Handling of 3GPP and non-3GPP access in 5G systems

Abstract

A computer system is described for establishing a first registration and a second registration in a public wireless communication system. During operation, the computer system performs a first registration of a user device through a first access, wherein after the first registration, the user device is connected to a first access and a mobility management function (AMF) via the first access. Then, the computer system performs a second registration of the user device through a second access, wherein the second access is different from the first access, and after the second registration, the user device is connected to a second AMF via the second access. In addition, when performing the second registration, the computer system: transfers the context of the user device from the first AMF to the second AMF; and / or relocates a network interface in a control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application relates to wireless communications, and more particularly to an apparatus, system and method for establishing registration through trusted access and untrusted access in a wireless communication system.

[0002] Related technical description

[0003] The use of wireless communication systems is growing rapidly. In recent years, wireless devices such as smart phones and tablet computers have become increasingly sophisticated. In addition to supporting phone calls, many mobile devices now also provide access to the Internet, email, text messaging, and navigation using the Global Positioning System (GPS), and are capable of operating sophisticated applications that utilize these functions.

[0004] Long Term Evolution (LTE) has become the technology of choice for most wireless network operators around the world to provide mobile broadband data and high-speed Internet access to their user base. LTE defines a number of downlink (DL) physical channels classified as transport or control channels to carry information blocks received from the medium access control (MAC) and higher layers. LTE also defines the number of physical layer channels for the uplink (UL).

[0005] For example, LTE defines a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) as a DL transport channel. PDSCH is the primary data bearing channel allocated to users on a dynamic and opportunistic basis. PDSCH carries data in a transport block (TB) corresponding to a MAC protocol data unit (PDU), which is passed from the MAC layer to the physical (PHY) layer once per transmission time interval (TTI). PDSCH is also used to transmit broadcast information such as system information blocks (SIBs) and paging messages.

[0006] As another example, LTE defines the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) as a DL control channel that carries the resource allocation of the UE contained in the downlink control information (DCI) message. Multiple PDCCHs can be transmitted in the same subframe using control channel elements (CCEs), each of which is nine groups of four resource elements called resource element groups (REGs). PDCCH uses quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation, where four QPSK symbols are mapped to each REG. In addition, depending on the channel conditions, 1, 2, 4, or 8 CCEs can be used to ensure sufficient robustness.

[0007] In addition, LTE defines the Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) as a UL channel shared by all devices (user equipment, UE) in a radio cell to transmit user data to the network. The scheduling of all UEs is under the control of the LTE base station (enhanced Node B or eNB). The eNB uses an uplink scheduling grant (DCI format 0) to inform the UE of the resource block (RB) allocation and the modulation and coding scheme to be used. PUSCH typically supports QPSK and orthogonal amplitude modulation (QAM). In addition to user data, PUSCH also carries any control information required to decode the information, such as a transport format indicator and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) parameters. The control data is multiplexed with the information data before the digital Fourier transform (DFT) is expanded.

[0008] The next telecommunication standard proposed to go beyond the current International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) standard is called the 5th Generation Mobile Network or 5th Generation Wireless System, or 5G for short (also called 5G-NR for 5G New Radio, also referred to as NR for short). Compared to the current LTE standard, 5G-NR proposes higher capacity for a higher density of mobile broadband users, while supporting device-to-device ultra-reliable and massive machine communications, as well as lower latency and lower battery consumption. In addition, the 5G-NR standard may allow for less restrictive UE scheduling than the current LTE standard. Therefore, efforts are being made to take advantage of the higher throughput possible at higher frequencies in the ongoing development of 5G-NR. Summary of the invention

[0009] Embodiments relate to apparatus, systems, and methods for establishing sequential registration or concurrent registration through trusted access and untrusted access in a wireless communication system, such as a 5G-compatible wireless communication system.

[0010] In some embodiments, the computer system includes: a networking subsystem (having one or more interface circuits), a processing subsystem (having one or more processors), and a memory. During operation, the processing subsystem performs a first registration of a user device through a first access, wherein after the first registration, the user device is connected to the first access and a mobility management function (AMF) via the first access. Then, the processing subsystem performs a second registration of the user device through a second access, wherein the second access is different from the first access, and after the second registration, the user device is connected to the second AMF via the second access. In addition, during the second registration, the processing subsystem: transfers the context of the user device from the first AMF to the second AMF; and relocates the network interface in the control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF.

[0011] For example, the first access may be a non-3GPP access and the second access may be a 3GPP access.Alternatively or additionally, the first access may be a non-trusted access and the second access may be a trusted access.

[0012] Furthermore, the first access and the second access may be comprised in a public wireless communication system, such as a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN).

[0013] Additionally, the network interface may include an N2 interface.

[0014] Note that the context of the user equipment may include a first user equipment configuration management (CM) state on the first access. In addition, the context of the user equipment may include: an identifier of a first access network node that handles the first access and / or one or more parameters that identify an application protocol user equipment association between the first access network node (or access node) and the first AMF. For example, the application protocol user equipment association may include an NGAP user equipment association. In some embodiments, one or more parameters may include: an AMF user equipment NGAP identifier and / or a radio access network (RAN) user equipment NGAP identifier.

[0015] In addition, the relocation may involve the second AMF retrieving the context of the user equipment from the first AMF. For example, when the first user equipment configuration state on the first access indicates that the user equipment is connected, the second AMF may send a first request, such as a first AMF mobility request message, to the first access network node. In addition, the first request may include one or more parameters. Alternatively, when the first user equipment configuration state on the first access indicates that the user equipment is idle, the second AMF may not send the first request.

[0016] Furthermore, the second registration may occur when the user equipment registers through the first access via the first registration.

[0017] In addition, the processing subsystem may determine a second user equipment configuration state on the second access, and selectively send a second request, such as a second AMF mobility request message, to the second access network node based at least in part on the second user equipment configuration state on the second access. For example, the second request may be sent when the second user equipment configuration state on the second access indicates that the user equipment is connected. Note that the second request may include one or more parameters.

[0018] Other embodiments provide user equipment.

[0019] Other embodiments provide integrated circuits for use with a computer system.

[0020] Other embodiments provide a wireless communication system including a computer system.

[0021] Other embodiments provide a computer-readable storage medium for use with the computer system or user device. When the program instructions stored in the computer-readable storage medium are executed by the computer system or user device, the program instructions may cause the computer system or user device to perform at least some of the aforementioned operations of the computer system or user device.

[0022] Other embodiments provide a method for establishing registration through trusted access and untrusted access in a wireless communication system. The method includes at least some of the aforementioned operations performed by a computer system or a user device.

[0023] The techniques described herein may be implemented in and / or used with multiple different types of user devices, including, but not limited to, any of cellular telephones, tablet computers, wearable computing devices, portable media players, and various other computing devices.

[0024] This disclosure is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the topics described in this document. Therefore, it should be understood that the above features are only examples and should not be construed as narrowing the scope or essence of the topics described herein in any way. Other features, aspects and advantages of the topics described herein will become apparent through the following detailed description, drawings and claims.

[0025] It should be noted that the following specific embodiments relate to the accompanying drawings. The same figure numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for the purpose of illustration rather than limitation, specific details, such as specific structures, architectures, interfaces, technologies, etc., are described to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of various embodiments. However, it is obvious to those skilled in the art who benefit from the present disclosure that various aspects of various embodiments can be practiced in other examples that deviate from these specific details. In some cases, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so that the descriptions of various embodiments are not obscured by unnecessary details. For the purposes of this document, the phrase "A or B" refers to (A), (B) or (A and B). Architecture includes, but is not limited to, network topology. Examples of architecture include, but are not limited to, networks, network topologies, and systems. Examples of networks include, but are not limited to, time-sensitive networks (TSNs), core networks (CNs), any other suitable networks known in the field of wireless communications, or any combination thereof. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0026] A better understanding of the present subject matter may be obtained when the following detailed description of various embodiments is considered in conjunction with the following drawings, in which:

[0027] Figure 1A An exemplary wireless communication system is shown in accordance with some embodiments.

[0028] Figure 1B Examples of base stations (BSs) and access points in communication with user equipment (UE) devices are shown in accordance with some embodiments.

[0029] Figure 2 An exemplary simplified block diagram of a WLAN access point (AP) is shown in accordance with some embodiments.

[0030] Figure 3 An example block diagram of a UE according to some embodiments is shown.

[0031] Figure 4 An example block diagram of a BS according to some embodiments is shown.

[0032] Figure 5 An example block diagram of cellular communication circuitry is shown according to some embodiments.

[0033] Fig. 6A An example of the connection between the EPC network, LTE base stations (eNBs), and 5G NR base stations (gNBs) is shown.

[0034] Figure 6B An example of a protocol stack for eNB and gNB is shown.

[0035] Fig. 7A An example of a 5G network architecture according to some embodiments is shown, which combines 3GPP (e.g., cellular) and non-3GPP (e.g., non-cellular) access in the 5G CN.

[0036] Figure 7B An example of a 5G network architecture according to some embodiments is shown, which combines dual 3GPP (e.g., LTE and 5G NR) access and non-3GPP access in the 5G CN.

[0037] Figure 8 An example of a baseband processor architecture for a UE according to some embodiments is shown.

[0038] Fig. 9 An example of a non-roaming architecture for a 5G core network with non-3GPP access according to some embodiments is shown.

[0039] Fig.10 An example of a home roaming architecture for a 5G core network with non-3GPP access according to some embodiments is shown.

[0040] Fig.11 An example of a request process according to some embodiments is shown.

[0041] Fig.12 An exemplary method for establishing registration using trusted access and non-trusted access according to some embodiments is shown.

[0042] Fig.13 An example of an architecture of a system showing a network according to some embodiments;

[0043] Fig.14 An example of an architecture for a system according to some embodiments is shown.

[0044] Fig.15 An example of an architecture for a system according to some embodiments is shown.

[0045] Fig.16 Examples of infrastructure equipment are shown according to some embodiments.

[0046] Fig.17 An example of a platform according to some embodiments is shown.

[0047] Fig.18 Examples of components of a baseband circuit and a radio front end module are shown according to some embodiments.

[0048] Fig.19 Examples of protocol functionality that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to some embodiments are shown.

[0049] Fig. 20 Examples of components of a core network according to some embodiments are shown.

[0050] Fig.21 Examples of components capable of reading instructions from a computer-readable storage medium and performing one or more functions according to some embodiments are shown.

[0051] Although the features described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereof are not intended to limit this document to the specific forms disclosed, but on the contrary, their purpose is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives that fall within the spirit and scope of the subject matter as defined by the appended claims. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0052] The present invention describes a computer system for establishing a first registration and a second registration in a public wireless communication system. During operation, the computer system performs a first registration of a user device through a first access, wherein after the first registration, the user device is connected to the first access and a mobility management function (AMF) via the first access. Then, the computer system performs a second registration of the user device through a second access, wherein the second access is different from the first access, and after the second registration, the user device is connected to the second AMF via the second access. In addition, when performing the second registration, the computer system: transfers the context of the user device from the first AMF to the second AMF; and / or relocates the network interface in the control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF.

[0053] By performing this operation, these communication technologies enable simultaneous or concurrent registration between a user device and a wireless communication system (such as a PLMN). Notably, the communication technology may allow a user device to register and connect to a wireless communication system via both an untrusted access (such as a non-3GPP access) and a trusted access (such as a 3GPP access). Therefore, the communication technology may improve communication performance and services for user devices, and may provide increased flexibility and improved management for wireless communication systems.

[0054] the term

[0055] The following is a glossary of terms used in this disclosure:

[0056] Memory medium – any of various types of non-transitory memory devices or storage devices. The term “memory medium” is intended to include installation media, such as CD-ROM, floppy disk, or tape devices; computer system memory or random access memory such as DRAM, DDR RAM, SRAM, EDO RAM, Rambus RAM, etc.; non-volatile memory such as flash memory, magnetic media, for example, hard disk drives or optical storage devices; registers or other similar types of memory elements, etc. The memory medium may also include other types of non-transitory memory or combinations thereof. In addition, the memory medium may be located in a first computer system executing a program, or may be located in a different second computer system connected to the first computer system via a network such as the Internet. In the latter case, the second computer system may provide program instructions to the first computer for execution. The term “memory medium” may include two or more memory media that may reside in different locations in different computer systems connected, for example, via a network. The memory medium may store program instructions (e.g., in the form of a computer program) that may be executed by one or more processors.

[0057] Carrier Medium—storage media as described above and physical transmission media such as a bus, network, and / or other physical transmission media that transport signals such as electrical, electromagnetic or digital signals.

[0058] Programmable hardware element – ​​includes various hardware devices that include multiple programmable function blocks connected via programmable interconnects. Examples include FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), PLDs (programmable logic devices), FPOAs (field programmable object arrays), and CPLDs (complex PLDs). Programmable function blocks can vary from fine-grained (combinational logic units or lookup tables) to coarse-grained (arithmetic logic units or processor cores). Programmable hardware elements may also be referred to as "configurable logic units."

[0059] Computer system – Any of various types of computing or processing systems, including a personal computer system (PC), a mainframe computer system, a workstation, a network appliance, an Internet appliance, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a television system, a grid computing system, or other devices or combinations of devices. In general, the term "computer system" may be broadly defined to encompass any device (or combination of devices) having at least one processor that executes instructions from a memory medium.

[0060] User Equipment (UE) (or "UE device") - any of various types of computer system devices that are mobile or portable and that perform wireless communications. Examples of UE devices include mobile phones or smart phones (e.g., iPhone TM , based on Android TM phones), portable gaming devices (e.g., Nintendo DS TM , PlayStation Portable TM 、Gameboy Advance TM , iPhone TM ), laptop computers, wearable devices (e.g., smart watches, smart glasses), personal digital assistants, portable Internet devices, music players, data storage devices or other handheld devices, etc. In general, the term "UE" or "UE device" can be broadly defined to cover any electronic device, computing device and / or telecommunication device (or combination of devices) that is convenient for a user to carry and capable of wireless communication.

[0061] Base Station - The term "base station" has the full breadth of its ordinary meaning and includes at least a wireless communication station that is installed at a fixed location and used to communicate as part of a wireless telephone system or radio system.

[0062] Processing Element – ​​refers to any element or combination of elements that is capable of performing functions in a device, such as a user device or a cellular network device. Processing elements may include, for example, a processor and associated memory, portions or circuits of individual processor cores, entire processor cores, processor arrays, circuits such as ASICs (application specific integrated circuits), programmable hardware elements such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and any of the above combinations.

[0063] Channel - a medium used to transmit information from a sender (transmitter) to a receiver. It should be noted that since the characteristics of the term "channel" may vary according to different wireless protocols, the term "channel" used in the present invention may be considered to be used in a manner that conforms to the standards of the type of device to which the term is used. In some standards, the channel width may be variable (e.g., depending on device capabilities, frequency band conditions, etc.). For example, LTE may support scalable channel bandwidths of 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz. In contrast, a WLAN channel may be 22 MHz wide, while a Bluetooth channel may be 1 MHz wide. Other protocols and standards may include different definitions of channels. In addition, some standards may define and use multiple types of channels, such as different channels for uplink or downlink and / or different channels for different purposes such as data, control information, etc.

[0064] Frequency band - The term "frequency band" has the full breadth of its ordinary meaning and includes at least a segment of the spectrum (eg, radio frequency spectrum) in which channels are used or set aside for the same purpose.

[0065] Automatic – refers to an action or operation performed by a computer system (e.g., software executed by a computer system) or a device (e.g., a circuit, a programmable hardware element, an ASIC, etc.) without the need for user input to directly specify or perform the action or operation. Thus, the term “automatic” is in contrast to a user manually performing or specifying an action, where the user provides input to directly perform the action. An automatic process may be initiated by input provided by a user, but subsequent actions performed “automatically” are not specified by the user, i.e., are not performed “manually”, where the user specifies each action to be performed. For example, a user filling out an electronic form by selecting each field and providing input specifying information (e.g., by typing in information, selecting checkboxes, radio selections, etc.) is manually filling out the form, even though the computer system must update the form in response to the user action. The form may be automatically filled out by a computer system, where the computer system (e.g., software executed on the computer system) analyzes the fields of the form and fills out the form without any user input specifying the answers to the fields. As indicated above, a user may invoke automatic filling out of a form, but not participate in the actual filling out of the form (e.g., the user does not manually specify the answers to the fields but rather they are automatically completed). This specification provides various examples of operations that are automatically performed in response to actions taken by a user.

[0066] Approximately - refers to a value that is close to a correct or exact value. For example, approximately may refer to a value that is within 1% to 10% of an exact (or desired) value. However, it should be noted that the actual threshold (or tolerance) may depend on the application. For example, in some embodiments, "approximately" may mean within 0.1% of some specified or desired value, while in various other embodiments, the threshold may be, for example, 2%, 3%, 5%, etc., depending on the desires or requirements of a particular application.

[0067] Concurrency - refers to parallel execution or implementation, where tasks, processes, or programs are executed in an at least partially overlapping manner. For example, concurrency can be achieved using "strong" or strict parallelism, where tasks are executed (at least partially) in parallel on respective computing elements, or using "weak parallelism", where tasks are executed in an interleaved manner (e.g., by time multiplexing of execution threads).

[0068] Various components may be described as being "configured to" perform one or more tasks. In such environments, "configured to" is a broad statement that generally means "having a structure" that performs one or more tasks during operation. Thus, even when the component is not currently performing the task, the component can be configured to perform the task (e.g., a set of electrical conductors can be configured to electrically connect a module to another module even when the two modules are not connected). In some contexts, "configured to" can be a broad statement that generally means "having a structure" that performs one or more tasks during operation. Thus, even when the component is not currently turned on, the component can be configured to perform the task. Typically, the circuitry that forms the structure corresponding to "configured to" may include hardware circuitry.

[0069] For ease of description, various components may be described as performing one or more tasks. Such descriptions should be interpreted as including the phrase "configured to". The statement that a component is configured to perform one or more tasks is expressly intended not to invoke 35 USC § 112 (f) interpretation of that component.

[0070] Figure 1A and Figure 1B -Communication system

[0071] Figure 1A A simplified exemplary wireless communication system according to some embodiments is shown. Note that the system of FIG. 1 is only one example of a possible system, and features of the present disclosure may be implemented in any of a variety of systems as desired.

[0072] As shown, the exemplary wireless communication system includes a base station 102A, which communicates with one or more user devices 106A, 106B, 106N, etc. through a transmission medium. Each user device may be referred to as a "user equipment" (UE) in this document. Therefore, user device 106 is referred to as a UE or UE device.

[0073] The base station (BS) 102A may be a base transceiver station (BTS) or a cell site ("cellular base station") and may include hardware that enables wireless communications with the UEs 106A through 106N.

[0074] The communication area (or coverage area) of a base station may be referred to as a "cell". The base station 102A and the UE 106 may be configured to communicate over a transmission medium using any of a variety of radio access technologies (RATs), which are also referred to as wireless communication technologies or telecommunication standards, such as GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE, Advanced LTE (LTE-A), 5G New Radio (5G NR), HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), and the like. Note that if the base station 102A is implemented in the context of LTE, it may alternatively be referred to as an "eNodeB" or "eNB". Note that if the base station 102A is implemented in the context of 5G NR, it may alternatively be referred to as a "gNodeB" or "gNB".

[0075] As shown, base station 102A may also be configured to communicate with network 100 (e.g., a core network of a cellular service provider, a telecommunications network such as a public switched telephone network (PSTN), and / or the Internet, among other possibilities). Thus, base station 102A may facilitate communications between user devices and / or between user devices and network 100. In particular, cellular base station 102A may provide UE 106 with various communication capabilities, such as voice, SMS, and / or data services.

[0076] Base station 102A and other similar base stations (such as base stations 102B...102N) operating according to the same or different cellular communication standards can therefore be provided as a network of cells that can provide continuous or nearly continuous overlapping service to UE 106A-N and similar devices over a geographic area via one or more cellular communication standards.

[0077] Thus, although base station 102A may act as a "serving cell" for UEs 106A-N as shown in FIG. 1 , each UE 106 may also be able to receive signals from (and possibly be within communication range of) one or more other cells (which may be provided by base stations 102B-N and / or any other base stations), which may be referred to as "neighboring cells." Such cells may also be able to facilitate communication between user devices and / or between user devices and network 100. Such cells may include "macro" cells, "micro" cells, "pico" cells, and / or cells of any various other granularity that provide service area sizes. For example, base stations 102A-B shown in FIG. 1 may be macro cells, while base station 102N may be a micro cell. Other configurations are also possible.

[0078] In some embodiments, base station 102A may be a next generation base station, e.g., a 5G New Radio (5G NR) base station or "gNB". In some embodiments, a gNB may be connected to a legacy Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and / or to a New Radio Communications Core (NRC) network. In addition, a gNB cell may include one or more transition and reception points (TRPs). In addition, a UE capable of operating in accordance with 5G NR may be connected to one or more TRPs within one or more gNBs.

[0079] It should be noted that the UE 106 is capable of communicating using multiple wireless communication standards. For example, in addition to at least one cellular communication protocol (e.g., GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interface), LTE, LTE-A, 5G NR, HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), etc.), the UE 106 can be configured to communicate using wireless networking (e.g., Wi-Fi) and / or peer-to-peer wireless communication protocols (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi peer-to-peer, etc.). If desired, the UE 106 can also or alternatively be configured to communicate using one or more global navigation satellite systems (GNSS, such as GPS or GLONASS), one or more mobile television broadcast standards (e.g., ATSC-M / H or DVB-H), and / or any other wireless communication protocol. Other combinations of wireless communication standards (including more than two wireless communication standards) are also possible.

[0080] Figure 1B A user device 106 (e.g., one of device 106A through device 106N) is shown in communication with base station 102 and access point 112 according to some embodiments. UE 106 may be a device with cellular communication capabilities and non-cellular communication capabilities (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.), such as a mobile phone, handheld device, computer or tablet, or virtually any type of wireless device.

