Measurement reporting

Abstract

One or more measurements of a positioning reference signal (PRS) is performed (1010, figure 10) by a first apparatus 202 (operating as a terminal device, UE 110, or a base station, gNB 120). The first apparatus obtains (1020), based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates 215 of a power delay profile (PDP), or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response (CIR). The first apparatus performs (1030) differential quantization 220 for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates. Then, the first apparatus transmits (1040), via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages, to a second apparatus 204 (operating as a location server, LMF 130), a measurement report 225 including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the PDP or quantized second estimates of the CIR. The UE may measure received DL PRS signals, or the gNB may measure received UL PRS signals, and estimate PDP or CIR. The container to encapsulate the CIR / PDP is not limited to RSRPP, and may be other reporting messages. The second apparatus 204 may perform 235 differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates, and then construct 240 at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential dequantization.

Description

FIELDS

[0001] Various example embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field of telecommunication and in particular, to apparatuses, methods, and computer readable storage medium for measurement reporting. BACKGROUND

[0002] In the third generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, there is a study on artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML) for new radio (NR) air interface (Release 18). In the study, for direct AI / ML positioning, type of measurement(s) as model inference input considers performance impact and associated signalling overhead. For example, existing measurements include reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) and reference signal time difference (RSTD). For AI / ML assisted positioning with user equipment (UE)-assisted and Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN) node assisted positioning, measurement report carries model output to location management function (LMF). For example, existing measurement reports include RSTD, line-of-sight (LOS) / non(N) LOS indicator and RSRPP. The LMF may request a UE or a gNB to share model input (such as measurements of a positioning reference signal) for performance monitoring purpose. SUMMARY

[0003] In a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to: perform one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal; obtain, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response; perform differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; and transmit, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0004] In a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to: receive, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response; perform differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; and construct at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential de-quantization.

[0005] In a third aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: performing one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal; obtaining, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response; performing differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; and transmitting, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0006] In a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method. The method comprises: receiving, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response; performing differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; and constructing at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential de-quantization.

[0007] In a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a first apparatus. The first apparatus comprises means for performing one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal; means for obtaining, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response; means for performing differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; and means for transmitting, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0008] In a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a second apparatus. The second apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response; means for performing differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; and means for constructing at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential dequantization.

[0009] In a seventh aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium comprises instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus to perform at least the method according to the third or fourth aspect.

[0010] It is to be understood that the Summary section is not intended to identify key or essential features of embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will become easily comprehensible through the following description. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] Some example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, where:

[0012] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented;

[0013] FIG. 2 illustrates a signaling diagram for measurement report according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0014] FIG. 3A illustrates example 1 of a PDP signal quantized according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0015] FIG. 3B illustrates example 1 of a PDP signal quantized according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0016] FIG. 3C illustrates example 2 of a PDP signal quantized according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0017] FIG. 3D illustrates example 2 of a PDP signal quantized according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0018] FIG. 4 illustrates an example diagram of reporting the delay of the starting point in PDP reporting;

[0019] FIG. 5 illustrates an example diagram of reporting both the delay and the delta for differential quantization in PDP reporting;

[0020] FIG. 6 illustrates an example diagram of reporting the value of the starting point in PDP profile;

[0021] FIG. 7 illustrates an example diagram of using a plurality of RSRPPs to report the PDP;

[0022] FIG. 8A illustrates an example diagram 800 of measured CIR from DL PRS according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0023] FIG. 8B illustrates an example diagram 850 of measured CIR from DL PRS according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0024] FIG. 9 illustrates a flowchart of an example process 900 of measurement report in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure

[0025] FIG. 10 illustrates a flowchart of a method 1000 implemented at a first apparatus according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0026] FIG. 11 illustrates a flowchart of a method 1100 implemented at a second apparatus according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure;

[0027] FIG. 12 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a device that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure; and

[0028] FIG. 13 illustrates a block diagram of an example computer readable medium in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0029] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar element. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0030] Principle of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to some example embodiments. It is to be understood that these embodiments are described only for the purpose of illustration and help those skilled in the art to understand and implement the present disclosure, without suggesting any limitation as to the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments described herein can be implemented in various manners other than the ones described below.

[0031] In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skills in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

[0032] References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an example embodiment,” and the like indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but it is not necessary that every embodiment includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

[0033] It shall be understood that although the terms “first,” “second,”..., etc. in front of noun(s) and the like may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another and they do not limit the order of the noun(s). For example, a first element could be termed a second element, and similarly, a second element could be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term “and / or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed terms.

[0034] As used herein, “at least one of the following: ” and “at least one of ” and similar wording, where the list of two or more elements are joined by “and” or “or”, mean at least any one of the elements, or at least any two or more of the elements, or at least all the elements.

[0035] As used herein, unless stated explicitly, performing a step “in response to A” does not indicate that the step is performed immediately after “A” occurs and one or more intervening steps may be included.

[0036] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the 5 terms “comprises”, “comprising”, “has”, “having”, “includes” and / or “including”, when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and / or components etc., but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components and / or combinations thereof.

[0037] As used in this application, the term “circuitry” may refer to one or more or all 10 of the following: (a) hardware-only circuit implementations (such as implementations in only analog and / or digital circuitry) and (b) combinations of hardware circuits and software, such as (as applicable): (i) a combination of analog and / or digital hardware circuit(s) with software / firmware and (ii) any portions of hardware processor(s) with software (including digital signal processor(s)), software, and memory(ies) that work together to cause an apparatus, such as a mobile phone or server, to perform various functions) and (c) hardware circuit(s) and or processor(s), such as a microprocessor(s) or a portion of a microprocessor(s), that requires software (e.g., firmware) for operation, but the software may not be present when it is not needed for operation.

[0038] This definition of circuitry applies to all uses of this term in this application, including in any claims. As a further example, as used in this application, the term circuitry also covers an implementation of merely a hardware circuit or processor (or multiple processors) or portion of a hardware circuit or processor and its (or their) 15 accompanying software and / or firmware. The term circuitry also covers, for example and if applicable to the particular claim element, a baseband integrated circuit or processor integrated circuit for a mobile device or a similar integrated circuit in server, a cellular network device, or other computing or network device.

[0039] As used herein, the term “communication network” refers to a network following any suitable communication standards, such as New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and so on. Furthermore, the communications between a terminal device and a network device in the communication network may be performed according to any suitable generation communication protocols, including, but not limited to, the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G) communication protocols, and / or any other protocols either currently known or to be developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied in various communication systems. Given the rapid development in communications, there will of course also be future type communication technologies and systems with which the present disclosure may be embodied. It should not be seen as limiting the scope of the present disclosure to only the aforementioned system.

