WO2024041196A1

WO2024041196A1 - Beam management method, communication apparatus, and communication system

Info

Publication number: WO2024041196A1
Application number: PCT/CN2023/104391
Authority: WO
Inventors: 颜矛; 马传辉; 刘凤威
Original assignee: 华为技术有限公司
Priority date: 2022-08-25
Filing date: 2023-06-30
Publication date: 2024-02-29
Also published as: CN117715211A

Abstract

The present application provides a beam management method and a communication apparatus. The method comprises: a network device receives first beam information sent by a relay device; the network device determines a first beam set according to the first beam information and second beam information, wherein a beam in the first beam set is used for the relay device to forward a reference signal sent by the network device or a terminal device, and the second beam information is reported or pre-configured by the relay device; and the network device sends first configuration information to the relay device, the first configuration information being used for configuring the first beam set. By means of the method, in the present application, a beam direction of the relay device can be aligned with the network device, so that the relay device can better assist in communication between the network device and the terminal device.

Description

Beam management method, communication device and communication system

This application claims priority to the Chinese patent application filed with the State Intellectual Property Office of China on August 25, 2022, with application number 202211025883.2 and application title "Method, communication device and communication system for beam management", the entire content of which is incorporated by reference. incorporated in this application.

Technical field

The present application relates to the field of communication technology, and more specifically, to a beam management method, a communication device and a communication system.

Background technique

In close-range scenarios, network equipment and terminal equipment can communicate directly, but when the distance between the two is relatively long, relay equipment can be used to assist communication between the network equipment and terminal equipment. For example, the relay device amplifies the received signal (including the signal from the network device or the terminal device) and then forwards it.

At present, the new radio (NR) communication system only considers beam management when network equipment and terminal equipment communicate directly. It does not consider how to adjust the beam direction of the relay equipment after the relay equipment is introduced so that the relay equipment can To better assist the communication between network equipment and terminal equipment.

Contents of the invention

The present application provides a beam management method, communication device and communication system, which can realize the beam direction of the relay device to be aligned with the network device, so that the relay device can better assist the communication between the network device and the terminal device.

In a first aspect, a beam management method is provided, including: a network device receiving first beam information sent by a relay device; and the network device determining a first beam set based on the first beam information and the second beam information. The beams in the set are used by the relay device to forward the reference signal sent by the network device or the terminal device. The second beam information is reported or preconfigured by the relay device; the network device sends the first configuration information to the relay device, and the third beam information is sent by the relay device. Configuration information is used to configure the first beam set.

Specifically, the network device can configure a first beam set for the relay device based on the first beam information and the second beam information of the relay device. The direction of the beams in the first beam set can be aligned with the network device. In this way, The relay device can better assist communication between the network device and the terminal device according to the first beam set.

In conjunction with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device, and the second beam information is information of the forwarding module of the relay device.

Optionally, the first beam information corresponds to the first antenna of the relay device, and the second beam information corresponds to the second antenna of the relay device.

Optionally, the first antenna and the second antenna are different.

Optionally, the first antenna corresponds to the control module, and the second antenna corresponds to the forwarding module.

Optionally, the first antenna belongs to the control module, and the second antenna belongs to the forwarding module.

The network device can determine the first beam set according to the first beam information determined by the control module of the relay device and the second beam information of the forwarding module of the relay device, so that the first beam set can be aimed at the network device, and then, The relay device can better assist communication between the network device and the terminal device according to the first beam set.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: the network device determines the measurement information of the first beam set; the network device sends second configuration information to the relay device, the second configuration information is Configuring a second beam set, the second beam set is determined by the network device based on the measurement information.

Optionally, the first beam set includes at least one beam that does not belong to the second beam set, or the second beam set includes at least one beam that does not belong to the first beam set.

Specifically, the network device can configure the relay device according to the measurement information of the first beam set, which is better aligned with the network device than the first beam set. In this way, the relay device can configure the second beam set according to the second beam set. Better communication between auxiliary network equipment and terminal equipment.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the network device; the second beam information includes at least one of the following: number information of beams , quasi-co-location information of beams, coverage information of beams, relative relationship between beams, quantity information of beam sets, quasi-co-location information of beam sets, coverage information of beam sets, relative relationship between beam sets, Correspondence between beam index and weight, correspondence between beam index and beam, antenna array information, weight generation information, or antenna information.

Specifically, the network device may determine the first beam set from multiple beam sets determined by the network device based on the first beam information based on the initial beam direction information reported by the relay device about the network device and the relay device, In this way, the relay device can better assist communication between the network device and the terminal device based on the first beam set. In addition, the first beam set can be aimed at the network device.

With reference to the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the network device determines the measurement information of the first beam set, including: the network device sends at least one reference signal to the terminal device through the first beam set of the relay device; the network device The device receives the measurement information, which is determined by the terminal device based on at least one reference signal forwarded by the relay device; or the network device receives at least one reference signal forwarded by the first beam set of the relay device, and the at least one reference signal The signal is sent by the terminal device to the network device; the network device determines the measurement information based on at least one reference signal.

Specifically, the network device may determine the measurement information of the first beam set through a downlink measurement method or an uplink measurement method.

Optionally, a reference signal is used for beam measurements.

Optionally, the measurement information is determined by the terminal device, and the relay device is responsible for forwarding the measurement information sent by the terminal device to the network device.

In conjunction with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, each first weight includes a first component, and the first component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

Specifically, when the relay device is a reflective surface, the weight of the reflective surface can include the component corresponding to the backhaul link beam, and the network device can send information corresponding to the component including the backhaul link beam to the relay device; based on the network Based on the configuration information issued by the device, the relay device can adjust the components of the backhaul link beam of the relay device and form a new weight based on the components of the original access link beam. Thereby, its backhaul link beam is aligned with the network device (or better matched), and the access link beam is reflected toward the target direction (better matched with the target direction).

The network device may indicate to the relay device all or part of the first component of the first weight in at least one first weight through the above-mentioned first configuration information.

In conjunction with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, each first weight further includes a second component, the second component is used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

Specifically, by dividing the weight of the reflective surface into two parts, which are the first component corresponding to the backhaul link beam and the second component corresponding to the access link beam, the calculation of the weight of the reflective surface can be simplified. Design form. The component corresponding to the backhaul link beam included in the configuration information issued by the network device. Based on this component, the relay device can adjust the component of the backhaul link beam of the relay device so that the backhaul link aligns with the network device. allow. In addition, the component corresponding to the access link beam included in the configuration information issued by the network device, the relay device can also adjust the access link beam of the relay device based on this component, so that the access link beam is consistent with the terminal Device alignment.

By respectively adjusting the first component of the backhaul link and the second component of the access link, the relay device realizes signal reflection (or forwarding) between the network device and the terminal device, thereby assisting communication.

In conjunction with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, each second weight includes a third component, and the third component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, each second weight includes a fourth component, the fourth component being used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

In a second aspect, a beam management method is provided, including: a relay device sends first beam information to a network device; the relay device receives first configuration information sent by the network device, and the first configuration information is used to configure the first beam information. A beam set. The beams in the first beam set are used by the relay device to forward reference signals sent by the network device or the terminal device. The first beam set is determined by the network device based on the first beam information and the second beam information; wherein, The second beam information is reported by the relay device or preconfigured.

Combined with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the first beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device, and the second beam information is information of the forwarding module of the relay device.

Optionally, the first antenna and the second antenna are different.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the relay device forwards at least one reference signal sent by the network device to the terminal device through the first beam set, and the reference signal is used for measurement; relaying The device sends measurement information of the first beam set to the network device, where the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on at least one reference signal.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the relay device forwards at least one reference signal sent by the terminal device to the network device through the first beam set.

With reference to the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: the relay device receives second configuration information sent by the network device, the second configuration information is used to configure the second beam set, the second beam set The set is determined by the network device based on the measurement information of the first beam set.

Combined with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the network device; the second beam information includes at least one of the following: number information of beams , quasi-co-location information of beams, coverage information of beams, relative relationship between beams, quantity information of beam sets, quasi-co-location information of beam sets, coverage information of beam sets, relative relationship between beam sets, Correspondence between beam index and weight, correspondence between beam index and beam, antenna array information, weight generation information, or antenna information.

In conjunction with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, each first weight includes a first component, and the first component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, each first weight further includes a second component, the second component is used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

In conjunction with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, each second weight includes a third component, and the third component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, each of the second weights includes a fourth component, where the fourth component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.

In a third aspect, a communication device is provided, including: a communication interface and a processor. The communication interface is used to send and receive data and/or signaling. The processor is used to execute computer programs or instructions, so that the communication device executes the first aspect. and the method described in any one of the possible implementations of the first aspect; or, causing the communication device to perform the second aspect and the method described in any one of the possible implementations of the second aspect.

In conjunction with the third aspect, in some possible implementations of the third aspect, the communication device further includes a memory, and the memory is used to store the computer program or instructions.

The fourth aspect provides a communication device, which can be used in the communication device of the first aspect. The communication device can be a network device or a device in the network device (for example, a chip, or a chip system, or circuit), or a device that can be used with network equipment.

In a possible implementation, the communication device may include modules or units that perform one-to-one correspondence with the methods/operations/steps/actions described in the first aspect. The modules or units may be hardware circuits, software, or It can be implemented by hardware circuit combined with software.

In a possible implementation, the communication device includes: a transceiver unit, configured to receive the first beam information sent by the relay device; a processing unit, configured to determine the first beam set according to the first beam information and the second beam information, The beams in the first beam set are used by the relay device to forward the reference signal sent by the communication device or terminal device. The second beam information is reported or preconfigured by the relay device; the transceiver unit is also used to transmit The relay device sends first configuration information, where the first configuration information is used to configure the first beam set.

It should be understood that the above-mentioned transceiving unit may include a sending unit and a receiving unit. The sending unit is used to perform the sending action of the communication device, and the receiving unit is used to perform the receiving action of the communication device. For convenience of description, the embodiment of the present application combines the sending unit and the receiving unit into one sending and receiving unit. A unified explanation is given here and will not be repeated in the following paragraphs.

Combined with the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the first beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device, and the second beam information is information of the forwarding module of the relay device.

Optionally, the first antenna and the second antenna are different.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the processing unit is also used to determine the measurement information of the first beam set; the transceiver unit is also used to send the second configuration information to the relay device, the The second configuration information is used to configure a second beam set, and the second beam set is determined by the communication device based on the measurement information.

Combined with the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the network device; the second beam information includes at least one of the following: number information of beams , quasi-co-location information of beams, coverage information of beams, relative relationship between beams, quantity information of beam sets, quasi-co-location information of beam sets, coverage information of beam sets, relative relationship between beam sets, Correspondence between beam index and weight, correspondence between beam index and beam, antenna array information, weight generation information, or antenna information.

With reference to the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is also used to send at least one reference signal to the terminal device through the first beam set of the relay device; the transceiver unit is also used to receive The measurement information forwarded by the relay device, the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on at least one reference signal forwarded by the relay device; or, the transceiver unit is also used to receive at least one beam forwarded by the first beam set of the relay device. Reference signals, each reference signal is sent by the terminal device to the network device; the processing unit is also used to determine the measurement information based on at least one reference signal.

In conjunction with the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, each first weight includes a first component, and the first component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, each first weight further includes a second component, the second component is used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

In conjunction with the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, each second weight includes a third component, and the third component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the fourth aspect, in some implementations of the fourth aspect, each second weight includes a fourth component, the fourth component being used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

The fifth aspect provides a communication device, which can be used in the communication device of the second aspect. The communication device can be a relay device or a device in the relay device (for example, a chip, or a chip system , or circuit), or a device that can be used with relay equipment.

In a possible implementation, the communication device may include modules or units that perform one-to-one correspondence with the methods/operations/steps/actions described in the second aspect. The modules or units may be hardware circuits, software, or It can be implemented by hardware circuit combined with software.

In a possible implementation, the communication device includes: a transceiver unit, configured to send the first beam information to the network device; the transceiver unit is also configured to receive the first configuration information sent by the network device, where the first configuration information is used to Configuring a first beam set, the beams in the first beam set are used by the communication device to forward the reference signal sent by the network device or the terminal device, the first beam set is determined by the network device based on the first beam information and the second beam information ; wherein the second beam information is reported or preconfigured by the communication device.

Combined with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the first beam information is determined by the control module of the communication device, and the second beam information is information of the forwarding module of the communication device.

Optionally, the first beam information corresponds to the first antenna of the communication device, and the second beam information corresponds to the second antenna of the communication device.

Optionally, the first antenna and the second antenna are different.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiver unit is also configured to send signals to the terminal through the first beam set The device forwards at least one reference signal sent by the network device, and the reference signal is used for measuring beams; the transceiver unit is also used to send measurement information of the first beam set to the network device, the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on at least one reference signal of.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to forward at least one reference signal sent by the terminal device to the network device through the first beam set.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the transceiver unit is also configured to receive second configuration information sent by the network device, where the second configuration information is used to configure the second beam set. The second beam The set is determined by the network device based on the measurement information of the first beam set.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the network device; the second beam information includes at least one of the following: number information of beams , quasi-co-location information of beams, coverage information of beams, relative relationship between beams, quantity information of beam sets, quasi-co-location information of beam sets, coverage information of beam sets, relative relationship between beam sets, Correspondence between beam index and weight, correspondence between beam index and beam, antenna array information, weight generation information, or antenna information.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, each first weight includes a first component, and the first component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, each first weight further includes a second component, the second component is used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, each second weight includes a third component, and the third component is used to indicate the relay device backhaul link beam.

In conjunction with the fifth aspect, in some implementations of the fifth aspect, each second weight includes a fourth component, the fourth component being used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device.

A sixth aspect provides a communication system, including: a network device and a relay device; the network device is configured to perform the method described in any one of the first aspect and any possible implementation of the first aspect; the relay The device is configured to perform the method described in any one of the second aspect and any possible implementation manner of the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, including a computer program or instructions. When the computer program or instructions are run on a computer, the first aspect and any possible implementation of the first aspect are enabled. The method described in any one of them is executed; or, the method described in any one of the second aspect and any possible implementation manner of the second aspect is executed.

In an eighth aspect, a computer program product is provided, which includes instructions that, when the instructions are run on a computer, cause the method described in any one of the first aspect and any possible implementation of the first aspect to be executed. ; Or, causing the method described in any one of the second aspect and any possible implementation manner of the second aspect to be executed.

In a ninth aspect, a communication device is provided, including a logic circuit and an input-output interface. The input-output interface is used to output and/or input signals. The logic circuit is used to perform the first aspect and any possible implementation of the first aspect. The method described in any one of them; or, perform the method described in any one of the second aspect and any possible implementation manner of the second aspect.

In a possible implementation, the input and output interface is used to receive the first beam information sent by the relay device; the logic circuit is used to determine the first beam set according to the first beam information and the second beam information, and the first beam The beams in the set are used to forward the corresponding reference signal in at least one reference signal, and the second beam information is reported or preconfigured by the relay device; the input and output interface is also used to send the first configuration information to the relay device, The first configuration information is used to configure the first beam set.

In a possible implementation, the input and output interface is used to send the first beam information to the network device; the input and output interface is also used to receive the first configuration information sent by the network device, and the first configuration information is used to configure the first beam. A set, the beams in the first beam set are used to forward the corresponding reference signal in at least one reference signal, the first beam set is determined by the network device based on the first beam information and the second beam information; wherein, the second The beam information is reported or preconfigured by the communication device.

Description of drawings

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of an existing communication system 100.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of an adaptive communication system 200 according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the working principle of the reflective surface according to the embodiment of the present application.

Figure 4 is an interactive flow chart of the beam management method 400 according to the embodiment of the present application.

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between the antenna of the control module and the antenna of the forwarding module.

Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between the beams of the control module and the beams of the forwarding module.

Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of the two-dimensional coverage of a beam or set of beams.

Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of adjacent coverage areas of different beams or sets of beams.

Figure 9 is a schematic diagram of the correspondence between beam sets and signals.

Figure 10 is a schematic diagram of the coverage areas where different beams or sets of beams intersect.

Figure 11 is a schematic diagram of the relative relationship between beams or sets of beams.

Figure 12 is a schematic diagram of beam index setting.

Figure 13 is a schematic diagram of the normalized gains of different beams at different angles.

Figure 14 is a schematic diagram of beam scanning according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 15 is another schematic diagram of beam scanning according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 16 is another schematic diagram of beam scanning according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 17 is a schematic diagram of a partial structure of a relay device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 18 is a schematic diagram of a partial structure of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 19 is a schematic diagram of a communication device 1900 according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 20 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 2000 according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 21 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 2100 according to an embodiment of the present application.

Figure 22 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 2200 according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed ways

The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: long term evolution (long term evolution, LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (time division duplex) , TDD), universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS), fifth generation ( ^5th generation, 5G) system or new radio (NR), sixth generation ( ^6th generation, 6G) system, etc. Systems evolved after 5G, non-terrestrial network (NTN) systems such as inter-satellite communications and satellite communications. Satellite communication systems include satellite base stations and terminal equipment. Satellite base stations provide communication services to terminal devices. Satellite base stations can also communicate with ground base stations. Satellites can serve as base stations and terminal equipment. Among them, satellites can refer to non-ground base stations or non-ground equipment such as UAVs, hot air balloons, low-orbit satellites, medium-orbit satellites, and high-orbit satellites.

