection state. The network switching indication message is an RRC message. Optionally, the network transition indication message reuses an existing UE assistance information message (UEAssistanceInformation). Optionally, the network transition indication may indicate the preferred RRC state of the UE, for example, the RRC state indicated by the network transition is inactive indicating that the UE expects to enter the RRC inactive state after being released from the connected state . Optionally, the network switching indication may also be related information indicating the length of time that the UE requests to leave the network, such as a specific value of the time length, or the time length is greater than a certain threshold, or whether the departure time is one-time or periodic sex etc. In one embodiment, the network switching instruction message also includes the value of Tswitch, which is determined by the UE, and is used to inform the network that the UE is enabled to leave the RRC connected state autonomously and leave the network after the time indicated by Tswitch expires. connected state.

In this step, it further includes: starting a timer Tswitch when the UE initiates the process of the network transition instruction message (such as the UEAssistanceInformation process). The Tswitch specifies the length of time for the UE to wait for the response RRC release message from the network side as described above. If the timer expires, the UE no longer waits for the RRC release message, and autonomously leaves the connected state of the network and enters the RRC idle state.

Step 2: If the UE is configured with conditional handover reconfiguration, the UE stops the conditional handover reconfiguration. As an example, the UE stopping the conditional handover reconfiguration may include, for example: stopping conditional handover reconfiguration evaluation or releasing the saved conditional reconfiguration.

The conditional handover reconfiguration evaluation is for the conditional handover reconfiguration (i.e. conditional handover) of the primary cell (Primary Cell, PCell) or the master cell group (Master Cell Group, MCG), or for the primary secondary cell (Primary Secondary Cell, PSCell) or secondary cell group (Secondary Cell Group, SCG) conditional handover reconfiguration (i.e. Conditional PSCell Change (Conditional PSCell Change, CPC) or Conditional PSCell Addition (Conditional PSCell Addition, CPA)).

The UE configured with conditional handover reconfiguration may also be described as UE having preserved conditional reconfiguration.

Example 2

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. With the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, if the handover process is triggered, the UE does not perform the handover process to the target cell. Therefore, in the process of waiting for a connection release message from the network, signaling overhead and UE energy consumption caused by unnecessary handover procedures are avoided.

Step 1: The UE sends a network switching instruction message to the network side, which is used to inform/request to leave the connection state of the network, and release the RRC connection with the network side.

Preferably, the connection state is an RRC connection state. The network switching instruction message is an RRC message, which is the same as that described in Embodiment 1, and will not be repeated here.

Step 2: If the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, the UE stops or does not execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.

The conditional reconfiguration process may be for a primary cell (Primary Cell, PCell) or a primary cell group (Master Cell Group, MCG) conditional reconfiguration (i.e. conditional handover), or for a primary secondary cell (Primary Secondary Cell, PSCell) or secondary cell group (Secondary Cell Group, SCG) conditional reconfiguration (i.e. Conditional PSCell Change (Conditional PSCell Change, CPC) or Conditional PSCell Addition (Conditional PSCell Addition, CPA)).

Optionally, this step further includes: releasing the saved conditional reconfiguration.

The conditional reconfiguration execution process is initiated when the measurement times associated with all measurement identifiers in the conditional trigger configuration corresponding to one or more target candidate cells in the conditional reconfiguration saved by the UE are satisfied. The conditional reconfiguration execution process refers to that the UE selects a trigger cell as the selected cell for conditional reconfiguration execution, and applies the saved conditional reconfiguration corresponding to the selected cell (identified by condRRCReconfig in the NR system) , to perform a handover operation to the target cell.

The method described in this embodiment can also be described as: in the process of performing conditional reconfiguration evaluation, for each conditional reconfiguration identifier in the saved conditional reconfiguration, a target candidate cell in the saved conditional reconfiguration of the UE corresponds to When the measurement events associated with all the measurement identifiers in the condition trigger configuration are satisfied, if the timer Tswitch is in the running state or if the UE sends the network switching indication message in step 1 to the network side, the UE will not initiate a conditional handover restart Configure the execution process.

The method described in this embodiment can also be described as: during the conditional reconfiguration evaluation process, for each conditional reconfiguration identifier in the saved conditional reconfiguration, one or more target candidates in the saved conditional reconfiguration of the UE When the measurement time associated with all measurement identifiers in the condition trigger configuration corresponding to the cell is satisfied, if the timer Tswitch is not in the running state or the UE has not sent the network switching indication message in step 1 to the network side, then The UE initiates a conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.