[0081] UE 106 may include a processor configured to execute program instructions stored in a memory. UE 106 may perform any of the method embodiments described herein by executing such stored instructions. Alternatively or in addition, UE 106 may include a programmable hardware element, such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) configured to perform any of the method embodiments described herein or any portion of any of the method embodiments described herein.

[0082] UE 106 may include one or more antennas for communicating using one or more wireless communication protocols or technologies. In some embodiments, UE 106 may be configured to communicate using, for example, CDMA2000 (1xRTT / 1xEV-DO / HRPD / eHRPD), LTE / Advanced LTE, or 5G NR using a single shared radio component and / or GSM, LTE, Advanced LTE, or 5G Nr using a single shared radio component. The shared radio may be coupled to a single antenna, or may be coupled to multiple antennas (e.g., for MIMO) for performing wireless communications. Typically, the radio component may include any combination of a baseband processor, an analog radio frequency (RF) signal processing circuit (e.g., including filters, mixers, oscillators, amplifiers, etc.), or a digital processing circuit (e.g., for digital modulation and other digital processing). Similarly, the radio component may use the aforementioned hardware to implement one or more receive chains and transmit chains. For example, UE 106 may share one or more parts of a receive chain and / or transmit chain between multiple wireless communication technologies such as those discussed above.

[0083] In some embodiments, UE 106 may include a separate transmit chain and / or receive chain (e.g., including separate antennas and other radio components) for each wireless communication protocol configured to communicate with it. As another possibility, UE 106 may include one or more radio components shared between multiple wireless communication protocols, and one or more radio components used uniquely by a single wireless communication protocol. For example, UE 106 may include a shared radio component for communicating using either LTE or 5GNR (or LTE or 1xRTT, or LTE or GSM), and a separate radio component for communicating using each of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Other configurations are also possible.

[0084] Figure 2 —Access Point Block Diagram

[0085] Figure 2 An exemplary block diagram of an access point (AP) 112 is shown. Note that Figure 2 The block diagram of the AP 112 is only one example of a possible system. As shown, the AP 112 may include a processor 204 that may execute program instructions for the AP 112. The processor 204 may also be coupled (directly or indirectly) to a memory management unit (MMU) 240 or other circuit or device, which may be configured to receive addresses from the processor 204 and convert these addresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 260 and read-only memory (ROM) 250).

[0086] AP 112 may include at least one network port 270. Network port 270 may be configured to couple to a wired network and provide access to the Internet to multiple devices such as UE 106. For example, network port 270 (or an additional network port) may be configured to couple to a local network, such as a home network or an enterprise network. For example, port 270 may be an Ethernet port. The local network may provide a connection to an additional network such as the Internet.

[0087] The AP 112 may include at least one antenna 234, which may be configured to function as a wireless transceiver and may be further configured to communicate with the UE 106 via the wireless communication circuit 230. The antenna 234 communicates with the wireless communication circuit 230 via a communication chain 232. The communication chain 232 may include one or more receive chains, one or more transmit chains, or both. The wireless communication circuit 230 may be configured to communicate via Wi-Fi or WLAN (e.g., 802.11). For example, when the AP is co-located with a base station in the case of a small cell, or in other cases where it may be desirable for the AP 112 to communicate via a variety of different wireless communication technologies, the wireless communication circuit 230 may also or alternatively be configured to communicate via various other wireless communication technologies, including, but not limited to, 5G NR, Long Term Evolution (LTE), Advanced LTE (LTE-A), Global System for Mobile (GSM), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), CDMA2000, etc.

[0088] In some embodiments, as further described below, AP 112 may be configured to perform a method for software reconfiguration of a multi-radio wireless device including multiple radio computers, as further described herein.

[0089] Figure 3 —UE block diagram

[0090] Figure 3 An exemplary simplified block diagram of a communication device 106 according to some embodiments is shown. Note that Figure 3The block diagram of the communication device is only an example of a possible communication device. According to the embodiment, in addition to other devices, the communication device 106 can be a user equipment (UE) device, a mobile device or mobile station, a wireless device or wireless station, a desktop computer or computing device, a mobile computing device (such as a laptop, a notebook or a portable computing device), a tablet computer and / or a combination of devices. As shown in the figure, the communication device 106 may include a group of components 300 configured to perform core functions. For example, the group of components can be implemented as a system on a chip (SOC), which may include parts for various purposes. Alternatively, the group of components 300 can be implemented as a separate component or a group of components for various purposes. This group of components 300 can be (for example, communicatively; directly or indirectly) coupled to various other circuits of the communication device 106.

[0091] For example, the communication device 106 may include various types of memory (e.g., including NAND flash memory 310), input / output interfaces such as a connector I / F 320 (e.g., for connecting to a computer system; a docking station; a charging station; an input device such as a microphone, a camera, a keyboard; an output device such as a speaker; etc.), a display 360 that may be integrated with the communication device 106 or external to the communication device 106, and cellular communication circuits 330 such as for 5G NR, LTE, GSM, etc., and short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuits 329 (e.g., Bluetooth TM In some embodiments, the communication device 106 may include wired communication circuitry (not shown), such as, for example, a network interface card for Ethernet.

[0092] Cellular communication circuitry 330 may be (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) coupled to one or more antennas, such as antennas 335 and 336 as shown. Short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuitry 329 may also be (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) coupled to one or more antennas, such as antennas 337 and 338 as shown. Alternatively, short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuitry 329 may be (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) coupled to antennas 335 and 336 in addition to or in lieu of being (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) coupled to antennas 337 and 338. Short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuitry 329 and / or cellular communication circuitry 330 may include multiple receive chains and / or multiple transmit chains for receiving and / or transmitting multiple spatial streams, such as in a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) configuration.

[0093] In some embodiments, as further described below, the cellular communication circuitry 330 can include dedicated receive chains (including and / or coupled to (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly; a dedicated processor and / or radio) for multiple RATs (e.g., a first receive chain for LTE and a second receive chain for 5G NR). Furthermore, in some embodiments, the cellular communication circuitry 330 can include a single transmit chain that can switch between radios dedicated to specific RATs. For example, a first radio can be dedicated to a first RAT, such as LTE, and can communicate with a dedicated receive chain and a transmit chain shared with an additional radio, such as a second radio that can be dedicated to a second RAT (e.g., 5G NR) and can communicate with the dedicated receive chain and the shared transmit chain.

[0094] The communication device 106 may also include and / or be configured for use with one or more user interface elements. The user interface elements may include various elements such as a display 360 (which may be a touch screen display), a keyboard (which may be a separate keyboard or may be implemented as part of a touch screen display), a mouse, a microphone and / or speakers, one or more cameras, one or more buttons, and / or any of a variety of other elements capable of providing information to a user and / or receiving or interpreting user input.

[0095] The communication device 106 may also include one or more smart cards 345 having SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) functionality, such as one or more UICC cards (one or more Universal Integrated Circuit Cards) 345 .

[0096] As shown, the SOC 300 may include a processor 302 that may execute program instructions for the communication device 106 and a display circuit 304 that may perform graphics processing and provide display signals to a display 360. The one or more processors 302 may also be coupled to a memory management unit (MMU) 340 (which may be configured to receive addresses from the one or more processors 302 and convert those addresses to locations in a memory (e.g., memory 306, read-only memory (ROM) 350, NAND flash memory 310)) and / or to other circuits or devices (such as display circuit 304, short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuit 329, cellular communication circuit 330, connector I / F 320, and / or display 360). The MMU 340 may be configured to perform memory protection and page table translation or setup. In some embodiments, the MMU 340 may be included as part of the processor 302.

[0097] As described above, the communication device 106 may be configured to communicate using wireless and / or wired communication circuitry. The communication device 106 may be configured to perform a method for software reconfiguration of a multi-radio wireless device including a plurality of radio computers, as further described herein.

[0098] As described herein, the communication device 106 may include hardware and software components for implementing the above-described features of the communication device 106 to send a scheduling profile for power saving to the network. The processor 302 of the communication device 106 may be configured to implement some or all of the features described in the present invention, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively (or in addition), the processor 302 may be configured as a programmable hardware element, such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit). Alternatively (or in addition), in combination with one or more of the other components 300, 304, 306, 310, 320, 329, 330, 340, 345, 350, 360, the processor 302 of the communication device 106 may be configured to implement some or all of the features described in the present invention.

[0099] In addition, as described in the present invention, processor 302 may include one or more processing elements. Therefore, processor 302 may include one or more integrated circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of processor 302. In addition, each integrated circuit may include circuits (e.g., first circuits, second circuits, etc.) configured to perform the functions of one or more processors 302.

[0100] Further, as described herein, the cellular communication circuit 330 and the short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuit 329 may each include one or more processing elements. In other words, one or more processing elements may be included in the cellular communication circuit 330, and similarly, one or more processing elements may be included in the short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuit 329. Thus, the cellular communication circuit 330 may include one or more integrated circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of the cellular communication circuit 330. Furthermore, each integrated circuit may include a circuit (e.g., a first circuit, a second circuit, etc.) configured to perform the functions of the cellular communication circuit 330. Similarly, the short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuit 329 may include one or more ICs configured to perform the functions of the short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuit 329. Furthermore, each integrated circuit may include a circuit (e.g., a first circuit, a second circuit, etc.) configured to perform the functions of the short-range to medium-range wireless communication circuit 329.

[0101] Figure 4 —Block diagram of a base station

[0102] Figure 4An exemplary block diagram of a base station 102 according to some embodiments is shown. Note that Figure 4 The base station of is only one example of a possible base station. As shown, the base station 102 may include a processor 404 that may execute program instructions for the base station 102. The processor 404 may also be coupled to a memory management unit (MMU) 440 or other circuit or device, which may be configured to receive addresses from the processor 404 and convert these addresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 460 and read-only memory (ROM) 450).

[0103] Base station 102 may include at least one network port 470. Network port 470 may be configured to couple to a telephone network and provide access to the network as described above in FIG. Figure 2 Multiple devices of the telephone network described in, such as UE device 106.

[0104] The network port 470 (or an additional network port) may also or alternatively be configured to couple to a cellular network, such as a core network of a cellular service provider. The core network may provide mobility-related services and / or other services to multiple devices, such as the UE device 106. In some cases, the network port 470 may be coupled to a telephone network via the core network, and / or the core network may provide a telephone network (e.g., in other UE devices served by the cellular service provider).

[0105] In some embodiments, base station 102 may be a next generation base station, e.g., a 5G New Radio (5G NR) base station, or "gNB". In such embodiments, base station 102 may be connected to a legacy Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and / or to an NR Core (NRC) network. Furthermore, base station 102 may be considered a 5G NR cell and may include one or more transition and reception points (TRPs). Furthermore, a UE capable of operating in accordance with 5G NR may be connected to one or more TRPs within one or more gNBs.

[0106] The base station 102 may include at least one antenna 434 and possibly multiple antennas. The at least one antenna 434 may be configured to function as a wireless transceiver and may be further configured to communicate with the UE device 106 via the radio component 430. The antenna 434 communicates with the radio component 430 via a communication chain 432. The communication chain 432 may be a receive chain, a transmit chain, or both. The radio component 430 may be configured to communicate via various wireless communication standards, including but not limited to 5G NR, LTE, LTE-A, GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, Wi-Fi, etc.

[0107] Base station 102 may be configured to perform wireless communications using multiple wireless communication standards. In some cases, base station 102 may include multiple radios that enable base station 102 to communicate according to multiple wireless communication technologies. For example, as one possibility, base station 102 may include an LTE radio component for performing communications according to LTE and a 5GNR radio component for performing communications according to 5GNR. In this case, base station 102 may be able to operate as both an LTE base station and a 5G NR base station. As another possibility, base station 102 may include a multimode radio component capable of performing communications according to any one of multiple wireless communication technologies (e.g., 5G NR and Wi-Fi, LTE and Wi-Fi, LTE and UMTS, LTE and CDMA2000, UMTS and GSM, etc.).

[0108] As further described later herein, the base station 102 may include hardware and software components for implementing or supporting the implementation of the features described herein. The processor 404 of the base station 102 may be configured to implement or support a portion or all of the implementation of the methods described herein, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively, the processor 404 may be configured as a programmable hardware element such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array), or as an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) or a combination thereof. Alternatively (or in addition thereto), in combination with one or more of the other components 430, 432, 434, 440, 450, 460, 470, the processor 404 of the base station 102 may be configured to implement or support a portion or all of the implementation of the features described herein.

[0109] In addition, as described herein, processor 404 may be composed of one or more processing elements. In other words, one or more processing elements may be included in processor 404. Therefore, processor 404 may include one or more integrated circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of processor 404. In addition, each integrated circuit may include circuits (e.g., first circuits, second circuits, etc.) configured to perform the functions of one or more processors 404.

[0110] Additionally, as described herein, radio 430 may be comprised of one or more processing elements. In other words, one or more processing elements may be included in radio 430. Thus, radio 430 may include one or more integrated circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of radio 430. Furthermore, each integrated circuit may include circuits (e.g., a first circuit, a second circuit, etc.) configured to perform the functions of radio 430.

[0111] Figure 5 : Block diagram of a cellular communication circuit

[0112] Figure 5 An exemplary simplified block diagram of a cellular communication circuit according to some embodiments is shown. Note that Figure 5 The block diagram of the cellular communication circuit of is only one example of one possible cellular communication circuit. According to an embodiment, the cellular communication circuit 330 may be included in a communication device such as the communication device 106 described above. As described above, the communication device 106 may be a user equipment (UE) device, a mobile device or mobile station, a wireless device or wireless station, a desktop computer or computing device, a mobile computing device (e.g., a laptop, notebook, or portable computing device), a tablet computer, and / or a combination of devices, among other devices.

[0113] Cellular communication circuitry 330 may be (eg, communicatively; directly or indirectly) coupled to one or more antennas, such as ( Figure 3 In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuit 330 may include dedicated receive chains (including and / or coupled to (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) dedicated processors and / or radio components) for multiple RATs (e.g., a first receive chain for LTE and a second receive chain for 5G-NR). For example, Figure 5 As shown, cellular communication circuitry 330 may include modem 510 and modem 520. Modem 510 may be configured for communication according to a first RAT, such as, for example, LTE or LTE-A, and modem 520 may be configured for communication according to a second RAT, such as, for example, 5G NR.

[0114] As shown, the modem 510 may include one or more processors 512 and a memory 516 in communication with the processor 512. The modem 510 may communicate with a radio frequency (RF) front end 530. The RF front end 530 may include circuits for transmitting and receiving radio signals. For example, the RF front end 530 may include a receiving circuit (RX) 532 and a transmitting circuit (TX) 534. In some embodiments, the receiving circuit 532 may communicate with a downlink (DL) front end 550, which may include circuits for receiving radio signals via an antenna 335a.

[0115] Similarly, the modem 520 may include one or more processors 522 and a memory 526 in communication with the processor 522. The modem 520 may communicate with the RF front end 540. The RF front end 540 may include circuits for transmitting and receiving radio signals. For example, the RF front end 540 may include a receiving circuit 542 and a transmitting circuit 544. In some embodiments, the receiving circuit 542 may communicate with the DL front end 560, which may include circuits for receiving radio signals via the antenna 335b.

[0116] In some embodiments, the switch 570 may couple the transmit circuit 534 to an uplink (UL) front end 572. In addition, the switch 570 may couple the transmit circuit 544 to the UL front end 572. The UL front end 572 may include circuitry for transmitting radio signals via the antenna 336. Thus, when the cellular communication circuit 330 receives an instruction to transmit according to a first RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain including the transmit circuit 534 and the UL front end 572) supported by the modem 510, the switch 570 may be switched to a first state that allows the modem 510 to transmit signals according to the first RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain including the transmit circuit 534 and the UL front end 572). Similarly, when the cellular communication circuit 330 receives an instruction to transmit according to a second RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain including the transmit circuit 544 and the UL front end 572) supported by the modem 520, the switch 570 may be switched to a second state that allows the modem 520 to transmit signals according to the second RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain including the transmit circuit 544 and the UL front end 572).

[0117] In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuit 330 may be configured to perform a method for software reconfiguration of a multi-radio wireless device including a plurality of radio computers, as further described herein.

[0118] As described herein, the modem 510 may include hardware and software components for implementing the above-described features or for time-division multiplexing UL data for NSA NR operations and various other techniques described herein. For example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium), the processor 512 may be configured to implement part or all of the features described herein. Alternatively (or in addition), the processor 512 may be configured as a programmable hardware element such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array), or as an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit). Alternatively (or in addition), in combination with one or more of the other components 530, 532, 534, 550, 570, 572, 335, and 336, the processor 512 may be configured to implement part or all of the feature parts described herein.

[0119] In addition, as described herein, processor 512 may include one or more processing elements. Thus, processor 512 may include one or more integrated circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of processor 512. In addition, each integrated circuit may include circuits (e.g., a first circuit, a second circuit, etc.) configured to perform the functions of processor 512.

[0120] As described herein, the modem 520 may include hardware and software components intended to implement the above-described features for transmitting a power-saving scheduling profile to a network, as well as various other techniques described herein. The processor 522 may be configured to implement part or all of the feature parts described herein, for example, by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively (or in addition), the processor 522 may be configured as a programmable hardware element such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array), or as an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit). Alternatively (or additionally), in combination with one or more of the other components 540, 542, 544, 550, 570, 572, 335, and 336, the processor 522 may be configured to implement part or all of the feature parts described herein.

[0121] In addition, as described herein, processor 522 may include one or more processing elements. Thus, processor 522 may include one or more integrated circuits (ICs) configured to perform the functions of processor 522. In addition, each integrated circuit may include circuits (e.g., a first circuit, a second circuit, etc.) configured to perform the functions of processor 522.

[0122] 5G NR architecture with LTE

[0123] In some implementations, fifth generation (5G) wireless communications will initially be deployed concurrently with current wireless communications standards (e.g., LTE). For example, dual connectivity between LTE and 5G New Radio (5G NR or NR) has been specified as part of the initial deployment of NR. Figure 6A-6B As shown, the evolved packet core (EPC) network 600 may continue to communicate with the current LTE base station (e.g., eNB 602). In addition, the eNB 602 may communicate with the 5G NR base station (e.g., gNB 604), and data may be transferred between the core network 600 and the gNB 604. Thus, the EPC network 600 may be used (or reused), and the gNB 604 may serve as additional capacity for the UE, for example, to provide increased downlink throughput for the UE. In other words, LTE may be used for control plane signaling, and NR may be used for user plane signaling. Thus, LTE may be used to establish a connection with the network, and NR may be used for data services.

[0124] Figure 6B The proposed protocol stack for the eNB 602 and the gNB 604 is shown. As shown, the eNB 602 may include a medium access control (MAC) layer 632 that interfaces with the radio link control (RLC) layers 622a-622b. The RLC layer 622a may also interface with the packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer 612a, and the RLC layer 622b may interface with the PDCP layer 612b. Similar to the dual connectivity specified in LTE-Advanced Release 12, the PDCP layer 612a may interface with the EPC network 600 via a master cell group (MCG) bearer, while the PDCP layer 612b may interface with the EPC network 600 via a separate bearer.

[0125] In addition, as shown, the gNB 604 may include a MAC layer 634 that interfaces with the RLC layers 624a-624b. The RLC layer 624a may interface with the PDCP layer 612b of the eNB 602 via an X2 interface for information exchange and / or coordination (e.g., scheduling UEs) between the eNB 602 and the gNB 604. In addition, the RLC layer 624b may interface with the PDCP layer 614. Similar to the dual connectivity specified in Advanced LTE Release 12, the PDCP layer 614 may interface with the EPC network 600 via a secondary cell group (SCG) bearer. Therefore, the eNB 602 may be considered a master node (MeNB) and the gNB 604 may be considered a secondary node (SgNB). In some cases, the UE may be required to maintain a connection with both the MeNB and the SgNB. In such a scenario, the MeNB may be used to maintain a radio resource control (RRC) connection with the EPC, while the SgNB may be used for capacity (e.g., additional downlink and / or uplink throughput).

[0126] 5G Core Network Architecture—Interworking with Wi-Fi

[0127] In some embodiments, the 5G core network (CN) can be accessed via (or through) a cellular connection / interface (e.g., via a 3GPP communication architecture / protocol) and a non-cellular connection / interface (e.g., a non-3GPP access architecture / protocol such as a Wi-Fi connection). Fig. 7AAn example of a 5G network architecture according to some embodiments is shown, which combines 3GPP (e.g., cellular) and non-3GPP (e.g., non-cellular) access in 5G CN. As shown, a user equipment device (e.g., UE 106) can access 5G CN through both a radio access network (RAN, such as a gNB or base station 604) and an access point such as AP 112. AP 112 may include a connection to the Internet 700 and a connection to a non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF) 702 network entity. N3IWF may include a connection to a core access and mobility management function (AMF) 704 of 5G CN. AMF 704 may include an instance of a 5G mobility management (5G MM) function associated with UE 106. In addition, RAN (e.g., gNB 604) may also have a connection with AMF 704. Therefore, 5G CN can support unified authentication on two connections and allow UE 106 access to be registered simultaneously via gNB 604 and AP 112. As shown, the AMF 704 may include one or more functional entities associated with the 5G CN (e.g., a network slice selection function (NSSF) 720, a short message service function (SMSF) 722, an application function (AF) 724, a unified data management (UDM) 726, a policy control function (PCF) 728, and / or an authentication server function (AUSF) 730). Note that these functional entities may also be supported by the session management function (SMF) 706a and SMF 706b of the 5G CN. The AMF 706 may be connected to (or communicate with) the SMF 706a. In addition, the gNB 604 may communicate with (or be connected to) a user plane function (UPF) 708a, which may also communicate with the SMF 706a. Similarly, the N3IWF 702 may communicate with the UPF 708b, which may also communicate with the SMF 706b. Both UPFs may communicate with data networks (eg, DNs 710a and 710b) and / or the Internet 700 and the IMS core network 710.