The technical solutions of the embodiments of this application are applicable to both homogeneous and heterogeneous network scenarios. At the same time, there are no restrictions on transmission points. They can be between macro base stations and macro base stations, micro base stations and micro base stations, or macro base stations and micro base stations. Multi-point coordinated transmission is applicable to FDD/TDD systems. The technical solutions of the embodiments of this application are not only applicable to low-frequency scenarios (sub 6G), but also to high-frequency scenarios (above 6GHz), terahertz, optical communications, etc. The technical solutions of the embodiments of this application can be applied not only to the communication between network equipment and terminals, but also to the communication between network equipment and network equipment, the communication between terminals, the Internet of Vehicles, the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet, etc.

The technical solution of the embodiment of the present application can also be applied to a scenario where a terminal is connected to a single base station, where the base station to which the terminal is connected and the core network (core network, CN) to which the base station is connected are of the same standard. For example, if CN is 5G Core, the base station corresponds to 5G base station, and 5G base station is directly connected to 5G Core; or if CN is 6G Core, the base station is 6G base station, and 6G base station is directly connected to 6G Core. The technical solution of the embodiment of the present application can also be applied to a dual connectivity (DC) scenario in which a terminal is connected to at least two base stations.

The technical solutions of the embodiments of this application can also use macro and micro scenarios composed of different forms of base stations in the communication network. For example, the base stations can be satellites, aerial balloon stations, drone stations, etc. The technical solutions of the embodiments of this application are also suitable for scenarios in which wide-coverage base stations and small-coverage base stations coexist.

It can also be understood that the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can also be applied to 5.5G, 6G and later wireless communication systems. Applicable scenarios include but are not limited to terrestrial cellular communication, NTN, satellite communication, and high altitude communication platform (high altitude platform). station (HAPS) communication, vehicle-to-everything (V2X), integrated access and backhaul (IAB), and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) communication and other scenarios .

The terminal in the embodiment of the present application may be a device with wireless transceiver functions, and may specifically refer to user equipment (UE), access terminal, subscriber unit (subscriber unit), user station, or mobile station (mobile station). , remote station, remote terminal terminal, mobile device, user terminal, wireless communication device, user agent or user device. The terminal device may also be a satellite phone, a cellular phone, a smartphone, a wireless data card, a wireless modem, a machine type communications device, a cordless phone, a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (wireless local loop, WLL) station, personal digital assistant (PDA), customer-premises equipment (CPE), intelligent point of sale (POS) machine, handheld device with wireless communication function, computing Equipment or other processing equipment connected to wireless modems, vehicle-mounted equipment, communication equipment carried on high-altitude aircraft, wearable devices, drones, robots, terminals in device-to-device (D2D) communication, V2X Terminals in virtual reality (VR) terminal equipment, augmented reality (AR) terminal equipment, wireless terminals in industrial control (industrial control), wireless terminals in self-driving (self driving), remote Wireless terminals in remote medical, wireless terminals in smart grid, wireless terminals in transportation safety, wireless terminals in smart city, and smart home Wireless terminals or terminal equipment in communication networks evolved after 5G, etc. are not limited by the embodiments of this application.

The device used to implement the functions of the terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be a terminal device; it may also be a device that can support the terminal device to implement the function, such as a chip system. The device can be installed in a terminal device or used in conjunction with the terminal device. In the embodiments of this application, the chip system may be composed of chips, or may include chips and other discrete devices.

The network device in the embodiment of the present application has a wireless transceiver function and is used to communicate with the terminal device. The access network equipment can be a node in the radio access network (radio access network, RAN), and can also be called a base station or a RAN node. It can be an evolved base station (evolved Node B, eNB or eNodeB) in LTE; or a base station in a 5G network such as gNodeB (gNB) or a base station in a public land mobile network (public land mobile network, PLMN) evolved after 5G. Broadband network gateway (BNG), aggregation switch or 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) access equipment, etc.

The network equipment in the embodiment of the present application may also include various forms of base stations, such as: macro base stations, micro base stations (also called small stations), relay stations, transmission points (transmitting and receiving point, TRP), transmitting points , TP), mobile switching center and base station responsible for device-to-device (D2D), vehicle outreach (vehicle-to-everything, V2X), machine-to-machine (M2M) communications Functional equipment, etc., can also include centralized units (CU) and distributed units (DU) in cloud radio access network (cloud radio access network, C-RAN) systems, and NTN communication systems. Network equipment is not specifically limited in the embodiments of this application.

The device used to implement the function of the network device in the embodiment of the present application may be a network device, or may be a device that can support the network device to implement the function, such as a chip system. The device can be installed in a network device or used in conjunction with a network device. The chip system in the embodiment of the present application may be composed of chips, or may include chips and other discrete devices.

In addition, the relay device in the embodiment of the present application has a signal forwarding function and can amplify the signal, such as a repeater. In addition, the relay equipment can also move the carrier frequency of the signal, or it can demodulate the signal and then re-modulate it and then forward it, or it can also reduce the noise of the signal and then forward it. Therefore, relaying can be in any of the following forms: amplification forwarding, demodulation forwarding, frequency shift forwarding, or noise reduction forwarding. In addition, there is another form of relay, called a reflector, or a reflecting surface, or other possible names: intelligent reflecting surface, reflective array, intelligent reflecting array, reflective Reflector, smart reflector, reflective device (backscatter device), passive device (passive device), semi-active device (semi-passive device), scattered signal device (ambient signal device). Relay equipment can also be considered as a special form of terminal equipment. If the network side's ability to control relay equipment is considered, it can be divided into non-intelligent relay equipment and intelligent relay equipment; or it can be divided into uncontrolled repeater equipment and network controlled repeater equipment. , NetConRepeater or NCR). Network equipment can control relay equipment to perform more performance-enhancing functions, such as relay transmit power control, relay amplification gain control, relay beam scanning control, relay precoding control, on/off control, and uplink/downlink forwarding control. at least one of them.

Relay equipment logically contains multiple parts, including one or more signal transceiver units, controllers, signal amplifiers, etc., which are used to implement communication and signaling interaction, signal amplification, etc. with network equipment and terminal equipment. The controller of the relay device is also called a mobile terminal (MT), terminal, or fixed terminal (FT). Other block diagrams can constitute a radio unit (RU) (also known as a radio unit (RU)). It can be called either DU, distributed radio unit (distributed radio unit, DRU), etc.).

For example, during downlink communication, one of the signal transceiver units is used to receive signals from network equipment, and the other signal transceiver unit is used to forward the amplified received signals to the terminal equipment. The controller can also communicate with network equipment or terminal equipment with the help of signal transceiver units. letter. For example, the controller communicates with network equipment through the signal transceiver unit, which is used to establish communication links and beam alignment between relay equipment and network equipment. It can also be used to receive configuration/instruction information of network equipment, thereby facilitating network equipment. Control the working time, working status, or working mode of relay equipment. Or it is used to receive the trigger signal of the terminal device, so that the relay device enters the corresponding working mode as needed. For another example, the controller can also determine the working status (such as amplification factor and phase) of the signal amplifier based on the network device indication information or its own measurement information. Each unit may be one or more. For example, there are multiple signal amplifiers, corresponding to different polarization directions or relay wireless radio frequency channels.

In wireless communication systems, beamforming technology can limit the energy of transmitted signals to a certain beam direction, thereby increasing the efficiency of signal transmission and reception. In a communication network using beamforming technology, it is first necessary to match the transmit beam/receive beam with the wireless channel so that the receive beam obtains better signal quality from the transmit beam, thereby completing the transmission beam/receive beam and the wireless channel. Matching, which is usually done by beam scanning.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an existing communication system 100. (a) of FIG. 1 shows the beam scanning process of the network device 110. (b) of FIG. 1 shows the beam scanning process of the terminal device 120.

Specifically, when the network device 110 scans the transmit beam, the terminal device 120 fixes the receiving beam. The network device 110 sends reference signals to the terminal device 120 through multiple transmit beams, and the terminal device 120 performs measurements, thereby completing the transmission of the network device. Matching between beams and wireless channels. When the receive beam of the network device 110 is scanned, the terminal device 120 fixes the transmit beam. The network device 110 receives the reference signal sent by the terminal device 120 through multiple receive beams and performs measurements, thereby completing the connection between the receive beam of the network device and the wireless channel. match.

Specifically, when the receiving beam of the terminal device 120 is scanned, the network device 110 fixes the transmitting beam. The terminal device 120 receives the reference signal sent by the network device 110 through multiple receiving beams and performs measurements, thereby completing the receiving beam and wireless channel of the terminal device. match between. When the terminal device 120 scans the transmit beam, the network device 110 fixes the receive beam. The terminal device 120 sends a reference signal to the network device 110 through multiple transmit beams, and the network device 110 performs measurements, thereby completing the transmit beam and wireless channel of the terminal device. match between.

When the distance between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 is relatively long, high loss factors such as obstruction and shadow may exist between the two, and the terminal device 120 cannot directly communicate with the network device 110 . Communication between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 may be assisted by the relay device 130 . The communication system incorporating the relay device 130 is shown in Figure 2 .

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of an adaptive communication system 200 according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in (a) of Figure 2 , the relay device 130 consists of two parts: a control module 1301 (which can also be a controller) and a forwarding module 1302 (which can also be a forwarding link). The control module 1301 communicates with the network device 110, and the communication link is a control link. The forwarding module 1302 communicates with the network device 110 and the terminal device 120. The link it uses to communicate with the network device 110 is a backhaul link, and the link it uses to communicate with the terminal device 120 is an access link. link). As shown in (b) of FIG. 2 , the relay device 130 (which is a reflective surface) has two antenna panels (or, two antennas). The first antenna panel (or first antenna) is used for the control module 1301 to communicate with the network device 110 (the antenna panel is called the antenna panel of the control module 1301, or the antenna is called the antenna of the control module 1301); the second The antenna panel (or second antenna) is used to assist the terminal device 120 in communicating with the network device 110 . Among them, the second antenna can be used to reflect the signal. When reflecting a signal, the incident direction and the emitting direction of the signal correspond to two beams respectively.

Further, the direction in the relay device 130 opposite to the network device 110 is called the backhaul link beam direction, and the direction opposite to the terminal device 120 is called the access link beam direction. Among them, the backhaul link beam direction may correspond to the first component of the weight #A (generally referred to) of the relay device 130, and the access link beam direction may correspond to the second component of the weight #A of the relay device 130. Component, weight #A can correspond to both the return link direction and the access link direction. Each antenna panel of the relay device 130 may be composed of multiple (including two or more) antennas, and a single antenna panel may form a beam. The forwarding module 1302 of the relay device 130 realizes signal transmission between the auxiliary terminal device 120 and the network device 110 by reflecting the incident signal and controlling the antenna's reflection of the signal (reflection phase, or reflection weight). In particular, after the beam corresponding to the reflection weight is matched with the beam of the network device and the beam of the terminal device respectively, better transmission performance can be obtained.

The working principle of the reflective surface can be seen in Figure 3. As shown in Figure 3, the weight u n of array _n satisfies the following:

Or the phase of the weight satisfies the following:

Specifically, and when the signal is viewed from the backhaul link perspective When incident, the reflective surface (which is the relay device 130) will deflect the signal from the access link angle. Reflected out. For downlink communication, signals are incident from the angle of the backhaul link and emitted from the angle of the access link to assist communication between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 . On the contrary, from the perspective of the access link Incidence, from the backhaul link perspective Shoot out. For ease of description, the phase corresponding to the weight of the reflective surface can be written as φ = [φ ₀ , φ ₁ ,..., φ _N-1 ], where N is the total number of arrays on the reflective surface.

Based on the working principle of the above reflective surface, the embodiment of this application focuses on the phase discussion: the phase φ corresponding to the weight of the reflective surface can be split into two parts: the backhaul link component φ _BH and the access link component φ _AC , such that:

where "+" represents vector summation, that is Among them, φ _BH and φ _AC (and/or the corresponding weights) can also be designed based on discrete Fourier transform (discrete fourier transform, DFT) respectively, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

As shown in (c) of Figure 2 , the relay device 130 has three antenna panels (or three antennas), where the first antenna panel (or the first antenna) is used for the relay device 130 to communicate with the network device 110 (This antenna panel is called a backhaul link antenna panel, or this antenna is called a backhaul link antenna). The second antenna panel (or second antenna) is used for the relay device 130 to communicate with the terminal device 120 (the antenna The third antenna panel (or the third antenna) is used for the control module 1301 of the relay device 130 to communicate with the network device 110 ( The antenna panel is called the antenna panel of the control module 1301, or the antenna is called the antenna of the control module 1301); and the first antenna and the second antenna work simultaneously to realize signal reception, amplification, and forwarding functions. Each antenna panel of the relay device 130 may be composed of multiple (including two or more) antennas, and a single antenna panel may form a beam. After the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130 amplifies the signal from the network device 110, the amplified signal is forwarded to the terminal device 120 via the access link beam, where it is forwarded by the access link beam of the relay device 130. When receiving a signal, the beam needs to be aimed at the terminal device 120 to obtain better transmission performance.

Among them, the access link refers to the link facing the sub-level nodes in the process of auxiliary signal transmission by the relay device. For example, a link between a relay device and an end device. The access link beam refers to the beam used for communication between the relay device and the terminal device. The access link receiving beam refers to the beam used by the relay device to receive signals from the terminal device. The access link transmit beam refers to the beam used by the relay device to send signals to the terminal device. The beam used by an end device to send signals. The backhaul link refers to the link facing the parent node during the auxiliary signal transmission process of the relay device. For example, the link between a relay device and the network. The backhaul link beam refers to the beam used for communication between the relay device and the network device. The backhaul link receiving beam refers to the beam used by the relay device to receive signals from the network device. The backhaul link transmit beam refers to the relay device transmitting beam to the network device. The beams used by network devices to send signals.

The relay device 130 may include an amplification and forwarding relay device, and may also include a reflective surface. For example, taking downlink transmission as an example, the network device 110 sends a signal to a reflective surface (called a return link), and the reflective surface reflects the signal to the terminal device 120 (called an access link), thereby opening up the terminal device and the network device. signal link between them. The reflective surface is usually composed of a large-scale antenna, and different antennas can reflect signals differently. By adjusting the reflection factor of each antenna, the backhaul link on the reflective surface forms a narrow beam, and the access link also forms a narrow beam, which are respectively aligned with the direction of the network device 120 and the direction of the terminal device 120, thereby better integrating the network. The signal sent by the device is reflected to the end device. The embodiment of this application is described by taking the relay device 130 as an example. The relay device 130 includes a reflective surface and an amplification and forwarding relay device.

When the relay device 130 assists the network device 110 in communicating with the terminal device 120, the beam direction of the backhaul link of the relay device 130 needs to be aligned with the network device 110. If the beam direction of the backhaul link of the relay device 130 is not aligned with the network device 110, the signal sent by the network device 110 may not be received well, and the signal from the network device 110 may not be forwarded to the terminal well. Device 130. However, the existing beam management between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 is mainly to facilitate the terminal device 120 to connect to the network device 110, and does not consider how to adjust the beam direction of the relay device 130 after adding the relay device 130, so that the relay The device 130 can better assist communication problems between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 .

Specifically, whether the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 is aligned with the network device 110 is directly related to the relay device 130 Whether the access link beam direction is accurate, that is, the deviation of the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 will cause the access link beam direction of the relay device 130 to deflect, which will cause the relay device 130 to The actual coverage area of the access link does not match the signal blind area or weak area in the network. Therefore, it is necessary to align the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 with the network device 110 .

In view of the above technical problems, this application provides a beam management method, communication device and communication system, which can realize the beam direction alignment of the relay equipment and the network equipment, so that the relay equipment can better assist the network equipment and the terminal equipment. communication between.

The beam management method, communication device and communication system according to the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood that not every step in the flowchart shown in Figure 4 is necessary, and the order between steps is not limited. A unified explanation is given here and will not be repeated in the following paragraphs.

It should be understood that the backhaul link and access link used throughout this article can also be backhaul side and access side, or other similar terms, which are used to distinguish different directions of relay equipment, that is: backhaul chain The path or backhaul side is used to indicate the relative direction between the relay device and the network device; the access link or access side is used to indicate the relative direction between the relay device and the terminal device. A unified explanation is given here. The article will not go into details.

Figure 4 is an interactive flow chart of the beam management method 400 according to the embodiment of the present application. The method flow in Figure 4 can be executed by the relay device 130 and the network device 110, or by modules and/or devices (for example, chips or integrated circuits, etc.) with corresponding functions installed in the relay device 130 and the network device 110. Execution is not limited by this application. The following description takes the relay device 130 and the network device 110 as examples. The execution subjects of the beam management method 400 are the relay device 130 and the network device 110 . As shown in Figure 4, the beam management method 400 includes:

S410. The relay device 130 sends the beam information W1 to the network device 110.