In addition to the conditional switching process, this embodiment is also applicable to the general unconditional switching process. The unconditional handover process means that after receiving the handover command, the UE immediately applies the configuration of the handover command to execute the handover process to the target cell, and the handover command does not include a handover execution condition. This situation can occur when the UE receives a handover command from the network side during the process of sending a network switching instruction message to the network side in step 1. At this time, because the network side has not successfully received the indication that the UE wants to leave the network connection, Therefore, the network side triggers the handover based on the current channel state or the network load state, and sends a handover command to the UE. At this time, the UE may ignore/not execute the handover command, but autonomously leaves the RRC connected state of the network after the timer Tswitch expires. In this case, this embodiment can be described as: when receiving the handover command, if the timer Tswitch is not running or the UE has not sent the network switching instruction message in step 1 to the network side, then the UE according to The handover command performs a handover operation (applies RRC reconfiguration message and performs handover to the target cell).

Example 3

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, if the handover process is triggered, it will not perform the handover process to the target cell, and end waiting for the connection release message from the network, and leave the network connection State, avoiding the overhead caused by unnecessary handover process in this network, and can access to another network as soon as possible to receive/send higher priority service data.

Step 1: The UE sends a network transition indication message to the network side, for informing/requesting to leave the connection state of the network.

Step 2: If the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, the UE performs one or more of the following operations: stop the timer Tswitch; consider the timer Tswitch to expire; autonomously perform the operation of leaving the RRC connection state of the network; execute The operation of entering the RRC idle state does not execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.

The initiation of the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process may also be that the handover conditions corresponding to one or more conditional candidate cells in the conditional handover evaluation process are met, which is considered as a conditional reconfiguration triggering cell.

The conditional reconfiguration process is a conditional reconfiguration (ie conditional handover) for a primary cell (Primary Cell, PCell) or a primary cell group (Master Cell Group, MCG).

The conditional reconfiguration execution process is initiated when all measurement events associated with the measurement identifiers in the conditional trigger configuration corresponding to one or more target candidate cells in the conditional reconfiguration saved by the UE are satisfied. The conditional reconfiguration execution process refers to that the UE selects a trigger cell as the selected cell for conditional reconfiguration execution, and applies the saved conditional reconfiguration corresponding to the selected cell (identified by condRRCReconfig in the NR system) , to perform a handover operation to the target cell.

The method described in this embodiment can also be described as: in the process of performing conditional reconfiguration evaluation, for each conditional reconfiguration identifier in the saved conditional reconfiguration, a target candidate cell in the saved conditional reconfiguration of the UE corresponds to When the measurement events associated with all the measurement identifiers in the condition trigger configuration are met, if the timer Tswitch is in the running state or if the UE sends the network switching instruction message described in step 1 to the network side, the UE stops the timer Tswitch or It is considered that the timer Tswitch has expired, and the operation of leaving the RRC connection state of the network is performed, and the network connection state is left autonomously; otherwise (if the timer Tswitch is not in the running state or the UE has not sent the network switching instruction described in step 1 to the network side message), the UE initiates the conditional reconfiguration execution process.

In addition to the conditional switching process, this embodiment is also applicable to the general unconditional switching process. In this case, this embodiment can be described as: when receiving a general switching command from the network side, if the timer Tswitch is running or the UE has not sent the network switching instruction message in step 1 to the network side , the UE stops the timer Tswitch or considers that the timer Tswitch has expired, executes the operation of leaving the network RRC connection state, and autonomously leaves the network connection state.

Example 4

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, if the handover process is triggered, the UE continues to perform the switching process to the target cell, and resends the network switching instruction message to the target cell to maintain and The connection state of the network is expected to receive the RRC release message sent by the network side, so as to avoid the inability to receive the RRC release message of the network caused by Tswitch timeout caused by voluntary leaving the network, and unable to enter the preferred network according to the network instructions. RRC inactive dynamic.

As an example, FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing another example of the network conversion method of the present disclosure.

In this step, it further includes: starting a timer Tswitch when the UE initiates the process of the network transition instruction message (such as the UEAssistanceInformation process).

Step 2: If the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.

This step also includes: stopping the timer Tswitch.

The stop timer Tswitch is executed when the conditional handover reconfiguration execution procedure is initiated or when the UE executes the conditional reconfiguration execution procedure.