[0128] Figure 7BAn example of a 5G network architecture according to some embodiments is shown, which combines dual 3GPP (e.g., LTE and 5G NR) access and non-3GPP access in 5G CN. As shown, a user equipment device (e.g., UE 106) can access 5GCN through both a radio access network (RAN, such as gNB or base station 604 or eNB or base station 602) and an access point such as AP 112. AP 112 may include a connection to the Internet 700 and a connection to the N3IWF 702 network entity. N3IWF may include a connection to the AMF 704 of the 5G CN. AMF 704 may include an instance of a 5G MM function associated with UE 106. In addition, the RAN (e.g., gNB 604) may also have a connection to AMF 704. Therefore, 5G CN can support unified authentication on two connections and allow UE 106 access to be registered simultaneously via gNB 604 and AP 112. In addition, 5GCN can support dual registration of UEs on both traditional networks (e.g., LTE via base station 602) and 5G networks (e.g., via base station 604). As shown, base station 602 can have connections to mobility management entity (MME) 742 and service gateway (SGW) 744. MME 742 can have connections to both SGW 744 and AMF 704. In addition, SGW 744 can have connections to both SMF 706a and UPF 708a. As shown, AMF 704 can include one or more functional entities associated with 5G CN (e.g., NSSF 720, SMSF 722, AF 724, UDM 726, PCF 728 and / or AUSF 730). It should be noted that UDM 726 can also include home subscriber server (HSS) functions, and PCF can also include policy and charging rules functions (PCRF). It should also be noted that these functional entities can also be supported by SMF 706a and SMF 706b of 5G CN. AMF 706 can be connected to (or communicate with) SMF 706a. In addition, gNB 604 can communicate with (or be connected to) UPF 708a, which can also communicate with SMF 706a. Similarly, N3IWF702 can communicate with UPF 708b, which can also communicate with SMF 706b. Both UPFs can communicate with data networks (e.g., DN710a and 710b) and / or the Internet 700 and the IMS core network 710.

[0129] Note that in various embodiments, one or more of the above-described network entities may be configured for software reconfiguration of a multi-radio wireless device including multiple radio computers, eg, as further described herein.

[0130] Figure 8 An example of a baseband processor architecture for a UE (e.g., UE 106) according to some embodiments is shown. As described above, Figure 8 The baseband processor architecture 800 described in the figure can be implemented on one or more radio components (e.g., the radio components 329 and / or 330 described above) or modems (e.g., modems 510 and / or 520) as described above. As shown in the figure, the non-access layer 810 may include a 5G NAS 820 and a traditional NAS 850. The traditional NAS 850 may include a communication connection with a traditional access layer (AS) 870. The 5G NAS 820 may include a communication connection with a 5G AS 840 and a non-3GPP AS 830 and a Wi-Fi AS 832. The 5G NAS 820 may include functional entities associated with two access layers. Therefore, the 5G NAS820 may include multiple 5G MM entities 826 and 828 and 5G session management (SM) entities 822 and 824. The traditional NAS 850 may include functional entities such as a short message service (SMS) entity 852, an evolved packet system (EPS) session management (ESM) entity 854, a session management (SM) entity 856, an EPS mobility management (EMM) entity 858, and a mobility management (MM) / GPRS mobility management (GMM) entity 860. In addition, the traditional AS 870 may include functional entities such as an LTE AS 872, a UMTS AS 874, and / or a GSM / GPRS 876.

[0131] Thus, the baseband processor architecture 800 allows for a common 5G-NAS for both 5G cellular and non-cellular (e.g., non-3GPP access). Note that, as shown, 5G MM can maintain a separate connection management and registration management state machine for each connection. In addition, a device (e.g., UE 106) can register to a single PLMN (e.g., 5G CN) using 5G cellular access as well as non-cellular access. In addition, a device can be in a connected state in one access and in an idle state in another access, or vice versa. Finally, there may be common 5G-MM procedures (e.g., registration, deregistration, identification, authentication, etc.) for both accesses.

[0132] Note that in various embodiments, one or more of the above-mentioned functional entities of the 5G NAS and / or 5G AS may be configured to perform a method for software reconfiguration of a multi-radio wireless device comprising multiple radio computers, for example, as further described herein.

[0133] Register via 3GPP (trusted) and non-3GPP (untrusted access)

[0134] A UE connected to the 5G system via both 3GPP and non-3GPP access simultaneously maintains two different Registration Management (RM) contexts, one for each access (see e.g. TS 23.501 clause 5.3.2.4).

[0135] The architecture for a UE connecting to a 5G system via 3GPP and non-3GPP accesses may take several shapes depending on whether the UE is roaming and whether the 3GPP and non-3GPP accesses reside in the same PLMN. Fig. 9 and Fig.10 Examples of non-roaming architecture for a 5G core network with non-3GPP access and home roaming architecture for a 5G core network with non-3GPP access according to some embodiments are shown, respectively. Fig. 9 and Fig.10 It is noted that 3GPP and non-3GPP access reside in the same VPLMN.

[0136] According to the current 5G system specifications, a UE simultaneously connected to the 5G system via 3GPP and non-3GPP accesses belonging to the same PLMN should use the same UE temporary identifier (5G-GUTI) in both accesses. The basic assumption is that the UE context is handled by a single AMF on the network side.

[0137] If the UE is already registered via one access in PLMN A (e.g. a non-3GPP access) and attempts to register via another access in the same PLMN (e.g. a 3GPP access), the AMF selected for the second access may be different from the AMF selected for the first access. For example, this is typically the case when the UE first registers via a non-3GPP access and then registers via a 3GPP access to establish a PDU session that must use the 3GPP access, because the AMF selected for the non-3GPP access has no geographical relationship with the current UE location.

[0138] When the new AMF (selected for the second access) is different from the AMF selected for the first access, the UE context stored in the old AMF may need to be transferred to the new AMF and the N2 interface (between the N3IWF and the AMF) may need to be relocated from the old AMF to the new AMF.

[0139] Referring to the registration procedure in TS 23.501 clause 4.2.2.2.2, this context transfer occurs in step 5, and the N2 interface may be relocated in steps 18-19 with the execution of the N2 mobility request / response procedure.

[0140] 18. New AMF to N3IWF: N2 AMF mobility request ().

[0141] If the AMF has changed and the old AMF has indicated an existing NGAP UE association with the N3IWF, the new AMF creates a NGAP UE association for the N3IWF to which the UE is connected. This automatically releases the existing NGAP UE association between the old AMF and the N3IWF

[0142] 19.N3IWF to new AMF: N2 AMF mobility response ().

[0143] There are two problems with the current description in step 18:

[0144] (a) N2 AMF mobility procedures are currently not defined in TS 38.413. In particular, it is unclear whether existing NG-AP procedures can be used for N2 interface relocation and what parameters need to be passed to the N2 IWF to enable identification of the UE context in the N3 IWF.

[0145] (b) If the UE is in CM-IDLE state over non-3GPP when the context transfer from the old AMF to the new AMF occurs, the N2 AMF mobility procedure shall not be performed.

[0146] The present disclosure solves the two problems listed above.

[0147] It is noteworthy that the present disclosure proposes:

[0148] Transmitting the UE CM status in the UE Context Transfer Response message (step 5);

[0149] Conditionally perform N2 AMF mobility procedures based on UE CM status in old AMF (steps 18-19);

[0150] A set of parameters that needs to be transferred from the old AMF to the new AMF to enable UE context identification in the N3IWF when performing the N2 AMF mobility procedure; and

[0151] Two implementations of the Phase-3 NG-AP protocol:

[0152] (a) New AMF Mobility Request / Response procedures; and

[0153] (b) Reuse of existing messages, UE Context Modification Request / Response or UE Context Setup Request / Response.

[0154] These embodiments complete the missing functionality in the prior specification. Without the teachings of the present disclosure, the handling of concurrent 3GPP access and non-3GPP access in a 5G system would not work if both accesses were handled by the same PLMN.

[0155] Some aspects of the present disclosure are implemented in the following call flow and are shown in bold and underline font.The call flow in TS23.502 clause 4.2.2.2.2 (Registration process) is used as a basis.

[0156] The relevant changes are in step 5 (UE context transfer response) and step 18 (N2 AMF mobility request).

[0157] 5. [Conditions] Old AMF to new AMF: Response to Namf_Communication_UEContextTransfer(SUPI, UE Context in AMF (as per Table 5.2.2.2.2-1)) or UDSF to new AMF: Nudsf_UnstructuredDataManagement_Query(). The old AMF may start implementation specific (protection) timers for the UE context.

[0158] If the UDSF was queried in step 4, the UDSF responds to the new AMF for the Nudsf_Unstructural Data Management_Query call with the relevant context including the established PDU session, the old AMF including the SMF information DNN, S-NSSAI and PDU session ID, the active NGAP UE-TNLA binding to the N3IWF, and the old AMF including information about the NGAP UE-TNLA binding. If the old AMF was queried in step 4, the old AMF responds to the new AMF for the Namf_Communication_UEContextTransfer call by including the UE's SUPI and UE context.

[0159] If the old AMF holds information about the established PDU session, the old AMF includes SMF information, DNN, S-NSSAI and PDU session ID.

[0160] If the old AMF remains For UE contexts established via untrusted non-3GPP access, the old AMF includes CM state of the connected UE. If the UE is in CM state via non-3GPP access , the old AMF includes information about NGAP UE-TNLA binding.

[0161] If the old AMF fails the integrity check of the Registration Request NAS message, the old AMF shall indicate an integrity check failure.

[0162] If the old AMF holds information about AM policy association, the old AMF includes information about AM policy association including policy control request trigger and PCF ID. In the case of roaming, it includes V-PCF ID and H-PCF ID.

[0163] ………………

[0164] 18. New AMF to N3IWF: N2 AMF mobility request ().

[0165] If the AMF has changed and the old AMF has indicated UE is in CM connected state via untrusted non-3GPP access state , the new AMF creates a NGAP UE association for the N3IWF to which the UE is connected. This automatically releases the existing NGAP UE association between the old AMF and the N3IWF

[0166] 19.N3IWF to new AMF: N2 AMF mobility response ().

[0167] The UE context in TS 23.52 Table 5.2.2.2.2-1 needs to be updated with the currently missing information: the global N3IWF identifier and the CM state of the UE via non-3GPP access. Several conditions may be added to the presence of certain parameters in the UE context. Notably, the field for "CM state in non-3GPP access" may have the following description: "Identifies the UE CM state (CM-IDLE, CM-CONNECTED) via untrusted non-3GPP access." Additionally, the field for "Global N3WIF ID" may have the following description: "Identifies the N3IWF to which the UE is connected via untrusted non-3GPP access. Only present if the CM state in non-3GPP access is CM-CONNECTED. Additionally, the "AMF UE NGAP ID" field may be modified to have the following description: "Identifies the UE's association with the AMF via the NG interface as defined in TS 38.413

[10] . This parameter is present only if the CM State of the corresponding access type is CM Connected;" and the "RAN UE NGAP ID" field may be modified to have the following description: "Identifies the association of the UE with the NG-RAN node over the NG interface as defined in TS 38.413

[10] . This parameter is present only if the CM State of the corresponding access type is CM Connected."

[0168] The corresponding N2 mobility process is shown below.

[0169] Implementation 1 – New NG-AP Process

[0170] Fig.11 An example of a request process according to some embodiments is shown. In some embodiments, the request process includes an AMF mobility request process.

[0171] It is worth noting that the AMF may send an AMF Mobility Request message to the N3IWF, which is identified as having a global N3IWF ID parameter received from the old AMF. The AMF Mobility Request message may include the old RAN UE NGAP ID and the old AMF UE NGAP ID parameter that the new AMF has received from the old AMF to enable the N3IWF to retrieve the UE context. It may also include an AMF UE NGAP ID parameter to enable the creation of a new NGAP UE association between the N3IWF and the new AMF. If the N3IWF successfully retrieves the UE context, it may send an AMF Mobility Response message, which may include a RAN UE NGAP ID parameter to complete the creation of a new NGAP UE association between the N3IWF and the new AMF. Table 1 provides an example of information in an AMF Mobility Request from the AMF to the N3IWF. In addition, Table 2 provides an example of information in an AMF Mobility Response from the N3IWF to the AMF.

[0172]

[0173] Table 1: AMF mobility request

[0174]

[0175] Table 2: AMF mobility responses

[0176] Implementation 2 – Reuse of UE Context Modification Procedure

[0177] In some embodiments, the UE Context Modification Request may be reused. The method may build on TS 38.413 clause 9.2.2.7. It is noteworthy that the UE Context Modification Request may be sent by the AMF to provide the NG-RAN node with UE context information changes. Table 3 provides an example of information in a UE Context Modification Request from the AMF to the NG-RAN node. In Table 3, modifications are shown in italics, bold and underlined.

[0178]

[0179]

[0180] Table 3: UE context modification request

[0181] Fig.12 An exemplary method 1200 for establishing registration using trusted access and untrusted access according to some embodiments is shown. The method may be performed by a computer in a wireless communication system, such as Fig.13 CN 1320, Fig.14 CN1420 or Fig.15Computer in CN 1520.

[0182] During operation, the computer may perform a first registration of the user device via a first access (operation 1210), wherein after the first registration, the user device is connected to the first AMF via the first access. Then, the computer may perform a second registration of the user device via a second access (operation 1212), wherein the second access is different from the first access, and after the second registration, the user device is connected to the second AMF via the second access. In addition, during the second registration (operation 1212), the computer may: transfer the context of the user device from the first AMF to the second AMF; and may relocate the network interface in the control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF.

[0183] For example, the first access may be a non-3GPP access and the second access may be a 3GPP access.Alternatively or additionally, the first access may be a non-trusted access and the second access may be a trusted access.

[0184] Furthermore, the first access and the second access may be comprised in a public wireless communication system, such as a public PLMN.

[0185] Additionally, the network interface may include an N2 interface.

[0186] Note that the context of the user equipment may include the CM state of the first user equipment on the first access. In addition, the context of the user equipment may include: an identifier of the first access network node that handles the first access and / or one or more parameters that identify the application protocol user equipment association between the first access network node (or access node) and the first AMF. For example, the application protocol user equipment association may include an NGAP user equipment association. In some embodiments, one or more parameters may include: an AMF user equipment NGAP identifier and / or a RAN user equipment NGAP identifier.

[0187] In addition, the transmission may involve the second AMF retrieving the context of the user equipment from the first AMF. For example, when the first user equipment configuration state on the first access indicates that the user equipment is connected, the second AMF may send a first request, such as a first AMF mobility request message, to the first access network node. In addition, the first request may include one or more parameters. Alternatively, when the first user equipment configuration state on the first access indicates that the user equipment is idle, the second AMF may not send the first request.

[0188] Furthermore, the second registration may occur when the user equipment registers through the first access via the first registration.

[0189] In some embodiments, the computer optionally performs one or more additional operations (operation 1214). Notably, the computer may determine a second user equipment configuration state on the second access, and selectively send a second request, such as a second AMF mobility request message, to the second access network node based at least in part on the second user equipment configuration state on the second access. For example, the second request may be sent when the second user equipment configuration state on the second access indicates that the user equipment is connected. It is noted that the second request may include one or more parameters.

[0190] In some embodiments of method 1200, there may be additional or fewer operations. In addition, one or more different operations may be included. In addition, the order of operations may be changed, and / or two or more operations may be combined into a single operation or performed at least partially in parallel.

[0191] System and implementation

[0192] Fig.13 An example of the architecture of a system 1300 of a network according to some embodiments is shown. The following description is provided for an exemplary system 1300 operating in conjunction with LTE system standards and 5G or NR system standards provided by 3GPP technical specifications. However, the exemplary embodiments are not limited in this regard, and the embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), and the like.

[0193] like Fig.13 As shown, system 1300 includes UE 1301a and UE 1301b (collectively referred to as "UE 1301"). In this example, UE 1301 is shown as a smart phone (e.g., a handheld touch screen mobile computing device that can connect to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as a consumer electronic device, a mobile phone, a smart phone, a feature phone, a tablet computer, a wearable computer device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a pager, a wireless handheld device, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), an in-vehicle entertainment (ICE) device, an instrument panel (IC), a head-up display (HUD) device, an on-board diagnostic (OBD) device, a dashtop mobile equipment (DME), a mobile data terminal (MDT), an electronic engine management system (EEMS), an electronic / engine electronic control unit (ECU), an electronic / engine electronic control module (ECM), an embedded system, a microcontroller, a control module, an engine management system (EMS), a networked or "smart" appliance, an MTC device, an M2M, an IoT device, etc.

[0194] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 1301 may include an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications that utilize short-term UE connections. The IoT UE may utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC to exchange data with an MTC server or device via PLMN, ProSe or D2D communications, sensor networks, or IoT networks. M2M or MTC data exchanges may be machine-initiated data exchanges. The IoT network describes interconnected IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure) with short-lived connections. The IoT UE may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate connectivity to the IoT network.

[0195] UE 1301 may be configured to connect, e.g., be communicatively coupled, to RAN 1310. In an embodiment, RAN 1310 may be an NG RAN or 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a legacy RAN, such as UTRAN or GERAN. As used herein, the term "NGRAN" or the like may refer to RAN 1310 operating in an NR or 5G system 1300, while the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to RAN 1310 operating in an LTE or 4G system 1300. UE 1301 utilizes connections (or channels) 1303 and 1304, respectively, each of which includes a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below).

[0196] In this example, connections 1303 and 1304 are shown as air interfaces to achieve communication coupling, and may be consistent with a cellular communication protocol, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMA network protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, a NR protocol, and / or any of the other communication protocols discussed herein. In an embodiment, the UE 1301 may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 1305. The ProSe interface 1305 may alternatively be referred to as a SL interface 1305, and may include one or more logical channels, including but not limited to PSCCH, PSSCH, PSDCH, and PSBCH.

[0197] UE 1301b is shown as being configured to access AP 1306 (also referred to as "WLAN node 1306," "WLAN 1306," "WLAN terminal 1306," "WT 1306," etc.) via connection 1307. Connection 1307 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein AP 1306 would include Wireless Fidelity. router. In this example, AP 1306 is shown connected to the Internet without being connected to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, UE 1301b, RAN 1310, and AP 1306 may be configured to utilize LWA operation and / or LWIP operation. LWA operation may involve UE 1301b in RRC_CONNECTED state being configured by RAN nodes 1311a-b to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve UE 1301b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 1307) via an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent through connection 1307. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating the entire original IP packet and adding a new packet header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packet.

[0198] RAN 1310 includes one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 1311a and 1311b (collectively referred to as "RAN node 1311") that enable connections 1303 and 1304. As used herein, the terms "access node", "access point", etc. may describe equipment that provides radio baseband functions for data and / or voice connections between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP or TRP, etc., and may include ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations that provide coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the terms "NG RAN node" and the like may refer to a RAN node 1311 (e.g., a gNB) operating in an NR or 5G system 1300, while the terms "E-UTRAN node" and the like may refer to a RAN node 1311 (e.g., an eNB) operating in an LTE or 4G system 1300. According to various embodiments, the RAN node 1311 may be implemented as one or more of dedicated physical devices such as a macrocell base station and / or a low power (LP) base station for providing a femtocell, picocell or other similar cell with a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity or higher bandwidth than a macrocell.

[0199] In some embodiments, all or part of the RAN node 1311 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network that may be referred to as a CRAN and / or a virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these embodiments, the CRAN or vBBUP may implement RAN functional splitting, such as PDCP splitting, where the RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, while other L2 protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes 1311; MAC / PHY splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 1311; or "lower PHY" splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers, and upper portions of the PHY layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the lower portions of the PHY layers are operated by individual RAN nodes 1311. This virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of the RAN node 1311 to execute other virtualized applications. In some specific implementations, a separate RAN node 1311 may be represented via a separate F1 interface ( Fig.13 In these embodiments, the gNB-DU may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., Fig.16 ), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server (not shown) located in the RAN 1310 or by a server pool in a manner similar to CRAN / vBBUP. In addition or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 1311 may be a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), which is a next generation eNB that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminals to the UE 1301 and is connected to the 5GC (e.g., NG-eNB) via an NG interface (discussed below). Fig.15 CN 1520) RAN node.

[0200] In a V2X scenario, one or more of the RAN nodes 1311 may be an RSU or act as an RSU. The term "roadside unit" or "RSU" may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity used for V2X communication. The RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE, wherein an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU", an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an "eNB-type RSU", an RSU implemented in or by a gNB may be referred to as a "gNB-type RSU", and so on. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled to a radio frequency circuit located on the road side that provides connectivity support to a passing vehicle UE 1301 (vUE 1301). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications / software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct Short Range Communication (DSRC) band to provide extremely low latency communications required for high-speed events, such as collision avoidance, traffic warnings, etc. In addition or alternatively, the RSU may operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned low latency communications as well as other cellular communication services. In addition or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (2.4 GHz band) and / or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Some or all of the computing device and the RSU's RF circuitry may be packaged in a weather-resistant enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller and / or backhaul network.

[0201] Any of the RAN nodes 1311 may terminate the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for the UE 1301. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 1311 may perform various logical functions of the RAN 1310, including but not limited to Radio Network Controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0202] In an embodiment, UE 1301 may be configured to communicate with each other or with any of RAN nodes 1311 over a multi-carrier communication channel using OFDM communication signals according to various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communication) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communication), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. OFDM signals may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0203] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 1311 to the UE 1301, while uplink transmissions may utilize similar techniques. The grid may be a time-frequency grid, referred to as a resource grid or a time-frequency resource grid, which is a physical resource in the downlink in each time slot. For OFDM systems, such a time-frequency plane representation is common practice, which makes wireless resource allocation intuitive. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to an OFDM symbol and an OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to a time slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in the resource grid is represented as a resource element. Each resource grid includes a plurality of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block includes a set of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the minimum amount of resources that can currently be allocated. Such resource blocks are used to transmit several different physical downlink channels.