Correspondingly, the network device 130 receives the beam information W1 sent from the relay device 130 .

Specifically, the beam information W1 sent by the relay device 130 to the network device 110 may be determined by the control module 1301 of the relay device 130 . Among them, the control module 1301 can also be called any one of a controller, a mobile terminal, a terminal or a fixed terminal, which is not limited by the embodiments of this application.

In order for the relay device 130 to assist the network device 110 in communicating with the terminal device 130, the relay device 130 first needs to access the network device 110. During the access process, the relay device 130 and the network device 110 may establish a connection relationship. During the access process, the control module 1301 determines the beam direction information between the network device 110 and the relay device 130. The beam direction information can be regarded as the initial beam direction information between the network device 110 and the relay device 130 . The beam direction information may provide a reference for realizing the beam direction alignment of the backhaul link of the relay device 130 to the network device 110, which will be described in detail below.

The control module 1301 has an antenna array, and there is an associated relationship between the antenna array of the control module 1301 and the antenna array used by the forwarding module 1302 to assist the network device 110 in communicating with the terminal device 120 . For example, the antenna array of the control module 1301 may be independent or shared with the forwarding module 1302. If the antenna array of the control module 1301 is independent, the antenna array of the control module 1301 can be used to control the antenna array of the forwarding module 1302. For another example, there is a correlation between the number of antenna arrays of the control module 1301 and the number of antenna arrays of the forwarding module 1302.

In other words, when the relay device 130 is a reflective surface, the antenna array of the control module 1301 is different from the antenna array of the reflective surface; when the relay device 130 is an amplification and forwarding relay device, the control module 1301 and the forwarding module can share the antenna array. , it is also possible not to share the antenna array (for example, adopt a simpler controller).

For example, the antenna array of the control module 1301 satisfies m×n, and the antenna array of the forwarding module 1302 satisfies (m*X)×(n*Y). The number of antenna arrays of the forwarding module 1302 is X times that of the antenna array of the control module 1301 in the horizontal direction, and Y times that of the antenna array of the control module 1301 in the vertical direction.

Specifically, the beam information W1 determined by the control module 1301 may be determined by an existing beam scanning method. For example, in the downlink mode, the network device 110 sends a reference signal to the terminal device 120 through the relay device 130. The terminal device 120 measures the reference signal and reports the measurement result of the reference signal to the network device 110. The network device 110 performs the measurement according to the measurement result. As a result, it is determined whether the beam used to transmit the reference signal is suitable. If it is not suitable, the beam is readjusted and the process is repeated; if it is suitable, the beam is determined to be the initial beam between the network device 110 and the relay device 130; by In the uplink mode, the terminal device 120 sends a reference signal to the network device 110 through the relay device 130. The network device 110 measures the reference signal and determines the measurement result of the reference signal. If it is inappropriate, it re-adjusts the beam and repeats the process. ; If appropriate, determine the beam to be the initial beam between the network device 110 and the relay device 130 .

In summary, the control module 1301 can determine the initial beam direction information between the relay device 130 and the network device 110 and report it to the network device 110 .

In one possible implementation, the beam information W1 includes beam direction information between the relay device 130 and the network device 110 .

Specifically, the beam direction information between the relay device 130 and the network device 110 may refer to the beam direction information of the backhaul link of the relay device, or may refer to the beam direction information of the network device. For detailed description of the beam direction information, please refer to the subsequent multi-level description of the beam information W2, which will not be described again here.

S420. The network device 110 determines the beam set Q1 according to the beam information W1 and the beam information W2.

The beam information W2 may be reported by the relay device 130 or may be preconfigured. For example, when the relay device 130 is deployed, the beam information W2 may be configured in the network device 110 through operation/maintenance means.

In a possible implementation, the beam information W2 may include at least one of the following:

Information on the number of beams or sets of beams;

Quasi-co-location information for a beam or set of beams;

Coverage information for a beam or set of beams;

The relative relationship between beams, or between sets of beams;

Correspondence between beam index and weight;

Correspondence between beam index and beam;

Antenna array information;

weight generation information; and,

Antenna information.

The antenna information may include the antenna information of the forwarding module 1302 or the antenna information of the control module 1301. See the description below for details, not much to say here.

It should be understood that the beam information W2 is the information of the forwarding module 1302 of the relay device 130 .

Optionally, there is an association relationship between the beam information W1 and the first antenna of the relay device 130 , and there is an association relationship between the beam information W2 and the second antenna of the relay device 130 .

Optionally, the beam information W1 corresponds to the first antenna of the relay device 130, and the beam information W2 corresponds to the second antenna of the relay device 130.

Optionally, the first antenna corresponds to the control module 1301 of the relay device 130, and the second antenna corresponds to the forwarding module 1302 of the relay device 130.

Optionally, the first antenna belongs to the control module 1301 of the relay device 130, and the second antenna belongs to the forwarding module 1302 of the relay device 130. For the description of the first antenna and the second antenna, reference may be made to the foregoing description of the hardware device of the relay device 130 , which will not be described again here.

Alternatively, the first antenna may be the antenna panel of the control module 1301 described above, and the second antenna may also be the antenna panel of the forwarding module 1302 described above. The first antenna and the second antenna may be two different antennas.

The antenna information may include at least one of the following: number of antennas, polarization configuration information, antenna arrangement, etc.

Optionally, the antenna information may also include a multiple difference between the number of antenna arrays of the control module 1301 and the number of antenna arrays of the forwarding module 1302. For example, the number of antenna arrays of the forwarding module 1302 and the number of antenna arrays of the control module 1301 are in the horizontal direction. The ratio; the multiple difference in the vertical direction between the number of antenna arrays of the forwarding module 1302 and the number of antenna arrays of the control module 1301.

Optionally, the antenna information may also include the angle between the antenna of the control module 1301 and the antenna of the forwarding module 1302. Please refer to Figure 5 for details.

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between the antenna of the control module and the antenna of the forwarding module. As shown in Figure 5, the antenna array of the forwarding module 1302 is 4×4, and the antenna array of the control module 1301 is 2×2. Among them, the polarization directions of the antenna of the control module 1301 and the antenna of the forwarding module 1302 are both dual-polarization directions. Among them, the number before the multiplication sign represents the number of antennas in the horizontal direction (horizontal), and the number after the multiplication sign represents the number of antennas in the vertical direction (vertical). The number of antennas of the control module 1301 is 4 antennas, and the number of antennas of the forwarding module 1302 is 16 antennas. In the horizontal direction, the ratio of the number of antennas of the forwarding module 1302 to the number of antennas of the MT is 2. In the vertical direction, the ratio of the number of antennas of the forwarding module 1302 to the number of antennas of the MT is 2.

For example, the angle between the antenna of the control module 1301 and the antenna of the forwarding module 1302 is 0° (same direction).

The beam set Q1 determined by the network device 110 based on the beam information W1 and the beam information W2 may include all beams that the relay device 130 can generate, or may include some beams among all the beams that the relay device 130 can generate.

The width of each beam of the control module 1301 is greater than the width of each backhaul link beam of the relay device 130, and the beam direction of the control module 1301 has a certain reference for determining the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130. effect. Assume that the antenna array of the control module 1301 and the antenna array of the forwarding module 1302 differ in the number of elements in the horizontal direction by M _H , and the number of elements in the vertical direction differ by a multiple of M _V , and the co-polarization directions of the two are in the same direction (if If there is a deviation, the azimuth angle difference can be compensated based on the angular offset).

The network device 110 may determine the beam set Q1 based on the above-mentioned relationship between the beams of the control module 1301 and the beams of the forwarding module 1302.

Specifically, the network device 110 can respectively obtain the _M'H beam components in the horizontal direction and the _M'V beam components in the vertical direction of the forwarding module 1302 according to the beams of the control module 1301, and perform beam management based on these beam components. Specifically, the sum of the widths of the beams of the control module 1301 should be equal to the sum of the widths of the backhaul link beams of the forwarding module 1302. See Figure 6 for details.

Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between the beams of the control module and the beams of the forwarding module. As shown in FIG. 6 , the beam width of the control module 1301 is represented by a large circle, and the beam width of the forwarding module 1302 is represented by a small circle. The beam width of each beam of the control module 1301 is greater than the beam width of each beam of the forwarding module 1302 (mainly the backhaul link beam). The ratio of the number of beams of the forwarding module 1302 to the number of beams of the control module 1301 is 2:4 in the horizontal direction, and the ratio in the vertical direction is 2:4.

As shown in Figure 6, the beam width circled by the small dotted box on the left is equal to the beam width circled by the small dotted box on the right. The resolution of each beam in the small dotted box on the right is higher than that on the left. The resolution of each beam within the small dashed box. For example, the beam information W1 can be used to determine the small dotted box on the left, for example, beam #21, and the beam information W2 can be used to determine the large dotted box on the right, for example, beam *31, beam *32, beam * 41 and beam*42.

For example, network device 110 determines R= _M'H + _M'V -1 beams. Among them, M' _H beam components in the horizontal direction (see *31 and *32 in Figure 6) and one vertical beam component form M' _H beams. Exemplarily, the network device 110 selects the most central beam component (see *41 in Figure 6) among the M' _V beam components (see *31 and *41 in Figure 6), respectively, and the M' _H beam components. Combine to form M' _H beams (for example, the combination of *31 and *41, the combination of *32 and *41). As another example, the network device 110 randomly selects one beam component from M' _V beam components and combines it with M' _H beam components respectively to form M' _H beams. M' _V beam components in the vertical direction (see *31 and *41 in Figure 6) and 1 beam component in the horizontal direction constitute M' _V beams. Illustratively, the network device 110 selects the most central beam component (see *42 in Figure 6) among the _M'H beam components to be combined with the _M'V beam components respectively to form _M'V beams (for example, The combination of *31 and *42, the combination of *41 and *42). As another example, the network device 110 randomly selects one beam component from M' _H beam components and combines it with M' _V beam components respectively to form M' _V beams.

In summary, except for one beam that overlaps between the horizontal direction and the vertical direction (see *31 in Figure 6), the network device 110 finally determines M' _H + M' _V -1 beams. In other words, the beam set Q1 determined by the network device 110 according to the beam information W1 and the beam information W2 includes R beams.

For example, network device 110 determines R = K _V M' _H + K _H M' _V beams. Among them, M' _H beam components in the horizontal direction and K _V beam components in the vertical direction form K _V M' _H beams. For example, the network device 110 selects the most central K _V beam components among the M' _V beam components and combines them with the M' _H beam components respectively to form K _V M' _H beams. For example, the network device 110 randomly selects K V beam components from M' _V beam components and combines them with M' _H beam components _respectively to form K _V M' _H beams. M' _V beam components in the vertical direction and K _H beam components in the horizontal direction form K _H M' _V beams. For example, the network device 110 selects the most central K _H beam components among the M' _H beam components and combines them with the M' _V beam components respectively to form K _H M' _V beams. For example, the network device 110 randomly selects K _H beam components from M' _H beam components and combines them with M' _V beam components respectively to form K _H M' _V beams.

In summary, the network device 110 finally determines M′ _H +M′ _V −1 beams. In other words, the beam set Q1 determined by the network device 110 according to the beam information W1 and the beam information W2 includes R beams.

For example, network device 110 determines R=M' _H M' _V beams. Among them, the M' _H beam components in the horizontal direction and the M' _V beam components in the vertical direction are combined in pairs in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction respectively to form M' _H M' _V beams.

In summary, the network device 110 finally determines M' _H M' _V beams. In other words, the beam set Q1 determined by the network device 110 according to the beam information W1 and the beam information W2 includes R beams.

Optionally, there can be more combinatorial relationships between the horizontal direction and the vertical direction.

It should be understood that K _H , K _V , M' _H and M' _V are positive integers. Generally, K _H ＜＜ M _H and K _V ＜＜ M _V can reduce the scanning overhead. M' _H ≈ M _H , M' _V ≈ M _V , making the beam measurement more accurate. Among them, M' _H is close to M _H , and M' _V is close to M _V , so that better beam alignment performance can be obtained through beam interpolation.

Specifically, the beam set Q1 includes R beams, and the determination process of the R beams may refer to the above description. The beam set Q1 is used for the relay device 130 to assist the communication between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120, or is used for the communication between the relay device 130 and the network device 110. The two can be understood to have equivalent meanings.

Specifically, the beam information W1 can indicate the initial beam direction information between the relay device 130 and the network device 110. The initial beam direction information can determine at least one beam of the control module 1301, and the width of each beam in the at least one beam. is greater than the width of each backhaul link beam of the forwarding module 1302, which will make the resolution of the beam of the control module 1301 lower than the resolution of the backhaul link beam of the forwarding module 1302. One beam of the control module 1301 may correspond to multiple backhaul link beams of the forwarding module 1302. The network device 110 can determine the backhaul link beam of the forwarding module 1302 according to the beam of the control module 1301, so that the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 is aligned with the network device 110. For specific content, please refer to the above content.

In one possible implementation, the beam information W2 includes information on the number of beams/beam sets of backhaul link beams. The quantity information may refer to the number of the largest beams/beam sets of the backhaul link, or it may refer to the number of candidate beams/candidate beam sets of the backhaul link, where the candidate beams/candidate beam sets belong to the backhaul link. A subset of all beams/beam sets.

Exemplarily, the beam information W2 includes the number of sets in a beam set (a beam set that can be determined according to the beam information W2, such as {A, B, C, ...}), and A, B or C are the indexes of the beam set. The beam information W2 may also include the number of beams, that is, the beam information W2 includes the number of sets in the beam set {A, B, C,...}, and the number of beams in the beam set A ({a0, a1, a2,...}) , the number of beams in beam set B ({b0, b1, b2,...}), and the number of beams in beam set C ({c0, c1, c2,...}), a0, a1, a2, b0, b1, b2, c0, c1 and c2 are all the indices of the beam.

In one possible implementation, the beam information W2 may also include information on the number of beams/beam sets of access link beams. The quantity information may refer to the number of the largest beams/beam sets of the access link, or it may refer to the number of candidate beams/candidate beam sets of the access link, where the candidate beams/candidate beam sets belong to the access link. A subset of all beams/beam sets.

A beam set (a beam set may also be called a beam set) includes at least one beam. The beam set or the number of beams can be any value among {1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16, 24, 32}. Among them, the number of beam sets or beams is not greater than K, and K can be any value among {1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16, 24, 32}.

In one possible implementation, the beam set that can be determined based on the beam information W2 may include one or more beam sets. For example, the beam set determined based on the beam information W2 is {A, B, C,...}, which includes multiple beam sets. For example, it includes beam set A, beam set B, beam set C, etc.

In one possible implementation, the beam information W2 includes quasi co-location (QCL) information of the access link beam or the beam/beam set of the backhaul link beam.

QCL relationships are used to indicate that multiple resources have one or more identical or similar communication characteristics. For multiple resources with QCL relationships, the same or similar communication configurations can be used.

Specifically, the signals corresponding to the antenna ports with a QCL relationship have the same parameters, or the parameters of one antenna port (also called QCL parameters) can be used to determine the parameters of another antenna port that has a QCL relationship with the antenna port. , or the two antenna ports have the same parameters, or the parameter difference between the two antenna ports is less than a certain threshold. Among them, this parameter can include one or more of the following: delay spread (delay spread), Doppler spread (doppler spread), Doppler shift (doppler shift), average delay (average delay), average gain , spatial rx parameters. Among them, the spatial reception parameters can include one or more of the following: angle of arrival (angle of arrival, AOA), average AOA, AOA extension, angle of departure (angle of departure, AOD), average AOD, AOD extension, receiving antenna spatial correlation parameters, transmit antenna spatial correlation parameters, transmit beam, receive beam and resource identification.

In the embodiment of this application, "beam" is an abstract concept, which may correspond to instantaneous or statistical channel characteristics when transmitting signals, such as delay spread, Doppler spread, Doppler spread, etc. Frequency shift (doppler shift), average delay (average delay), average gain, spatial reception parameters (spatial Rx parameters), spatial transmission parameters (spatial Tx parameters). The spatial reception parameters or spatial transmission parameters may include one or more of the following: AOA, average AOA, AOA extension, AOD, average AOD, AOD extension, receiving antenna spatial correlation parameters, transmitting antenna spatial correlation parameters, transmitting antenna spatial correlation parameters, transmit beam, receive beam and resource identification. That is, the beams can be indicated/characterized by reference signals, that is, the QCL relationship between the reference signals reflects different or the same beams; in addition, the beams can also be represented by the weights acting on the antennas in the multi-antenna system or the weights acting on the antenna ports. It is represented by a codebook, that is, a beam can also correspond to a codebook.

For example, the QCL information of the beam set is shown in Table 1:

Table 1

Table 1 only shows the QCL information of beam set indexes A, B, and C. "..." indicates that in addition, Table 1 can also include QCL information of other beam sets, or Table 1 can also only include some of the above-mentioned beams. The collection of QCL information is not limited in the embodiment of this application. If "..." appears in the table below, it can be deduced in this way and will not be described again.