[0040] As used herein, the term “network device” refers to a node in a communication network via which a terminal device accesses the network and receives services therefrom. The network device may refer to a base station (BS) or an access point (AP), for example, a node B (NodeB or NB), an evolved NodeB (eNodeB or eNB), an NR NB (also referred to as a gNB), a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), a radio header (RH), a remote radio head (RRH), a relay, an Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) node, a low power node such as a femto, a pico, a non-terrestrial network (NTN) or non-ground network device such as a satellite network device, a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite and a geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellite, an aircraft network device, and so forth, depending on the applied terminology and technology. In some example embodiments, radio access network (RAN) split architecture comprises a Centralized Unit (CU) and a Distributed Unit (DU) at an IAB donor node. An IAB node comprises a Mobile Terminal (IAB-MT) part that behaves like a UE toward the parent node, and a DU part of an IAB node behaves like a base station toward the next-hop IAB node.

[0041] The term “terminal device” refers to any end device that may be capable of wireless communication. By way of example rather than limitation, a terminal device may also be referred to as a communication device, user equipment (UE), a Subscriber Station (SS), a Portable Subscriber Station, a Mobile Station (MS), or an Access Terminal (AT). The terminal device may include, but not limited to, a mobile phone, a cellular phone, a smart phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, a tablet, a wearable terminal device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), portable computers, desktop computer, image capture terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback appliances, vehicle-mounted wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE), an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and / or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and / or an automated processing chain contexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and / or industrial wireless networks, and the like. The terminal device may also correspond to a Mobile Termination (MT) part of an IAB node (e.g., a relay node). In the following description, the terms “terminal device”, “communication device”, “terminal”, “user equipment” and “UE” may be used interchangeably.

[0042] As used herein, the term “resource,” “transmission resource,” “resource block,” “physical resource block” (PRB), “uplink resource,” or “downlink resource” may refer to any resource for performing a communication, for example, a communication between a terminal device and a network device, such as a resource in time domain, a resource in frequency domain, a resource in space domain, a resource in code domain, or any other combination of the time, frequency, space and / or code domain resource enabling a communication, and the like. In the following, unless explicitly stated, a resource in both frequency domain and time domain will be used as an example of a transmission resource for describing some example embodiments of the present disclosure. It is noted that example embodiments of the present disclosure are equally applicable to other resources in other domains.

[0043] As briefly mentioned above, type of measurement(s) as model inference input considers signalling overhead. For the evaluation of direct AI / ML positioning, with Nt consecutive time domain samples used as model input, evaluation results show that when channel impulse response (CIR), power delay profile (PDP), or delay profile (DP) is used as model input, using different Nt while holding other parameters the same, reducing Nt from 256 to 128 does not appreciably degrade the positioning accuracy, while the measurement size and signalling overhead shrink to (approximately) 1 / 2 that of Nt=256. Positioning error of Nt=128 is 0.81 - 1.19 times the positioning error of Nt=256.

[0044] Reducing Nt from 256 to 64-32 may degrade the positioning accuracy, while the measurement size and signalling overhead shrink to (approximately) 1 / 4 -1 / 8 that of Nt=256 respectively. Positioning error of Nt=64 is 0.88 ~ 3.00 times the positioning error of Nt=256 and positioning error of Nt=32 is 1.05 - 4.29 times the positioning error of Nt=256.

[0045] For the evaluation of direct AI / ML positioning, when N't time domain samples with the strongest power are selected as model input, evaluation results show that for model input of CIR or PDP and Nt=256, using different N't while holding other parameters constant, reducing N't from 256 to 64 does not appreciably degrade the positioning accuracy, while the measurement size and signalling overhead shrink to (approximately) 1 / 4 that of Nt=N't=256. Positioning error of N't=128 is 1.02 - 1.07 times the positioning error of Nt=N't=256 and positioning error of N't=64 is 1.02 - 1.21 times the positioning error of Nt=N't=256.

[0046] Reducing N't from 256 to 32-16 degrade the positioning accuracy, while the measurement size and signalling overhead shrink to (approximately) 1 / 8 - 1 / 16 that of Nt=N't=256. Positioning error of N't=32 is 1.14 - 2.03 times the positioning error of Nt=N't=256 and positioning error of N't=16 is 1.12 - 2.54 times the positioning error of Nt=N't=256.

[0047] Reducing N't from 256 to 9-8 degrade the positioning accuracy, while the measurement size and signalling overhead shrink to (approximately) 1 / 32 that of Nt=N't=256. Positioning error of N't=9~8 is 1.42 - 3.29 times the positioning error of Nt=N't=256.

[0048] In RSRPP definition in 3GPP standards, downlink (DL) positioning reference signal (PRS) reference signal received path power (RSRPP) is defined as the power of the linear average of the channel response at the i-th path delay of the resource elements that carry DL PRS signal configured for the measurement, where DL PRS-RSRPP for the 1st path delay is the power contribution corresponding to the first detected path in time.

[0049] For frequency range 1, the reference point for the DL PRS-RSRPP shall be the antenna connector of the UE. For frequency range 2, DL PRS-RSRPP shall be measured based on the combined signal from antenna elements corresponding to a given receiver branch.

[0050] For frequency range 1 and 2, if receiver diversity is in use by the UE for DL PRS-RSRPP measurements, the reported DL PRS-RSRPP value included in the higher layer parameter NR-DL-AoD-MeasElement for the first and additional measurements shall be provided for the same receiver branch(es) as applied for DL PRS-RSRP measurements.

[0051] Furthermore, DL PRS-RSRPP is applicable for RRCCONNECTED, RRCINACTIVE and RRC IDLE.

[0052] Multipath propagation may reduce the localization accuracy. That is because, traditionally, only the LOS path is measured and exploited for triangulating the UE location. When multipath occurs, LOS path identification is not a straightforward task anymore, and it is often the case that another NLOS reflection is misidentified as LOS (due to limited sampling resolution, noise in the system, attenuators that reduce the LOS path power, etc.). To prevent this from happening, all significant paths may be measured and exploited to localize the target UE. This approach however comes at an additional overhead and latency costs: reporting complex gain, delay, phase of each detected path and each transmission reception point (TRP) makes the LTE positioning protocol (LPP) messages large, and require both numerous physical layer frequency resources and time-staggered transmissions.