[0204] According to various embodiments, UE 1301 and RAN node 1311 communicate data (e.g., send data and receive data) through a licensed medium (also referred to as "licensed spectrum" and / or "licensed frequency band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as "unlicensed spectrum" and / or "unlicensed frequency band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, and the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5 GHz frequency band.

[0205] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UE 1301 and the RAN node 1311 may operate using LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms. In these implementations, the UE 1301 and the RAN node 1311 may perform one or more known medium sensing operations and / or carrier sensing operations to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum are unavailable or otherwise occupied before transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium / carrier sensing operations may be performed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0206] LBT is a mechanism by which equipment (e.g., UE 1301, RAN node 1311, etc.) senses a medium (e.g., a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a particular channel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include a CCA that utilizes at least an ED to determine whether other signals are present on the channel in order to determine whether the channel is occupied or idle. The LBT mechanism allows cellular / LAA networks to coexist with existing systems in unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy over a period of time on an expected transmission band and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

[0207] Typically, existing systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based on IEEE 802.11 technology. WLANs use a contention-based channel access mechanism called CSMA / CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS) such as UE 1301, AP 1306, etc.) is intended to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmission. In addition, in the case where more than one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time, a backoff mechanism is used to avoid conflicts. The backoff mechanism may be a counter randomly introduced within the CWS that increases exponentially when a conflict occurs and is reset to a minimum value when the transmission is successful. The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to the CSMA / CA of WLAN. In some specific implementations, the LBT process for a DL or UL transmission burst (including PDSCH or PUSCH transmission) may have a LAA contention window of variable length between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum values ​​of the CWS of LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for LAA transmissions may be 9 microseconds (μs); however, the size of the CWS and MCOT (eg, transmission burst) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

[0208] The LAA mechanism is built on the CA technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is called a CC. A CC can have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 MHz, and up to five CCs can be aggregated, so the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In an FDD system, the number of aggregated carriers can be different for DL ​​and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, each CC may have a different bandwidth from other CCs. In a TDD system, the number of CCs and the bandwidth of each CC are typically the same for DL ​​and UL.

[0209] CA also includes individual serving cells to provide individual CCs. The coverage of the serving cells may be different, for example, because CCs on different frequency bands will experience different path losses. The primary serving cell or PCell may provide the PCC for both UL and DL, and may handle activities related to RRC and NAS. Other serving cells are called SCells, and each SCell may provide individual SCCs for both UL and DL. SCCs may be added and removed as needed, and changing PCCs may require UE 1301 to undergo switching. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells may operate in an unlicensed spectrum (referred to as "LAA SCells"), and the LAA SCells are assisted by the PCells operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCells, indicating different PUSCH start positions within the same subframe.

[0210] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to the UE 1301. The PDCCH carries, among other information, information about the transport format and resource allocation related to the PDSCH channel. It may also inform the UE 1301 about the transport format, resource allocation, and HARQ information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UE 1301b within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 1311 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 1301. Downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each of the UEs 1301.

[0211] PDCCH uses CCE to transmit control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols can first be organized into quadruplets, which can then be arranged using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. One or more of these CCEs can be used to transmit each PDCCH, where each CCE can correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, respectively, called REGs. Four quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) symbols can be mapped to each REG. Depending on the size of the DCI and channel conditions, one or more CCEs can be used to transmit the PDCCH. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

[0212] Some embodiments may use the concept of resource allocation for control channel information, which is an extension of the above concept. For example, some embodiments may utilize EPDCCH that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. One or more ECCEs may be used to transmit EPDCCH. Similar to the above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements, referred to as EREG. In some cases, ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs.

[0213] RAN nodes 1311 may be configured to communicate with each other via interface 1312. In the case where system 1300 is an LTE system (e.g., as in Fig.14 In an implementation scheme (in which the CN 1320 is the EPC 1420), the interface 1312 may be an X2 interface 1312. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 1311 (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC 1320, and / or between two eNBs connected to the EPC 1320. In some specific implementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user packets transmitted over the X2 interface, and may be used to transmit information about the delivery of user data between eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence number information about user data transmitted from the MeNB to the SeNB; information about the successful in-sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs from the SeNB to the UE 1301 for user data; information about PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to the UE 1301; information about the current minimum expected buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting user data to the UE; and the like. X2-C can provide intra-LTE access mobility functions, including context transfer from source eNB to target eNB, user plane transmission control, etc.; load management functions; and inter-cell interference coordination functions.

[0214] In the case where system 1300 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., as in Fig.15In an implementation scheme (when the CN 1320 is a 5GC 1520), the interface 1312 may be an Xn interface 1312. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 1311 (e.g., two or more gNBs, etc.) connected to the 5GC 1320, between a RAN node 1311 (e.g., a gNB) and an eNB connected to the 5GC 1320, and / or between two eNBs connected to the 5GC 1320. In some specific implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support / provide data forwarding and flow control functions. The Xn-C may provide management and error handling functions for managing the functions of the Xn-C interface; mobility support for the UE 1301 in a connected mode (e.g., a CM connection), including functions for managing UE mobility for a connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 1311. Mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) service RAN node 1311 to the new (target) service RAN node 1311; and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) service RAN node 1311 and the new (target) service RAN node 1311. The protocol stack of Xn-U may include a transport network layer built on an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of a UDP and / or IP layer for carrying user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as the Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer built on SCTP. SCTP may be on top of the IP layer and may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transport is used to deliver signaling PDUs. In other specific implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and / or the Xn-C protocol stack may be the same or similar to the user plane and / or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

[0215] RAN 1310 is shown as being communicatively coupled to a core network—in this embodiment, communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 1320. CN 1320 may include a plurality of network elements 1322 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of UE 1301) connected to CN 1320 via RAN 1310. The components of CN 1320 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes, including components that read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, NFV may be used to virtualize any or all of the above-mentioned network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). A logical instance of CN 1320 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instance of a portion of CN 1320 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more network functions onto physical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware). In other words, the NFV system may be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0216] Generally speaking, the application server 1330 may be an element that provides applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 1330 may also be configured to support one or more communication services for the UE 1301 via the EPC 1320 (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social network services, etc.).

[0217] In an embodiment, CN 1320 may be a 5GC (referred to as "5GC 1320" or the like), and RAN 1310 may be connected to CN 1320 via an NG interface 1313. In an embodiment, NG interface 1313 may be divided into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 1314, which carries traffic data between RAN node 1311 and UPF; and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 1315, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 1311 and AMF. Fig.15 An implementation of CN 1320 as 5GC 1320 is discussed in more detail.

[0218] In an embodiment, CN 1320 may be a 5G CN (referred to as "5GC 1320", etc.), while in other embodiments, CN 1320 may be an EPC. In the case where CN 1320 is an EPC (referred to as "EPC 1320", etc.), RAN 1310 may be connected to CN 1320 via an S1 interface 1313. In an embodiment, S1 interface 1313 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 1314, which carries traffic data between RAN node 1311 and S-GW; and an S1-MME interface 1315, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 1311 and MME.

[0219] Fig.14 FIG. 1 shows an example of an architecture of a system 1400 including a first CN 1420 according to some embodiments. In this example, the system 1400 may implement the LTE standard, where the CN 1420 is associated with Fig.13 In addition, UE 1401 can communicate with Fig.13 The UE 1301 is the same as or similar to the UE 1301, and the E-UTRAN 1410 may be Fig.13 The CN 1420 may be a RAN that is the same as or similar to the RAN 1310 of the mobile station, and may include the RAN node 1311 discussed previously. The CN 1420 may include an MME 1421, an S-GW 1422, a P-GW 1423, an HSS 1424, and an SGSN 1425.

[0220] The MME 1421 may be similar in function to the control plane of a traditional SGSN, and may implement MM functions to keep track of the current location of the UE 1401. The MME 1421 may perform various MM procedures to manage mobility aspects in access, such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. MM (also referred to as "EPS MM" or "EMM" in an E-UTRAN system) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data stores, etc. for maintaining knowledge of the current location of the UE 1401, providing user identity confidentiality, and / or performing other similar services to the user / subscriber. Each UE 1401 and MME 1421 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and when the attachment procedure is successfully completed, an MM context may be established in the UE 1401 and the MME 1421. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM-related information of the UE 1401. The MME 1421 may be coupled to the HSS 1424 via an S6a reference point, to the SGSN 1425 via an S3 reference point, and to the S-GW 1422 via an S11 reference point.

[0221] SGSN 1425 may be a node that serves UE 1401 by tracking the location of individual UE 1401 and performing security functions. In addition, SGSN 1425 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between 2G / 3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 1421; handling of UE 1401 time zone functions as specified by MME 1421; and MME selection for handover to E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. The S3 reference point between MME 1421 and SGSN 1425 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in an idle state and / or an active state.

[0222] The HSS 1424 may include a database for network users, which includes subscription-related information that supports network entities in handling communication sessions. The EPC 1420 may include one or several HSSs 1424, depending on the number of mobile users, the capacity of the equipment, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 1424 may provide support for routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / address resolution, location dependency, etc. The S6a reference point between the HSS 1424 and the MME 1421 may enable the transmission of subscription data and authentication data for authenticating / authorizing user access to the EPC 1420 between the HSS 1424 and the MME 1421.

[0223] The S-GW 1422 may terminate the S1 interface 1313 towards the RAN 1410 (at Fig.14 1421) and routes data packets between RAN 1410 and EPC 1420. In addition, S-GW 1422 can be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handovers and can also provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and enforcement of certain policies. The S11 reference point between S-GW 1422 and MME 1421 can provide a control plane between MME 1421 and S-GW 1422. S-GW 1422 can be coupled to P-GW 1423 via an S5 reference point.

[0224] P-GW 1423 may terminate the SGi interface toward PDN 1430. P-GW 1423 may route data packets between EPC 1420 and external networks such as a network including an application server 1330 (alternatively referred to as "AF") via IP interface 1325 (see, e.g. Fig.13 In an embodiment, P-GW 1423 can communicate with the user via IP communication interface 1325 (see, e.g. Fig.13 ) is communicatively coupled to an application server ( Fig.13Application server 1330 or Fig.14 The S5 reference point between the P-GW 1423 and the S-GW 1422 may provide user plane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 1423 and the S-GW 1422. The S5 reference point may also be used for S-GW 1422 relocation due to UE 1401 mobility and if the S-GW 1422 needs to connect to a non-co-located P-GW 1423 for required PDN connectivity. The P-GW 1423 may also include nodes for policy enforcement and charging data collection, such as a PCEF (not shown). In addition, the SGi reference point between the P-GW 1423 and the packet data network (PDN) 1430 may be an operator-external public, private PDN, or an internal operator packet data network, such as for providing IMS services. The P-GW 1423 may be coupled to the PCRF 1426 via a Gx reference point.

[0225] PCRF 1426 is a policy and charging control element of EPC 1420. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 1426 in a home public land mobile network (HPLMN) associated with an Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session of UE 1401. In a roaming scenario with local traffic breakout, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of UE 1401: a home PCRF (H-PCRF) in the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) in a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN). PCRF 1426 may be communicatively coupled to application server 1430 via P-GW 1423. Application server 1430 may signal PCRF 1426 to indicate a new service flow and select appropriate QoS and charging parameters. PCRF 1426 may configure the rule to a PCEF (not shown) with the appropriate TFT and QCI, which initiates QoS and charging specified by application server 1430. The Gx reference point between PCRF 1426 and P-GW 1423 may allow QoS policies and charging rules to be transferred from PCRF 1426 to the PCEF in P-GW 1423. The Rx reference point may reside between PDN 1430 (or "AF 1430") and PCRF 1426.

[0226] Fig.15An example of the architecture of a system 1500 including a second CN 1520 according to some embodiments is shown. The system 1500 is shown to include a UE 1501, which may be the same or similar to the previously discussed UE 1301 and UE 1401; (R) AN 1510, which may be the same or similar to the previously discussed RAN 1310 and RAN 1410, and which may include the previously discussed RAN node 1311; and a DN 1503, which may be, for example, an operator service, Internet access, or a 3rd party service; and a 5GC 1520. The 5GC 1520 may include an AUSF 1522; an AMF 1521; an SMF 1524; an NEF 1523; a PCF 1526; an NRF 1525; an UDM 1527; an AF 1528; an UPF 1502; and an NSSF 1529.

[0227] The UPF 1502 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point interconnected with the DN 1503, and a branch point to support multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF 1502 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform the user plane portion of policy rules, lawful interception of packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS processing on the user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL / DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic validation (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 1502 may include an uplink classifier to support routing of traffic flows to the data network. The DN 1503 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party services. The DN 1503 may include or be similar to the application server 1330 discussed previously. UPF 1502 may interact with SMF 1524 via the N4 reference point between SMF 1524 and UPF 1502.

[0228] AUSF 1522 may store data for authenticating UE 1501 and handle authentication-related functions. AUSF 1522 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. AUSF 1522 may communicate with AMF 1521 via the N12 reference point between AMF 1521 and AUSF 1522; and may communicate with UDM 1527 via the N13 reference point between UDM 1527 and AUSF 1522. In addition, AUSF 1522 may present an interface based on Nausf services.

[0229] AMF 1521 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., responsible for registering UE 1501, etc.), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. AMF 1521 may be a termination point for the N11 reference point between AMF 1521 and SMF 1524. AMF 1521 may provide transport for SM messages between UE 1501 and SMF 1524, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 1521 may also provide transport for UE 1501 and SMSF ( Fig.15 1501). The AMF 1521 may provide transport for SMS messages between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521. The AMF 1521 may act as a SEAF, which may include interaction with the AUSF 1522 and the UE 1501, receiving intermediate keys established as a result of the UE 1501 authentication process. In the case of using USIM-based authentication, the AMF 1521 may retrieve security material from the AUSF 1522. The AMF 1521 may also include an SCM function that receives keys from the SEA for deriving access network-specific keys. In addition, the AMF 1521 may be a termination point for the RAN CP interface, which may include or be the N2 reference point between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521; and the AMF 1521 may be a termination point for NAS (N1) signaling, and perform NAS encryption and integrity protection.

[0230] The AMF 1521 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 1501 over the N3 IWF interface. The N3 IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. The N3 IWF may be the termination point for the N2 interface between the (R) AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 for the control plane, and may be the termination point for the N3 reference point between the (R) AN 1510 and the UPF 1502 for the user plane. Thus, the AMF 1521 may process N2 signaling for PDU sessions and QoS from the SMF 1524 and the AMF 1521, encapsulate / decapsulate packets for IPSec and N3 tunnels, mark N3 user plane packets in the uplink, and perform QoS corresponding to N3 packet markings, taking into account QoS requirements associated with such markings received over N2. The N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlink control plane NAS signaling between the UE 1501 and the AMF 1521 via the N1 reference point between the UE 1501 and the AMF 1521, and relay uplink and downlink user plane packets between the UE 1501 and the UPF 1502. The N3IWF also provides a mechanism for establishing an IPsec tunnel with the UE 1501. The AMF 1521 may present an interface based on the Namf service, and may be an N14 reference point between the two AMFs 1521 and an N14 reference point between the AMF 1521 and the 5G-EIR ( Fig.15 The termination point of the N17 reference point between the two (not shown).

[0231] UE 1501 may need to register with AMF 1521 in order to receive network services. RM is used to register or deregister UE 1501 with the network (e.g., AMF 1521) and establish a UE context in the network (e.g., AMF 1521). UE 1501 may operate in the RM-registered state or the RM-deregistered state. In the RM-deregistered state, UE 1501 is not registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1521 does not hold valid location or routing information for UE 1501, so UE 1501 is not accessible by AMF 1521. In the RM-registered state, UE 1501 is registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1521 may hold valid location or routing information for UE 1501, so UE 1501 is accessible by AMF 1521. In the RM-registered state, UE 1501 can perform a mobility registration update procedure, perform a periodic registration update procedure triggered by the expiration of a periodic update timer (for example, to notify the network that UE 1501 is still active), and perform a registration update procedure to update UE capability information or renegotiate protocol parameters with the network, etc.

[0232] AMF 1521 may store one or more RM contexts for UE 1501, each RM context being associated with a specific access to the network. An RM context may be a data structure, a database object, or the like, which indicates or stores, among other things, the registration status and periodic update timer for each access type. AMF 1521 may also store a 5GC MM context which may be the same or similar to the (E)MM context discussed previously. In various embodiments, AMF 1521 may store CE mode B restriction parameters for UE 1501 in an associated MM context or RM context. AMF 1521 may also derive values ​​from the UE's usage setting parameters already stored in the UE context (and / or MM / RM context) when necessary.

[0233] The CM may be used to establish and release a signaling connection between the UE 1501 and the AMF 1521 through the N1 interface. The signaling connection is used to implement NAS signaling exchange between the UE 1501 and the CN 1520, and includes both a signaling connection between the UE and the AN (e.g., an RRC connection or a UE-N3IWF connection for non-3GPP access) and an N2 connection of the UE 1501 between the AN (e.g., the RAN 1510) and the AMF 1521. The UE 1501 may operate in one of two CM states (CM-idle mode or CM-connected mode). When the UE 1501 is operating in the CM-idle state / mode, the UE 1501 may not have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 1521 through the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN 1510 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 1501. When the UE 1501 is operating in the CM-connected state / mode, the UE 1501 may have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 1521 through the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN 1510 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 1501. The establishment of the N2 connection between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 may cause the UE 1501 to transition from the CM-idle mode to the CM-connected mode, and when the N2 signaling between the (R)AN 1510 and the AMF 1521 is released, the UE 1501 may transition from the CM-connected mode to the CM-idle mode.

[0234] SMF 1524 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, modification, and release, including tunnel maintenance between UPF and AN nodes); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP functions; configuring traffic steering of UPF to route traffic to the correct destination; terminating the interface toward the policy control function; control portion of policy enforcement and QoS; lawful interception (for SM events and interface with LI system); terminating the SM portion of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN-specific SM information sent to AN via AMF over N2; and determining the SSC mode of the session. SM may refer to the management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or "session" may refer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between a UE 1501 and a data network (DN) 1503 identified by a data network name (DNN). The PDU session may be established at the request of UE 1501, modified at the request of UE 1501 and 5GC 1520, and released at the request of UE 1501 and 5GC 1520 using NAS SM signaling exchanged over the N1 reference point between UE 1501 and SMF 1524. Upon request by the application server, 5GC 1520 may trigger a specific application in UE 1501. In response to receiving the trigger message, UE 1501 may pass the trigger message (or relevant parts / information of the trigger message) to one or more identified applications in UE 1501. The identified application in UE 1501 may establish a PDU session with a specific DNN. SMF 1524 may check whether the UE 1501 request complies with the user subscription information associated with UE 1501. In this regard, SMF 1524 may retrieve and / or request to receive update notifications about SMF 1524 level subscription data from UDM 1527.

[0235] SMF 1524 may include the following roaming functions: handling local execution to apply QoS SLA (VPLMN); charging data collection and charging interface (VPLMN); lawful interception (for SM events and interface with LI system, in VPLMN); and support interaction with external DN to transmit signaling for PDU session authorization / authentication through external DN. In a roaming scenario, an N16 reference point between two SMFs 1524 may be included in the system 1500, which may be located between another SMF 1524 in the visited network and the SMF 1524 in the home network. In addition, SMF 1524 may present an interface based on Nsmf services.

[0236] NEF 1523 may provide a device for securely exposing services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third parties, internal exposure / re-exposure, application functions (e.g., AF 1528), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, NEF 1523 may authenticate, authorize and / or restrict AF. NEF 1523 may also convert information exchanged with AF 1528 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, NEF 1523 may convert between AF service identifiers and internal 5GC information. NEF 1523 may also receive information from other network functions (NFs) based on the exposure capabilities of other network functions. The information may be stored at NEF 1523 as structured data, or stored at a data storage NF using a standardized interface. The stored information may then be re-exposed to other NFs and AFs by NEF 1523, and / or used for other purposes such as analysis. In addition, NEF 1523 may present an interface based on Nnef services.

[0237] NRF 1525 may support service discovery functionality, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 1525 also maintains information of available NF instances and the services they support. As used herein, the term "instantiation" and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" may refer to the specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of a program code. In addition, NRF 1525 may present an interface based on Nnrf services.

[0238] The PCF 1526 may provide control plane functions to enforce their policy rules and may also support a unified policy framework that manages network behavior. The PCF 1526 may also implement a FE to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of the UDM 1527. In the case of a roaming scenario, the PCF 1526 may communicate with the AMF 1521 via the N15 reference point between the PCF 1526 and the AMF 1521, which may include the PCF 1526 and the AMF 1521 in the visited network. The PCF 1526 may communicate with the AF 1528 via the N5 reference point between the PCF 1526 and the AF 1528; and communicate with the SMF 1524 via the N7 reference point between the PCF 1526 and the SMF 1524. The system 1500 and / or the CN 1520 may also include an N24 reference point between the PCF 1526 (in the home network) and the PCF 1526 in the visited network. Additionally, PCF 1526 may present an interface based on Npcf services.