TCI-StateId-A is used to indicate the transmission configuration indicator (TCI) information of set A. TCI is used to configure multiple downlink reference signals and physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) solution A quasi-co-located QCL relationship is configured between de-modulation reference signals (DMRS). The TCI here refers to the TCI corresponding to the access link beam of the relay device. It can be used to represent the quasi-co-located QCL relationship between the relay device forwarding the downlink reference signal and the physical downlink shared channel demodulation reference signal. In practice, TCI can also It is another name, and the embodiment of this application does not limit it.

For example, the QCL information of the beams in the beam set is shown in Table 2:

Table 2

Among them, TCI-status number-a0 is used to indicate the TCI information of beam a0.

In one possible implementation, beam information W2 includes coverage information of access link beams or beams/beam sets of backhaul link beams. For example, the coverage information of the beam set is shown in Table 3:

table 3

For example, the coverage information of the beams in the beam set is as shown in Table 4:

Table 4

The coverage range is the spatial coverage information of the corresponding beam set or beam. When the coverage range is the spatial coverage information of the corresponding beam set When , the coverage area of a beam set may be the union of the coverage areas formed by all beams in the beam set, or may be the union of the coverage areas formed by partial beams in the beam set, or may be the beam gain in the beam set exceeding The union of beamformed coverage areas of a certain value.

The spatial coverage information may refer to the coverage area, and the coverage area may refer to the logical area division. For example, the coverage area corresponds to a square, the square defines the length and width, and the coverage area corresponds to the logical number of the square, or the coverage area corresponds to the starting position of the long side, the starting position of the wide side, the length of the long side, the length of the wide side, At least one of the long side end position and the wide side end position. For another example, the coverage area corresponds to a cube. The square defines the length, width, and height. The coverage area corresponds to the logical number of the cube, or the coverage area corresponds to the starting position of the long side, the starting position of the wide side, and the starting position of the height. , at least one of the length of the long side, the length of the wide side, the height, the end position of the long side, the end position of the wide side, and the end position of the high side. For another example, the coverage area corresponds to the polar coordinate area. The polar coordinate area defines the radius and angle. The coverage area corresponds to the logical number of the radius, or the coverage area corresponds to the radius start position, radius end position, angle start position, and angle end position. at least one of them.

Alternatively, the spatial coverage information refers to the coverage angle range (or coverage direction, or coverage direction range). Specifically, it may include horizontal angles and/or vertical angles. That is, the coverage angle range information may include at least one of the following: horizontal angle width, horizontal angle starting value, horizontal angle ending value, vertical angle width, vertical angle starting value, beam peak direction (beam peak direction), beam width, Beam center direction (beam center direction), rated beam isotropic radiated power (EIRP), air interface peak direction set (over the air peak directions set), beam direction pair (beam direction pair), or vertical angle end value.

In other words, each beam is related to the beam identity, reference beam direction pair, beamwidth, rated beam EIRP, over the air (OTA) peak direction setting, maximum Beam direction pairs in the steering direction are associated with their associated nominal beam EIRP and beamwidth (s). For beam and beam direction pairs, the rated beam EIRP level is the maximum radiated power declared by the repeater in the relevant beam peak direction. A specific rated beam EIRP level may be required for each beam peak direction associated with a pair of beam directions within the OTA peak direction setting.

Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of the two-dimensional coverage of a beam or set of beams. Among them, (a) of Figure 7 is a schematic diagram in which the coverage area is square, that is, the coverage area of the beam or beam set is two-dimensional. A box in (a) of Figure 7 represents a beam set or the coverage of a beam. (a) of FIG. 7 only illustrates the coverage ranges of adjacent beams, and the coverage ranges between beam sets or beams may overlap. The coverage range of the access link beam can approximately correspond to the area jointly defined by the horizontal direction (horizontal) and the vertical direction (vertical) in the array antenna formation. For example, the x-axis corresponds to the horizontal direction, and the y-axis corresponds to the vertical direction. The coverage of a beam or a set of beams can be defined as the width of the 3dB angle (the width of the angle can also be other values, such as 5dB, 6dB, that is, the angular area between the directions that differ by 3dB from the strongest beam gain. Figure 7 (b) shows the corresponding coverage area in the polar coordinate area, where the coverage area of a certain beam or beam set is area abcd, and the starting position of the radius is The end position of the radius is The starting position of the angle is θ1, and the ending position of the angle is The access link beam sets of the relay device 130 or the coverage areas corresponding to the beams may be adjacent, as shown in FIG. 8 .

Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of adjacent coverage areas of different beams or sets of beams. When the beam sets or the coverage areas corresponding to the beams are adjacent, as shown in Figure 8 (a) and Figure 8 (b), the beam information W2 may include the starting coverage of the beam set A, beam sets A, and B , C, etc., and the adjacent/relative order of each beam set, that is, the network device 110 can determine the coverage of each beam set based on the above information. Alternatively, the beam information W2 may include the starting coverage of the beam a0, the coverage width information of each beam (the beam shown in (b) of FIG. 8), and the adjacent/relative order of each beam, that is, the network device 110 can determine the coverage of each beam based on the above information.

The beam set or the relative order between beams can be predefined. If the beam set or the relative order between beams is predefined, then the coverage of the 0th beam set or the 0th beam and the coverage of each beam set or each beam Coverage width determines the coverage of each beam set or each beam. A beam set (or beam) can be associated (or corresponding) with a signal, as shown in Figure 7 (Figure 9 takes a beam set as an example).

Figure 9 is a schematic diagram of the correspondence between beam sets and signals. Specifically, the relative order between the beam sets can be determined based on the sequence of the signals in the time domain or frequency domain, or the index of the corresponding beam set can be determined based on the position of the signal in the time domain or frequency domain (or serial number). T in Figure 9 can be understood as the transmission period of signal 0 (or other signals such as signal 1 and signal 2), or the use period of beam set A (or other beam sets such as beam set B and beam set C). This application implements Examples are not limited.

At this time, the beam information W2 may only include the starting coverage of the 0th beam set and the coverage width of each beam set, and the network device 110 may determine the coverage of each beam set. The coverage in (a) of Figure 8 takes angle as an example. Assume that the relative order between beam sets is predefined according to the order in (a) of Figure 8. The coverage width of each beam set is W, then the 0th The angular coverage range of the beam set (ie, beam set A) is (S, S+W], where S is the starting coverage angle of the beam set A, then the angular coverage range of the beam set B is (S+W, S+2W ], the angular coverage range of beam set C is (S+2W, S+3W], and the angular coverage range of the i-th beam set is (S+i×W, S+(i+1)×W].

Similarly, the beam information W2 may only include the starting coverage of the 0th beam and the coverage width of each beam, and the network device 110 may determine the coverage of each beam. That is, the coverage of each beam in (b) of FIG. 8 can also be determined by the above method of determining the coverage of each beam set.

In one possible implementation, the beam information W2 includes the relative relationship between access link beams or beam sets of backhaul link beams, or the relative relationship between beams.

Relative relationships can refer to relationships between coverage areas. Relative relationships include intersection relationships, inclusion relationships, affiliation relationships, and QCL relationships. Alternatively, if coverage parameters are introduced in QCL information, intersection relationships, inclusion relationships, and affiliation relationships can be considered as several special cases of QCL relationships.

The intersection relationship refers to the intersection between the beam coverage areas, that is, the access link (backhaul link) beam set or the access link (backhaul link) beam corresponding coverage areas can overlap with each other. For details, see the figure 10.

Figure 10 is a schematic diagram of the coverage areas where different beams or sets of beams intersect. As shown in (a) of Figure 10, beam sets A and C are adjacent and have no intersection relationship. Beam sets B and A, and beam sets B and C have an intersection relationship, that is, beam sets B and A, beam set B There is overlap with the coverage of C. As shown in (b) of Figure 10, beams ai and ai+1 are adjacent, beams bi and bi+1 are adjacent, beams ci and ci+1 are adjacent, and beams di and di+1 are adjacent, where i is greater than or equal to 0. The coverage ranges of beams ai and bi, beams ai+1 and bi all overlap, and the coverage ranges of beams ci and di, and beams ci+1 and di all overlap. O represents the offset between beam sets or beam coverage. O may be half of the beam set or the coverage range of the beam, which is not limited in the embodiment of this application.

If the beam information W2 includes the relative relationship between the beam sets and the coverage information of one of the beam sets, the network device 110 can determine the coverage information of the other beam set that has a relative relationship with the beam set based on the above information. Or if the beam information W2 includes the relative relationship between the beams and the coverage information of one of the beams, the network device 110 can determine the coverage information of the other beam that has a relative relationship with the beam based on the above information.

For example, in (a) of Figure 10, the beam information W2 includes the angular coverage range of the beam set A as (S, S+W], the angular coverage range of the beam set C as (S+W, S+2W], and the angular coverage range of the beam set C as (S+W, S+2W]. Sets A and C are adjacent, beam set B intersects beam sets A and C, and the offset value is 0. The network device 110 may determine that the coverage of beam set B is (S+O, S+W+O].

The inclusion relationship or affiliation relationship refers to the coverage range of one beam set (or beam) being included in the coverage range of another beam set (or beam). For details, see Figure 11.

Figure 11 is a schematic diagram of the relative relationship between beams or sets of beams. As shown in (a) of FIG. 11 , the coverage areas of beams a0 , a1 , and a2 are included in the coverage area of beam set A, and the coverage areas of beams b0 , b1 , and b2 are included in the coverage area of beam set B. As shown in (b) of Figure 11, the coverage range of beam A0 is the same as the coverage range of beams a0, a1, a2, and a3. Relatively speaking, beam A0 can be called a wide beam, and beam a0 can be called a narrow beam. Here, wide beam and narrow beam are relative to the size of the coverage area of the beam.

Based on the above solution, the beam information W2 may include the relationship between beam sets or the relationship between beams, and the network device 110 may perform the beam (including the access link and the backhaul link) of the relay device 130 based on the beam information W2. Scheduling and Instructions. And the network device 110 can schedule the beam scanning (including the access link and the backhaul link) and data transmission of the relay device through the relative relationship between the beam sets (or beams).

The beams of relay equipment (including access links and backhaul links) do not need to be managed through beam aggregation, that is, they are all in the form of beams, and the beams of relay equipment (including access links and backhaul links) are unified. Management, that is, unified indexing, if the access chain of the relay device 130 There are a total of 5 beams in the road, that is, the index of the beam can be a0, a1, a2, a3 and a4. If the beams of the access link of the relay device are managed through beam aggregation, as shown in Figure 9, the coverage ranges of different beams are different. For details, see Figure 9.

Figure 12 is a schematic diagram of beam index setting. As shown in Figure 12, the coverage area of beam set A (including beams a0, a1, a2) is basically the same as the coverage area of beam set B (including beams b0, b1, b2, b3, b4, b4, b5). The coverage range of beam set C (including beams c0, c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c6, c7, c8, c9, c10, c11) is also basically the same, that is, 3 beams, 6 beams, and 12 beams respectively. The same coverage was achieved. Therefore, it can be understood that the greater the number of beams in the same coverage area, the narrower the coverage area of the corresponding beam, and the higher the beam gain may be.

Figure 13 is a schematic diagram of the normalized gain of different beams at different angles. The coverage area (or beam direction) of the beam can be related to the beam weight (also known as the weighting coefficient, filter coefficient, etc.), that is, the actual coverage achieved by the beam of an antenna array is determined by the array elements (or array elements) on the antenna array. ), and the digital and analog weighting coefficients acting on the antenna array are jointly determined.

Assume that the antenna array is a linear antenna array, the element spacing d is half a wavelength, the number of elements N _e = 8, the upsampling parameter (or oversampling parameter) a = 1/2, and the offset value b = 0, the oversampling DFT weight The corresponding beam coverage is shown in Figure 10. The abscissa is the angle, and the ordinate is the normalized gain (converted into decibels). Beam m=-1 and beam m=0 intersect in the -3° direction. The beam gain at the intersection point is nearly 4dB lower than the peak value. The beam m=0 and beam m=1 intersect in the 3° direction, and the beam gain at the intersection point is about 4dB lower than the peak value, where m is the index of the beam. The beam shown in m=-1 can correspond to the beam a0 in (b) of Figure 10, the beam shown in m=1 can correspond to the beam a1 in (b) of Figure 10, and the beam shown in m=0 can correspond to For beam b0 in (b) of Figure 10 , since the coverage areas of beams a0, a1 and beam b0 are the same, the normalized gain wave peak values of beams a0, a1 and b0 are the same.

Therefore, the relay device 130 and the network device 110 may also agree on the beam generation (weight) method of the relay device 130 . For example, the transmit weight of the beam (also called transmit filtering). Based on the parameters of the antenna array of the relay device 130, the beam or beam index, beam set or beam set index corresponding to the beam transmission weight of the relay device 130 can be determined. Beam coverage area information, quantity information, etc. can correspond to weight information and antenna array information (antenna array parameters).

In one possible implementation, the beam information W2 includes the antenna array information of the relay device (including the access link and the backhaul link), and/or the weight generation information (including the access link and the backhaul link).

For example, the antenna array information includes one or more parameters: the number of elements _Ne , the element spacing d, the number of phase shifters N _p , the number of digital channels, the number of analog channels, and the number of ports. Among them, each parameter can be two-dimensional, for example, distinguish the horizontal direction (horizontal, H) and the vertical direction (vertical, V), (N _{e, H} , N _{e, V} ) represents the number of horizontal direction arrays N _{e, H} , the number of vertical arrays N _e,V , (d _H ,d _V ) represents the horizontal array spacing d _H , the vertical array spacing d _V , (N _p,H ,N _p,V ) represents the number of horizontal phase shifters N _p,H , the number of vertical phase shifters N _p,V .

For example, the weight generation information may be the weight _um corresponding to the antenna array, and _um may be a vector based on DFT, where m represents the beam index.

in, That is, the weight u _m is expressed as a column vector of N _e ×1, where, is the imaginary unit, e is the base of the natural logarithm, m is any integer, and T is the matrix or vector transpose sign.

or, That is, the weight u _m is expressed as a column vector of N _e ×1. In the above formula, a can correspond to the upsampling (or oversampling) parameter, and b is the offset value. For example, Then the beam (or weight) corresponding to u _m is twice the upsampled DFT beam, Then the beam (or weight) corresponding to u _m is a four times upsampled DFT beam.

Or, consider _Ne = 2N _p , that is, one phase shifter drives two elements in the antenna array, That is, the weight u _m is expressed as a 2N _p ×1 column vector, and m is any integer or real number. The above example uses one phase shifter driving two arrays, and the two arrays are placed adjacent to each other. In practice, it can be any other number and any layout method, and can be expanded in a similar way. The corresponding weights are obtained in the following example.

Or, consider _Ne = 2N _p , that is, one phase shifter drives two elements in the antenna array, That is, the weight u _m is expressed as a 2N _p ×1 column vector, and m is any integer or real number.

Or, consider N _e = 3N _p , that is, one phase shifter drives three elements in the antenna array, That is, the weight u _m is expressed as a 2N _p ×1 column vector, and m is any integer or real number.

For example, the weight generation information may be the weight _um corresponding to the antenna array, and _um may be a vector based on DFT expansion.

For example, u _m can be expanded based on DFT square rate, or expanded in any other form, and this application does not limit this. Taking square rate expansion as an example,

The above weight generation information can also be understood as the weight generation method (calculation formula of u _m ), such as the transmission weight or reception weight of the beam. The transmission weight is also called transmission filtering, and the reception weight is also called reception filtering. Different weight generation information can generate different beams or beam sets. Using oversampled DFT weights can generate beams or beam sets with narrower and denser coverage directions. By using DFT weights, beams or beam sets with narrow coverage directions and moderate intervals can be generated; by using DFT square rate expansion weights, beams with relatively wide coverage directions can be generated.

The above calculation formula of u _m is the weight generation method based on oversampling DFT. The calculation formula of u _m can also be the weight generation method based on the Hadamard matrix, or the weight generation method based on different cyclic shifts of the basis vector, or This application does not limit the weight generation method based on Golay complementary sequences (or matrices) or other weight generation methods. The description of the weight of the reflective surface can also be as described above. For details, please refer to the description in Figure 3 .

The relay device 130 can adopt multiple weight generation methods at the same time to generate different beams (with different coverage areas and/or different intervals) to meet different needs. When the relay device 130 reports the antenna array information and/or weight generation information of the access link in the second beam information W2, the network device 110 may determine the access link beam or beam set of the relay device 130, the beam index or Beam set index, coverage information of beam or beam set, number information of beam or beam set, etc.

If the weight generation information and the antenna array information are determined, the corresponding weight _um and the coverage range of the beam are directly related to m, that is, the beam with index _m corresponds to the weight um. For example, the direct correlation between the weight and coverage of the beam and m can be illustrated through Figures 12 and 13. Since the coverage of beams c0 and c1 in Figure 12 overlap with the coverage of beam d0, it can be considered that Figure Beam c0 in Figure 12 corresponds to the beam shown as m=-1 in Figure 10, that is, the weight of beam c0 is u _-1 . Beam c1 in Figure 12 corresponds to the beam shown as m=1 in Figure 11, that is, beam c1 The weight of is u ₁ , and the beam d0 in Figure 12 corresponds to the beam shown as m=0 in Figure 13 , that is, the weight of beam d0 is u ₀ .