[0053] To reduce the overhead, binary DP may be reported, instead of the full multipath information, i.e., for each sampling bin, report a “1” if a path was detected in the respective bin, and “0” otherwise. While this indeed reduces the signalling overhead, it also removes essential information about each path and makes it hard to identify which of the paths is LOS and which is a reflection, and which of the paths are dominant and which are negligible or even spurious (because of reception artifacts, limited bandwidth, etc.). Therefore, the problem targeted herein is how to report all relevant channel paths with minimal overhead while ensuring that the AI / ML positioning accuracy targets are achieved.

[0054] Example embodiments of the present disclosure propose a measurement report solution. In this solution, one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal (PRS) is performed by a first apparatus. The first apparatus obtains, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a PDP, or a set of second estimates of a CIR. The first apparatus performs differential quantization for at least one of a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates. Then, the first apparatus transmits, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the PDP or quantized second estimates of the CIR. Based on the received measurement, the second apparatus performs differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates. After that, the second apparatus constructs at least one of the PDP or the CIR based on at least the differential de-quantization.

[0055] In this way, the estimates of PDP or CIR may be quantized with differential quantization by the first apparatus and a measurement report including the quantized estimates may be sent to the second apparatus, thereby reducing the overhead of the measurement report.

[0056] FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication environment 100 in which example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented.

[0057] The communication environment 100 includes a terminal device 110 such as a UE. The terminal device 110 may communicate with a base station 120 such as a gNB. The base station 120 may serve one or more cells and / or manage one or more transmission reception points (TRPs) where one cell or TRP may enable one or more beams.

[0058] The communication environment 100 further includes a location server 130 (also called a location device) such as an LMF. The terminal device 110 may communicate with the location server 130 via the base station 120. The location server 130 may provide positioning-related services to the first apparatus 202. The location server 130 may be implemented by a physical or virtual device. The location server 130 may be implemented as a hardware, firmware, and / or algorithm-based software component within any of the network nodes (such as the terminal device, the base station, and / or the like). In some example embodiments, the location server 130 may be physically integrated into or implemented as a part of the base station 120 or a core network device.

[0059] It is to be understood that the number and types of devices are shown in FIG. 1 for the purpose of illustration without suggesting any limitation. For example, only for illustration, the location server 130 is shown to be physically separate from the base station 120. In some example embodiments, the location server 130 may be collocated with the base station 120 or physically integrated into or implemented as a part of the base station 120.

[0060] In some example embodiments, a link from the location server 130 or the base station 120 to the first apparatus 202 may be referred to as a DL, and a link from the first apparatus 202 to the location server 130 or the base station 120 may be referred to as an uplink (UL). In DL, the location server 130 or the base station 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or a transmitter) and the first apparatus 202 is a receiving (RX) device (or a receiver). In UL, the first apparatus 202 is a TX device (or a transmitter) and the location server 130 or the base station 120 is an RX device (or a receiver).

[0061] Communications in the communication environment 100 may be implemented according to any proper communication protocol(s), comprising, but not limited to, cellular communication protocols of the first generation (1G), the second generation (2G), the third generation (3G), the fourth generation (4G), the fifth generation (5G), the sixth generation (6G), and the like, wireless local network communication protocols such as Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 and the like, and / or any other protocols currently known or to be developed in the future. Moreover, the communication may utilize any proper wireless communication technology, comprising but not limited to: Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), Time Division Duplex (TDD), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple (OFDM), Discrete Fourier Transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) and / or any other technologies currently known or to be developed in the future.

[0062] Some example embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for assisting the UE (as an example of the terminal device 110) to extract relevant AI / ML positioning measurements, e.g., truncated PDP, CIR, and quantize said measurements, to ensure a low overhead measurement report is sent over the air back to the LMF (as an example of the location server 130). Some example implementations will be described below with reference to FIG. 2.

[0063] FIG. 2 illustrates a signaling diagram 200 for measurement report according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The signaling diagram 200 involves a first apparatus 202 and a second apparatus 204. The first apparatus 202 may operate as the terminal device 110 or the base station 120 in FIG. 1, and the second apparatus 204 may operate as the location server 130 in FIG. 1.

[0064] For purpose of discussion, some example embodiments are described where the first apparatus 202 is implemented as a terminal device or a base station and the second apparatus 204 is implemented as a location server, such as an LMF.

[0065] As shown in FIG. 2, the first apparatus 202 performs (210) one or more measurements of a PRS. After performing (210) the one or more measurements, the first apparatus 202 obtain (215), based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a PDP, or a set of second estimates of a CIR. In an example, the UE may measure the received DL PRS signals and estimates PDP or CIR. In another example, the gNB may measure the received UL PRS signals and estimates PDP or CIR. Therefore, the set of first estimates of the PDP, or the set of second estimates of the CIR may be obtained.

[0066] The first apparatus 202 performs (220) differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates.

[0067] The first apparatus 202 transmits (225) a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response. The second apparatus 204 may receive (230) the measurement report.

[0068] In some example embodiments, the measurement report may be transmitted via a plurality of RSRPP messages. It is to be noted that the container to encapsulate the CIR / PDP may not be limited to RSRPP, a similar approach may be applied to other reporting messages.

[0069] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus 204 may transmit (206), to the first apparatus 202, a configuration of the measurement report. Correspondingly, the first apparatus 202 may receive (208) this configuration from the second apparatus 204. The configuration of the measurement report may indicate a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report. In an example, the LMF may configure the UE to report N RSRPP measurements which the UE may extract from CIR or PDP estimates. N may be any positive number. In some example embodiments, N may be greater than 9.

[0070] Alternatively, or in addition, the configuration of the measurement report may indicate a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported PDP or a reported CIR. In an example, the second apparatus 204 also configures a minimum percentage M of channel energy that the N RSRPP measurements should capture. This is important to ensure that the N RSRPP measurements are correspond to the most relevant paths, and do not in fact capture outliers / spurs resulting from the estimation process.

[0071] Alternatively, or in addition, the configuration of the measurement report may indicate a differential quantization report being enabled and the differential quantization may be performed on the configuration. In this way, the LMF may decode the received measurement report with the differential quantization approach.

[0072] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the measurement report may be included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus 204. For example, the positioning assistance data is LPP assistance data.

[0073] In some example embodiments, the set of second estimates of the CIR may include a set of power estimates of the CIR and the subset of second estimates for the differential quantization may comprise a subset of power estimates from the set of power estimates.