The initiation of the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process may also be that the handover conditions corresponding to one or more conditional candidate cells in the conditional handover evaluation process are met, which is considered as a conditional reconfiguration triggering cell. The conditional reconfiguration process is a conditional reconfiguration (ie conditional handover) for a primary cell (Primary Cell, PCell) or a primary cell group (Master Cell Group, MCG).

Step 3: When the UE successfully completes the handover to the target cell, the UE triggers the sending of a network switching instruction message, and indicates to the target cell that it wants to leave the RRC connected state of the network and switch to another network.

This step also includes: starting or restarting the timer Tswitch.

The successful completion of the handover of the UE to the target cell means that the medium access control (Medium Access Control, MAC) layer successfully completes the random access process triggered by the handover process, that is, the UE successfully completes the handover to the target cell The random access process successfully accesses the target cell.

In this step, the UE resends the network switching instruction message to the target cell, so that the target base station can obtain an indication that the UE wants to leave the network connection state, and then send an RRC release message to the UE to enter the RRC idle state or the RRC inactive state. Because the network switching instruction message sent by the UE in step 1 is sent to the source cell, and in the conditional handover process, because the handover preparation process between the source cell and the target cell occurs a period of time before the triggering of the handover process , so the target cell may not have obtained the UE's network switching instruction from the source cell. Optionally, the UE sending the network handover instruction message to the target cell after the handover is successful is performed when the UE is still configured with a network handover instruction sending function by the target cell. The starting or restarting of the timer Tswitch is also performed when the UE is still configured with the function of sending the network handover instruction or the function of Tswitch is enabled/configured by the target cell.

In addition to the conditional switching process, this embodiment is also applicable to the general unconditional switching process. In this case, step 1 and step 3 are the same as in the case of the above condition switching, the difference lies in step 2. In step 2, if the UE receives a handover command from the network side, it should execute the handover process according to the configuration in the handover command, and stop the timer Tswitch.

In addition, this embodiment is also applicable to general RRC reconfiguration process. In this case, the UE only performs steps 1 and 2. Step 1 is the same as in the case of the above-mentioned conditional handover. In step 2, when the RRC connection reconfiguration message is received, the configuration in the RRC connection reconfiguration message is applied, and the timer Tswitch is stopped.

It is worth noting that in this embodiment, preferably, the UE performs steps 1, 2 and 3. But step 2 and step 3 are not necessary, for example, the UE may only implement step 1 and step 2, or only implement step 1 and step 3.

Example 5

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, when the multi-SIM card UE is configured or enabled to use the network transition process that can send the network transition indication, the network side will not configure conditional handover for it at the same time, thereby avoiding that the UE sends the network transition The problem caused by performing unnecessary conditional switching operations during the time of waiting for the RRC release message while indicating the message.

This embodiment is implemented on the network side or on the UE. This embodiment is actually a limitation, and the network side is not allowed to simultaneously configure conditional reconfiguration for the UE using the multi-SIM card service. The UE using the multi-SIM card service can also be understood as a UE that is configured or enabled to use the network switching procedure for sending the network switching instruction.

Example 6

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, it stops RLF monitoring, so that during the process of waiting for the connection release message from the network, it avoids the trouble caused by the link recovery process triggered by the detected RLF. Signaling overhead and UE energy consumption.

Step 1: The UE initiates the RRC process of the network transition indication message, and sends the network transition indication message to the network side, for informing/requesting to leave the connection state of the network.

Step 2: UE stops RLF monitoring.

This embodiment can also be described as: when the timer T310 expires, or when the timer T312 expires, or when a random access problem indication is received from the MAC and the timers T300, T301, T304, T311, and T319 are not in the running state, or When the indication that the maximum number of retransmissions has been reached is received from the radio link control (Radio Link Control, RLC) layer, if the timer Tswitch is not in the running state or the UE does not send the network message described in step 1 to the network side If the indication message is converted, the UE considers that RLF has been detected.

The RLF refers to the RLF of MCG or the RLF of SCG. For RLF of MCG, the above T310/T312/RLC/MAC refers to the T310/T312/RLC/MAC used in PCell or for MCG; for RLF of SCG, the above T310/T312/RLC/MAC refers to PSCell T310/T312/RLC/MAC used in or for SCG.

Optionally, this step further includes: the UE stops beam failure detection (Beam Failure Detection, BFD), or beam failure recovery (Beam Failure Recovery, BFR).

Example 7

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, if RLF is detected, the UE will not initiate the link recovery process, and it can be considered that the timer Tswitch has expired, thereby avoiding unnecessary link recovery process and In order to reduce the signaling overhead and UE energy consumption caused by the UE, leave the connection state of the network as soon as possible, and establish a connection with another network to receive or send higher priority service data in another network.