[0239] UDM 1527 may process subscription-related information to support the handling of communication sessions by network entities, and may store subscription data of UE 1501. For example, subscription data may be transmitted between UDM 1527 and AMF 1521 via an N8 reference point between UDM 1527 and AMF. UDM 1527 may include two parts: application FE and UDR ( Fig.15 FE and UDR are not shown). UDR can store subscription data and policy data of UDM 1527 and PCF 1526, and / or structured data for exposure and application data of NEF 1523 (including PFD for application detection, application request information of multiple UEs 1501). Nudr service-based interface can be presented by UDR 221 to allow UDM 1527, PCF 1526 and NEF 1523 to access specific sets of stored data, as well as read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete and subscribe to notifications of related data changes in UDR. UDM may include UDM-FE, which is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, etc. In different transactions, several different front ends may serve the same user. UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in UDR, and performs authentication credential processing, user identification processing, access authorization, registration / mobility management and subscription management. UDR can interact with SMF 1524 via the N10 reference point between UDM 1527 and SMF 1524. UDM 1527 may also support SMS management, where SMS-FE implements similar application logic as previously discussed. In addition, UDM 1527 may present an interface based on Nudm services.

[0240] AF 1528 can provide the influence of applications on traffic routing, provide access to NCE, and interact with the policy framework for policy control. NCE can be a mechanism that allows 5GC 1520 and AF 1528 to provide information to each other via NEF 1523, which can be used for edge computing implementation. In such implementations, network operators and third-party services can be hosted near the UE 1501 access point of the attachment to achieve effective service delivery through reduced end-to-end delay and load on the transmission network. For edge computing implementation, 5GC can select UPF 1502 near UE 1501 and perform traffic steering from UPF 1502 to DN 1503 via the N6 interface. This can be based on UE subscription data, UE location and information provided by AF 1528. In this way, AF 1528 can affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1528 is considered a trusted entity, the network operator can allow AF 1528 to interact directly with the relevant NF. In addition, AF 1528 can present an interface based on Naf services.

[0241] NSSF 1529 may select a set of network slice instances to serve UE 1501. If necessary, NSSF 1529 may also determine the allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAI. NSSF 1529 may also determine a set of AMFs to serve UE 1501, or a list of candidate AMFs 1521, based on appropriate configuration and possibly by querying NRF 1525. The selection of a set of network slice instances for UE 1501 may be triggered by AMF 1521, where UE 1501 registers by interacting with NSSF 1529, which may result in changes to AMF 1521. NSSF 1529 may interact with AMF 1521 via the N22 reference point between AMF 1521 and NSSF 1529; and may communicate via the N31 reference point ( Fig.15 The NSSF 1529 may communicate with another NSSF 1529 in the visited network (not shown). In addition, the NSSF 1529 may present an interface based on the Nnssf service.

[0242] As previously discussed, CN 1520 may include SMSF, which may be responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification, and relaying SM messages to / from UE 1501 to / from other entities, such as SMS-GMSC / IWMSC / SMS-Router. SMS may also interact with AMF 1521 and UDM 1527 for notification procedures so that UE 1501 is available for SMS transmission (e.g., setting a UE unreachable flag and notifying UDM 1527 when UE 1501 is available for SMS).

[0243] CN 1520 may also include Fig.15 Other elements not shown, such as data storage system / architecture, 5G-EIR, SEPP, etc. The data storage system may include SDSF, UDSF, etc. Any NF can communicate with UDSF ( Fig.15 The N18 reference point between the NF and the NF (not shown) stores or retrieves unstructured data in or from the UDSF (e.g., UE context). Individual NFs may share a UDSF for storing their respective unstructured data, or individual NFs may each have their own UDSF located at or near a single NF. In addition, the UDSF may present an interface based on the Nudsf service ( Fig.15 (not shown). The 5G-EIR may be a NF that checks the status of the PEI to determine whether to blacklist a specific equipment / entity from the network; and the SEPP may be a non-transparent proxy that performs topology hiding, message filtering, and policing on the inter-PLMN control plane interface.

[0244] Additionally, there may be more reference points and / or service-based interfaces between NF services in a NF; however, for clarity, Fig.15 These interfaces and reference points are omitted. In one example, CN 1520 may include an Nx interface, which is an inter-CN interface between an MME (e.g., MME 1421) and AMF 1521 to enable intercommunication between CN 1520 and CN 1420. Other example interfaces / reference points may include an interface based on N5g-EIR services presented by 5G-EIR, an N27 reference point between an NRF in a visited network and an NRF in a home network; and an N31 reference point between an NSSF in a visited network and an NSSF in a home network.

[0245] Fig.16 An example of infrastructure equipment 1600 according to some embodiments is shown. Infrastructure equipment 1600 (or "system 1600") can be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node (such as the RAN node 1211 and / or AP 1206 shown and described previously), an application server 1230, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. In other examples, system 1600 can be implemented in or by a UE.

[0246] System 1600 includes: application circuit 1605, baseband circuit 1610, one or more radio front end modules (RFEM) 1615, memory circuit 1620, power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 1625, power tee circuit 1630, network controller circuit 1635, network interface connector 1640, satellite positioning circuit 1645 and user interface 1650. In some embodiments, device 1600 may include additional elements such as memory / storage, display, camera, sensor or input / output (I / O) interface. In other embodiments, the following components may be included in more than one device. For example, the circuit may be included separately in more than one device for CRAN, vBBU or other similar implementations.

[0247] Application circuit 1605 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more of the following: a low dropout regulator (LDO), an interrupt controller, a serial interface such as SPI, I 2C or general programmable serial interface module, real-time clock (RTC), timer-counter including interval timer and watchdog timer, general input / output (I / O or IO), memory card controller such as secure digital (SD) multimedia card (MMC) or similar products, universal serial bus (USB) interface, mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interface and joint test access group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of application circuit 1605 can be coupled with memory / storage element or can include memory / storage element, and can be configured to execute instructions stored in memory / storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on system 1600. In some embodiments, the memory / storage element can be an on-chip memory circuit, which can include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory and / or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

[0248] The processor of application circuit 1605 may include, for example, one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more application processors, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction set computing (CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, application circuit 1605 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein. As an example, the processor of application circuit 1605 may include one or more Intel FPGAs. or Processor: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor, Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) or Processor; ARM-based processors licensed by ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A series processors provided by Cavium (TM), Inc. and MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPSWarrior P-class processor; etc. In some embodiments, system 1600 may not utilize application circuit 1605, and instead may include a dedicated processor / controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5GC.

[0249] In some implementations, the application circuit 1605 may include one or more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, and the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and / or deep learning (DL) accelerators. For example, the programmable processing device may be one or more field programmable devices (FPDs), such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and the like; programmable logic devices (PLDs), such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), and the like; ASICs, such as structured ASICs, and the like; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuit 1605 may include logic blocks or logic architectures, as well as other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the processes, methods, functions, and the like of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such an embodiment, the circuitry of application circuit 1605 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuse, etc.)) for storing logic blocks, logic architectures, data, etc. in a lookup table (LUT), etc.

[0250] Baseband circuit 1610 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Fig.18 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 1610 are discussed.

[0251] The user interface circuit 1650 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the system 1600, or one or more peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral components to interact with the system 1600. The user interface may include, but is not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touch pad, a touch screen, a speaker or other audio transmitting device, a microphone, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or display device, etc. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0252] The radio front end module (RFEM) 1615 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., below). Fig.18 The antenna array 1811) is connected to the RFEM and the RFEM can be connected to multiple antennas. In an alternative implementation, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions can be implemented in the same physical RFEM 1615 combining both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0253] The memory circuit 1620 may include one or more of the following: a volatile memory including a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and / or a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM); and a non-volatile memory (NVM) including a high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as a flash memory), a phase change random access memory (PRAM), a magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may be combined with and The memory circuit 1620 may be implemented as one or more of: a solder-in package integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

[0254] The PMIC 1625 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources, such as a battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of a power outage (undervoltage) and a surge (overvoltage) condition. The power tee circuit 1630 may provide electrical power extracted from a network cable to provide both power and data connections for the infrastructure equipment 1600 using a single cable.

[0255] The network controller circuit 1635 may provide connectivity to the network using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet, Ethernet based on a GRE tunnel, Ethernet based on a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. A physical connection may be used to provide a network connection to / from the infrastructure equipment 1600 via a network interface connector 1640, which may be an electrical connection (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), an optical connection, or a wireless connection. The network controller circuit 1635 may include one or more dedicated processors and / or FPGAs that communicate using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the network controller circuit 1635 may include multiple controllers that use the same or different protocols to provide connectivity to other networks.

[0256] The positioning circuit 1645 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by a positioning network of a global satellite navigation system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., using the Indian constellation (NAVIC), Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France's Doppler Orbit Chart and Satellite Integrated Radio Positioning (DORIS), etc. for navigation), etc. The positioning circuit 1645 may include various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices that facilitate OTA communication such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc.) to communicate with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 1645 may include a micro technology (micro PNT) IC for positioning, navigation and timing that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 1645 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 1610 and / or RFEM 1615 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuit 1645 may also provide location data and / or time data to the application circuit 1605, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructures (e.g., RAN node 1211, etc.), etc.

[0257] Fig.16 The components shown may communicate with each other using interface circuitry that may include any number of bus and / or interconnect (IX) technologies, such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Extended ISA (EISA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be a proprietary bus, such as used in SoC-based systems. Other bus / IX systems may be included, such as I 2 C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus, etc.

[0258] Fig.17 An example of a platform 1700 (or "device 1700") according to some embodiments is shown. In an embodiment, the computer platform 1700 may be suitable for use as a UE 1201, a UE 1401, a UE 1501, an application server 1230, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. The platform 1700 may include any combination of components shown in the example. The components of the platform 1700 may be implemented as an integrated circuit (IC), a portion of an IC, a discrete electronic device, or other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof adapted in the computer platform 1700, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassis of a larger system. Fig.17 The block diagram is intended to show a high-level view of the components of computer platform 1700. However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangements of the components shown may occur in other implementations.

[0259] Application circuit 1705 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and LDO, interrupt controller, serial interface (such as SPI), I 2 The processor (or core) of the application circuit 1705 may be coupled to or may include a memory / storage element and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage device to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 1700. In some embodiments, the memory / storage element may be an on-chip memory circuit that may include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, and / or any other type of memory device technology, such as those discussed herein.

[0260] The processor of application circuit 1605 may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, one or more CISC processors, one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, multi-threaded processors, ultra-low voltage processors, embedded processors, some other known processing elements, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, application circuit 1605 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein.

[0261] For example, the processor of application circuit 1705 may include Inc. Cupertino, CA. The processor of application circuit 1705 can also be based on Architecture Core TM One or more of the processors, such as Quark TM 、Atom TM , i3, i5, i7 or MCU-class processors, or purchased from Another such processor is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from Corporation, Santa Clara, CA. Processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), purchased from Snapdragon by Technologies, Inc. TM Processor, Texas Instruments, Open Multimedia Applications Platform(OMAP) TM processors; MIPS-based designs from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors; ARM-based designs licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M series processors; etc. In some implementations, the application circuit 1705 can be part of a system on a chip (SoC), in which the application circuit 1705 and other components are formed as a single integrated circuit or a single package, such as company( Edison Corporation TM or Galileo TM SoC board.

[0262] Additionally or alternatively, the application circuit 1705 may include circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more field programmable devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs, etc.; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), etc.; ASICs such as structured ASICs, etc.; programmable SoCs (PSoCs); etc. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 1705 may include logic blocks or logic structures, and other interconnected resources that can be programmed to perform various functions such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuits of the application circuit 1705 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuse, etc.)) for storing logic blocks, logic structures, data, etc. in look-up tables (LUTs), etc.

[0263] Baseband circuit 1710 may be implemented, for example, as a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Fig.18 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 1710 are discussed.

[0264] The RFEM 1715 may include a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-millimeter wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-millimeter wave RFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., below). Fig.18 The antenna array 1811) is connected to the RFEM and the RFEM can be connected to multiple antennas. In an alternative implementation, both millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave radio functions can be implemented in the same physical RFEM 1715 combining both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0265] The memory circuit 1720 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a quantitative system memory. For example, the memory circuit 1720 may include one or more of the following: volatile memory, including random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and / or synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM); and non-volatile memory (NVM), including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuit 1720 may be developed according to the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) based low power double data rate (LPDDR) design such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc. The memory circuit 1720 may be implemented as one or more of a solder-in package integrated circuit, a single die package (SDP), a dual die package (DDP), or a quad die package (Q17P), a socketed memory module, a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) including a micro DIMM or a mini DIMM, and / or soldered to a motherboard via a ball grid array (BGA). In a low-power implementation, the memory circuit 1720 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with the application circuit 1705. In order to provide persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., the memory circuit 1720 may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, among others, a solid state disk drive (SSDD), a hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, a resistive change memory, a phase change memory, a holographic memory, or a chemical memory. For example, the computer platform 1700 may be combined with a computer system obtained from and Three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory.

[0266] Removable memory circuitry 1723 may include devices, circuitry, housings / casings, ports or receptacles, etc., for coupling portable data storage devices to platform 1700. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage, and may include, for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, micro SD cards, xD picture cards, etc.), as well as USB flash drives, optical disks, external HDDs, etc.

[0267] The platform 1700 may further include an interface circuit (not shown) for connecting external devices to the platform 1700. External devices connected to the platform 1700 via the interface circuit include a sensor circuit 1721 and an electromechanical component (EMC) 1722, and a removable memory device coupled to a removable memory circuit 1723.

[0268] Sensor circuitry 1721 comprises a device, module, or subsystem that is intended to detect events or changes in its environment, and to send information about the detected events (sensor data) to some other device, module, subsystem, etc. Examples of such sensors include, among others: an inertial measurement unit (IMU) including an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and / or a magnetometer; a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) or nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) including a three-axis accelerometer, a three-axis gyroscope, and / or a magnetometer; a level sensor; a flow sensor; a temperature sensor (e.g., a thermistor); a pressure sensor; a barometric pressure sensor; a gravity meter; an altimeter; an image capture device (e.g., a camera or a lensless aperture); a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor; a proximity sensor (e.g., an infrared radiation detector, etc.), a depth sensor, an ambient light sensor, an ultrasonic transceiver; a microphone or other similar audio capture device; etc.

[0269] EMC 1722 includes devices, modules or subsystems that are intended to enable platform 1700 to change its state, position and / or orientation or to move or control mechanisms or (sub) systems. In addition, EMC 1722 can be configured to generate messages / signaling and send messages / signaling to other components of platform 1700 to indicate the current state of EMC 1722. Examples of EMC 1722 include one or more power switches, relays (including electromechanical relays (EMR) and / or solid-state relays (SSR)), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), audible sound generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks and / or other similar electromechanical components. In an embodiment, platform 1700 is configured to operate one or more EMC 1722 based on one or more capture events and / or instructions or control signals received from service providers and / or various clients.

[0270] In some specific implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 1700 to the positioning circuit 1745. The positioning circuit 1745 includes a circuit for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by the positioning network of the GNSS. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) may include the GPS of the United States, the GLONASS of Russia, the Galileo system of the European Union, the Beidou navigation satellite system of China, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., NAVIC, QZSS of Japan, DORIS of France, etc.), etc. The positioning circuit 1745 may include various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. for facilitating OTA communication) to communicate with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 1745 may include a micro PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 1745 may also be part of the baseband circuit 1610 and / or the RFEM 1715 or interact with it to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. Positioning circuitry 1745 may also provide location data and / or time data to application circuitry 1705, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio base stations) for use in turn-by-turn navigation applications, etc.

[0271] In some implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 1700 with a near field communication (NFC) circuit 1740. The NFC circuit 1740 is configured to provide contactless short-range communication based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) standard, where magnetic field induction is used to enable communication between the NFC circuit 1740 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an "NFC touch point") external to the platform 1700. The NFC circuit 1740 includes an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip / IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuit 1740 by executing an NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to transmit a short-range RF signal. The RF signal may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transfer stored data to the NFC circuit 1740, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuit 1740 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) close to the platform 1700.

[0272] The driver circuit 1746 may include software and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to the platform 1700. The driver circuit 1746 may include various drivers to allow other components of the platform 1700 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to the platform 1700. For example, the driver circuit 1746 may include: a display driver for controlling and allowing access to a display device, a touch screen driver for controlling and allowing access to a touch screen interface of the platform 1700, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of the sensor circuit 1721 and controlling and allowing access to the sensor circuit 1721, an EMC driver for obtaining an actuator position of the EMC 1722 and / or controlling and allowing access to the EMC 1722, a camera driver for controlling and allowing access to an embedded image capture device, and an audio driver for controlling and allowing access to one or more audio devices.

[0273] A power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 1725 (also referred to as “power management circuit 1725”) may manage power provided to various components of the platform 1700. Specifically, the PMIC 1725 may control power selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion relative to the baseband circuit 1710. When the platform 1700 is capable of being powered by a battery 1730, for example, when the device is included in UE 1201, UE 1401, UE 1501, the PMIC 1725 may be generally included.

[0274] In some embodiments, the PMIC 1725 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of the platform 1700. For example, if the platform 1700 is in the RRC_Connected state, in which the platform is still connected to the RAN node because it expects to receive traffic soon, then after a period of inactivity, the platform may enter a state called discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, the platform 1700 may be powered off for short time intervals, thereby saving power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, the platform 1700 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, in which the platform is disconnected from the network and no operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. are performed. The platform 1700 enters an extremely low power state and performs paging, in which the platform wakes up again periodically to listen to the network and then powers off again. The platform 1700 may not receive data in this state; in order to receive data, the platform must transition back to the RRC_Connected state. Additional power saving modes may prevent the device from using the network for longer than the paging interval (ranging from a few seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is completely unable to connect to the network and can be completely powered off. Any data sent during this time will be significantly delayed, and it is assumed that the delay is acceptable.

[0275] The battery 1730 can power the platform 1700, but in some examples, the platform 1700 can be mounted in a fixed location and can have a power source coupled to a power grid. The battery 1730 can be a lithium-ion battery, a metal-air battery such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, etc. In some implementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery 1730 can be a typical lead-acid car battery.

[0276] In some implementations, the battery 1730 may be a "smart battery" that includes or is coupled to a battery management system (BMS) or a battery monitoring integrated circuit. The BMS may be included in the platform 1700 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 1730. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 1730, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 1730 to provide fault prediction. The BMS may transmit information about the battery 1730 to the application circuit 1705 or other components of the platform 1700. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 1705 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 1730 or the current from the battery 1730. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 1700 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, etc.

[0277] A power block or other power source coupled to the grid can be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 1730. In some examples, the power block 1730 can be replaced with a wireless power receiver to wirelessly obtain power, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform 1700. In these examples, a wireless battery charging circuit can be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuit selected can depend on the size of the battery 1730 and therefore the current required. Charging can be performed using the aviation fuel standard published by the Aviation Fuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standard published by the Wireless Power Alliance, or the Rezence charging standard published by the Wireless Power Alliance.

[0278] The user interface circuit 1750 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present in or connected to the platform 1700, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to implement user interaction with the platform 1700 and / or a peripheral component interface designed to implement interaction with the peripheral components of the platform 1700. The user interface circuit 1750 includes input device circuits and output device circuits. The input device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including, in particular, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touch screen, a microphone, a scanner, a headset, etc. The output device circuit includes any physical or virtual means for displaying information or otherwise conveying information (such as sensor readings, actuator positions, or other similar information). The output device circuitry may include any number and / or combination of audio or visual displays, including, in particular, one or more simple visual outputs / indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)) and multi-character visual outputs, or more complex outputs, such as display devices or touch screens (e.g., liquid crystal displays (LCDs), LED displays, quantum dot displays, projectors, etc.), where outputs of characters, graphics, multimedia objects, etc. are generated or produced by the operation of platform 1700. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printers, etc. In some embodiments, sensor circuitry 1721 may be used as an input device circuit (e.g., an image capture device, a motion capture device, etc.) and one or more EMCs may be used as output device circuits (e.g., an actuator for providing tactile feedback, etc.). In another example, an NFC circuit may be included to read an electronic tag and / or connect to another NFC-enabled device, the NFC circuitry including an NFC controller and a processing device coupled to an antenna element. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, non-volatile memory ports, USB ports, audio jacks, power interfaces, etc.

[0279] Although not shown, the components of platform 1700 may communicate with each other using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which may include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx, PCIe, a time-triggered protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be a proprietary bus / IX, such as used in SoC-based systems. Other bus / IX systems, such as I 2 C interface, SPI interface, point-to-point interface and power bus, etc.

[0280] Fig.18 1810 and components of a radio front end module (RFEM) 1815 according to some embodiments. The baseband circuit 1810 corresponds to Fig.16 The baseband circuit 1610 and Fig.17 Baseband circuit 1710. RFEM1815 respectively correspond to Fig.16 RFEM1615 and Fig.17 RFEM 1715. As shown, RFEM 1815 may include at least a radio frequency (RF) circuit 1806, a front end module (FEM) circuit 1808, and an antenna array 1811 coupled together as shown.

[0281] The baseband circuit 1810 includes circuits and / or control logic components configured to execute various radio / network protocols and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuit 1806. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation / demodulation, encoding / decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, the modulation / demodulation circuit of the baseband circuit 1810 may include a fast Fourier transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping / demapping function. In some embodiments, the encoding / decoding circuit of the baseband circuit 1810 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or low-density parity check (LDPC) encoder / decoder functions. The implementation of the modulation / demodulation and encoder / decoder functions is not limited to these examples, and may include other suitable functions in other embodiments. The baseband circuit 1810 is configured to process the baseband signal received from the receiving signal path of the RF circuit 1806 and generate a baseband signal for the transmitting signal path of the RF circuit 1806. The baseband circuit 1810 is configured to communicate with the application circuit 1605 / 1705 (see Fig.16 and Fig.17 ) to generate and process baseband signals and control the operation of RF circuit 1806. Baseband circuit 1810 may handle various radio control functions.