[0074] In some example embodiments, the measurement report may include at least of one of a sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, or a sequence of bits to indicate differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response. The absolute PRS-RSRPP measurement reporting may use 7 bits to report power of a path from -156 dBm to -31 dBm with 1 dB resolution. To support reporting the measured PDP in AI / ML positioning (from UE to network (NW) or LMF), embodiments of the present disclosure propose to reuse the PRS-RSRPP signalling for this objective. In this solution, a UE shares a sequence of bits for differential quantization of following taps in PDP.

[0075] In some example embodiments, the measurement report may further include at least one of delay of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the PDP or the quantized power estimates of the CIR, or at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate. In an example, the delay and value of a PDP tap and differential quantization for the following taps may be reported. Delay of the starting point for quantizing or reporting PDP and value of the starting point for quantizing or reporting PDP may be shared by the UE or gNB.

[0076] Alternatively, or in addition, the measurement report may further include one or more increments for the differential quantization. In an example, delta (i.e., increments) (in dB) for differential quantization may be shared by the UE or gNB (as an example of the first apparatus 202) or configured by the LMF (as an example of the second apparatus 204).

[0077] Therefore, the main goal of the proposed quantization and reporting framework is to share the most important part of the PDP or CIR signal with minimum overhead.

[0078] FIG. 3A illustrates example 1 of a PDP signal quantized according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. In example 1, delta equals to 4dB and 32 non-zero elements are reported. As illustrated, curve 310 represents measured PDP in dBm and curve 315 represents reported PDP with differential quantization scheme in dBm. According to curve 315, the UE may share PDP from starting point 318 (which is tap 25) up to tap (time sample) 56, which may reduce the signalling overhead by only sharing the part that have most energy or information.

[0079] FIG. 3B illustrates example 1 of a PDP signal quantized according to some other example embodiments of the present disclosure. As illustrated, curve 320 represents measured PDP in mW and curve 325 represents reported PDP with differential quantization scheme in mW. According to curve 325, the UE may share PDP from starting point 328 (i.e., tap 25) up to tap 56, which may reduce the signalling overhead by only sharing the part that have most energy or information.

[0080] FIG. 3C illustrates example 2 of a PDP signal quantized according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. Example 2 has with more NLOS paths compared to example 1 and in example 2, delta equals to 4dB and 64 non-zero elements are reported. As illustrated, curve 330 represents measured PDP in dBm and curve 335 represents reported PDP with differential quantization scheme in dBm. According to curve 335, the UE may share PDP from starting point 338 (i.e., tap 18) up to tap 81, which may reduce the signalling overhead by only sharing the part that have most energy or information.

[0081] FIG. 3D illustrates example 2 of a PDP signal quantized according to some other example embodiments of the present disclosure. In example 2, delta equals to 4dB and 64 non-zero elements are reported. As illustrated, curve 340 represents measured PDP in mW and curve 345 represents reported PDP with differential quantization scheme in mW. According to curve 345, the UE may share PDP from starting point 348 (i.e., tap 18) up to tap 81, which may reduce the signalling overhead by only sharing the part that have most energy or information.

[0082] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus 202 may perform the differential quantization by applying the plurality of increments according to multi-level increment setting. To reduce the quantization error, embodiments of the present disclosure may consider multi-level delta setting for the differential quantization. In an example, the plurality of increments may have two levels which are plus delta and minus delta. The signal value (in dB or linear scale) may be changed by increasing or decreasing with the delta. In another example, the plurality of increments may have four levels which are plus deltal, minus deltal, plus delta_2, and minus delta_2. The signal value (in dB or linear scale) may be changed by increasing or decreasing with the delta l or delta_2.

[0083] In some example embodiments, a first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate. For example, the delay may be indicated by a delay tap index. The delay of the starting point in reporting PDP may be described with reference to FIG. 4, which illustrates an example diagram 400 of reporting the delay of the starting point in PDP reporting. As illustrated, an RSRPP signalling with 7 bits (i.e., RSRPP 0 410, as an example of the first RSRPP message) is used to indicate the delay (tap index) of the starting point in reporting PDP. RSRPP 0 410 may determine the location (delay) of the starting point in PDP as a tap index (0, 1, 2, ..., 127). Here by using all the 7 bits for delay(tap) indication, any delay between 0 to 127 may be selected, which guarantees supporting different PDP profiles.

[0084] In some example embodiments, the first RSRPP message may further indicate the one or more increments for the differential quantization. By way of example, the one or more increments for the differential quantization may be indicated using a table and the table may store mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization. The first RSRPP (i.e., RSRPP 0 410) may be used indicating both the delay and the delta for differential quantization by assigning 6 bits to report the delay and 1 bit to indicate the quantization delta (also referred to as increment) from a look-up table. FIG. 5 illustrates an example diagram 500 of reporting both the delay and the delta for differential quantization in PDP reporting. As illustrated, bg 510 may use Ibit to determine the delta for differential quantization (2 dB, 4 dB) and b® 520 to b® 530 may determine the initial skip for reporting PDP based on the taps (0, 1, ..., 63).

[0085] In some example embodiments, a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages may indicate the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate. The value of the starting point in reporting PDP may be described with reference to FIG. 6, which illustrates an example diagram 600 of reporting the value of the starting point in PDP profile. As illustrated, the second RSRPP signalling (i.e., RSRPP 1 610) is used for indicating the power value of the indicated starting point.

[0086] In some example embodiments, the value of the received signal power may be indicated using a table and the table may store mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power. In an example, for reporting this value, the legacy solution may be reused with look-up table which supports -156 dBm to -31 dBm with 1 dB resolution.

[0087] In some example embodiments, one or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages may indicate the quantized first estimates of the PDP or the quantized power estimates of the CIR. Based on the standardized or selected delta for differential quantization, the UE obtains a bit sequence for part of the following taps in the PDP. The UE may report more taps by reporting more RSRPPs (7 bits per RSRPP for reporting quantization state of 7 taps). FIG. 7 illustrates an example diagram 700 of using a plurality of RSRPPs to report the PDP. As illustrated, the UE may use Z-l RSRPPs (i.e., from RSRPP 2 710-1 to RSRPP Z 710-Z, where Z represents an integer) to report the PDP for the 7(Z-1) taps using the differential quantization approach. In an example, the bit sequence may be split into several segments. If the bit sequence includes 42 bits, then the bit sequence may be split into 6 segments.