Or similarly, taking Figure 10(b) and Figure 10 as an example, since the coverage ranges of beams a0 and a1 in Figure 10(b) overlap with the coverage range of beam b0, it can be considered that Figure Beam a0 in (b) of Figure 10 corresponds to the beam shown in m=-1 in Figure 13, that is, the weight of beam a0 is u _-1 , and beam a1 in (b) of Figure 10 corresponds to m=1 in Figure 13 The beam shown, that is, the weight of beam a1 is u ₁ , and the beam b0 in (b) of Figure 10 corresponds to the beam shown as m=0 in Figure 13 , that is, the weight of beam b0 is u ₀ .

In one possible implementation, the beam information W2 includes at least one of the correspondence between the beam index and the weight, the correspondence between the beam index and the beam, and the correspondence between the beam set index and the beam.

For example, the network device 110 can determine the index of the beam generated by the relay device 130 using different weights according to the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the weight, and can directly indicate it when subsequently configuring the beam for measurement (or data transmission). The index of the beam. Or the network device 110 may directly indicate the index of the beam when subsequently configuring the beam for measurement (or data transmission) according to the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the beam.

Optionally, the network device 110 may save the correspondence between the beam index and the weight, the correspondence between the beam index and the beam, and the correspondence between the beam set index and the beam, to facilitate subsequent beam configuration or instructions.

The above respectively introduces that the beam information W2 includes the quantity information of the beam or beam set, the QCL information of the beam or beam set, the coverage information of the beam or beam set, the relative relationship between beams or between beam sets, antenna array information and When any item of the weight generation information is generated, the network device 110 determines the beam pattern of the relay device 130 . Of course, the beam information W2 may also include any two or more items mentioned above. When the beam information W2 includes any two or more items mentioned above, the way the network device 110 determines the beam of the relay device 130 may be combined with the different implementations mentioned above. The method will not be described again here.

Based on the above implementation manner, the relay device 130 can report all the beam information that it may generate/implement to the network device 110, thereby providing information for the network device 110 to schedule the beams of the relay device 130.

Optionally, the beams of relay device 130 include multiple categories. Different categories of beams are used to forward different channels or services.

One possible implementation is to classify the beams of the relay device 130 based on differences between beams or beam sets (for example, differences in coverage), so that beams of different categories are used to forward different channels or services. This meets different business needs and can support fast and low-overhead beam scanning.

For example, the beam sets of the relay device 130 are classified. As shown in Table 5, beam sets of different categories forward different channels or different services.

table 5

For example, the beam sets of the relay device are classified, as shown in Table 6. Beam sets of different categories forward different channels or different services.

Table 6

For example, different beam sets (or beams) correspond to different levels, as shown in Table 7. The channels or signals that can be forwarded by different levels are also shown in Table 7.

Table 7

For example, different access link beam sets (or access link beams) correspond to different coverage areas (or blind filling areas, weak filling areas, or coverage areas). Take the coverage area being narrowed in sequence as an example. See Table 8 for details:

Table 8

Optionally, B is included in A, or the second coverage area is included in the first coverage area.

Different coverage areas can also be associated with coverage distances. Among them, the coverage distance can reflect the distance between the network device and the relay device and/ Or the distance between the relay device and the terminal device (or the target coverage area). For example, the larger the coverage area, the smaller the corresponding coverage distance. See Table 9 for details.

Table 9

When beams or beam sets are classified based on coverage, the coverage ranges of beams or beam sets of different categories are different. Beams or beam sets can also be classified according to weights or other methods, and the embodiments of this application do not limit this.

A single beam in beam set A may have a QCL relationship with 1 or more beams in beam set B. QCL information may be exchanged between the relay device 130 and the network device 110 . For example, the relay device 130 reports the following QCL information to the network device 110: the QCL relationship of each beam in beam set A and beam set B. For another example, the network device 110 configures the relay device 130 to respectively transmit at least one beam a0 in the beam set A and some beams (eg, b0, b1) in the beam set #B at different time positions. Among them, the time position of beam a0 corresponds to SSB, SIB, PRACH, or the sending time of the paging message; beams b0 and b1 respectively correspond to beam a0 and have a QCL relationship, and are respectively CSI-RS#i (corresponding to beam b0) and CSI -The transmission time of RS#j (corresponding to beam b1), or SRS#m (corresponding to beam b0) and SRS#n (corresponding to beam b1), #i and #j are used to distinguish different CSI-RS, #m and # n is used to distinguish different SRS.

One possible implementation is that the relay device 130 reports the azimuth angle (horizontal placement direction, vertical placement direction), coordinate position and other information of the antenna to the network device 110. The network device 110 can based on the azimuth of the antenna of the relay device 130 Information such as angle and coordinate position determines the beam used by the relay device 130 to assist the network device 110 in communicating with the terminal device 120 .

Specifically, the network device 110 may determine the beam from the multiple beam sets determined by the network device 110 according to the beam information W2 according to the initial beam direction information reported by the relay device 130 between the network device 110 and the relay device 130 Set Q1, in this way, the relay device 130 can better assist the communication between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 based on the beam set Q1. In addition, the beam set Q1 can be aimed at the network device 110.

In a possible implementation, before the network device 110 determines the beam set Q1, the network device 110 may first configure the beam scanning mode of the relay device 130. See Figure 14 and Figure 15 for details.

Specifically, the beam scanning of the relay device 130 may include two types: nominal backhaul link scanning and nominal access link scanning. Specifically, for nominal backhaul link scanning, it is necessary to first fix the access link component (also can be understood as the access link beam), and pass multiple backhaul link components (also can be understood as the backhaul chain Each channel beam) forwards the reference signal respectively, so that one or more backhaul link components that may be suitable can be determined. For nominal access link scanning, the backhaul link component needs to be fixed first, and the reference signal is forwarded through multiple access link components respectively, so that one or more access link components that may be suitable can be determined. The following describes the process of beam scanning by taking the relay device 130 as an amplification and forwarding relay device and a reflective surface as an example.

Figure 14 is a schematic diagram of beam scanning according to an embodiment of the present application. (a) in Figure 14 shows the process of backhaul link beam scanning. For example, the network device 110 sends different reference signals (reference signals) to the relay device 130 (which can be an amplification and forwarding relay device) through beam #A. signal, RS) (e.g., RS ₀ , RS ₂ , ..., RS _K-1 ), the relay device 130 may use different backhaul link beams (e.g., beam #0, beam #1, ..., beam #K -1) Receive reference signal. Afterwards, the relay device 130 may respectively send the reference signals sent by the network device 110 and received by the relay device 130 through the same access link beam. In this manner, relay device 130 may determine one or more suitable backhaul link beams. The description of the access link beam scanning may also refer to the above description, and will not be described again here.

The network device 110 may indicate the beam management mode of the relay device 130 in the configuration information. The relay device 130 may determine at least one of the following methods according to the configuration information: adopt multiple backhaul link beams and the same access link beam to amplify and forward multiple reference signals respectively; or adopt one backhaul link beam and multiple The access link beams amplify and forward multiple reference signals respectively. For details, see (b) of Figure 14 . As shown in (b) of FIG. 14 , the network device 110 may instruct the relay device 130 through resource set 1 to perform the backhaul link beam scanning process, or may instruct the access link beam of the relay device 130 through resource set 2. Scanning process. For example, network equipment The device 110 sends multiple reference signals (for example, RS ₀ , RS ₂ , ..., RS _K-1 ) to the relay device 130 through the beam #B respectively. The relay device 130 receives the multiple reference signals through the same beam #k, and forwards them through multiple different access link beams (for example, beam #a ₀ , beam #a ₁ , ..., beam #a _K-1 ). In this way, one or more suitable access link beams can be determined.

Optionally, backhaul link beam scanning and access link beam scanning can be combined with each other. For example, the backhaul link beam scan is performed first, and then the access link beam scan is performed; or the access link beam scan is performed first, and then the backhaul link beam scan is performed, which is not limited by this application.

Figure 15 is another schematic diagram of beam scanning according to an embodiment of the present application. (a) in Figure 15 shows the process of nominal backhaul link scanning. For example, the network device 110 sends different reference signals (such as , RS ₀ , RS ₂ , ..., RS _K-1 ), the relay device 130 may use different backhaul link components (for example, backhaul link component #0, backhaul link component #1, ..., backhaul link component #0 Transmission link component #K-1) receives the reference signal. Afterwards, the relay device 130 may respectively send the reference signals sent by the network device 110 and received by the relay device 130 through the same access link component (for example, access link component #a). As such, relay device 130 may determine one or more suitable backhaul link components. The description of nominal access link scanning can also refer to the above description, and will not be described again here.

The network device 110 may indicate the beam management mode of the relay device 130 in the configuration information. The relay device 130 may determine at least one of the following methods according to the configuration information: adopt multiple backhaul link components and the same access link component to respectively amplify and forward multiple reference signals; or adopt one backhaul link component and multiple The access link components amplify and forward multiple reference signals respectively. For details, see (b) of Figure 15 . As shown in (b) of FIG. 15 , the network device 110 may instruct the relay device 130 through resource set 1 to perform a nominal backhaul link scanning process, or may instruct the relay device 130 through resource set 2 to instruct the relay device 130 to perform a nominal access link scanning process. Scanning process. For example, the network device 110 sends multiple reference signals (eg, RS ₀ , RS ₂ , ..., RS _K-1 ) to the relay device 130 through beam #B respectively. The relay device 130 receives the multiple reference signals through the same backhaul link component #k, and forwards them through multiple different access link components (for example, access link component #a ₀ , access link component #a Link component #a ₁ ,..., access link component #a _K-1 ). In this way, one or more suitable access link components can be determined.

Optionally, nominal backhaul link scanning and nominal access link scanning can be combined with each other. For example, the backhaul link beam scan is performed first, and then the access link beam scan is performed; or the access link beam scan is performed first, and then the backhaul link beam scan is performed, which is not limited by this application.

In addition, in (b) of FIG. 15 , resource set 1 is used for nominal backhaul link scanning, and resource set 2 is used for nominal access link scanning. It should be understood that in practice, the time interval and time sequence relationship between the two resource sets are not limited. For example, they can be iterated or crossed in time. Specifically, there may be Y resources in resource set 1; when the network device 110 sends Y resources, the reflective surface uses K weights for reflection respectively; the access link components corresponding to the K weights are the same, The backhaul link components are different. More specifically, there may be R resources in resource set 2; when the network device 110 sends the R resources, the reflective surface uses K weights to reflect respectively; the access link components corresponding to the K weights are the same. , the backhaul link components are different.

Figure 16 is another schematic diagram of beam scanning according to an embodiment of the present application. (a) in FIG. 16 shows the process of beam scanning of the backhaul link, and is described using the relay device 130 as a reflecting surface as an example. For the reflective surface, the same set of reflection weights reflects the beam directions of the backhaul link and the access link. When performing beam scanning, the reflective surface can perform backhaul link beams based on K weights, that is, the phases of the K weights are respectively φ _k =φ _BH,k +φ _AC ,k=0,1...,K-1 scanning.

For example, take the following row as an example, and a similar approach can be extended to the upstream. The network device 110 sends multiple reference signals to the relay device 130 (which is a reflective surface) through the beam #A. For example, the network device 110 sends RS ₀ through the beam #A, sends RS ₁ through the beam #A, ..., through the beam #A By sending RS _K-1 , the relay device 130 can receive through the (nominal) backhaul link beam corresponding to different φ _BH , and forward it through the nominal access link beam corresponding to the same φ _AC . For example, the relay device 130 receives and reflects RS 0 through reflection weight #0 (i.e., φ ₀ ₎ , receives and reflects RS ₁ through reflection weight #1 (i.e., φ ₁ ), ..., through reflection weight #K-1 (i.e. φ _K-1 ) receives and reflects RS _K-1 .

It should be understood that φ _BH,k ,k=0,1...,K-1 corresponds to K (nominal) backhaul link beam directions, φ _AC corresponds to the nominal access link beam direction, and the relay device 130 is performing nominal backhaul link beam directions. When scanning the transmission link beam, the values of K φ _ACs can be made the same, and the K φ _BH,k can be made different.

The terminal device 120 located in the nominal access link beam coverage direction can receive/measure K signals and feed back the measurement results. The network device 110 or the relay device 130 may determine possible suitable beams for the backhaul link based on the measurement results. When the terminal device 120 matches the direction of the nominal access link, the reference signal forwarded in the most matching direction of the backhaul link has the best quality, that is, the reflection weight corresponding to the signal with the highest reception quality matches the channel. In this way, the network device 110 or the relay device 130 can obtain a relatively matching nominal backhaul link direction (or backhaul link component). If there is a deviation in the nominal access link, one or more matching nominal backhaul link beams (i.e., weight component φ _BH,k ) can be determined through multiple measurements or measurement feedback from multiple different terminal devices. . In addition, if the terminal device 120 reports the measurement results to the network device 110, the network device 110 can notify the relay device 130 of the indication information corresponding to the determined return link component, for example, the weight component index; or, the network device 110 The measurement results are notified to the relay device 130. As such, relay device 130 may determine one or more suitable φ _BH,k .

Regarding the access link beam scanning of the reflective surface, reference can be made to the above description and will not be described again here. Through access link beam scanning, relay device 130 (which is a reflective surface) can determine one or more suitable φ _AC,k .

The beam scanning mode (also called signal forwarding mode, signal reflection mode, weight synthesis mode, or other words with similar equivalent meanings) of the relay device (eg, reflective surface) can be determined according to the instruction information of the network device 110 . The beam scanning method refers to scanning the beam components (or weight components) of the backhaul link and scanning the beam components (or weight components) of the access link. Taking the reflective surface as an example, multiple combined weights can be determined based on the indication information corresponding to the scanning method and the weight component information.

Optionally, the weight components of the access link are fixed, and multiple weights are synthesized based on the weight components of multiple backhaul links; or, the weight components of the backhaul links are fixed, and the weight components are synthesized based on the multiple access links. The weight components of the incoming link are combined into multiple weights.

In another implementation manner, two scanning methods can also be combined with multiple iterations, without limitation.

When there is a deviation in the beam direction of the backhaul link, the error in the beam direction of the backhaul link is eventually reflected in the beam direction of the access link. The following behavior is an example, if the true direction of the backhaul link signal comes from The final direction is shown in (b) in Figure 16.

As shown in (b) of FIG. 16 , the network device 110 sends multiple reference signals to the relay device 130 through beam #A. For example, the network device 110 sends RS ₀ through beam #A, sends RS ₁ through beam #A, ..., RS _K-1 is sent through beam #A, and the relay device 130 receives it through K φ _BH with different values. For example, the relay device 130 receives RS ₀ through reflection weight #0 and receives RS through reflection weight #1. ₁ ,...,receive RS _K-1 through reflection weight #K-1. When the direction of the reference signal is not aligned with the beam direction of the backhaul link indicated by φ _BH of the relay device 130, for example, the backhaul link indicated by the component φ _BH,0 in RS ₀ and reflection weight #0 The beam direction is not aligned with the direction of the reference signal, and there is an error between the actual incident direction of the reference signal and the backhaul link beam direction indicated by component φ _BH,0 . This error will eventually be reflected in the access link, causing the actual signal reflection direction of the access link to deviate from the beam direction corresponding to the nominal access link component.

Specifically, the access link beam direction corresponding to φ ₀ is:

in, The phase component used to indicate the actual signal incident direction, its expression can refer to the form of φ _BH,0 . When the nominal backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 is aligned with the direction of the reference signal, the actual access link beam direction corresponding to the φ _AC obtained by the above formula (3) is equal to the nominal access link beam direction. There is no deviation between; when the nominal return link beam direction of the relay device 130 is not aligned with the direction of the reference signal, the actual access link beam direction is: Deviation from the nominal access link beam direction This may cause the terminal device 120 to be unable to receive the signal forwarded by the relay device 130 .

Therefore, if the nominal backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 is not aligned with the network device 110, the error between the nominal backhaul link beam direction and the direction of the reference signal will cause the actual signal reflection direction to be different from the nominal access direction. Deviation between link beam directions. For example, as shown in (a) and (b) of Figure 16, the nominal backhaul link beam direction is in the three schematic directions shown in (a) of Figure 16, and the nominal access link beam direction is in ((a) of Figure 16 a) the three directions shown. The actual signal incident direction is in the three schematic directions shown in Figure 16(b) (the actual signal incident direction remains unchanged), and the actual signal reflection direction is in the three schematic directions shown in Figure 16(b) (it will be affected by the nominal The effect of the deviation between the return link beam direction and the origin direction of the reference signal). If there is a deviation between the nominal backhaul link beam direction and the actual signal incident direction, the deviation will eventually be reflected in the deviation between the nominal access link beam direction and the actual signal reflection direction.