[0282] The aforementioned circuits and / or control logic components of the baseband circuit 1810 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 1804A, a 4G / LTE baseband processor 1804B, a 5G / NR baseband processor 1804C, or some other baseband processors 1804D for other existing generations, generations under development or generations to be developed in the future (e.g., the sixth generation (6G), etc.). In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 1804A-1804D may be included in a module stored in the memory 1804G and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 1804E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 1804A-1804D may be provided as a hardware accelerator (e.g., FPGA, ASIC, etc.) loaded with an appropriate bitstream or logic block stored in a corresponding memory unit. In various embodiments, the memory 1804G may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS), which, when executed by the CPU 1804E (or other baseband processor), will enable the CPU 1804E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of the baseband circuit 1810, schedule tasks, etc. Examples of RTOS may include: Operating System Embedded (OSE) provided TM , by Mentor Nucleus RTOS provided TM , by Mentor VersatileReal-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Express Provided by ThreadX TM ,Depend on FreeRTOS and REX OS provided by Open Kernel (OK) OKL4 provided, or any other suitable RTOS, such as those discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuit 1810 includes one or more audio digital signal processors (DSPs) 1804F. The audio DSP 1804F includes elements for compression / decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

[0283] In some embodiments, each of processors 1804A-1804E includes a corresponding memory interface to send data to / receive data from memory 1804G. Baseband circuit 1810 may also include one or more interfaces for communicatively coupling to other circuits / devices, such as an interface for sending data to / receiving data from a memory external to baseband circuit 1810; an interface for sending data to / receiving data from a memory external to the baseband circuit; Figures 16 to 18 The application circuit interface for sending data to / receiving data from the application circuit 1605 / 1705; Fig.18 RF circuit 1806 to send data / receive data from the RF circuit RF circuit interface; for receiving data from one or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., near field communication (NFC) components, Low power consumption components, components, etc.) to send data / receive data from these wireless hardware elements; and a power management interface that sends power or control signals to / receives power or control signals from the PMIC 1725.

[0284] In an alternative embodiment (which can be combined with the above embodiment), the baseband circuit 1810 includes one or more digital baseband systems, which are coupled to each other and to the CPU subsystem, the audio subsystem and the interface subsystem via an interconnection subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem can also be coupled to the digital baseband interface and the mixed signal baseband subsystem via another interconnection subsystem. Each of the interconnection subsystems may include a bus system, a point-to-point connector, a network on chip (NOC) structure and / or some other suitable bus or interconnection technology, such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include a DSP circuit, a buffer memory, a program memory, a voice processing accelerator circuit, a data converter circuit such as an analog-to-digital converter circuit and a digital-to-analog converter circuit, an analog circuit including one or more of an amplifier and a filter, and / or other similar components. In one aspect of the present disclosure, the baseband circuit 1810 may include a protocol processing circuit with one or more control circuit instances (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuit and / or the radio frequency circuit (e.g., the radio front end module 1815).

[0285] although Fig.18Not shown, but in some embodiments, the baseband circuit 1810 includes various processing devices (e.g., a "multi-protocol baseband processor" or "protocol processing circuit") to operate one or more wireless communication protocols and various processing devices to implement PHY layer functions. In these embodiments, the PHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuit operates or implements various protocol layers / entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. In a first example, when the baseband circuit 1810 and / or the RF circuit 1806 are part of a millimeter wave communication circuit or some other suitable cellular communication circuit, the protocol processing circuit may operate LTE protocol entities and / or 5G / NR protocol entities. In a first example, the protocol processing circuit will operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. In a second example, when the baseband circuit 1810 and / or the RF circuit 1806 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system, the protocol processing circuit may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols. In a second example, the protocol processing circuit will operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuit may include one or more memory structures (e.g., 1804G) storing program code and data for operating protocol functions, and one or more processing cores for executing program code and performing various operations using data. The baseband circuit 1810 may also support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol.

[0286] The various hardware elements of the baseband circuit 1810 discussed herein may be implemented as, for example, a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged IC soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In one example, the components of the baseband circuit 1810 may be appropriately combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 1810 and the RF circuit 1806 may be implemented together, such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) or a system-in-package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 1810 may be implemented as a separate SoC communicatively coupled to the RF circuit 1806 (or multiple instances of the RF circuit 1806). In yet another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 1810 and the application circuit 1605 / 1705 may be implemented together as a separate SoC mounted to the same circuit board (e.g., a "multi-chip package").

[0287] In some embodiments, baseband circuitry 1810 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 1810 may support communications with E-UTRAN or other WMANs, WLANs, WPANs. Embodiments in which baseband circuitry 1810 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0288] RF circuit 1806 may enable communication with a wireless network through a non-solid medium using modulated electromagnetic radiation. In various embodiments, RF circuit 1806 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuit 1806 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuitry for down-converting an RF signal received from FEM circuit 1808 and providing a baseband signal to baseband circuit 1810. RF circuit 1806 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuitry for up-converting a baseband signal provided by baseband circuit 1810 and providing an RF output signal to FEM circuit 1808 for transmission.

[0289] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuit 1806 may include a mixer circuit 1806A, an amplifier circuit 1806B, and a filter circuit 1806C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 1806 may include a filter circuit 1806C and a mixer circuit 1806A. The RF circuit 1806 may also include a synthesizer circuit 1806D for synthesizing the frequencies used by the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuit 1808 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 1806D. The amplifier circuit 1806B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signal, and the filter circuit 1806C may be a low pass filter (LPF) or a band pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to baseband circuit 1810 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero frequency baseband signal, although this is not required. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path may include a passive mixer, but the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this regard.

[0290] In some embodiments, mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may be configured to upconvert an input baseband signal based on a synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 1806D to generate an RF output signal for FEM circuit 1808. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuit 1810 and may be filtered by filter circuit 1806C.

[0291] In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image suppression (e.g., Hartley image suppression). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 1806A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 1806A of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[0292] In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, the RF circuit 1806 may include an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit, and the baseband circuit 1810 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuit 1806.

[0293] In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuits may be provided to process signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0294] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 1806D may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N / N+1 synthesizer, but the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect, as other types of frequency synthesizers may also be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuit 1806D may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0295] Synthesizer circuit 1806D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on a frequency input and a divider control input for use by mixer circuit 1806A of RF circuit 1806. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 1806D may be a fractional-N / N+1 synthesizer.

[0296] In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by the baseband circuit 1810 or the application circuit 1605 / 1705 according to the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on the channel indicated by the application circuit 1605 / 1705.

[0297] The synthesizer circuit 1806D of the RF circuit 1806 may include a frequency divider, a delay locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer, and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the frequency divider may be a dual-mode frequency divider (DMD), and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a cascaded, tunable, delay element, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a set of D-type flip-flops. In these embodiments, the delay element may be configured to divide the VCO cycle into Nd equal phase groups, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[0298] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 1806D can be configured to generate a carrier frequency as an output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency can be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and can be used with a quadrature generator and divider circuit to generate multiple signals with multiple different phases relative to each other at the carrier frequency. In some embodiments, the output frequency can be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuit 1806 can include an IQ / polarity converter.

[0299] FEM circuitry 1808 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 1811, amplify the received signals, and provide an amplified version of the received signals to RF circuitry 1806 for further processing. FEM circuitry 1808 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry configured to amplify transmit signals provided by RF circuitry 1806 for transmission by one or more antenna elements in antenna array 1811. In various embodiments, amplification by the transmit or receive signal path may be accomplished only in RF circuitry 1806, only in FEM circuitry 1808, or in both RF circuitry 1806 and FEM circuitry 1808.

[0300] In some embodiments, the FEM circuit 1808 may include a TX / RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuit 1808 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuit 1808 may include an LNA to amplify a received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., provided to the RF circuit 1806). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuit 1808 may include a power amplifier (PA) that amplifies an input RF signal (e.g., provided by the RF circuit 1806), and one or more filters that generate an RF signal for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 1811.

[0301] The antenna array 1811 includes one or more antenna elements, each of which is configured to convert an electrical signal into a radio wave to travel through the air and convert the received radio wave into an electrical signal. For example, a digital baseband signal provided by the baseband circuit 1810 is converted into an analog RF signal (e.g., a modulated waveform), which is amplified and transmitted via the antenna elements of the antenna array 1811 including one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formed into a variety of arrangements as known and / or discussed herein. The antenna array 1811 may include a microstrip antenna or a printed antenna fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 1811 may be formed into a patch of metal foil (e.g., a patch antenna) of various shapes and may be coupled to the RF circuit 1806 and / or the FEM circuit 1808 using a metal transmission line or the like.

[0302] The processor of the application circuit 1605 / 1705 and the processor of the baseband circuit 1810 can be used to execute elements of one or more instances of the protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuit 1810 can be used alone or in combination to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuit 1605 / 1705 can utilize data received from these layers (e.g., packet data) and further perform layer 4 functions (e.g., TCP and UDP layers). As mentioned herein, layer 3 may include an RRC layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 2 may include a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, which will be described in further detail below. As mentioned herein, layer 1 may include a PHY layer of a UE / RAN node, which will be described in further detail below.

[0303] Fig.19 Examples of protocol functionality that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to some embodiments are shown. Fig.19 Various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to some embodiments are shown. Specifically, Fig.19An arrangement 1900 is included to show the interconnection between various protocol layers / entities. Various protocol layers / entities operating in conjunction with 5G / NR system standards and LTE system standards are provided. Fig.19 The following description, but Fig.19 Some or all aspects of the invention may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

[0304] In addition to other higher layer functions not shown, the protocol layers of arrangement 1900 may also include one or more of PHY 1910, MAC 1920, RLC 1930, PDCP 1940, SDAP 1947, RRC 1955, and NAS layer 1957. These protocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g., Fig.19 Items 1959, 1956, 1950, 1949, 1945, 1935, 1925 and 1915).

[0305] PHY 1910 can send and receive physical layer signals 1905, which can be received or sent from one or more other communication devices to one or more other communication devices. Physical layer signals 1905 may include one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. PHY 1910 may also perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and switching purposes) and other measurements used by higher layers (such as, RRC1955). PHY 1910 may also further perform error detection on transmission channels, forward error correction (FEC) encoding / decoding of transmission channels, modulation / demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping to physical channels and MIMO antenna processing. In an embodiment, via one or more PHY-SAP 1915, an instance of PHY 1910 may process a request from an instance of MAC1920 and provide an indication thereof. According to some embodiments, the request and indication transmitted via PHY-SAP 1915 may include one or more transmission channels.

[0306] Via one or more MAC-SAPs 1925, an instance of MAC 1920 may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of RLC 1930. These requests and indications transmitted via MAC-SAP 1925 may include one or more logical channels. MAC 1920 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs from one or more logical channels onto TBs to be delivered to PHY 1910 via transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs delivered from PHY 1910 via transport channels to one or more logical channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction via HARQ, and logical channel prioritization.

[0307] An instance of RLC 1930 may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of PDCP 1940 via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 1935. These requests and indications transmitted via RLC-SAPs 1935 may include one or more RLC channels. RLC 1930 may operate in a variety of operating modes, including: transparent mode (TM), unacknowledged mode (UM), and acknowledged mode (AM). RLC 1930 may perform transmission of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transmission, and concatenation, segmentation, and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission. RLC 1930 may also perform resegmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transmission, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transmission, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transmission, detect protocol errors for AM data transmission, and perform RLC re-establishment.

[0308] An instance of PDCP 1940 may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of RRC 1955 and / or an instance of SDAP 1947 via one or more Packet Data Convergence Protocol Service Access Points (PDCP-SAPs) 1945. These requests and indications transmitted via PDCP-SAP 1945 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP 1940 may perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP sequence numbers (SNs), perform in-order delivery of upper layer PDUs when lower layers are reestablished, eliminate duplication of lower layer SDUs when lower layers are reestablished for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, encrypt and decrypt control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification on control plane data, control timer-based data discard, and perform security operations (e.g., encryption, decryption, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

[0309] Via one or more SDAP-SAPs 1949, an instance of SDAP 1947 can process requests from one or more higher layer protocol entities and provide instructions to them. These requests and instructions transmitted via SDAP-SAP 1949 may include one or more QoS flows. SDAP 1947 can map QoS flows to DRBs and vice versa, and can also mark QFIs in DL packets and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 1947 can be configured for a separate PDU session. In the UL direction, NG-RAN 1210 can control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways (reflective mapping or explicit mapping). For reflective mapping, SDAP 1947 of UE 1201 can monitor the QFI of the DL packets of each DRB, and can apply the same mapping to packets flowing in the UL direction. For DRBs, SDAP 1947 of UE 1201 can map UL packets belonging to a QoS flow corresponding to the QoS flow ID and PDU session observed in the DL packets of the DRB. To implement the reflective mapping, the NG-RAN 1510 may mark the DL packets with a QoS flow ID over the Uu interface. The explicit mapping may involve the RRC 1955 configuring the SDAP 1947 with explicit mapping rules of QoS flows to DRBs, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 1947. In an embodiment, the SDAP 1947 may be used only in NR implementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

[0310] The RRC 1955 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY 1910, MAC 1920, RLC 1930, PDCP 1940, and SDAP 1947, via one or more Management Service Access Points (M-SAPs). In an embodiment, an instance of the RRC 1955 may process requests from one or more NAS entities 1957 and provide instructions thereto, via one or more RRC-SAPs 1956. The main services and functions of the RRC 1955 may include broadcasting of system information (e.g., included in a MIB or SIB related to NAS), broadcasting of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance, and release of an RRC connection between the UE 1201 and the RAN 1210 (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance, and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting. These MIBs and SIBs may include one or more IEs, each of which may include a separate data field or data structure.

[0311] NAS 1957 may form the highest layer of a control plane between UE 1201 and AMF 1521. NAS 1957 may support mobility and session management procedures of UE 1201 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 1201 and P-GW in an LTE system.

[0312] According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 1900 may be implemented in UE 1201, RAN node 1211, AMF 1521 in NR implementation or MME 1421 in LTE implementation, UPF 1502 in NR implementation or S-GW 1422 and P-GW 1423 in LTE implementation, etc., for control plane or user plane communication protocol stacks between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of UE 1201, gNB 1211, AMF 1521, etc. may communicate with corresponding peer protocol entities that may be implemented in or on another device (using services of corresponding lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication). In some embodiments, the gNB-CU of gNB 1211 may host the gNB's RRC 1955, SDAP 1947, and PDCP 1940 that control operations of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of gNB 1211 may each host the RLC 1930, MAC 1920, and PHY 1910 of gNB 1211.

[0313] In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 1957, RRC 1955, PDCP 1940, RLC 1930, MAC 1920, and PHY 1910. In this example, an upper layer 1960 may be built on top of NAS 1957, which includes an IP layer 1961, SCTP 1962, and an application layer signaling protocol (AP) 1963.

[0314] In a NR specific implementation, AP 1963 can be an NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 1963 for the NG interface 1213 defined between the NG-RAN node 1211 and the AMF 1521, or AP 1963 can be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 1963 for the Xn interface 1212 defined between two or more RAN nodes 1211.

[0315] The NG-AP 1963 may support the functions of the NG interface 1213 and may include an elementary procedure (EP). The NG-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the NG-RAN node 1211 and the AMF 1521. The NG-AP 1963 services may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the UE 1201) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 1211 and the AMF 1521). These services may include the following functions, which include but are not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to the NG-RAN node 1211 involved in a specific paging area; a UE context management function for allowing the AMF 1521 to establish, modify and / or release the UE context in the AMF 1521 and the NG-RAN node 1211; a mobility function for the UE 1201 in ECM-connected mode, for intra-system HO to support mobility within the NG-RAN, and for inter-system HO to support mobility from / to the EPS system; a NAS signaling transport function for transmitting or rerouting NAS messages between the UE 1201 and the AMF 1521; a NAS signaling transport function for determining the AMF 1521 and the UE context. 1201; an NG interface management function for setting up an NG interface and monitoring errors through the NG interface; a warning message sending function for providing a means for transmitting a warning message via the NG interface or cancelling an ongoing warning message broadcast; a configuration transmission function for requesting and transmitting RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information, performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes 1211 via CN1220; and / or other similar functions.

[0316] XnAP 1963 may support the functions of Xn interface 1212 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within NG RAN 1211 (or E-UTRAN 1410), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN state transfer procedures, UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, procedures related to dual connectivity, etc. XnAP global procedures may include procedures unrelated to a specific UE 1201, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, cell activation procedures, etc.

[0317] In an LTE specific implementation, AP 1963 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1963 for an S1 interface 1213 defined between an E-UTRAN node 1211 and an MME, or AP 1963 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP) 1963 for an X2 interface 1212 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 1211.

[0318] The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1963 may support the functions of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, the S1-AP may include an S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the E-UTRAN node 1211 and the MME 1421 within the LTE CN 1220. The S1-AP 1963 services may include two groups: UE-associated services and non-UE-associated services. The functions performed by these services include, but are not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transmission, RAN Information Management (RIM) and configuration transmission.

[0319] The X2AP 1963 may support the functions of the X2 interface 1212 and may include an X2AP basic mobility procedure and an X2AP global procedure. The X2AP basic mobility procedure may include a procedure for handling UE mobility within the E-UTRAN 1220, such as a handover preparation and cancellation procedure, an SN state transfer procedure, a UE context retrieval and a UE context release procedure, a RAN paging procedure, a procedure related to dual connectivity, etc. The X2AP global procedure may include a procedure that is not related to a specific UE 1201, such as an X2 interface setup and reset procedure, a load indication procedure, an error indication procedure, a cell activation procedure, etc.

[0320] The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP / IP layer) 1962 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). SCTP 1962 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 1211 and the AMF 1521 / MME 1421 based in part on the IP protocol supported by IP 1961. The Internet Protocol layer (IP) 1961 may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 1961 may deliver and transmit PDUs using point-to-point transport. In this regard, the RAN node 1211 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME / AMF to exchange information.

[0321] In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may include SDAP 1947, PDCP 1940, RLC 1930, MAC 1920, and PHY 1910 in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between UE 1201, RAN node 1211, and UPF 1502 in NR implementation, or communication between S-GW 1422 and P-GW 1423 in LTE implementation. In this example, the upper layer 1951 may be built on top of SDAP 1947 and may include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP / IP) 1952, a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for a user plane layer (GTP-U) 1953, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 1963.

[0322] The transport network layer 1954 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on top of the IP transport, and the GTP-U 1953 may be used on top of the UDP / IP layer 1952 (including the UDP layer and the IP layer) to carry the user plane PDU (UP-PDU). The IP layer (also referred to as the "Internet layer") may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packets, for example, in any of the IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats.

[0323] GTP-U 1953 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. For example, the transmitted user data may be packets in any of the IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats. UDP / IP 1952 may provide checksums for data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of selected data flows. The RAN node 1211 and the S-GW 1422 may utilize the S1-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 1910), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 1920, RLC 1930, PDCP 1940, and / or SDAP 1947), a UDP / IP layer 1952, and GTP-U 1953. S-GW 1422 and P-GW 1423 may utilize an S5 / S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP / IP layer 1952, and a GTP-U 1953. As previously discussed, the NAS protocol may support the mobility and session management procedures of UE 1201 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 1201 and P-GW 1423.

[0324] In addition, despite Fig.19Not shown, but an application layer may exist above the AP 1963 and / or transport network layer 1954. The application layer may be a layer where a user of the UE 1201, RAN node 1211, or other network element interacts with a software application, for example, executed by the application circuit 1605 or the application circuit 1705, respectively. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for the software application to interact with the communication system (such as the baseband circuit 1810) of the UE 1201 or RAN node 1211. In some specific implementations, the IP layer and / or the application layer may provide the same or similar functionality as layers 5 to 7 of the open system interconnection (OSI) model, or portions thereof (e.g., OSI layer 7—application layer, OSI layer 6—presentation layer, and OSI layer 5—session layer).

[0325] Fig. 20 An example of components of a core network according to some embodiments is shown. The components of CN 1420 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes, including components that read and execute instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In an embodiment, the components of CN 1520 can be implemented in the same or similar manner as discussed herein with respect to the components of CN 1420. In some embodiments, NFV is used to virtualize any or all of the above-mentioned network node functions via executable instructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). A logical instance of CN 1420 may be referred to as a network slice 2001, and each logical instance of CN1420 may provide specific network functions and network characteristics. A logical instance of a portion of CN 1420 may be referred to as a network sub-slice 2002 (e.g., a network sub-slice 2002 is shown as including a P-GW 1423 and a PCRF 1426).

[0326] As used herein, the terms "instantiation" and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" may refer to the concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of program code. A network instance may refer to information identifying a domain, which may be used for traffic detection and routing in different IP domains or in the case of overlapping IP addresses. A network slice instance may refer to a set of network function (NF) instances and the resources (e.g., computing, storage, and network resources) required to deploy a network slice.

[0327] Compared to 5G systems (see e.g. Fig.15), a network slice always includes a RAN part and a CN part. The support of network slicing relies on the principle that services for different slices are handled by different PDU sessions. The network can implement different network slices by scheduling and also by providing different L1 / L2 configurations. If UE 1501 has been provided by NAS, it provides auxiliary information for network slice selection in the appropriate RRC message. Although the network can support a large number of slices, the UE does not need to support more than 8 slices at the same time.

[0328] The network slice may include the CN 1520 control plane and user plane NF, the NG-RAN 1510 in the serving PLMN, and the N3IWF function in the serving PLMN. Each network slice may have a different S-NSSAI and / or may have a different SST. The NSSAI includes one or more S-NSSAIs, and each network slice is uniquely identified by the S-NSSAI. The network slice may be different for supported features and network function optimizations, and / or multiple network slice instances may deliver the same service / feature, but for different UE 1501 groups (e.g., enterprise users). For example, each network slice may deliver different committed services and / or may be dedicated to a specific customer or enterprise. In this example, each network slice may have a different S-NSSAI with the same SST but with a different slice differentiator. In addition, a single UE may be served simultaneously with one or more network slice instances via a 5G AN and be associated with eight different S-NSSAIs. In addition, an AMF 1521 instance serving a single UE 1501 may belong to each network slice instance serving the UE.