[0088] It is to be noted that selection of starting point for reporting PDP, delta of the differential quantization scheme, and the number of reported RSRPPs (Z+l) by the UE, depends on the requested M and N by LMF as the minimum percentage of channel energy in the reported PDP and the maximum allowed number of RSRPPs. Therefore, UE or gNB vendors may find an optimal selection to share more information from the measure PDP while minimizing the overhead (number of RSRPP reports).

[0089] It is also to be noted that for the unreported taps in the PDP report, LMF may consider a low value (e.g, -120 dBm) or an agreed value between LMF and UE (or agreed in the standard).

[0090] The overhead of the proposed framework for the measurement report may be reduced compared to a conventional approach. In an example, consider a PDP of a TRP is measured by a UE with Nt = 256 taps (the most common value in 3GPP). Assume of the PDP taps needs to be reported to cover the requested M% energy of the channel energy. Here, the overhead of sharing may be compared with the following reporting alternatives.

[0091] In alternative 1, the delay and value of all the taps in PDP may be shared. It is to be noted that for sharing the delay of a tap, log2 Nt = 8 bits are required. 7 bits may be considered to report the value of a tap. Thus, in total, 15 bits is required to report the delay and value of a tap. Therefore, reporting taps requires 15 bits.

[0092] In alternative 2, three parts may be included with total bit overhead of 1 + [log2 N[] + N( x 8 bits. In Part 1, 1 bit is used to indicate that whether this CIR is a zero vector. In Part 2, if not a zero vector, report the positions of the non-zero elements within CIR. In Part 3, if not a zero vector, report the values of the non-zero elements within CIR.

[0093] In the proposed framework, reporting the delay and value of the first PDP tap requires in total 14 bits (2 RSRPPs), then 7 X [(At' — 1) / 7] bits are needed to report the quantized values for the following N^-l taps.

[0094] Comparison of the overhead (in terms of the number of required bits) by the proposed framework and two other alternatives for quantizing PDP with Nt = 256 taps is shown in table 1 as follows: Table 1 Ni Alt 1 Alt 2 Proposed Framework 15 225 bits 125 bits 28 bits 32 480 bits 262 bits 49 bits 64 960 bits 519 bits 77 bits 127 2005 bits 1024 bits 140 bits

[0095] As shown in table 1, the proposed framework based on a differential quantization approach has less overhead than the other two alternatives. It is to be noted that reporting even DP requires Nt = 256 bits. Therefore, the proposed framework offers significantly less overhead than the simple DP reporting. Definitely, the proposed framework can be applied to DP to reduce the reporting overhead with the techniques explained in embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0096] In some example embodiments, the delay, magnitude, and phase value of a C1R tap and differential quantization for the following taps may be reported. As the in-phase and quadrature components of CIR can take negative values, it is not straightforward to use the look-up table available for RSRPP reports (which are in dBm). Therefore, to report CIR samples, embodiments of the present disclosure propose to report power and phase of CIR samples.

[0097] FIG. 8A illustrates an example diagram 800 of measured CIR from DL PRS according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. As illustrated, the CIR is represented as absolute power. Reporting power of CIR samples can be done similar to the method of reporting PDP in the above embodiments.

[0098] In some example embodiments, the set of second estimates of the CIR may further include a set of phase estimates of the CIR. The first apparatus 202 may perform uniform or non-uniform quantization for a subset of phase estimates from the set of phase estimates and the measurement report may further include uniformly or non-uniformly quantized phase estimates of the CIR. FIG. 8B illustrates an example diagram 850 of measured CIR from DL PRS according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. As illustrated, the CIR is represented as phase. To report phase of N[ taps (out of Nt taps), embodiments of present disclosure propose to use a uniform quantization in range [—n,n) with k bits. For example, for k=3, the codebook for CIR phase quantization is {-7T, ^n / ^, n / ^> W / 2' Using uniform quantization for CIR phase means that for reporting the phases of taps, k x bits are needed.

[0099] The overhead of the proposed framework for the measurement report may be reduced compared to a conventional approach. In an example, consider a PDP of a TRP is measured by a UE with Nt = 256 taps (the most common value in 3GPP). Assume of the PDP taps needs to be reported to cover the requested M% energy of the channel energy. Here, the overhead of sharing may be compared with the following reporting alternatives.

[0100] In alternative 1, the delay and value of the real and imaginary parts of all the Nf taps in CIR may be shared. It is to be note that for sharing the delay of a tap, log2 Nt = 8 bits are required. 2x8 bits may be considered to report the real and imaginary values of a tap (to report the values of the real or imaginary part, consider 1 bit for the sign of the value, and 7 bits for the absolute value). Thus, in total, 24 bits is required to report the delay and real and imaginary values of a tap. Therefore, reporting taps requires 24 bits.

[0101] In alternative 2, three parts may be included with total bit overhead of 1 + [log2 N^] + N’ X 16 bits for quantizing complex numbers in CIR.

[0102] In the proposed framework, reporting the delay and power value of the first CIR tap requires in total 14 bits (2 RSRPPs), then 7 x [(7Vt' — 1 + k x N[) / 7] bits are needed to report the quantized power values for the following — 1 taps and phases of all the Nf taps.

[0103] Comparison of the overhead (in terms of the number of required bits) by the proposed framework and two other alternatives for quantizing CIR with Nt = 256 taps is shown in table 2 as follows: Table 2 N{ Alt 1 Alt 2 Proposed Framework 15 360 bits 245 bits 77 bits 32 768 bits 518 bits 147 bits 64 1536 bits 1031 bits 273 bits 127 3048 bits 2040 bits 525 bits

[0104] As shown in table 2, the proposed framework (with k=3) has less overhead than the other two alternatives. It is to be noted that reporting even DP requires Nt = 256 bits. Therefore, the proposed framework offers similar overhead for reporting CIR samples to the overhead of the simple DP reporting.

[0105] Still referring to FIG. 2, the second apparatus 204 may perform (235) differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates.

[0106] After that, the second apparatus 204 may construct (240) at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential dequantization.

[0107] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus may comprise a terminal device or a base station, and the second apparatus may comprise a location server.

[0108] An example measurement report process will be described in detail below with reference to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 illustrates a flowchart of an example process 900 of measurement report in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0109] As shown in FIG. 9, in the process 900, at 910, an LMF (as an example of the second apparatus 204) requests an UE (as an example of the first apparatus 202) to share the measured CIR or PDP using up to N RSRPP signallings. In some example embodiments, the N may be greater than 9. It is to be noted that the container to encapsulate the CIR / PDP may not be limited to RSRPP, a similar approach may be applied to other reporting messages.