For example, the nominal backhaul link beam direction in the reflection weight #0 of the relay device 130 is not aligned with the incoming direction of RS ₀ , and the nominal access link beam direction in the reflection weight #0 is consistent with the actual signal. There is a deviation between the reflection directions (see the first example in (b) of Figure 16), the signal received by the terminal device 120 may be poor; the nominal reflection weight of the relay device 130 #K-1 The backhaul link beam direction is aligned with the direction of RS _K-1 , and there is no deviation between the nominal access link beam direction in reflection weight #K-1 and the actual signal reflection direction (see (The last example of (b) of Figure 16), the signal received by the terminal device 120 may be very good.

When the nominal backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 cannot be aligned with the network device 110, the nominal access link beam direction of the relay device 130 cannot forward the signal sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120. In other words, when there is a deviation between the nominal backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 and the origin direction of the reference signal, the deviation will be reflected in the nominal access link beam direction of the relay device 130 and the actual signal reflection direction. On top of the deviation, that is: the above content can be understood as the deviation between the nominal backhaul link beam direction and the actual signal incident direction of the relay device 130 will be reflected in the nominal access link beam direction and the actual signal reflection direction. above the deviation. For example, the relay device 130 cannot forward the reference signal sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 .

In practice, the weight design of the reflective surface can be simplified through the nominal beam separation design of the backhaul link and access link, and the matching with the network equipment and the target coverage location (or target coverage area, or target user equipment) can be achieved alignment.

Optionally, the above-mentioned return link component can also be understood as a return link weight component or a return link phase component, and the access link component can be understood as an access link weight component or an access link. The phase component is not limited in the embodiments of this application.

In the embodiment of the present application, the backhaul link weight component and the backhaul link phase component are equivalent expressions, and the access link weight component and the access link phase component are also equivalent expressions. For the convenience of description, the full text uses the backhaul link component and the access link component for description. They are uniformly explained here and will not be repeated in the full text.

S430. The network device 110 sends configuration information T1 to the relay device 130, which is used to configure the beam set Q1.

Correspondingly, the relay device 130 receives the configuration information T1 sent by the network device 110.

Specifically, the configuration information T1 includes information for configuring the beam set Q1.

Optionally, the configuration information T1 includes but is not limited to at least one of the following:

Index of a beam or set of beams;

Oversampling parameters;

offset value;

Beam weight generation information;

The usage time corresponding to the beam or beam set;

The scanning period corresponding to the beam or set of beams; and,

The time slot and/or orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol position in the scanning period, etc.

The relay device can determine the beam set Q1 configured by the network device for the relay device based on the above information, and assist communication between the network device and the terminal device according to the configured beam set Q1.

Through the above method, this application can realize the alignment of the beam direction of the backhaul link of the relay device with the incoming wave direction of the network device, so that the relay device can better assist the communication between the network device and the terminal device.

Optionally, the method 400 may also include:

S440. The network device 110 determines the measurement information of the beam set Q1.

Specifically, the measurement information of beam set Q1 may be determined by the network device 110 itself, or may be determined by the terminal device 130 and reported to the network device 110 .

In a downlink scenario, the network device 110 may send at least one reference signal to the terminal device 120 through the beam set Q1 of the relay device 130. The reference signal is used to measure the corresponding beam in the beam set Q1 (or in other words: the reference signal is used for measurement). In other words, the relay device 130 may forward at least one reference signal sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 through the beam set Q1.

Optionally, the reference signal may include DMRS, CSI-RS, phase tracking reference signal (PTRS), SSB, tracking reference signal (tracking reference signal, TRS), etc. For convenience of description, this embodiment of the present application takes the reference signal as CSI-RS as an example for description.

For example, the beam set Q1 includes three beams, namely beam #q11, beam #q12 and beam #q13, and each beam can be used to transmit one CSI-RS respectively. The network device 110 sends three CSI-RSs to the terminal device 120 through the beam set Q1 of the relay device 130. For example, after receiving three reference signals through three different backhaul link beams, the relay device 130 may send the three CSI-RSs sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 through the same access link beam. The above description can also be understood as: the network device 110 sends at least one CSI-RS to the terminal device 120 through the beam set Q1 of the relay device 130, and the relay device 130 is responsible for forwarding at least one CSI-RS sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 through the beam set Q1. After receiving the three CSI-RSs sent by the relay device 130 and forwarded by the network device 110, the terminal device 120 can measure the three CSI-RSs and report the measurement information of the three CSI-RSs to the network device 110.

Measurement information can be carried in uplink control information (UCI) and transmitted through the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) or the physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

The measurement information may be channel state information. Channel state information may include one or more of the following: reference signal receiving quality (RSRQ), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) ), precoding matrix indicator (precoding matrix indicator, PMI), transmitted precoding matrix indicator (transmitted precoding matrix indicator, TPMI), rank indicator (rank indicator, RI), transmitted rank indicator (transmitted rank indicator, TRI), layer indicator (layer indicator, LI), timing advance (timing advance, TA), AOA, AOD, etc.

In the uplink scenario, the network device 110 may receive at least one reference signal sent by the terminal device 120 and forwarded by the relay device 130 to the network device 110 through the beam set Q1. Specifically, the reference signal received by the network device 110 is sent by the terminal device 120 to the network device 110, and the relay device 130 is responsible for forwarding it through the beam set Q1.

For example, the beam set Q1 includes three beams, namely beam #q11, beam #q12 and beam #q13, and each beam can be used to transmit one CSI-RS respectively. The relay device 130 forwards the three CSI-RSs sent by the terminal device 120 to the network device 110 through three different beams in the beam set Q1. After receiving the three CSI-RSs, the network device 110 can measure the three CSI-RSs and determine the measurement information of the three CSI-RSs.

Specifically, the network device 110 may determine the measurement information of the beam set Q1 through a downlink measurement method or an uplink measurement method.

Optionally, one beam can also be used to transmit multiple reference signals.

Optionally, the method 400 may also include:

S450. The network device 110 determines the beam set Q2 based on the measurement information of the beam set Q1.

Specifically, the network device 110 may determine the beam set Q2 according to the measurement information of the beam set Q1 determined by it. For example, the measurement information of beam set Q1 shows that the strength of the reference signal transmitted by beam #q11 in beam set Q1 is lower than the strength of the reference signal transmitted by beam #q12 and beam #q13, the network device 110 can remove the reference signal from beam set Q1 of beam #q11, and retain beam #q12 and beam #q13. Therefore, the beam set Q2 may include beam #q12 and beam #q13.

Optionally, the measurement information of the beam set Q1 shows that the strength of the reference signals transmitted by all beams in the beam set Q1 is low, and the network device 110 can reconfigure the beams. Correspondingly, the beams included in the beam set Q2 are all different from the beam set Q1.

In the embodiment of the present application, beam set Q2 is different from beam set Q1, including at least one of the following situations: beam set Q2 and beam set Q1 include different number of beams. For example, beam set Q1 includes beam #q11, beam #q12 and Beam #q13, beam set Q2 includes beam #q11 and beam #q12; it can also be reflected that the corresponding beams included in beam set Q1 and beam set Q2 are different, for example, beam set Q1 includes beam #q11, beam #q12 and beam #q13 , the beam set Q2 includes beam #q21, beam #q22, beam #q23 and so on.

To sum up, the beam set Q2 includes at least one beam that does not belong to the beam set Q1; or, the beam set Q1 includes at least one beam that does not belong to the beam set Q2.

Optionally, the relay device 130 may assist communication between the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 according to the beam set Q1.

The process of the relay device 130 assisting the communication between the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 according to the beam set Q1 can be understood as: the relay device 130 forwards the signal P or data according to the beam set Q1, and the signal P or data may be the terminal device 120 It is sent to the network device 110 and forwarded by the relay device 130; it can also be sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 and forwarded by the relay device 130. "Sending" of the access link or backhaul link of the relay device 130 can be understood as "forwarding", that is, the relay device 130 forwards the received signal.

In one possible implementation, the signal P may include a reference signal. The reference signal is used for beam management, channel estimation, or auxiliary signal demodulation, detection, etc. The reference signal may include DMRS, CSI-RS, phase tracking reference signal (PTRS), SSB, tracking reference signal (tracking reference signal, TRS), etc., and is not limited in the embodiment of this application.

The terminal device 120 may send the signal generated by the terminal device 120 according to at least one reference signal to the network device 110 through the relay device 130. The relay device 130 assists in sending the measurement information of the determined beam set Q1. The relay device 130 receives the measurement information and forwards the measurement information to the network device 110 . Network device 110 receives this measurement information.

Specifically, the network device 110 can configure the beam set Q2 for the relay device 130 according to the measurement information of the beam set Q1, which is better aligned with the network device 110 than the beam set Q1. In this way, the relay device 130 can configure the beam set Q2 according to the beam set Q2. Better assisting the communication between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120.

Optionally, the method 400 may also include:

S460. The network device 110 sends the configuration information T2 to the relay device 130, which is used to configure the beam set Q2.

Correspondingly, the relay device 130 receives the configuration information T2 and determines the beam set Q2 based on the configuration information T2. For description of the configuration information T2, please refer to the description of the configuration information T1, which will not be described again here.

The beam set Q2 may include at least one beam used for the relay device to assist communication between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120, or for communication between the relay device 130 and the network device 110.

Optionally, method 400 may also include:

S470: The relay device 130 assists communication between the terminal device and the network device according to the beam set Q2.

The process of the relay device 130 assisting the communication between the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 according to the beam set Q2 can be understood as the relay device 130 forwarding the signal D or data according to the beam set Q2, and the signal D or data can be the terminal device 120 It may be sent to the network device 110 and forwarded by the relay device 130, or it may be sent by the network device 110 to the terminal device 120 and forwarded by the relay device 130. For specific content, please refer to S404.

In a possible implementation, signal D includes a reference signal, which is used for beam management, channel estimation, or auxiliary signal demodulation, detection, etc. The reference signal may include DMRS, CSI-RS, PTRS, SSB, TRS, etc., which are not limited in the embodiment of this application.

In this embodiment of the present application, the configuration information T1 and the configuration information T2 can be configured by the network device 110 and delivered to the relay device 130 . Configuration information T1 and configuration information T2 can be carried on the physical broadcast channel (PBCH), remaining minimum system information (RMSI), SIB1, SIB2, SIB3, media access control element (media access control) -Control element, MAC-CE), downlink control information (DCI), radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) and any one of the system information.

In one possible implementation, when the relay device 130 is a reflective surface, the beam information W2 may include weight information, which may include: a backhaul link component and an access link component.

In a possible implementation, the configuration information T1 may include at least one first weight. Wherein, each first weight includes a first component, which is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130 .

Accordingly, the relay device 130 may determine the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130 according to the first component.

Specifically, when the relay device 130 is a reflective surface, the weight of the reflective surface may include the component corresponding to the backhaul link beam, and the network device 110 may send the component including the component corresponding to the backhaul link beam to the relay device 130; Based on the information for indicating the components corresponding to the backhaul link beam included in the configuration information issued by the network device 110, the relay device 130 can adjust the backhaul link beam component of the relay device 130, and based on the original connection The incoming link beam components form new weights. This causes its backhaul link to be aligned with (or better match) the network device 110, and the access link components are reflected toward (better match) the target direction.

Optionally, each first weight further includes a second component, which is used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device 130 .

Accordingly, the relay device 130 may determine the access link beam of the relay device 130 according to the second component.

Specifically, by dividing the weight of the reflective surface into two parts, which are the first component corresponding to the backhaul link beam and the second component corresponding to the access link beam, the calculation of the weight of the reflective surface can be simplified. Design form. The configuration information issued by the network device 110 includes information indicating the components corresponding to the backhaul link beams. Based on this information, the relay device 130 can adjust the backhaul link beam components of the relay device 130 so that they can be backhauled. The link is aligned with network device 110 . In addition, based on the component corresponding to the access link beam included in the configuration information issued by the network device 110, the relay device 130 can also adjust the access link beam component of the relay device 130 to allow it to access the link. The road is aligned with the terminal device 120.

By respectively adjusting the first component of the backhaul link and the second component of the access link, the relay device 130 is connected between the network device 110 and Signal reflection (or forwarding) is implemented between terminal devices 120 to assist communication.

It should be understood that the first component and the second component may be stored separately.

Alternatively, the first component and the second component may be indicated separately.

In one possible implementation, the aforementioned backhaul link component may be another alternative name for the first component, and the access link component may also be another alternative name for the second component. For the convenience of description, the previous description mainly takes the backhaul link component and the access link component as examples, and the following description mainly uses the first component and the second component, but the two can be regarded as having the same meaning.

In a possible implementation, the configuration information T2 may include at least one second weight. Wherein, the second weight includes a third component, which is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130 .

Accordingly, the relay device 130 may determine the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130 according to the third component.

Specifically, when the relay device 130 is a reflective surface, the weight of the reflective surface may include the component corresponding to the backhaul link beam, and the network device 110 may send the component corresponding to the backhaul link beam to the relay device 130, based on According to the component corresponding to the backhaul link beam included in the configuration information T2 issued by the network device 110, the relay device 130 can adjust the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130, and based on the original access link beam component, New weights are formed such that their backhaul links are aligned with (or better match) the network device 110 and the access link components are reflected toward (more closely match) the target direction.

Optionally, each second weight may also include a fourth component, which is used to indicate the access link beam of the relay device 130 .

Correspondingly, the relay device 130 may determine the access link beam of the relay device 130 according to the fourth component.

By dividing the weight of the reflective surface into two parts, namely the first component corresponding to the backhaul link beam and the second component corresponding to the access link beam, the design form of the weight of the reflective surface can be simplified. The configuration information T1 issued by the network device 110 may include information indicating the components corresponding to the backhaul link beams, and the relay device 130 may adjust the backhaul link beam components of the relay device 130 based on this information to make them return. The transmission link is aligned with the network device 110. In addition, the configuration information T1 issued by the network device 110 includes information indicating the components corresponding to the access link beam. The relay device 130 can also adjust the access link beam of the relay device 130 based on this information. The access link is aligned with the terminal device 120.

The information included in the above configuration information T1 for indicating the backhaul link beam or the access link beam may be indication information, and the indication information may be used to indicate the component; the information may also be the component itself (directly delivered component) ; It can also be the index information of the component (storing the component and configuring the corresponding index); it can also be other information, which is not limited by the embodiments of this application.

By respectively adjusting the first component of the backhaul link and the second component of the access link, the relay device 130 implements signal reflection (or forwarding) between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120, thereby assisting communication.

It should be understood that the third component and the fourth component may be stored separately.

Optionally, the third component and the fourth component may be indicated separately.

In a possible implementation, the network device 110 can determine the weight R1 of the control module 1301 based on the beam information W1 of the control module 1301 of the relay device 130, and the weight R1 is used to indicate the beam of the control module 1301.

Specifically, the weight R1 of the control module 1301 (can be understood as the beam information W1) can be expressed as:

Where [·] ^T represents the transpose of a vector or matrix. The embodiments of this application are described using column vectors as an example. In practice, the weights can be described based on matrices and transversal quantities without limitation.

The network device 110 may determine the weight R2 based on the weight R1 of the control module 1301 and the beam information W2 of the forwarding module 1302, where the weight R2 is used to indicate the beam set Q1. Among them, the weight R2 can be expressed as:

In addition, the weight R3 of the access link beam on the reflective surface can be expressed as:

The above Q may be a multiple between the antenna array of the control module 1301 and the antenna array of the forwarding module 1302.

Among them, _WR2 may be used to indicate the beam direction of the backhaul link of the relay device 130, and _WR3 may be used to indicate the beam direction of the access link of the relay device 130.

Optionally, the network device 110 may determine the weight R4 according to the weights R2 and R3, that is:

Optionally, the network device 110 can send the weight R2 to the relay device 130, which can be used to indicate the backhaul link beam direction to the relay device 130, so that the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 can be aligned. The network device 110 may also send the weight R4 to the relay device 130, which may cause the backhaul link beam direction of the relay device 130 to be aligned with the network device 110.

The above weight value can be regarded as a specific implementation method of the configuration information, and the implementation method of the relevant variant can also be determined based on the above weight value. For example, to configure indexes for different weight elements, the network device 110 can send the index to the relay device 130, and the index is used to determine the above-mentioned weight; for another example, for parameters related to the composition of the weight, the network device 110 can send The relay device 130 sends the parameter, and the parameter is used by the relay device 130 to determine the corresponding weight.

In summary, the network device 110 can send the configuration information T3 to the relay device 130. The configuration information T3 is used to configure the backhaul link beam of the relay device 130. The configuration information T3 can include the above-mentioned weights, indexes or parameters, etc. For specific information, the relay device 130 can adjust the beam direction of the backhaul link of the relay device 130 based on the configuration information T3 sent by the network device 110, so as to align it with the network device 110.