[0329] Network slicing in NG-RAN 1510 involves RAN slice awareness. RAN slice awareness includes different treatments of traffic that has been pre-configured for different network slices. Slice awareness in NG-RAN 1510 is introduced at the PDU session level by indicating the S-NSSAI corresponding to the PDU session in all signaling including PDU session resource information. How NG-RAN 1510 supports slices enabled in terms of NG-RAN functions (e.g., a set of network functions including each slice) is implementation-dependent. NG-RAN 1510 selects the RAN portion of the network slice using assistance information provided by UE 1501 or 5GC 1520, which explicitly identifies one or more of the pre-configured network slices in the PLMN. NG-RAN 1510 also supports resource management and policy enforcement between slices according to SRA. A single NG-RAN node can support multiple slices, and NG-RAN 1510 can also apply appropriate RRM policies for SLAs in appropriate locations to each supported slice. NG-RAN 1510 can also support QoS differences within a slice.

[0330] If available, the NG-RAN 1510 may also use UE assistance information to select an AMF 1521 during the initial attach. The NG-RAN 1510 routes the initial NAS to the AMF 1521 using the assistance information. If the NG-RAN 1510 cannot select an AMF 1521 using the assistance information, or the UE 1501 does not provide any such information, the NG-RAN 1510 sends the NAS signaling to a default AMF 1521, which may be in the AMF 1521 pool. For subsequent access, the UE 1501 provides the temp ID assigned to the UE 1501 by the 5GC 1520 to enable the NG-RAN 1510 to route the NAS message to the appropriate AMF 1521, as long as the tempID is valid. The NG-RAN 1510 is aware of and can reach the AMF 1521 associated with the temp ID. Otherwise, the method used for initial attach applies.

[0331] NG-RAN 1510 supports resource isolation between slices. NG-RAN 1510 resource isolation can be achieved through RRM policies and protection mechanisms that should avoid starvation of shared resources if one slice disrupts the service level agreement of another slice. In some implementations, NG-RAN 1510 resources can be fully assigned to a slice. How NG-RAN 1510 supports resource isolation depends on the specific implementation.

[0332] Some slices may be available only in parts of the network. Awareness in the NG-RAN 1510 of the slices supported in its neighboring cells may be beneficial for inter-frequency mobility in connected mode. Slice availability may not change within the registration area of ​​the UE. The NG-RAN 1510 and 5GC 1520 are responsible for handling service requests for slices that may or may not be available in a given area. The admission or denial of access to a slice may depend on factors such as support for the slice, availability of resources, support of the requested service by the NG-RAN 1510, and the like.

[0333] UE 1501 may be associated with multiple network slices simultaneously. In the case where UE 1501 is associated with multiple slices simultaneously, only one signaling connection is maintained and for intra-frequency cell reselection, UE 1501 attempts to camp on the best cell. For inter-frequency cell reselection, dedicated priorities may be used to control the frequency that UE 1501 camps on. 5GC 1520 will verify that UE 1501 has the right to access the network slice. Prior to receiving the Initial Context Setup Request message, NG-RAN 1510 may be allowed to apply some temporary / local policies based on the perception of the specific slice that UE 1501 is requesting access to. During the Initial Context Setup, NG-RAN 1510 is informed of the slice for which resources are being requested.

[0334] NFV architecture and infrastructure can be used to virtualize one or more NFs onto physical resources including a combination of industry standard server hardware, storage hardware or switches (alternatively performed by proprietary hardware). In other words, the NFV system can be used to perform a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0335] Fig.21 Examples of components capable of reading instructions from a computer-readable storage medium, a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and executing one or more methods or functions according to some embodiments are shown. Specifically, Fig.21 A schematic diagram of hardware resources 2100 is shown, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 2110, one or more memory / storage devices 2120, and one or more communication resources 2130, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 2140. For embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 2102 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 2100.

[0336] Processor 2110 may include, for example, processor 2112 and processor 2114. Processor 2110 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

[0337] The memory / storage device 2120 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage device 2120 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[0338] The communication resources 2130 may include an interconnect or network interface component or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 2104 or one or more databases 2106 via the network 2108. For example, the communication resources 2130 may include a wired communication component (e.g., for coupling via USB), a cellular communication component, an NFC component, (or Low power consumption) components, components and other communication components.

[0339] The instructions 2150 may include software, programs, applications, applet, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 2110 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 2150 may reside in whole or in part in at least one of the processors 2110 (e.g., in a cache memory of the processor), the memory / storage device 2120, or any suitable combination thereof. In addition, any portion of the instructions 2150 may be transferred to the hardware resources 2100 from any combination of the peripheral device 2104 or the database 2106. Therefore, the memory of the processor 2110, the memory / storage device 2120, the peripheral device 2104, and the database 2106 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0340] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components shown in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes and / or methods described in the following example section. For example, the baseband circuit described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the following embodiments. For another example, the circuits associated with the UE, base station, network element, etc. described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the embodiments shown in the example section below.

[0341] Example

[0342] Embodiment 1 may include a method for handling concurrent 3GPP and non-3GPP access in a 5G system.

[0343] Embodiment 2 may include the method of embodiment 1 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the UE registers through the second access while already registered via the first access.

[0344] Embodiment 3 may include the method of embodiment 2 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the first access is a non-3GPP access and the second access is a 3GPP access.

[0345] Embodiment 4 may include the method of embodiment 3 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the UE is connected to the first AMF via a first access connection.

[0346] Embodiment 5 may include the method of embodiment 4 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the UE connects to the second AMF when registering via the second access.

[0347] Embodiment 6 may include the method of embodiment 5 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the second AMF retrieves the UE context from the first AMF.

[0348] Embodiment 7 may include the method of embodiment 6 or some other embodiments of the present invention, whereby the retrieved UE context includes the UE CM state on the first access, a global identifier of the access network node handling the first access, and parameters identifying the NGAP UE association between the access node and the first AMF.

[0349] Embodiment 8 may include the method of embodiment 7 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the parameters for identifying the NGAP UE association between the access node and the first AMF are the AMF name, the AMF UE NGAP ID and the RAN UE NGAP ID.

[0350] Embodiment 9 may include the method of embodiment 8 or some other embodiments herein, whereby if the UE CM state on the first access is CM connected, the second AMF sends an AMF mobility request message to the access node.

[0351] Embodiment 10 may include the method of embodiment 9 or some other embodiments herein, whereby the AMF mobility request message includes parameters identifying the NGAP UE association between the access node and the first AMF.

[0352] Embodiment 11 may include a method for operating a UE, the method comprising: registering through a first access; and registering through a second access when having registered via the first access, wherein the first access is a 3GPP access or a non-3GPP access, the second access is a 3GPP access or a non-3GPP access, and the first access and the second access are different.

[0353] Embodiment 12 may include the method of embodiment 11 or some other embodiments herein, wherein the first access is a non-3GPP access and the UE is connected to the first AMF via the first access.

[0354] Embodiment 13 may include a method of operating a first AMF, the method comprising: receiving an indication of a UE registered via a first access; retrieving a UE context from a second AMF to which the UE is connected via a second access.

[0355] Embodiment 14 may include the method of embodiment 13 or some other embodiments herein, wherein the UE context includes a UE CM state on a second access, a global identifier of an access network node handling the second access, and one or more parameters for identifying an NGAP UE association between the access network node and the second AMF.

[0356] Embodiment 15 may include the method of embodiment 14 or some other embodiments herein, wherein one or more parameters include an AMF name, an AMF UE NGAP ID, or a RAN UE NGAP ID.

[0357] Embodiment 16 may include the method described in embodiment 15 or some other embodiments of the present invention, further including determining that the UE CM status on the second access is CM connected; and based on the determination that the UE CM status on the second access is CM connected, sending an AMF mobility request message to the access network node.

[0358] Embodiment 17 may include a method according to embodiment 16 or some other embodiments herein, wherein the AMF mobility request message includes at least one of the one or more parameters.

[0359] Embodiment 18 may include a method of operating an AMF, the method comprising: storing in a memory of the AMF a UE context including a CM state in a non-3GPP access to identify the UE CM state (e.g., CM-IDLE or CM-CONNECTED) via an untrusted non-3GPP access; or a global N3IWF ID to identify the N3IWF to which the UE is connected via an untrusted non-3GPP access.

[0360] Example 19 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of Examples 1-18, or any other method or process described herein.

[0361] Embodiment 20 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, which include instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Embodiments 1-18 or any other method or process described herein.

[0362] Embodiment 21 may include an apparatus comprising logic components, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of Embodiments 1 to 18, or any other method or process described herein.

[0363] Example 22 may include methods, techniques or processes as described or related to any of Examples 1-18, or portions or parts thereof.

[0364] Embodiment 23 may include a device comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media, wherein the one or more computer-readable media include instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portion thereof, as described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1-18.

[0365] Embodiment 24 may include a signal as described or associated with any one of Embodiments 1 to 18, or a portion or part thereof.

[0366] Embodiment 25 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message as described or associated with any of Embodiments 1 to 18, or a portion or part thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0367] Embodiment 26 may include a signal encoded with data as described or associated with any one of Embodiments 1 to 18, or a portion or part thereof, or as otherwise described in this disclosure.

[0368] Embodiment 27 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message as described or associated with any of Embodiments 1 to 18, or a portion or part thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0369] Embodiment 28 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors will cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process as described or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 18, or a portion thereof.

[0370] Embodiment 29 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element causes the processing element to perform a method, technique, or process as described or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 18, or a portion thereof.

[0371] Embodiment 30 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0372] Embodiment 31 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0373] Embodiment 32 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0374] Embodiment 33 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0375] Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any of the above embodiments may be combined with any other embodiment (or combination of embodiments). The foregoing description of one or more specific implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in view of the above teachings or may be acquired from the practice of the various embodiments.

[0376] abbreviation

[0377] For the purposes of this document, the following abbreviations may be applied to the examples and implementations discussed herein.

[0378] 3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project

[0379] 4G Fourth Generation

[0380] 5G Fifth Generation

[0381] 5GC 5G Core Network

[0382] ACK

[0383] AF Application Function

[0384] AM Confirmation Mode

[0385] AMBR Aggregate Maximum Bit Rate

[0386] AMF Access and Mobility Management Function

[0387] AN Access Network

[0388] ANR Automatic Neighbor Relation

[0389] AP application protocol, antenna port, access point

[0390] API Application Programming Interface

[0391] APN Access Point Name

[0392] ARP Assignment Retention Priority

[0393] ARQ Automatic Repeat Request

[0394] AS Access Layer

[0395] ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation One

[0396] AUSF authentication server function

[0397] AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise

[0398] BCH Broadcast Channel

[0399] BER Bit Error Rate

[0400] BFD Beam Failure Detection

[0401] BLER Block Error Rate

[0402] BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying

[0403] BRAS Broadband Remote Access Server

[0404] BSS Business Support System

[0405] BS Base Station

[0406] BSR Buffer Status Report

[0407] BW Bandwidth

[0408] BWP Bandwidth Part

[0409] C-RNTI Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0410] CA Carrier Aggregation, Certification Authority

[0411] CAPEX Capital Expenditure

[0412] CBRA Contention-based random access

[0413] CC component carrier, country code, encryption checksum

[0414] CCA Clear Channel Assessment

[0415] CCE Control Channel Element

[0416] CCCH Common Control Channel

[0417] CE Coverage Enhancement

[0418] CDM Content Delivery Network

[0419] CDMA Code Division Multiple Access

[0420] CFRA Contention-free random access

[0421] CG Cell Group

[0422] Cl cell identifier

[0423] CID Cell ID (eg, positioning method)

[0424] CIM Common Information Model

[0425] CIR Carrier to Interference Ratio

[0426] CK Cryptographic Key

[0427] CM connection management, conditional enforcement

[0428] CMAS Commercial Mobile Alert Service

[0429] CMD command

[0430] CMS Cloud Management System

[0431] CO Conditional optional

[0432] CoMP Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission

[0433] CORESET Control Resource Set

[0434] COTS Commercial Off-the-Shelf

[0435] CP Control Plane, Cyclic Prefix, Attachment Point

[0436] CPD Connection Point Descriptor

[0437] CPE Customer Premise Equipment

[0438] CPICH Common Pilot Channel

[0439] CQI Channel Quality Indicator

[0440] CPU CSI processing unit, central processing unit

[0441] C / R Command / Response field bit

[0442] CRAN Cloud Radio Access Network, Cloud RAN

[0443] CRB Common Resource Block

[0444] CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check

[0445] CRI Channel State Information Resource Indicator, CSI-RS Resource Indicator

[0446] C-RNTI Cell RNTI

[0447] CS Circuit Switched

[0448] CSAR Cloud Service Archive

[0449] CSI Channel State Information

[0450] CSI-IM CSI interference measurement

[0451] CSI-RS CSI reference signal

[0452] CSI-RSRP CSI reference signal received power

[0453] CSI-RSRQ CSI reference signal reception quality

[0454] CSI-SINR CSI signal to interference plus noise ratio

[0455] CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access

[0456] CSMA / CA CSMA Collision Avoidance

[0457] CSS Common Search Space, Cell Specific Search Space

[0458] CTS Clear to Send

[0459] CW codeword

[0460] CWS Contention Window Size

[0461] D2D Device to Device

[0462] DC dual connection, direct current

[0463] DCI Downlink Control Information

[0464] DF deployment specifications

[0465] DL Downlink

[0466] DMTF Distributed Management Task Force

[0467] DPDK Data Plane Development Kit

[0468] DM-RS, DMRS Demodulation Reference Signal

[0469] DN Data Network

[0470] DRB Data Radio Bearer

[0471] DRS Discovery Reference Signal

[0472] DRX Discontinuous Reception

[0473] DSL Domain Specific Language, Digital Subscriber Line

[0474] DSLAM DSL Access Multiplexer

[0475] DwPTS Downlink Pilot Time Slot

[0476] E-LAN ​​Ethernet Local Area Network

[0477] E2E End to End

[0478] ECCA Extended Clear Channel Assessment, Extended CCA

[0479] ECCE Enhanced Control Channel Element, Enhanced CCE

[0480] ED Energy Detection

[0481] EDGE Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (GSM Evolution)

[0482] EGMF exposes governance management functions

[0483] EGPRS Enhanced GPRS

[0484] EIR Equipment Identity Register

[0485] eLAA Enhanced License Assisted Access, enhanced LAA

[0486] EM Component Manager

[0487] eMBB Enhanced Mobile Broadband

[0488] EMS Component Management System

[0489] eNB Evolved Node B, E-UTRAN Node B

[0490] EN-DC E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity

[0491] EPC Evolved Packet Core

[0492] EPDCCH Enhanced PDCCH, Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0493] EPRE Energy per resource element

[0494] EPS Evolved Packet System

[0495] EREG Enhanced REG, Enhanced Resource Element Group

[0496] ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute

[0497] ETWS Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System

[0498] eUICC embedded UICC, embedded universal integrated circuit card

[0499] E-UTRA Evolved UTRA

[0500] E-UTRAN Evolved UTRAN

[0501] EV2X Enhanced V2X

[0502] F1AP F1 Application Protocol

[0503] F1-C F1 control plane interface

[0504] F1-U F1 User Plane Interface

[0505] FACCH Fast Associated Control Channel

[0506] FACCH / F Fast Associated Control Channel / Full Rate

[0507] FACCH / H Fast Associated Control Channel / Half Rate

[0508] FACH Forward Access Channel

[0509] FAUSCH Fast Uplink Signalling Channel

[0510] FB Function Block

[0511] FBI Feedback

[0512] FCC Federal Communications Commission

[0513] FCCH Frequency Correction Channel

[0514] FDD Frequency Division Duplex

[0515] FDM Frequency Division Multiplexing

[0516] FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0517] FE Front End

[0518] FEC Forward Error Correction

[0519] FFS For further study

[0520] FFT Fast Fourier Transform

[0521] feLAA Further Enhanced Authorization Assisted Access, Further Enhanced LAA

[0522] FN Frame Number

[0523] FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array

[0524] FR Frequency Range

[0525] G-RNTI GERAN Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0526] GERAN GSM EDGE RAN, GSM EDGE Radio Access Network

[0527] GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node

[0528] GLONASS GLObal'naya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema

[0529] (Chinese: Global Navigation Satellite System)

[0530] gNB Next Generation Node B

[0531] gNB-CU gNB centralized unit, next generation Node B centralized unit

[0532] gNB-DU gNB distributed unit, next generation Node B distributed unit

[0533] GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System

[0534] GPRS General Packet Radio Service

[0535] GSM Global System for Mobile Communications, Mobile Experts Group

[0536] GTP GPRS Tunneling Protocol

[0537] GTP-U User Plane GPRS Tunneling Protocol

[0538] GTS Go to sleep signal (related to WUS)

[0539] GUMMEI Globally Unique MME Identifier

[0540] GUTI Globally Unique Temporary UE Identifier

[0541] HARQ Hybrid ARQ, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request

[0542] HANDO, HO switch

[0543] HFN Hyperframe Number

[0544] HHO Hard Handover

[0545] HLR Home Location Register

[0546] HN Home Network

[0547] HO Handover

[0548] HPLMN Local Public Land Mobile Network

[0549] HSDPA High Speed ​​Downlink Packet Access

[0550] HSN Hopping Sequence Number

[0551] HSPA High Speed ​​Packet Access

[0552] HSS Home Subscriber Server

[0553] HSUPA High Speed ​​Uplink Packet Access

[0554] HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol

[0555] HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (https is over SSL, port 443

[0556] HTTP / 1.1)

[0557] I-Block Information Block

[0558] ICCID Integrated Circuit Card Identifier

[0559] ICIC Inter-cell Interference Coordination

[0560] ID

[0561] IDFT Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform

[0562] IE Information Elements

[0563] IBE In-Band Emission

[0564] IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

[0565] IEI Information Element Identifier

[0566] IEIDL Information Element Identifier Data Length

[0567] IETF Internet Engineering Task Force

[0568] IF Infrastructure

[0569] IM Interference Measurement, Intermodulation, IP Multimedia

[0570] IMC IMS credentials

[0571] IMEI International Mobile Equipment Identity

[0572] IMGI International Mobile Group Identity

[0573] IMPI IP Multimedia Private Identity

[0574] IMPU IP Multimedia Public Identity

[0575] IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem

[0576] IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity

[0577] IoT

[0578] IP Internet Protocol

[0579] Ipsec IP security, Internet Protocol security

[0580] IP-CAN IP connection access network

[0581] IP-M IP Multicast

[0582] IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4

[0583] IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6

[0584] IR

[0585] IS Synchronization

[0586] IRP Integration Reference Point

[0587] ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

[0588] ISIM IM Service Identity Module

[0589] ISO International Organization for Standardization

[0590] ISP Internet Service Provider

[0591] IWF interworking function

[0592] I-WLAN Intercommunication WLAN

[0593] K convolutional code constraint length, USIM personal key

[0594] kB kilobyte (1000 bytes)

[0595] Kbps Kilobits per second

[0596] Kc encryption key

[0597] Ki Personal user authentication key

[0598] KPI Key Performance Indicator

[0599] KQI Key Quality Indicator

[0600] KSI Key Set Identifier

[0601] Ksps Kilosymbols per second

[0602] KVM Kernel Virtual Machine

[0603] L1 Layer 1 (physical layer)

[0604] L1-RSRP Layer 1 reference signal received power

[0605] L2 Layer 2 (Data Link Layer)

[0606] L3 Layer 3 (Network Layer)

[0607] LAA Authorized Assisted Access

[0608] LAN Local Area Network

[0609] LBT Listen before you speak

[0610] LCM Lifecycle Management

[0611] LCR Low Chip Rate

[0612] LCS Location Services

[0613] LCID Logical Channel ID

[0614] LI layer indicator

[0615] LLC Logical Link Control, Low Layer Compatibility

[0616] LPLMN Local PLMN

[0617] LPP LTE Positioning Protocol

[0618] LSB Least Significant Bit

[0619] LTE Long Term Evolution

[0620] LWA LTE-WLAN Aggregation

[0621] LWIP LTE / WLAN radio level integration with IPsec tunneling

[0622] LTE Long Term Evolution

[0623] M2M Machine to Machine

[0624] MAC Media Access Control (protocol layer content)

[0625] MAC Message Authentication Code (security / encrypted content)

[0626] MAC-A MAC for authentication and key agreement (TSG T WG3 context)

[0627] MAC-I MAC for signalling message data integrity (TSG T WG3 context)

[0628] MANO Management and Orchestration

[0629] MBMS Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service

[0630] MBSFN Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service Single Frequency Network

[0631] MCC Mobile Country Code

[0632] MCG Master Cell Group

[0633] MCOT Maximum Channel Occupancy Time

[0634] MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme

[0635] MDAF Management Data Analysis Function

[0636] MDAS Management Data Analysis Service

[0637] MDT Minimized Drive Test

[0638] ME Mobile Equipment

[0639] MeNB Master eNB

[0640] MER Message Error Rate

[0641] MGL Measurement Gap Length

[0642] MGRP measurement gap repetition period

[0643] MIB Master Information Block, Management Information Base

[0644] MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output

[0645] MLC Mobile Location Center

[0646] MM Mobility Management

[0647] MME Mobility Management Entity

[0648] MN Master Node

[0649] MO measurement object, mobile station initiated

[0650] MPBCH MTC Physical Broadcast Channel

[0651] MPDCCH MTC Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0652] MPDSCH MTC Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0653] MPRACH MTC Physical Random Access Channel

[0654] MPUSCH MTC Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0655] MPLS Multi-Protocol Label Switching