[0110] At 910, the LMF also shares M, to indicate the minimum percentage of the channel energy that the reported CIR or PDP should contain.

[0111] At 920, a gNB transmits DL RPS signals from Ntrp TRPS to the UE. In some example embodiments, the DL RPS signals may be configured by the LMF.

[0112] At 930, the UE measures the received DL PRS signals and extract CIR or PDP signals.

[0113] At 940, the UE quantizes the PDP and CIR signals using differential quantization and reports the quantized CIR / PDP using up to N RSRPPs. In some example embodiments, the measurement report may include at least one of: a sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, or a sequence of bits to indicate differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0114] At 950, the LMF reconstructs the CIR or PDP using the received reports and following differential de-quantization. In an example, the LMF may decode the measurement report with the differential quantization approach.

[0115] It is to be understood a similar procedure to the procedure 900 may be applied for reporting measured PDP (based on the measured UL PRS), from a base station to an LMF.

[0116] FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of an example method 1000 implemented at a first apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 1000 will be described from the perspective of the first apparatus 202 in FIG. 1.

[0117] At block 1010, the first apparatus 202 performs one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal;

[0118] At block 1020, the first apparatus 202 obtains, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response;

[0119] At block 1030, the first apparatus 202 performs differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; and

[0120] At block 1040, the first apparatus 202 transmits, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0121] In some example embodiments, the measurement report is transmitted via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages.

[0122] In some example embodiments, the method 1000 further comprises: receiving, from the second apparatus, a configuration of the measurement report, the configuration of the measurement report indicating at least one of: a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report, a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported power delay profile or a reported channel impulse response, or a differential quantization report being enabled, wherein the differential quantization is performed based on the configuration.

[0123] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the measurement report is included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus.

[0124] In some example embodiments, the set of second estimates of the channel impulse response include a set of power estimates of the channel impulse response, and the subset of second estimates for the differential quantization comprises a subset of power estimates from the set of power estimates.

[0125] In some example embodiments, the measurement report includes at least one of: a sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, or a sequence of bits to indicate differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0126] In some example embodiments, the measurement report further includes at least one of: delaying of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response, at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate, or one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0127] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization comprise a plurality of increments, and at least one memory and the at least one processor cause the first apparatus to: performing the differential quantization by applying the plurality of increments according to multi-level increment setting.

[0128] In some example embodiments, a first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicates the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, and one or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0129] In some example embodiments, the delay is indicated by a delay tap index.

[0130] In some example embodiments, the value of the received signal power is indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power.

[0131] In some example embodiments, the first RSRPP message further indicates the one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0132] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization are indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization.

[0133] In some example embodiments, the method 1000 further comprises: performing uniform or non-uniform quantization for a subset of phase estimates from the set of phase estimates, wherein the measurement report further includes uniformly or non-uniformly quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0134] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device or a base station, and the second apparatus comprises a location server.

[0135] FIG. 11 shows a flowchart of an example method 1100 implemented at a second apparatus in accordance with some example embodiments of the present disclosure. For the purpose of discussion, the method 1100 will be described from the perspective of the second apparatus 204 in FIG. 1.

[0136] At block 1110, the second apparatus 204 receives, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response;

[0137] At block 1120, the second apparatus 204 performs differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; and

[0138] At block 1130, the second apparatus 204 constructs at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential dequantization.

[0139] In some example embodiments, the measurement report is received via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages.

[0140] In some example embodiments, the method 1100 further comprises: transmitting, to the first apparatus, a configuration of the measurement report, the configuration of the measurement report indicating at least one of: a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report, a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported power delay profile or a reported channel impulse response, or a differential quantization report being enabled, wherein the differential quantization is performed based on the configuration.

[0141] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the measurement report is included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus.

[0142] In some example embodiments, the quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response includes differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0143] In some example embodiments, the measurement report includes at least one of: a sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, or a sequence of bits to indicate the differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0144] In some example embodiments, the measurement report further includes at least one of: delaying of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response, at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate, or one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0145] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization comprise a plurality of increments, and at least one memory and the at least one processor cause the second apparatus to: performing the differential de-quantization by applying the plurality of increments according to multi-level increment setting.

[0146] In some example embodiments, a first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicates the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, and one or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0147] In some example embodiments, the delay is indicated by a delay tap index.

[0148] In some example embodiments, the value of the received signal power is indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power.

[0149] In some example embodiments, the first RSRPP message further indicates the one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0150] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization are indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization.

[0151] In some example embodiments, the method 1100 further comprises: performing uniform or non-uniform de-quantization for the quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response, wherein the channel impulse response is constructed further based on the uniform de-quantization.

[0152] In some example embodiments, a first apparatus capable of performing any of the method 1000 (for example, the first apparatus 202 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 1000. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The first apparatus may be implemented as or included in the first apparatus 202 in FIG. 1.

[0153] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises means for performing one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal; means for obtaining, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response; means for performing differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; and means for transmitting, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0154] In some example embodiments, the measurement report is transmitted via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages.

[0155] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises: means for receiving, from the second apparatus, a configuration of the measurement report, the configuration of the measurement report indicating at least one of: a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report, a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported power delay profile or a reported channel impulse response, or a differential quantization report being enabled, wherein the differential quantization is performed based on the configuration.

[0156] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the measurement report is included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus.

[0157] In some example embodiments, the set of second estimates of the channel impulse response include a set of power estimates of the channel impulse response, and the subset of second estimates for the differential quantization comprises a subset of power estimates from the set of power estimates.

[0158] In some example embodiments, the measurement report includes at least one of: a sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, or a sequence of bits to indicate differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0159] In some example embodiments, the measurement report further includes at least one of: means for delaying of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response, at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate, or one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0160] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization comprise a plurality of increments, and at least one memory and the at least one processor cause the first apparatus to: means for performing the differential quantization by applying the plurality of increments according to multi-level increment setting.

[0161] In some example embodiments, a first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicates the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, and one or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0162] In some example embodiments, the delay is indicated by a delay tap index.

[0163] In some example embodiments, the value of the received signal power is indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power.

[0164] In some example embodiments, the first RSRPP message further indicates the one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0165] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization are indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization.