It should be understood that the beam set Q1 and the beam set Q2 in the embodiment of the present application may respectively correspond to the aforementioned first beam set and the second beam set, and the beam information W1 and the beam information W2 respectively correspond to the aforementioned first beam information. With the second beam information, the configuration information T1 and the configuration information T2 may respectively correspond to the aforementioned first configuration information, second configuration information, etc. Among them, the above-mentioned quantifiers such as "first" and "second" can be matched with the corresponding content in the foregoing content, which will not be described again here.

The method embodiments of the embodiments of the present application are described above, and the corresponding device embodiments are introduced below.

It can be understood that the description of the method embodiments and the description of the device embodiments may correspond to each other. Therefore, for parts not described, please refer to the previous method embodiments.

In order to realize each function in the method provided by the above embodiments of the present application, both the terminal and the network device may include a hardware structure and/or a software module to implement the above functions in the form of a hardware structure, a software module, or a hardware structure plus a software module. . Whether one of the above functions is performed as a hardware structure, a software module, or a hardware structure plus a software module depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution.

Figure 17 is a schematic diagram of a partial structure of a relay device in an embodiment of the present application. (a) in FIG. 17 shows the controller 1710, the memory 1720, and the antenna array 1730. Among them, the antenna array 1730 includes a memory 17301 and a phase converter/analog channel 17302.

In S310, the beam information W1 reported by the relay device 130 to the network device 110 can enable the network device 110 and the relay device 130 to agree on the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the beam, or between the beam index and the beam weight generation information. corresponding relationship.

Based on the above corresponding relationship, the beam/beam set index and the beam information corresponding to the beam/beam set index can be stored at both ends of the network device 110 and the relay device 130 (for example, the beam information refers to QCL information, coverage, and weight generation method , weight, or at least one of the weight index, this application does not limit this).

For example, the memory 1720 contains multiple sets of beam information, including beam information 1 (stored in the storage subunit 17201) and beam information 2 (stored in the storage subunit 17202) and other beam information not illustrated in the figure. Each group The beam information respectively corresponds to a set of backhaul link beams of a group of relay devices or a set of backhaul link beams of a group of relay devices. The controller 1710 is used to determine the beam information and apply the beam weight corresponding to the beam information to the antenna array 1730.

Optionally, the above-mentioned beam information 1 may be a backhaul link component, and beam information 2 may be an access link component. In this way, separate storage of backhaul link components and access link components can be achieved. In actual use, the network device 110 can determine the actually used weight through the access link component and the backhaul link component respectively. As an exemplary description here, subsequent descriptions about beam information may also be associated with the aforementioned weight components and the like.

Alternatively, the backhaul link components may be a subset of the access link components. At this time, the backhaul link component and the access link component may be determined based on the beam information in the same memory. In this way, the backhaul link component and the access link component can be obtained based on the beam information, and the actual weight used is finally determined.

Optionally, both the backhaul link component and the access link component come from the same memory. In this way, the backhaul link component and the access link component can be obtained based on the beam information, and the actual weight used is finally determined.

Based on this method, the space for weight storage can be saved, thereby reducing the hardware requirements of the reflective surface and achieving low cost.

The beam weights can be divided into digital weights and analog weights, where the digital weights are used to act on the digital channel (not shown in the figure), and the analog weights are used to act on the phase shifter 17302. Since there is a certain delay between the configuration and taking effect of the analog weights, the weights may be configured in advance. That is, the antenna array 1730 includes a memory 17301. The memory 17301 can be understood as a mid-range radio frequency memory and a backhaul chain of the relay device 130. When the path needs to change the beam (for example, during beam scanning), the simulation weight of the beam can be configured in the memory 17301 in advance, so that the simulation weight takes effect at the accurate time, that is, the beam switching speed can be made faster.

In a possible implementation, the memory 1720 stores a mapping table of the backhaul link beam index and the analog beam index of each relay device 130. If there is a digital weight, the memory 1720 also stores each backhaul link. The mapping table of the link beam index and the digital beam index, the memory 17301 stores the mapping table of the analog beam index and the analog weight, or the memory 17301 also stores the mapping table of the digital beam index and the digital weight. That is, the controller 1710 determines the backhaul link beam index, determines the analog weight and digital weight corresponding to the backhaul link beam index according to the above mapping table, and applies the analog weight and digital weight to the antenna array. 1730.

The difference between (b) and (a) in Figure 17 is that the memory 1701 is replaced by the weight generator 17303, that is, in (b) of Figure 17, the weight of the phase shifter/analog channel is determined by the weight generator 17303 confirmed.

In a possible implementation, the weight generator 1703 multiplies the backhaul link weight component and the access link weight component to form an actual weight, and then acts on the reflection array element.

In a possible implementation, the weight generator 1703 sums the phase component of the backhaul link weight and the phase component of the access link weight to form a phase component of the actual weight, and then acts on the reflection Array element.

In a possible implementation, the memory 1720 stores a mapping table of each relay device's backhaul link beam index and the analog beam index (and/or weight generation information). If there is a digital weight, the memory 1720 The center also stores a mapping table of each relay device backhaul link beam index and digital beam index (and/or weight generation information). The weight generator 17303 can generate information) to calculate analog weights, or the weight generator 17303 may calculate digital weights based on the digital beam index (and/or weight generation information). That is, the controller 1710 determines the backhaul link beam index, then calculates the analog weight and digital weight corresponding to the backhaul link beam according to the above mapping table and the weight generator 17303, and uses the analog weight and digital weight Acts on antenna array 1720.

Taking (a) of Figure 17 as an example, the storage subunit 17201 can store the information of the beams a0, a1,..., ai-1, etc., and the storage subunit 17201 can store the information of the beams b0, b1,..., bi-1, etc., And so on.

In conjunction with S430, the network device 110 configures the configuration information T1 to the relay device 130 at time t. The relay device 130 obtains the beam a0 from the storage subunit 17201 of the memory 1720 at the time t0-Δ, Δ>0 before t0. , beam a2, etc. corresponding weights (including analog weights and/or digital weights), and configure the weights to the memory 17301, where time t is before time t0 (or time t0-Δ). At time t0, the backhaul link of the relay device 130 uses the beam corresponding to the weight to send or receive signals.

Further combined with S430, the network device 110 configures the configuration information T1 to the relay device 130 at time t'. The relay device 130 obtains the configuration information T1 from the storage subunit 17202 of the memory 1720 at the time t1-Δ1 before t1, Δ1>0. The weight corresponding to beam b0 (including analog weight and/or digital weight) is configured into the memory 17301, where time t' is before time t1 (or time t1-Δ1). At time t1, the backhaul link of the relay device 130 uses the beam corresponding to the weight to send or receive signals.

This embodiment of the present application does not limit the number of sets of beam information stored in the memory 1720 and the number of sets of beam information stored in each beam information unit.

Optionally, in addition to being used to store beam information, the above-mentioned memory 1720 can also be used to respectively store weight components corresponding to the backhaul link beam and weight components corresponding to the access link beam. When used, the two weight components can be used together.

Figure 18 is a schematic diagram of a partial structure of a network device in an embodiment of the present application. Figure 18 shows the controller 1810 and the memory 1820, where the memory 1820 contains multiple sets of beam information (corresponding to the beam information stored by the relay device 130), including beam information 1 (stored in the storage subunit 18201) and beam information 2 (stored in the storage subunit 18202) and other beam information not illustrated in the figure. Each set of beam information corresponds to a set of backhaul link beam sets or a set of backhaul link beams. The controller 1810 is used to determine the beam information and apply the beam information corresponding to the beam information to the antenna array.

This embodiment of the present application does not limit the number of sets of beam information stored in the memory 1820 and the number of sets of beam information stored in each beam information unit.

The methods provided in the embodiments of this application can be used alone or in combination. The various implementation methods provided in the embodiments of this application can be used alone or in combination. This application does not limit this.

The term "and/or" in this application is just an association relationship describing related objects, indicating that there can be three relationships, for example, A and/or B, which can mean: A exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, alone There are three cases of B, among which A and B can be singular Or plural. In addition, the character "/" in this article generally indicates that the related objects are an "or" relationship, but it may also indicate an "and/or" relationship. For details, please refer to the previous and later contexts for understanding.

In this application, "at least one item (items)" refers to one item (items) or multiple items (items), "at least two items (items)" and "multiple items (items)" refer to two items (items) or Two or more items. "At least one of the following" or similar expressions thereof refers to any combination of these items, including any combination of a single item (items) or a plurality of items (items). For example, at least one of a, b, or c can mean: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, where a, b, c can be single or multiple .

In addition, the execution subject illustrated in FIG. 4 is only an example. The execution subject may also be a chip, a chip system, or a processor that supports the execution subject to implement the method shown in FIG. 4 , which is not limited by the embodiments of this application.

It can be understood that in the above method embodiments, the methods and operations implemented by the relay device can also be implemented by components (such as chips or circuits) that can be used for the relay device, and the methods and operations implemented by the network device can also be implemented by the network device. Can be implemented by components (such as chips or circuits) that can be used in network equipment.

Embodiments of the present application can divide the transmitting end device or the receiving end device into functional modules according to the above method examples. For example, each functional module can be divided corresponding to each function, or two or more functions can be integrated into one processing module. middle. The above integrated modules can be implemented in the form of hardware or software function modules. It should be noted that the division of modules in the embodiment of the present application is schematic and is only a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods. The following is an example of dividing each functional module according to each function.

Figure 19 is a schematic diagram of a communication device 1900 in an embodiment of the present application. The communication device 1900 may be used to perform the actions performed by the relay device 130 in the above method embodiment. The communication device 1900 includes a transceiver unit 1910 and a processing unit 1920. The transceiver unit 1910 can communicate with the outside, and the processing unit 1920 is used for data processing. The transceiver 1910 may also be called a communication interface or communication unit.

Optionally, the communication device 1900 may further include a storage unit, which may be used to store instructions and/or data, and the processing unit 1920 may read the instructions and/or data in the storage unit.

In one design, the communication device 1900 can be a chip or functional module capable of performing the functions of the relay device 130, and sends corresponding outputs and receives corresponding inputs. The transceiver unit 1910 is used to perform the relay device 130 in the above method embodiment. The processing unit 1920 is configured to perform the processing operations of the relay device 130 in the above method embodiment except for sending and receiving.

Optionally, the transceiver unit 1910 may include a sending unit and a receiving unit. The sending unit is used to perform the sending operation in the above method embodiment. The receiving unit is used to perform the receiving operation in the above method embodiment.

It should be noted that the communication device 1900 may include a sending unit but not a receiving unit. Alternatively, the communication device 1800 may include a receiving unit instead of a transmitting unit. Specifically, it may depend on whether the above solution executed by the communication device includes a sending action and a receiving action.

In another design, communication device 1900 may be a device including relay device 130. Alternatively, the communication device 1900 may be a component configured in the relay device 130, for example, a chip in the relay device 130. In this case, the transceiver unit 1910 may be an interface circuit, a pin, or the like. Specifically, the interface circuit may include an input circuit and an output circuit, and the processing unit 1920 may include a processing circuit.

Illustratively, the transceiver unit 1910 is configured to receive the configuration information T1 and configuration information T2 sent by the network device 110 . For specific content, please refer to the foregoing description and will not be repeated here.

Figure 20 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 2000 in an embodiment of the present application. The communication device 2000 includes a processor 2010. The processor 2010 is coupled to a memory 2020. The memory 2020 is used to store computer programs or instructions and/or data. The processor 2010 is used to execute the computer programs or instructions and/or data stored in the memory 2020, so that The methods in the above method embodiments are executed.

Optionally, the communication device 2000 includes one or more processors 2010 .

Optionally, as shown in Figure 20, the communication device 2000 may further include a memory 2020.

Optionally, the communication device 1900 may include one or more memories 2020 .

Alternatively, the memory 2020 may be integrated with the processor 2010 or provided separately.

Optionally, as shown in Figure 20, the communication device 2000 may also include a transceiver 2030, which is used for receiving and/or transmitting signals. For example, the processor 2010 is used to control the transceiver 2030 to receive and/or transmit signals.

As a solution, the communication device 2000 is used to implement the operations performed by the network device 110 or the communication device in the above method embodiment.

For example, the processor 2010 is used to implement processing-related operations performed by the network device 110 or the communication device in the above method embodiment, and the transceiver 2030 is used to implement the transceiver performed by the network device 110 or the communication device in the above method embodiment. related operations. The communication device 2000 includes a processor 2010. The processor 2010 is coupled to a memory 2020. The memory 2020 is used to store computer programs or instructions and/or data. The processor 2010 is used to execute the computer programs or instructions and/or data stored in the memory 2020. The method in the above method embodiment is caused to be executed.

In one possible implementation manner, the communication device 2000 includes a processor 2010, which is configured to implement the operations of the above method 400 performed internally by the network device 110.

Optionally, the communication device 2000 may further include a memory 2020.

Optionally, the communication device 2000 may include one or more memories 2020 .

Optionally, the communication device 2000 may also include one or more transceivers 2030 and/or communication interfaces, which are used for receiving and/or transmitting signals. For example, the processor 2010 is used to control the transceiver 2030 and/or the communication interface to receive and/or send signals.

Alternatively, the devices used to implement the receiving function in the transceiver 2030 can be regarded as receiving modules, and the devices used to implement the transmitting function in the transceiver 2030 can be regarded as sending modules, that is, the transceiver 2030 includes a receiver and a transmitter. A transceiver may also be called a transceiver, a transceiver module, or a transceiver circuit. The receiver may also be called a receiver, receiving module, or receiving circuit. A transmitter can sometimes be called a transmitter, transmitter, transmit module or transmit circuit.

Optionally, the communication device 2000 may also include one or more signal amplifiers. If there are multiple signal amplifiers, different signal amplifiers correspond to different polarization directions or relay wireless radio frequency channels. In uplink communication, the signal amplifier is used to amplify the signal received from the terminal device. In downlink communication, the signal amplifier is used to amplify the signal received from the network device.

As a solution, the communication device 2000 is used to implement the operations performed by the network device 110 in the above method embodiment. For example, the processor 2010 is used to implement the operations performed internally by the network device 110 in the above method embodiment, and the transceiver 2030 is used to implement the receiving or transmitting operations performed by the network device 110 in the above method embodiment.

Figure 21 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 2100 in an embodiment of the present application. The communication device 2100 includes a logic circuit 2110 and an input/output interface 2120.

Among them, the logic circuit 2110 may be a processing circuit. The logic circuit 2110 can be coupled to the storage unit and call instructions in the storage unit, so that the communication device can implement the methods and functions of various embodiments of the present application. The input/output interface 2120 may be an input/output circuit, which outputs information processed by the communication device, or inputs data or signaling information to be processed into the communication device for processing.

As a solution, the communication device 2100 is used to implement the operations performed by the network device 110 in each of the above method embodiments.

For example, the logic circuit 2110 is used to implement the processing-related operations performed by the network device 110 in the above method embodiment, such as the processing-related operations performed by the network device 110 in the embodiment shown in Figure 3. The input/output interface 2120 It is used to implement the sending and/or receiving related operations performed by the network device 110 in the above method embodiment, such as the sending and/or receiving related operations performed by the network device 110 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 .

As another solution, the communication device 2100 is used to implement the operations performed by the relay device 130 in each of the above method embodiments.

For example, the logic circuit 2110 is used to implement the processing-related operations performed by the relay device 130 in the above method embodiment, such as the processing-related operations performed by the relay device 130 in the embodiment shown in Figure 3, input/output The interface 2120 is used to implement the sending and/or receiving related operations performed by the relay device 130 in the above method embodiment, such as the sending and/or receiving related operations performed by the relay device 130 in the embodiment shown in Figure 3. operate.

Figure 22 is a schematic block diagram of the communication device 2200 according to the embodiment of the present application. The communication device 2200 may be the network device 110 or a chip. The communication device 2200 may be used to perform operations performed by the network device 110 in the method embodiment shown in FIG. 3 .

When the communication device 2200 is the network device 110, it is, for example, a base station. Figure 22 shows a simplified schematic structural diagram of a base station. The base station includes part 2210, part 2220 and part 2230. Part 2210 is mainly used for baseband processing, controlling the base station, etc. Part 2210 is usually the control center of the base station, which can usually be called a processor, and is used to control the base station to perform processing operations on the network device side in the above method embodiments. Part 2220 is mainly used to store computer program code and data. The 2230 part is mainly used for the transmission and reception of radio frequency signals and the conversion of radio frequency signals and baseband signals; the 2230 part can usually be called a transceiver module, a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, or a transceiver, etc. The transceiver module of part 2230 can also be called a transceiver or a transceiver, etc., which includes an antenna 2233 and a radio frequency circuit (not shown in the figure), where the radio frequency circuit is mainly used for radio frequency processing.

Alternatively, the device used to implement the receiving function in part 2230 can be regarded as a receiver, and the device used to implement the transmitting function can be regarded as a transmitter, that is, part 2230 includes a receiver 2232 and a transmitter 2131. The receiver can also be called a receiving module, receiver, or receiving circuit, etc., and the transmitter can be called a transmitting module, transmitter, or transmitting circuit, etc.