Step 2: If the UE detects RLF, the UE performs one or more of the following operations:

Operation 1: If the timer Tswitch is not in the running state or the UE has not sent the network switching indication message mentioned in step 1 to the network side, then for MCG RLF, the UE initiates the RRC connection re-establishment process or the MCG failure information process to recover and For the connection of the network, for SCG RLF, the UE initiates the SCG failure information process, and notifies the network side that the SCG failure has occurred.

Operation 2: If the timer Tswitch is in the running state or the UE has previously sent or initiated the network switching instruction message described in step 1 to the network side, then the UE performs one or more of the following operations: stop the timer Tswitch; It is considered that the timer Tswitch is overtime; the operation of leaving the RRC connected state is executed; the operation of entering the RRC idle state is executed.

The UE may consider that RLF has been detected when one of the following conditions is satisfied: when the timer T310 expires, or when the timer T312 expires, or when a random access problem indication is received from the MAC and the timers T300, T301, T304, T311, T319 Not running, or when an indication has been received from the Radio Link Control (RLC) layer that the maximum number of retransmissions has been reached.

Example 8

This embodiment provides a network switching method executed on the UE. Through the method described in this embodiment, after the UE sends the network switching instruction to the network, if RLF is detected, the UE continues to perform the link restoration process, and resends the network switching instruction message to the target cell/reestablishment cell where the link is restored , in order to maintain the connection state with the network, and expect to receive the RRC release message from the network side, so as to avoid the inability to receive the RRC release message of the network due to Tswitch timeout caused by voluntary leaving the network, and unable to follow the network instructions Enter the preferred RRC inactive state.

Step 2: If the UE initiates the RRC re-establishment process, the UE performs one or more of the following operations:

Operation 1: When initiating the RRC re-establishment process, stop the timer Tswitch;

Operation 2: When the link from the UE to the re-established cell is successfully restored, the UE triggers the sending of a network switching instruction message, and indicates to the target cell that it wants to leave the RRC connection state of the network and switch to another network. Optionally, the timer Tswitch is started or restarted.

When the UE link is successfully restored, it means that the UE has received the RRC re-establishment message, or the UE has received the first RRC re-configuration message after the RRC re-establishment process.

Optionally, the UE sending the network switching instruction message to the re-established cell after the link is successfully restored is executed when the UE is still configured with a network switching instruction sending function in the re-established cell. The starting or restarting of the timer Tswitch is also performed when the UE is still configured with the function of sending the network handover instruction or the function of Tswitch is enabled/configured when the UE is still in the re-established cell.

In this step, the UE re-sends the network switching instruction message to the re-established cell, so that the re-established cell can obtain an indication that the UE wants to leave the network connection state, and then send an RRC release message to the UE to enter the RRC idle state or RRC inactive dynamic. Because the network switching instruction message sent by the UE in step 1 is sent to the source cell, the re-established cell may not obtain the UE's network switching instruction from the source cell.

Example 9

This embodiment describes the user equipment UE of the present disclosure. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a user equipment UE according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4 , the user equipment UE40 includes a processor 401 and a memory 402 . The processor 401 may include, for example, a microprocessor, a microcontroller, an embedded processor, and the like. The memory 402 may include, for example, a volatile memory (such as a random access memory RAM), a hard disk drive (HDD), a nonvolatile memory (such as a flash memory), or other memories. Memory 402 has program instructions stored thereon. When the instruction is executed by the processor 401, various methods such as the above-mentioned network switching method described in detail in the present invention can be executed.

In the present disclosure, concepts or definitions between the embodiments may be commonly used unless otherwise specified.

In this disclosure, "base station" refers to a mobile communication data and control switching center with relatively large transmission power and wide coverage area, including functions such as resource allocation and scheduling, and data reception and transmission. "User equipment" refers to a user mobile terminal, such as a mobile phone, a notebook, and other terminal equipment capable of wireless communication with a base station or a micro base station.

The methods and related devices of the present disclosure have been described above in conjunction with preferred embodiments. Those skilled in the art can understand that the methods shown above are only exemplary. The methods of the present disclosure are not limited to the steps and order shown above. The base station and user equipment shown above may include more modules, for example, may also include modules that may be developed or developed in the future and may be used for the base station, MME, or UE, and the like. The various identifiers shown above are only exemplary rather than restrictive, and the present disclosure is not limited to specific information elements as examples of these identifiers. Numerous variations and modifications may be made by those skilled in the art in light of the teachings of the illustrated embodiments.