[0166] In some example embodiments, the set of second estimates of the channel impulse response further include a set of phase estimates of the channel impulse response, the first apparatus further comprises: means for performing uniform or non-uniform quantization for a subset of phase estimates from the set of phase estimates, wherein the measurement report further includes uniformly or non-uniformly quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0167] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus comprises a terminal device or a base station, and the second apparatus comprises a location server.

[0168] In some example embodiments, the first apparatus further comprises means for performing other operations in some example embodiments of the method 1000 or the first apparatus 202. In some example embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the performance of the first apparatus.

[0169] In some example embodiments, a second apparatus capable of performing any of the method 1100 (for example, the second apparatus 204 in FIG. 1) may comprise means for performing the respective operations of the method 1100. The means may be implemented in any suitable form. For example, the means may be implemented in a circuitry or software module. The second apparatus may be implemented as or included in the second apparatus 204 in FIG. 1.

[0170] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus comprises means for receiving, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response; means for performing differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; and means for constructing at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential de-quantization.

[0171] In some example embodiments, the measurement report is received via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages.

[0172] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises: means for transmitting, to the first apparatus, a configuration of the measurement report, the configuration of the measurement report indicating at least one of a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report, a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported power delay profile or a reported channel impulse response, or a differential quantization report being enabled, wherein the differential quantization is performed based on the configuration.

[0173] In some example embodiments, the configuration of the measurement report is included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus.

[0174] In some example embodiments, the quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response includes differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0175] In some example embodiments, the measurement report includes at least one of a sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, or a sequence of bits to indicate the differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0176] In some example embodiments, the measurement report further includes at least one of means for delaying of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response, at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate, or one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0177] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization comprise a plurality of increments, and at least one memory and the at least one processor cause the second apparatus to: means for performing the differential dequantization by applying the plurality of increments according to multi-level increment setting.

[0178] In some example embodiments, a first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicates the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, and one or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

[0179] In some example embodiments, the delay is indicated by a delay tap index.

[0180] In some example embodiments, the value of the received signal power is indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power.

[0181] In some example embodiments, the first RSRPP message further indicates the one or more increments for the differential quantization.

[0182] In some example embodiments, the one or more increments for the differential quantization are indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization.

[0183] In some example embodiments, the measurement report further includes uniformly or non-uniformly quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response, the second apparatus further comprises: means for performing uniform or non-uniform de-quantization for the quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response, wherein the channel impulse response is constructed further based on the uniform dequantization.

[0184] In some example embodiments, the second apparatus further comprises means for performing other operations in some example embodiments of the method 1100 or the second apparatus 204. In some example embodiments, the means comprises at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the performance of the second apparatus.

[0185] FIG. 12 is a simplified block diagram of a device 1200 that is suitable for implementing example embodiments of the present disclosure. The device 1200 may be provided to implement a communication device, for example, the first apparatus 202 or the second apparatus 204 as shown in FIG. 1. As shown, the device 1200 includes one or more processors 1210, one or more memories 1220 coupled to the processor 1210, and one or more communication modules 1240 coupled to the processor 1210.

[0186] The communication module 1240 is for bidirectional communications. The communication module 1240 has one or more communication interfaces to facilitate communication with one or more other modules or devices. The communication interfaces may represent any interface that is necessary for communication with other network elements. In some example embodiments, the communication module 1240 may include at least one antenna.

[0187] The processor 1210 may be of any type suitable to the local technical network and may include one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors based on multicore processor architecture, as non-limiting examples. The device 1200 may have multiple processors, such as an application specific integrated circuit chip that is slaved in time to a clock which synchronizes the main processor.

[0188] The memory 1220 may include one or more non-volatile memories and one or more volatile memories. Examples of the non-volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a Read Only Memory (ROM) 1224, an electrically programmable read only memory (EPROM), a flash memory, a hard disk, a compact disc (CD), a digital video disk (DVD), an optical disk, a laser disk, and other magnetic storage and / or optical storage. Examples of the volatile memories include, but are not limited to, a random access memory (RAM) 1222 and other volatile memories that will not last in the power-down duration.

[0189] A computer program 1230 includes computer executable instructions that are executed by the associated processor 1210. The instructions of the program 1230 may include instructions for performing operations / acts of some example embodiments of the present disclosure. The program 1230 may be stored in the memory, e.g., the ROM 1224. The processor 1210 may perform any suitable actions and processing by loading the program 1230 into the RAM 1222.

[0190] The example embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by means of the program 1230 so that the device 1200 may perform any process of the disclosure as discussed with reference to FIG. 2 to FIG. 11. The example embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by hardware or by a combination of software and hardware.

[0191] In some example embodiments, the program 1230 may be tangibly contained in a computer readable medium which may be included in the device 1200 (such as in the memory 1220) or other storage devices that are accessible by the device 1200. The device 1200 may load the program 1230 from the computer readable medium to the RAM 1222 for execution. In some example embodiments, the computer readable medium may include any types of non-transitory storage medium, such as ROM, EPROM, a flash memory, a hard disk, CD, DVD, and the like. The term “non-transitory,” as used herein, is a limitation of the medium itself (i e., tangible, not a signal) as opposed to a limitation on data storage persistency (e g., RAM vs. ROM).

[0192] FIG. 13 shows an example of the computer readable medium 1300 which may be in form of CD, DVD or other optical storage disk. The computer readable medium 1300 has the program 1230 stored thereon.

[0193] Generally, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented in hardware, and other aspects may be implemented in firmware or software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or other computing device. Although various aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure are illustrated and described as block diagrams, flowcharts, or using some other pictorial representations, it is to be understood that the block, apparatus, system, technique or method described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing devices, or some combination thereof.

[0194] Some example embodiments of the present disclosure also provide at least one computer program product tangibly stored on a computer readable medium, such as a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes computerexecutable instructions, such as those included in program modules, being executed in a device on a target physical or virtual processor, to carry out any of the methods as described above. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, or the like that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or split between program modules as desired in various embodiments. Machine-executable instructions for program modules may be executed within a local or distributed device. In a distributed device, program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

[0195] Program code for carrying out methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. The program code may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus, such that the program code, when executed by the processor or controller, cause the functions / operations specified in the flowcharts and / or block diagrams to be implemented. The program code may execute entirely on a machine, partly on the machine, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the machine and partly on a remote machine or entirely on the remote machine or server.

[0196] In the context of the present disclosure, the computer program code or related data may be carried by any suitable carrier to enable the device, apparatus or processor to perform various processes and operations as described above. Examples of the carrier include a signal, computer readable medium, and the like.