[0656] MS Mobile Station

[0657] MSB Most Significant Bit

[0658] MSC Mobile Switching Center

[0659] MSI minimum system information, MCH scheduling information

[0660] MSID Mobile Station Identifier

[0661] MSIN Mobile Station Identification Number

[0662] MSISDN Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number

[0663] MT Mobile Station Termination, Mobile Terminal

[0664] MTC Machine Type Communication

[0665] mMTC Massive MTC, Massive Machine Type Communication

[0666] MU-MIMO Multi-User MIMO

[0667] MWUS MTC wake-up signal, MTC WUS

[0668] NACK Negative Acknowledgement

[0669] NAI Network Access Identifier

[0670] NAS Non-Access Stratum

[0671] NCT Network Connection Topology

[0672] NEC network capabilities exposed

[0673] NE-DC NR-E-UTRA dual connectivity

[0674] NEF Network Exposure Function

[0675] NF Network Function

[0676] NFP Network Forwarding Path

[0677] NFPD Network Forwarding Path Descriptor

[0678] NFV Network Function Virtualization

[0679] NFVI NFV Infrastructure

[0680] NFVO NFV Orchestrator

[0681] NG Next Generation

[0682] NGEN-DC NG-RAN E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity

[0683] NM Network Manager

[0684] NMS Network Management System

[0685] N-PoP Network Point of Presence

[0686] NMIB, N-MIB Narrowband MIB

[0687] NPBCH Narrowband Physical Broadcast Channel

[0688] NPDCCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0689] NPDSCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0690] NPRACH Narrowband Physical Random Access Channel

[0691] NPUSCH Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0692] NPSS Narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal

[0693] NSSS Narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal

[0694] NR New air interface, neighbor relationship

[0695] NRF NF Repository Functionality

[0696] NRS Narrowband Reference Signal

[0697] NS Network Services

[0698] NSA Non-standalone operation mode

[0699] NSD Network Service Descriptor

[0700] NSR Network Service Record

[0701] NSSAI Network Slice Selection Assistance Information

[0702] S-NNSAI Single NSSAI

[0703] NSSF network slice selection function

[0704] NW Network

[0705] NWUS Narrowband wake-up signal, narrowband WUS

[0706] NZP Non Zero Power

[0707] O&M Operation and Maintenance

[0708] ODU2 Optical Channel Data Unit - Type 2

[0709] OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

[0710] OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0711] OOB Out of Band

[0712] OOS Out of Sync

[0713] OPEX Operational Expenses

[0714] OSI Other System Information

[0715] OSS Operation Support System

[0716] OTA

[0717] PAPR Peak to Average Power Ratio

[0718] PAR Peak to Average Ratio

[0719] PBCH Physical Broadcast Channel

[0720] PC Power Control, Personal Computer

[0721] PCC primary component carrier, primary CC

[0722] PCell Primary Cell

[0723] PCI Physical Cell ID, Physical Cell Identifier

[0724] PCEF Policy and Charging Enforcement Function

[0725] PCF Policy Control Function

[0726] PCRF Policy Control and Charging Rules Function

[0727] PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol, Packet Data Convergence Protocol Layer

[0728] PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0729] PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol

[0730] PDN Packet Data Network, Public Data Network

[0731] PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0732] PDU Protocol Data Unit

[0733] PEI Permanent Equipment Identifier

[0734] PFD Packet Flow Description

[0735] P-GW PDN Gateway

[0736] PHICH Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel

[0737] PHY Physical Layer

[0738] PLMN Public Land Mobile Network

[0739] PIN Personal Identification Number

[0740] PM performance measurement

[0741] PMI Precoding matrix indicator

[0742] PNF Physical Network Function

[0743] PNFD Physical Network Functional Descriptor

[0744] PNFR Physical Network Function Record

[0745] POC Mobile Intercom Service

[0746] PP, PTP point to point

[0747] PPP Point-to-Point Protocol

[0748] PRACH Physical RACH

[0749] PRB Physical Resource Block

[0750] PRG Physical Resource Group

[0751] ProSe proximity services, proximity-based services

[0752] PRS Positioning Reference Signal

[0753] PRR Packet Receive Radio

[0754] PS Packet Service

[0755] PSBCH Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel

[0756] PSDCH Physical Sidelink Downlink Channel

[0757] PSCCH Physical Sidelink Control Channel

[0758] PSSCH Physical Sidelink Shared Channel

[0759] PSCell Primary SCell

[0760] PSS Primary Synchronization Signal

[0761] PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

[0762] PT-RS Phase Tracking Reference Signal

[0763] PTT Push to Talk

[0764] PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel

[0765] PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0766] QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

[0767] QCI QoS Class Identifier

[0768] QCL Quasi-Co-sited

[0769] QFI QoS flow ID, QoS flow identifier

[0770] QoS Quality of Service

[0771] QPSK Quadrature (Quaternary) Phase Shift Keying

[0772] QZSS Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

[0773] RA-RNTI Random Access RNTI

[0774] RAB Radio Access Bearer, Random Access Burst

[0775] RACH Random Access Channel

[0776] RADIUS Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service

[0777] RAN Radio Access Network

[0778] RAND random number (for authentication)

[0779] RAR Random Access Response

[0780] RAT Radio Access Technology

[0781] RAU Routing Area Update

[0782] RB Resource Block, Radio Bearer

[0783] RBG Resource Block Group

[0784] REG Resource Element Group

[0785] Rel version

[0786] REQ Request

[0787] RF

[0788] RI Rank Indicator

[0789] RIV Resource Indicator Value

[0790] RL Radio Link

[0791] RLC Radio Link Control, Radio Link Control Layer

[0792] RLC AM RLC Acknowledgement Mode

[0793] RLC UM RLC Unacknowledged Mode

[0794] RLF Radio Link Failure

[0795] RLM Radio Link Monitoring

[0796] RLM-RS RLM reference signal

[0797] RM Registration Management

[0798] RMC Reference Measurement Channel

[0799] RMSI Remaining MSI, Remaining Minimum System Information

[0800] RN Relay Node

[0801] RNC Radio Network Controller

[0802] RNL Radio Network Layer

[0803] RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0804] ROHC Robust Header Compression

[0805] RRC Radio Resource Control, Radio Resource Control Layer

[0806] RRM Radio Resource Management

[0807] RS reference signal

[0808] RSRP Reference Signal Received Power

[0809] RSRQ Reference Signal Received Quality

[0810] RSSI Received Signal Strength Indicator

[0811] RSU Road Side Unit

[0812] RSTD Reference Signal Time Difference

[0813] RTP Real Time Protocol

[0814] RTS Ready to send

[0815] RTT Round Trip Time

[0816] Rx Receive, Receiver

[0817] S1AP S1 Application Protocol

[0818] S1-MME is used for S1 control plane

[0819] S1-U S1 for user plane

[0820] S-GW Service Gateway

[0821] S-RNTI SRNC Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0822] S-TMSI SAE temporary mobile station identifier

[0823] SA Standalone Operation Mode

[0824] SAE system architecture evolution

[0825] SAP Service Access Point

[0826] SAPD Service Access Point Descriptor

[0827] SAPI Service Access Point Identifier

[0828] SCC Secondary Component Carrier, Secondary CC

[0829] SCell Secondary Cell

[0830] SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0831] SCG Secondary Cell Group

[0832] SCM Security Context Management

[0833] SCS Subcarrier Spacing

[0834] SCTP Stream Control Transmission Protocol

[0835] SDAP Service Data Adaptation Protocol, Service Data Adaptation Protocol Layer

[0836] SDL Supplemental Downlink

[0837] SDNF Structured Data Storage Network Function

[0838] SDP Session Description Protocol

[0839] SDSF structured data storage function

[0840] SDU Service Data Unit

[0841] SEAF Security Anchoring Function

[0842] SeNB Secondary eNB

[0843] SEPP Security Edge Protection Proxy

[0844] SFI Slot Format Indicator

[0845] SFTD Space Frequency Time Diversity, SFN and Frame Timing Difference

[0846] SFN System Frame Number

[0847] SgNB

[0848] SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node

[0849] S-GW Service Gateway

[0850] SI System Information

[0851] SI-RNTI System Information RNTI

[0852] SIB System Information Block

[0853] SIM Subscriber Identity Module

[0854] SIP Session Initiation Protocol

[0855] SiP System in Package

[0856] SL Side Link

[0857] SLA Service Level Agreement

[0858] SM Session Management

[0859] SMF session management functions

[0860] SMS Short Message Service

[0861] SMSF SMS Function

[0862] SMTC SSB-based measurement timing configuration

[0863] SN Secondary Node, Serial Number

[0864] SoC System on Chip

[0865] SON Self-Organizing Network

[0866] SpCell Special Cell

[0867] SP-CSI-RNTI Semi-persistent CSI RNTI

[0868] SPS Semi-Persistent Scheduling

[0869] SQN Serial Number

[0870] SR Scheduling Request

[0871] SRB Signalling Radio Bearer

[0872] SRS Sounding Reference Signal

[0873] SS Sync Signal

[0874] SSB Synchronization Signal Block, SS / PBCH Block

[0875] SSBRI SS / PBCH block resource indicator, synchronization signal block resource indicator

[0876] SSC Session and Service Continuity

[0877] SS-RSRP Reference signal received power based on synchronization signal

[0878] SS-RSRQ Reference signal reception quality based on synchronization signal

[0879] SS-SINR Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio based on synchronization signal

[0880] SSS Secondary synchronization signal

[0881] SSSG Search Space Cluster

[0882] SSSIF Search Space Set Indicator

[0883] SST Slice / Service Type

[0884] SU-MIMO Single User MIMO

[0885] SUL Supplementary Uplink

[0886] TA Timing Advance, Tracking Area

[0887] TAC Tracking Area Code

[0888] TAG Timing Advance Group

[0889] TAU Tracking Area Updates

[0890] TB Transfer Block

[0891] TBS Transport Block Size

[0892] TBD To be defined

[0893] TCI Transmission Configuration Indicator

[0894] TCP transport communication protocol

[0895] TDD Time Division Duplex

[0896] TDM Time Division Multiplexing

[0897] TDMA Time Division Multiple Access

[0898] TE Terminal Equipment

[0899] TEID Tunnel End Point Identifier

[0900] TFT Business Flow Template

[0901] TMSI Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity

[0902] TNL Transport Network Layer

[0903] TPC Transmit Power Control

[0904] TPMI Transmitted Precoding Matrix Indicator

[0905] TR Technical Report

[0906] TRP,TRxP Transmission Receive Point

[0907] TRS Tracking Reference Signal

[0908] TRx Transceiver

[0909] TS Technical Specifications, Technical Standards

[0910] TTI Transmission Time Interval

[0911] Tx transmission, transmitter

[0912] U-RNTI UTRAN Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0913] UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter

[0914] UCI Uplink Control Information

[0915] UE User Equipment

[0916] UDM Unified Data Management

[0917] UDP User Datagram Protocol

[0918] UDSF Unstructured Data Storage Network Function

[0919] UICC Universal Integrated Circuit Card

[0920] UL Uplink

[0921] UM Unconfirmed Mode

[0922] UML Unified Modeling Language

[0923] UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

[0924] UP User Plane

[0925] UPF User Plane Function

[0926] URI Uniform Resource Identifier

[0927] URL Uniform Resource Locator

[0928] URLLC Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications

[0929] USB Universal Serial Bus

[0930] USIM Universal Subscriber Identity Module

[0931] USS UE-specific search space

[0932] UTRA UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access

[0933] UTRAN Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network

[0934] UwPTS Uplink Pilot Time Slot

[0935] V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure

[0936] V2P Vehicle to Pedestrian

[0937] V2V Vehicle to Vehicle

[0938] V2X Vehicle to Everything

[0939] VIM Virtualization Infrastructure Manager

[0940] VL Virtual Link

[0941] VLAN Virtual LAN, Virtual Local Area Network

[0942] VM Virtual Machine

[0943] VNF Virtualized Network Function

[0944] VNFFG VNF forwarding graph

[0945] VNFFGD VNF Forwarding Graph Descriptor

[0946] VNFM VNF Manager

[0947] VoIP Voice over IP, Voice over Internet Protocol

[0948] VPLMN Visited Public Land Mobile Network

[0949] VPN Virtual Private Network

[0950] VRB Virtual Resource Block

[0951] WiMAX Global Interoperability for Microwave Access

[0952] WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

[0953] WMAN Wireless Metropolitan Area Network

[0954] WPAN Wireless Personal Area Network

[0955] X2-C X2 control plane

[0956] X2-U X2 user plane

[0957] XML Extensible Markup Language

[0958] XRES Expected User Response

[0959] XOR

[0960] ZC Zadoff-Chu

[0961] ZP Zero Power

[0962] the term

[0963] For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply to the examples and implementations discussed herein.

[0964] As used herein, the term "circuit" refers to, is part of, or includes a hardware component such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and / or a memory (shared, dedicated, or group) configured to provide the described functions, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), a digital signal processor (DSP), etc. In some embodiments, the circuit may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functions. The term "circuit" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements and a program code for performing the functions of the program code (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system). In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a specific type of circuit.

[0965] As used herein, the term "processor circuit" refers to, is part of, or includes a circuit capable of sequentially and automatically performing a series of arithmetic or logical operations or recording, storing, and / or transmitting digital data. The term "processor circuit" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and / or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions (such as program code, software modules, and / or functional processes). The terms "application circuit" and / or "baseband circuit" may be considered synonymous with "processor circuit" and may be referred to as "processor circuit".

[0966] As used herein, the term "interface circuit" refers to a circuit that enables, is a part of, or includes information exchange between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuit" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I / O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, etc.

[0967] As used herein, the term "user equipment" or "UE" refers to a device that has radio communication capabilities and can describe a remote user of network resources in a communication network. In addition, the terms "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous and may be referred to as a client, mobile phone, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. In addition, the term "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless / wired device or any computing device that includes a wireless communication interface.

[0968] As used herein, the term "network element" refers to physical or virtualized equipment and / or infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered synonymous with networked computers, networked hardware, network equipment, network nodes, routers, switches, hubs, bridges, radio network controllers, RAN equipment, RAN nodes, gateways, servers, virtualized VNFs, NFVIs, etc. and / or may be referred to as the above items.

[0969] As used herein, the term "computer system" refers to any type of interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled to one another. Furthermore, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" may refer to multiple computer devices and / or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled to one another and configured to share computing and / or networking resources.

[0970] As used herein, the terms "appliance", "computer appliance", etc. refer to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g., software or firmware) specially designed to provide specific computing resources. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a device equipped with a hypervisor that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or is otherwise dedicated to providing specific computing resources.

[0971] As used herein, the term "resource" refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and / or a physical or virtual component within a specific device, such as a computer device, a mechanical device, a memory space, a processor / CPU time and / or a processor / CPU usage rate, a processor and accelerator load, a hardware time or usage rate, a power supply, an input / output operation, a port or a network socket, a channel / link allocation, throughput, memory usage rate, storage, a network, a database and an application, a unit of work, etc. "Hardware resources" may refer to computing, storage and / or network resources provided by physical hardware elements. "Virtualized resources" may refer to computing, storage and / or network resources provided by a virtualized infrastructure to an application, a device, a system, etc. The term "network resources" or "communication resources" may refer to resources that a computer device / system can access via a communication network. The term "system resources" may refer to any kind of shared entity that provides a service, and may include computing resources and / or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services that can be accessed through a server, wherein such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and can be clearly identified.

[0972] As used herein, the term "channel" refers to any tangible or intangible transmission medium for transmitting data or data streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous and / or equivalent to "communication channel", "data communication channel", "transmission channel", "data transmission channel", "access channel", "data access channel", "link", "data link", "carrier", "radio frequency carrier" and / or any other similar terms representing a path or medium through which data is transmitted. In addition, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection between two devices for transmitting and receiving information over a RAT.

[0973] As used herein, the terms "instantiate," "instantiate," and the like refer to the creation of an instance. "Instance" also refers to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of program code.

[0974] The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," and their derivatives are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, may mean that two or more elements are in indirect contact with each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and / or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements said to be coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with each other by means of communication, including through a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wireless communication channel or link, etc.

[0975] The term "information element" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to the individual contents of an information element, or a data element that contains the contents.

[0976] The term "SMTC" refers to the SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

[0977] The term "SSB" refers to SS / PBCH block.

[0978] The term "primary cell" refers to an MCG cell operating on a primary frequency, where the UE either performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

[0979] The term "primary SCG cell" refers to an SCG cell in which a UE performs random access when reconfiguration is performed using a synchronization procedure for DC operation.

[0980] The term "secondary cell" refers to a cell that provides additional radio resources on top of a special cell for a UE configured with CA.

[0981] The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells including a PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UE configured with DC;

[0982] The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell for a UE in RRC_CONNECTED without CA / DC configured, where there is only one serving cell including the primary cell.

[0983] The term "serving cell" refers to a cell group including a special cell for a UE configured with CA / in RRC_CONNECTED and all secondary cells.

[0984] The term "special cell" refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell of the SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term "special cell" refers to the Pcell.

[0985] It is understood that the use of personally identifiable information should be subject to privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized to meet or exceed industry or government requirements for maintaining user privacy. Specifically, personally identifiable information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of the authorized use should be clearly stated to users.

[0986] While the foregoing embodiments illustrate embodiments of communication techniques using sub-bands, in other embodiments, communication techniques may involve simultaneous use of different time slots, and / or a combination of different sub-bands, different frequency bands, and / or different time slots.

[0987] Reference has been made in the foregoing description to “some embodiments.” Note that 'some embodiments' describes a subset of all possible embodiments, but does not always specify the same subset of embodiments.

[0988] Although examples of numerical values ​​are provided in the foregoing discussion, different numerical values ​​are used in other embodiments. Therefore, the numerical values ​​provided are not intended to be limiting.

[0989] Although the above embodiments have been described in considerable detail, numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to encompass all such variations and modifications.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising: a networking subsystem configured to communicate with a user device; a processing subsystem coupled to the networking subsystem; A memory, the memory being coupled to the processing subsystem and configured to store program instructions, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the processing subsystem, cause the computer system to perform operations including: performing a first registration of the user equipment through a first access, wherein after the first registration, the user equipment connects to a first access and mobility management function (AMF) via the first access; and performing a second registration of the user equipment over a second access, wherein the second access is different from the first access, and after the second registration, the user equipment connects with a second AMF via the second access, and The performing of the second registration includes: transferring a context of the user equipment from the first AMF to the second AMF, wherein the context of the user equipment comprises a first user equipment configuration management (CM) state on the first access and comprises a global identifier of a first access network node handling the first access; and Relocate the network interface in the control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF. 2 . The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the first access comprises a non-3GPP access and the second access comprises a 3GPP access. 3 . The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the first access comprises an untrusted access and the second access comprises a trusted access.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the first access and the second access are included in a public wireless communication system.

5. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the first user equipment CM state comprises: CM Idle or CM Connected.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the network interface comprises an N2 interface.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the first access network node comprises a non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF).

8. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the context of the user equipment comprises one or more parameters identifying an application protocol user equipment association between the first access network node and the first AMF.

9. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the application protocol user device association comprises a next generation application protocol NGAP user device association.

10. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the one or more parameters include: AMF user equipment Next Generation Application Protocol NGAP identifier, Radio Access Network RAN ​​user equipment NGAP identifier, or both.

11. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the repositioning comprises: When the configuration state of the first user equipment on the first access indicates that the user equipment is connected, sending a first request to the first access network node; as well as A response including the context of the user equipment is received.

12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the first request comprises a first AMF mobility request message.

13. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the second registration occurs while the user device is registering with the first access via the first registration.

14. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise: Determining a configuration state of a second user equipment on the second access; as well as A second request is selectively sent to a second access network node based at least in part on the second user equipment configuration state on the second access.

15. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the second request comprises a first AMF Mobility Request message.

16. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the second request is sent when the second user equipment configuration state on the second access indicates that the user equipment is connected.

17. A computer system comprising: a networking subsystem configured to communicate with a user device; a processing subsystem coupled to the networking subsystem; A memory, the memory being coupled to the processing subsystem and configured to store program instructions, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the processing subsystem, cause the computer system to perform operations including: performing a first registration of the user equipment over a non-3GPP access, wherein after the first registration, the user equipment connects to a first access and mobility management function (AMF) via the non-3GPP access; and performing a second registration of the user equipment via the 3GPP access, wherein after the second registration, the user equipment connects with a second AMF via the 3GPP access, and The performing of the second registration includes: transferring a context of the user equipment from the first AMF to the second AMF, wherein the context of the user equipment comprises a first user equipment configuration management (CM) state on the non-3GPP access and comprises a global identifier of a non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF) handling the non-3GPP access; and Relocate the network interface in the control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF.

18. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the repositioning comprises: When the CM state of the first user equipment on the non-3GPP access indicates that the user equipment is connected, sending a first request to the N3IWF; as well as A response including the context of the user equipment is received.

19. A computer system comprising: a networking subsystem configured to communicate with a user device; a processing subsystem coupled to the networking subsystem; A memory, the memory being coupled to the processing subsystem and configured to store program instructions, wherein the program instructions, when executed by the processing subsystem, cause the computer system to perform operations including: performing a first registration of the user equipment through a first access, wherein after the first registration, the user equipment connects to a first access and mobility management function (AMF) via the first access; and performing a second registration of the user equipment over a second access, wherein the second access is different from the first access, and after the second registration, the user equipment connects with a second AMF via the second access, and The performing of the second registration includes: The context of the user equipment is transferred from the first AMF to the second AMF by performing operations comprising: When a first user equipment configuration management (CM) state on the first access indicates that the user equipment is connected, sending a first request to a first access network node processing the first access; and receiving a response including the context of the user equipment, wherein the context of the user equipment includes a CM state of the first user equipment on the first access and includes a global identifier of the first access network node handling the first access; and Relocate the network interface in the control plane from the first AMF to the second AMF.

20. The computer system of claim 19, wherein the first access network node comprises a non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF).

Images