The program running on the device according to the present disclosure may be a program that causes a computer to realize the functions of the embodiments of the present disclosure by controlling a central processing unit (CPU). The program or information processed by the program may be temporarily stored in volatile memory (such as random access memory RAM), hard disk drive (HDD), non-volatile memory (such as flash memory), or other memory systems.

A program for realizing the functions of the embodiments of the present disclosure can be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium. The corresponding functions can be realized by causing a computer system to read programs recorded on the recording medium and execute the programs. The so-called "computer system" here may be a computer system embedded in the device, which may include an operating system or hardware (such as peripheral devices). The "computer-readable recording medium" may be a semiconductor recording medium, an optical recording medium, a magnetic recording medium, a recording medium in which a short-term dynamic storage program is stored, or any other recording medium readable by a computer.

Various features or functional modules of the devices used in the above-mentioned embodiments may be implemented or executed by circuits (for example, single-chip or multi-chip integrated circuits). Circuits designed to perform the functions described in this specification may include general-purpose processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination of the above. A general-purpose processor can be a microprocessor, or it can be any existing processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. The above-mentioned circuits may be digital circuits or analog circuits. Where advances in semiconductor technology have resulted in new integrated circuit technologies that replace existing integrated circuits, one or more embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented using these new integrated circuit technologies.

In addition, the present disclosure is not limited to the above-described embodiments. Although various examples of the embodiments have been described, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Fixed or non-mobile electronic equipment installed indoors or outdoors can be used as terminal equipment or communication equipment, such as AV equipment, kitchen equipment, cleaning equipment, air conditioners, office equipment, vending machines, and other household appliances.

As above, the embodiments of the present disclosure have been described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the specific structure is not limited to the above embodiments, and the present disclosure also includes any design changes that do not deviate from the gist of the present disclosure. In addition, various modifications can be made to the present disclosure within the scope of the claims, and embodiments obtained by appropriately combining technical means disclosed in different embodiments are also included in the technical scope of the present disclosure. In addition, components having the same effect described in the above embodiments can be substituted for each other.

Claims

A network conversion method, comprising:

The user equipment UE sends a network switching instruction message to the network side, which is used to inform/request to leave the connection state, and release the radio resource control RRC connection with the network side;

If the UE is configured with conditional handover reconfiguration, the UE stops conditional handover reconfiguration.
The network switching method according to claim 1, wherein,

Stopping the conditional handover reconfiguration includes: the UE stops the conditional handover reconfiguration evaluation, or releases the saved conditional handover reconfiguration.
The network switching method according to claim 1, wherein,

If the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, the UE stops or does not execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.
The network switching method according to claim 1, wherein,

When the UE initiates the process of the network switching indication message, start the timer Tswitch,

The timer Tswitch is used to define the maximum time for the UE to wait for a response message from the network,

The response message is an RRC release message.
The network switching method according to claim 1 or 4, wherein,

If the conditional handover reconfiguration execution process is initiated, the UE performs at least one of the following operations:

Stop timer Tswitch;

It is considered that the timer Tswitch has timed out;

autonomously perform operations to leave the RRC connection state of the network;

Execute the operation of entering the RRC idle state, and do not execute the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process.
The network switching method according to any one of claims 1-4, wherein,

The connection state is an RRC connection state, and the network transition indication message is an RRC message.
The network switching method according to any one of claims 1-4, wherein,

The network transition indication message reuses the existing UE assistance information message UEAssistanceInformation.
A network conversion method, comprising:

The UE sends a network transition indication message to the network side for informing/requesting to leave the connected state;

If the conditional switching reconfiguration execution process is initiated, then execute the initiated conditional switching reconfiguration execution process;

When the UE completes the handover to the target cell, the UE triggers the sending of a network switching instruction message, and indicates to the target cell that it will leave the RRC connected state of the network and switch to another network.
The network switching method according to claim 8, wherein,

When the UE initiates the process of the network switching instruction message, start the timer Tswitch,

When the UE executes the initiated conditional handover reconfiguration execution process, stop the timer Tswitch,

The timer Tswitch is used to define the maximum time for the UE to wait for a response message from the network,

The response message is an RRC release message.
A user equipment UE, comprising:

processor; and

a memory storing instructions;

Wherein, the instruction executes the network conversion method according to any one of claims 1 to 9 when executed by the processor.