[0197] The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable medium may include but not limited to an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of the computer readable storage medium would include an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

[0198] Further, although operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, although several specific implementation details are contained in the above discussions, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to particular embodiments. Unless explicitly stated, certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments may also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, unless explicitly stated, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment may also be implemented in a plurality of embodiments separately or in any suitable sub-combination.

[0199] Although the present disclosure has been described in languages specific to structural features and / or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are 5 disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

1. A first apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first apparatus at least to:perform one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal;obtain, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response;perform differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; andtransmit, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

2. The first apparatus of claim 1, wherein the measurement report is transmitted via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages.

3. The first apparatus of claim 2, wherein the at least one memory and the at least one processor further cause the first apparatus to:receive, from the second apparatus, a configuration of the measurement report, the configuration of the measurement report indicating at least one of:a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report,a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported power delay profile or a reported channel impulse response, ora differential quantization report being enabled,wherein the differential quantization is performed based on the configuration.

4. The first apparatus of claim 3, wherein the configuration of the measurement report is included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus.

5. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 4, whereinthe set of second estimates of the channel impulse response include a set of power estimates of the channel impulse response, andthe subset of second estimates for the differential quantization comprises a subset of power estimates from the set of power estimates.

6. The first apparatus of claim 5, wherein the measurement report includes at least one ofa sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, ora sequence of bits to indicate differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

7. The first apparatus of claim 6, wherein the measurement report further includes at least one of:delay of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response,at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate, orone or more increments for the differential quantization.

8. The first apparatus of claim 7, wherein the one or more increments for the differential quantization comprise a plurality of increments, and at least one memory and the at least one processor cause the first apparatus to:perform the differential quantization by applying the plurality of incrementsaccording to multi-level increment setting.

9. The first apparatus of claim 7 or 8, whereina first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate,a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicates the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, andone or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

10. The first apparatus of claim 9, wherein the delay is indicated by a delay tap index.

11. The first apparatus of claim 9 or 10, wherein the value of the received signal power is indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power.

12. The first apparatus of any of claims 9 to 11, wherein the first RSRPP message further indicates the one or more increments for the differential quantization.

13. The first apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more increments for the differential quantization are indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization.

14. The first apparatus of any of claims 5 to 13, wherein the set of second estimates of the channel impulse response further include a set of phase estimates of the channel impulse response, and at least one memory and the at least one processor further causethe first apparatus to:perform uniform or non-uniform quantization for a subset of phase estimates from the set of phase estimates,wherein the measurement report further includes uniformly or non-uniformly quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response.

15. The first apparatus of any of claims 1 to 14, wherein the first apparatus comprises a terminal device or a base station, and the second apparatus comprises a location server.

16. A second apparatus comprising:at least one processor; andat least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the second apparatus at least to:receive, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response;perform differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; andconstruct at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential de-quantization.

17. The second apparatus of claim 16, wherein the measurement report is received via a plurality of reference signal received power per path (RSRPP) messages.

18. The second apparatus of claim 17, wherein the at least one memory and the at least one processor further cause the second apparatus to:transmit, to the first apparatus, a configuration of the measurement report, the configuration of the measurement report indicating at least one of:a number of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report,a minimum percentage of channel energy to be contained in a reported power delay profile or a reported channel impulse response, ora differential quantization report being enabled,wherein the differential quantization is performed based on the configuration.

19. The second apparatus of claim 18, wherein the configuration of the measurement report is included in positioning assistance data from the second apparatus.

20. The second apparatus of any of claims 16 to 19, wherein the quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response includes differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

21. The second apparatus of claim 20, wherein the measurement report includes at least one ofa sequence of bits to indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile, ora sequence of bits to indicate the differentially quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

22. The second apparatus of claim 21, wherein the measurement report further includes at least one ofdelay of at least one starting quantized estimate of at least one of the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response,at least one value of received signal power corresponding to the at least one starting quantized estimate, orone or more increments for the differential quantization.

23. The second apparatus of claim 22, wherein the one or more increments for thedifferential quantization comprise a plurality of increments, and at least one memory and the at least one processor cause the second apparatus to:perform the differential de-quantization by applying the plurality of increments according to multi-level increment setting.

24. The second apparatus of claim 22 or 23, whereina first RSRPP message of a plurality of RSRPP messages for carrying the measurement report indicates the delay of one of the at least one starting quantized estimate,a second RSRPP message of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicates the value of the received signal power corresponding to one of the at least one starting quantized estimate, andone or more third RSRPP messages of the plurality of RSRPP messages indicate the quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or the quantized power estimates of the channel impulse response.

25. The second apparatus of claim 24, wherein the delay is indicated by a delay tap index.

26. The second apparatus of claim 24 or 25, wherein the value of the received signal power is indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and a value of received signal power.

27. The second apparatus of any of claims 24 to 26, wherein the first RSRPP message further indicates the one or more increments for the differential quantization.

28. The second apparatus of claim 27, wherein the one or more increments for the differential quantization are indicated using a table, the table storing mapping of a bit value and one or more increment for the differential quantization.

29. The second apparatus of any of claims 20 to 28, wherein the measurement report further includes uniformly or non-uniformly quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response, and at least one memory and the at least one processor further cause the second apparatus to:perform uniform or non-uniform de-quantization for the quantized phase estimates of the channel impulse response,wherein the channel impulse response is constructed further based on the uniform de-quantization.

30. A method comprising:performing one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal;obtaining, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response;performing differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; andtransmitting, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

31. A method comprising:receiving, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response;performing differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; andconstructing at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse responsebased on at least the differential de-quantization.

32. A first apparatus comprising:means for performing one or more measurements of a positioning reference signal;means for obtaining, based on the one or more measurements, at least one of: a set of first estimates of a power delay profile, or a set of second estimates of a channel impulse response;means for performing differential quantization for at least one of: a subset of first estimates from the set of first estimates, or a subset of second estimates from the set of second estimates; andmeans for transmitting, to a second apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of the power delay profile or quantized second estimates of the channel impulse response.

33. A second apparatus comprising:means for receiving, from a first apparatus, a measurement report including at least one of: quantized first estimates of a power delay profile or quantized second estimates of a channel impulse response;means for performing differential de-quantization for the at least one of the quantized first estimates or the quantized second estimates; andmeans for constructing at least one of the power delay profile or the channel impulse response based on at least the differential de-quantization.

34. A computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon for causing an apparatus at least to perform the method of claim 30 or the method of claim 31.

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