Parts 2210 and 2220 may include one or more single boards, and each single board may include one or more processors and one or more memories. The processor is used to read and execute programs in the memory to implement baseband processing functions and control the base station. If there are multiple boards, each board can be interconnected to enhance processing capabilities. As an optional implementation, multiple single boards may share one or more processors, or multiple single boards may share one or more memories, or multiple single boards may share one or more processors at the same time. device.

For example, in one implementation, the transceiver module of part 2230 is used to perform transceiver-related processes performed by the network device 110 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 . The processor of part 2210 is used to perform processing-related processes performed by the network device 110 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 .

In another implementation, the processor of part 2210 is used to perform processing-related processes performed by the communication device in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 .

In another implementation, the transceiver module of part 2230 is used to perform transceiver-related processes performed by the communication device in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 .

It should be understood that FIG. 22 is only an example and not a limitation, and the network equipment including the processor, memory and transceiver mentioned above may not rely on the structure shown in FIGS. 16 to 21 .

When the communication device 2200 is a chip, the chip includes a transceiver, a memory, and a processor. The transceiver may be an input-output circuit or a communication interface; the processor may be a processor, a microprocessor, or an integrated circuit integrated on the chip. The sending operation of the network device 110 in the above method embodiment can be understood as the output of the chip, and the receiving operation of the network device 110 in the above method embodiment can be understood as the input of the chip.

It should be understood that the above-mentioned communication device may be one or more chips. For example, the communication device can be a field programmable gate array (FPGA), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a system on chip (SoC), or It can be a central processing unit (CPU), a network processor (NP), a digital signal processing circuit (DSP), or a microcontroller unit , MCU), it can also be a programmable logic device (PLD) or other integrated chip.

During the implementation process, each step of the above method can be completed by instructions in the form of hardware integrated logic circuits or software in the processor. The steps of the methods disclosed in conjunction with the embodiments of the present application can be directly implemented by a hardware processor for execution, or can be executed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the processor. The software module can be located in random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers and other mature storage media in this field. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory and completes the steps of the above method in combination with its hardware. To avoid repetition, it will not be described in detail here.

The processor in the embodiment of the present application may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capabilities. During the implementation process, each step of the above method embodiment can be completed through an integrated logic circuit of hardware in the processor or instructions in the form of software. The above-mentioned processor may be a general-purpose processor, DSP, ASIC, FPGA or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, or discrete hardware component. Each method, step and logical block diagram disclosed in the embodiment of this application can be implemented or executed. A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor, etc.

The steps of the method disclosed in conjunction with the embodiments of the present application can be directly implemented by a hardware decoding processor, or executed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software module can be located in random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers and other mature storage media in this field. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory and completes the steps of the above method in combination with its hardware.

It can be understood that the memory in the embodiment of the present application may be a volatile memory or a non-volatile memory, or may include both volatile and non-volatile memories. Among them, the non-volatile memory can be read-only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (erasable PROM, EPROM), electrically removable memory. Erase programmable read-only memory (electrically EPROM, EEPROM) or flash memory. Volatile memory can be random access Memory (random access memory, RAM), which is used as an external cache. By way of illustration, but not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (synchronous DRAM, SDRAM), double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (double data rate SDRAM, DDR SDRAM), enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory (enhanced SDRAM, ESDRAM), synchronous link dynamic random access memory (synchlink DRAM, SLDRAM) ) and direct memory bus random access memory (direct rambus RAM, DR RAM). It should be noted that the memory of the systems and methods described herein is intended to include, without limitation, these and any other suitable types of memory.

According to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the present application also provides a computer-readable medium. The computer-readable medium stores program code. When the program code is run on a computer, it causes the computer to execute the steps shown in Figure 3 or Figure 11. Example methods. For example, when the computer program is executed by a computer, the computer can implement the method executed by the network device in the above method embodiment, or the method executed by the relay device.

Embodiments of the present application also provide a computer program product containing instructions. When the instructions are executed by a computer, the computer implements the method executed by the network device or the method executed by the relay device in the above method embodiment.

Embodiments of the present application also provide a communication system. The communication system includes a network device and a relay device. The network device is used to implement the method performed by the network device in the above method embodiment. The relay device is used to implement the above method. Method performed by the relay device in the example.

For explanations of relevant content and beneficial effects in any of the communication devices provided above, please refer to the corresponding method embodiments provided above, and will not be described again here.

In the above embodiments, it may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented using software, it may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer instructions are loaded and executed on the computer, the processes or functions described in the embodiments of the present application are generated in whole or in part. The computer may be a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable device. The computer instructions may be stored in or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another, e.g., the computer instructions may be transferred from a website, computer, server or data The center transmits to another website's site, computer, server or data center through wired (such as coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital subscriber line (DSL)) or wireless (such as infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) means. The computer-readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server, data center, etc. that contains one or more available media integrated. The usable media may be magnetic media (e.g., floppy disks, hard disks, tapes), optical media (e.g., high-density digital video discs (DVD)), or semiconductor media (e.g., solid state disks, SSD)) etc.

The network equipment and relay equipment in each of the above apparatus embodiments correspond to the network equipment and relay equipment in the method embodiments, and the corresponding steps are performed by corresponding modules or units. For example, the communication unit (transceiver) performs the corresponding steps in the method embodiments. The step of receiving or sending, other steps except sending and receiving may be executed by the processing unit (processor). For the functions of specific units, please refer to the corresponding method embodiments. There can be one or more processors.

The terms "component", "module", "system", etc. used in this specification are used to refer to computer-related entities, hardware, firmware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to, a process, a processor, an object, an executable file, a thread of execution, a program and/or a computer running on a processor. Through the illustrations, both applications running on the computing device and the computing device may be components. One or more components can reside in a process and/or thread of execution and a component can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers. Additionally, these components can execute from various computer-readable media having various data structures stored thereon. A component may, for example, be based on a signal having one or more data packets (eg, data from two components interacting with another component, a local system, a distributed system, and/or a network, such as the Internet, which interacts with other systems via signals) Communicate through local and/or remote processes.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the units and algorithm steps of each example described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented with electronic hardware, or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are performed in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality using different methods for each specific application, but such implementations should not be considered beyond the scope of this application.

Those skilled in the art can clearly understand that for the convenience and simplicity of description, the specific working processes of the systems, devices and units described above can be referred to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and will not be described again here.

In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are only illustrative. For example, the division of the units is only a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods. For example, multiple units or components may be combined or can be integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored, or not implemented. On the other hand, the coupling or direct coupling or communication connection between each other shown or discussed may be through some interfaces, and the indirect coupling or communication connection of the devices or units may be in electrical, mechanical or other forms.

The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, and the components shown as units may or may not be physical units, that is, they may be located in one place, or they may be distributed to multiple network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application can be integrated into one processing unit, each unit can exist physically alone, or two or more units can be integrated into one unit.

If the functions are implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as independent products, they can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present application is essentially or contributes to the existing solution or part of the technical solution can be embodied in the form of a software product, and the computer software product is stored in a storage medium, It includes several instructions to cause a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the methods described in various embodiments of this application. The aforementioned storage media include: U disk, mobile hard disk, read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disk or optical disk and other media that can store program code. .

The above are only specific embodiments of the present application, but the protection scope of the present application is not limited thereto. Any person familiar with the technical field can easily think of changes or substitutions within the technical scope disclosed in the present application. should be covered by the protection scope of this application. Therefore, the protection scope of this application should be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

A beam management method, characterized by including:

The network device receives the first beam information sent by the relay device;

The network device determines a first beam set based on the first beam information and the second beam information. The beams in the first beam set are used by the relay device to forward the reference signal sent by the network device or terminal device. , the second beam information is reported by the relay device or preconfigured;

The network device sends first configuration information to the relay device, where the first configuration information is used to configure the first beam set.
The method of claim 1, further comprising:

The network device determines measurement information of the first beam set;

The network device sends second configuration information to the relay device, where the second configuration information is used to configure a second beam set, and the second beam set is determined by the network device based on the measurement information.
The method according to claim 2, characterized in that the network device determines the measurement information of the first beam set, including:

The network device sends at least one reference signal to the terminal device through the first beam set of the relay device;

The network device receives the measurement information forwarded by the relay device, and the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on the at least one reference signal forwarded by the relay device; or,

The network device receives at least one reference signal forwarded through the first beam set of the relay device, and the at least one reference signal is sent by a terminal device to the network device;

The network device determines the measurement information based on the at least one reference signal.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the first beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device, and the second beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device. Forward module information.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that,

The first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the network device;

The second beam information includes at least one of the following:

Quantity information of beams, quasi-co-location information of beams, coverage information of beams, relative relationship between beams, quantity information of beam sets, quasi-co-location information of beam sets, coverage information of beam sets, between beam sets The relative relationship, the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the weight, the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the beam, the antenna array information, the weight generation information, or the antenna information.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, and each first weight in the at least one first weight includes The first component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The method of claim 6, wherein each first weight further includes a second component, and the second component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.
The method according to any one of claims 2 to 7, characterized in that the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, and each second weight in the at least one second weight includes The third component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The method according to claim 8, characterized in that each of the second weights includes a fourth component, and the fourth component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that the first beam information corresponds to the first antenna of the relay device, and the second beam information corresponds to the relay device the second antenna.
A beam management method, characterized by including:

The relay device sends the first beam information to the network device;

The relay device receives the first configuration information sent by the network device, the first configuration information is used to configure a first beam set, and the beams in the first beam set are used by the relay device to forward the Reference signals sent by network equipment or terminal equipment,

The first beam set is determined by the network device based on the first beam information and the second beam information;

Wherein, the second beam information is reported by the relay device or preconfigured.
The method according to claim 11, characterized in that, the method further includes:

The relay device forwards at least one reference signal sent by the network device to the terminal device through the first beam set;

The relay device sends measurement information of the first beam set to the network device, where the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on the at least one reference signal.
The method according to claim 11 or 12, characterized in that, the method further includes:

The relay device forwards at least one reference signal sent by the terminal device to the network device through the first beam set, and the reference signal is used for measurement.
The method according to any one of claims 11 to 13, characterized in that the method further includes:

The relay device receives the second configuration information sent by the network device. The second configuration information is used to configure a second beam set. The second beam set is the configuration of the network device according to the first beam set. determined by measurement information.
The method according to any one of claims 11 to 14, characterized in that the first beam information corresponds to the first antenna of the relay device, and the second beam information corresponds to the relay device the second antenna.
The method according to any one of claims 11 to 15, wherein the first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the network device;

The second beam information includes at least one of the following:

Information about the number of beams,

quasi-co-location information for beams,

Beam coverage information,

relative relationship between beams,

Information about the number of beam sets,

Quasi-co-location information for beam sets,

coverage information of the beam set,

The relative relationship between beam sets,

The correspondence between beam index and weight,

The correspondence between beam index and beam,

antenna array information,

weight generation information, or,

Antenna information.
The method according to any one of claims 11 to 16, characterized in that the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, and each first weight in the at least one first weight includes The first component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The method according to claim 17, characterized in that each of the first weights further includes a second component, and the second component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.
The method according to any one of claims 11 to 18, characterized in that the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, and each second weight in the at least one second weight includes The third component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The method according to claim 19, characterized in that each of the second weights includes a fourth component, and the fourth component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.
A communication device, characterized by including:

A transceiver unit, configured to receive the first beam information sent by the relay device;

A processing unit configured to determine a first beam set according to the first beam information and the second beam information. The beams in the first beam set are used by the relay device to forward the reference sent by the communication device or terminal device. signal, the second beam information is reported or preconfigured by the relay device;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send first configuration information to the relay device, where the first configuration information is used to configure the first beam set.
The device according to claim 21, characterized in that:

The processing unit is also used to determine the measurement information of the first beam set;

The transceiver unit is also configured to send second configuration information to the relay device. The second configuration information is used to configure a second beam set. The second beam set is the communication device's configuration according to the measurement information. definite.
The device according to claim 22, characterized in that:

The transceiver unit is further configured to send at least one reference signal to the terminal device through the first beam set of the relay device;

The transceiver unit is also configured to receive measurement information forwarded by the relay device, where the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on the at least one reference signal forwarded by the relay device; or,

The transceiver unit is also configured to receive at least one reference signal forwarded through the first beam set of the relay device, where the at least one reference signal is sent by the terminal device to the communication device;

The processing unit is also configured to determine the measurement information according to the at least one reference signal.
The device according to any one of claims 21 to 23, characterized in that the first beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device, and the second beam information is determined by the control module of the relay device. Forward module information.
The device according to any one of claims 21 to 24, characterized in that:

The first beam information includes beam direction information between the relay device and the communication device;

The second beam information includes at least one of the following:

Quantity information of beams, quasi-co-location information of beams, coverage information of beams, relative relationship between beams, quantity information of beam sets, quasi-co-location information of beam sets, coverage information of beam sets, between beam sets The relative relationship, the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the weight, the corresponding relationship between the beam index and the beam, the antenna array information, the weight generation information, or the antenna information.
The device according to any one of claims 21 to 25, wherein the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, and each first weight in the at least one first weight includes The first component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The apparatus according to claim 26, wherein each first weight further includes a second component, and the second component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.
The device according to any one of claims 22 to 27, wherein the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, and each of the at least one second weight includes The third component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The apparatus according to claim 28, wherein each second weight value includes a fourth component, and the fourth component is used to indicate an access link beam of the relay device.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 21 to 29, wherein the first beam information corresponds to the first antenna of the relay device, and the second beam information corresponds to the relay device. the second antenna.
A communication device, characterized by including:

A transceiver unit, used to send the first beam information to the network device;

The transceiver unit is also configured to receive first configuration information sent by the network device. The first configuration information is used to configure a first beam set, and the beams in the first beam set are used for forwarding by the communication device. The reference signal sent by the network device or terminal device,

The first beam set is determined by the network device based on the first beam information and the second beam information;

Wherein, the second beam information is reported or preconfigured by the communication device.
The device according to claim 31, characterized in that:

The transceiver unit is further configured to forward at least one reference signal sent by the network device to the terminal device through the first beam set;

The transceiver unit is further configured to send measurement information of the first beam set to the network device, where the measurement information is determined by the terminal device based on the at least one reference signal.
The device according to claim 31 or 32, characterized in that:

The transceiver unit is further configured to forward at least one reference signal sent by the terminal device to the network device through the first beam set, where the reference signal is used for measurement.
The device according to any one of claims 31 to 33, characterized in that:

The transceiver unit is also configured to receive second configuration information sent by the network device. The second configuration information is used to configure a second beam set. The second beam set is the network device according to the first beam set. Determined by the measurement information of the beam set.
The device according to any one of claims 31 to 34, wherein the first beam information corresponds to a first antenna of the communication device, and the second beam information corresponds to a third antenna of the communication device. Two antennas.
The device according to any one of claims 31 to 35, wherein the first beam information includes beam direction information between the communication device and the network device;

The second beam information includes at least one of the following:

Information about the number of beams,

quasi-co-location information for beams,

Beam coverage information,

relative relationship between beams,

Information about the number of beam sets,

Quasi-co-location information for beam sets,

coverage information of the beam set,

The relative relationship between beam sets,

The correspondence between beam index and weight,

The correspondence between beam index and beam,

antenna array information,

weight generation information, or,

Antenna information.
The device according to any one of claims 31 to 36, wherein the first configuration information includes at least one first weight, and each first weight in the at least one first weight includes The first component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the relay device.
The apparatus of claim 37, wherein each of the first weights further includes a second component, the second component being used to indicate an access link beam of the communication apparatus.
The device according to any one of claims 31 to 38, wherein the second configuration information includes at least one second weight, and each of the at least one second weight includes The third component is used to indicate the backhaul link beam of the communication device.
The apparatus of claim 39, wherein each of the second weights includes a fourth component, the fourth component being used to indicate an access link beam of the communication apparatus.
A communication device, characterized in that it includes a processor and a memory, the processor is coupled to the memory, the memory stores instructions, and when the instructions are run by the processor,

The processor is caused to perform the method described in any one of claims 1-10; or, the processor is caused to perform the method described in any one of claims 11-20.
A communication device, characterized by comprising a processor, the processor being used to perform the method according to any one of claims 1-10; or, the processor being used to perform any one of claims 11-20 the method described.
A communication device, characterized by comprising a logic circuit and an input/output interface, the logic circuit being used to couple with the input/output interface and transmit data through the input/output interface,

To perform the method described in any one of claims 1-10; or, to perform the method described in any one of claims 11-20.
A communication device, characterized in that it includes a transceiver unit and a processing unit, and the transceiver unit and the processing unit are used to perform the method described in any one of claims 1-10; or, used to perform the claim The method described in any one of 11-20.
A communication system, characterized in that the communication system includes network equipment and relay equipment,

The network device is used to perform the method described in any one of claims 1-10;

The relay device is used to perform the method described in any one of claims 11-20.
A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that it includes a computer program or instructions that, when the computer program or instructions are run on a computer, cause the method described in any one of claims 1-10 to be executed; Or, the method described in any one of claims 11-20 is performed.