Devices, systems and methods for switching with simultaneous UE transmit beams

Abstract

A user equipment (UE) performs operations in a wireless network including a first next generation node B (gNB) and a second gNB for communicating with the UE. The operations include determining to simultaneously transmit a first transmission (Tx) stream and a second Tx stream to the first gNB and the second gNB for handing over communication with the UE from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the first gNB is a serving gNB in ​​the first cell and the second gNB is a handover target gNB in ​​the second cell, and simultaneously transmitting the first transmission stream to the first gNB using a first polarization and transmitting the second transmission stream to the second gNB using a second polarization different from the first polarization within a same antenna panel of the UE.

Description

[0001] Priority claim

[0002] This disclosure claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 62 / 846,249, filed on May 10, 2019, entitled “HANDOVER FURTHER ENHANCEMENT WITH SIMULTANEOUS UE TRANSMISSION BEAMS,” which is incorporated herein by reference. Background Art

[0003] A user equipment (UE) can establish connections with multiple different networks or network types. The UE can access available services via a network connection by communicating with a base station of the corresponding network. In some radio access networks (RANs) such as 5G new radio (NR) RAN, the UE can propagate signals from antenna modules on a high frequency band through beamforming. Transmitting beams on a high frequency band can increase bandwidth and improve data rates compared to traditional methods. However, interruptions may occur during switching, resulting in reduced throughput of the entire network. In FR2, the UE may use different Rx beams or Tx beams for the serving cell and the target cell during switching, and it may be difficult to maintain connection with both the serving cell and the target cell without interruption. Summary of the invention

[0004] Some exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless network, the wireless network including a first next generation node B (gNB) and a second gNB for communicating with the UE. The method includes: determining to simultaneously transmit a first transmission (Tx) stream and a second Tx stream to the first gNB and the second gNB for switching communication with the UE from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the first gNB is a serving gNB in ​​the first cell and the second gNB is a switching target gNB in ​​the second cell, and simultaneously transmitting the first transmission stream to the first gNB using a first polarization and transmitting the second transmission stream to the second gNB using a second polarization different from the first polarization within the same antenna panel of the UE.

[0005] Other exemplary embodiments relate to a user equipment (UE) having multiple antenna panels, each antenna panel including multiple antenna elements. The UE also includes a processor configured to determine to simultaneously transmit a first transmission (Tx) stream and a second Tx stream to a first next-generation node B (gNB) and a second gNB for switching communication with the UE from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the first gNB is a serving gNB in ​​the first cell and the second gNB is a switching target gNB in ​​the second cell. The UE also includes a transceiver configured to simultaneously transmit the first transmission stream to the first gNB using a first Tx polarization and transmit the second transmission stream to the second gNB using a second Tx polarization different from the first polarization via the same antenna panel of the UE.

[0006] Additional exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a first next generation node B (gNB) in a first cell in a wireless network for communicating with a user equipment (UE), the wireless network comprising the UE and a second gNB in ​​a second cell for communicating with the UE. The method includes: allocating downlink control information (DCI) format 0_1 ​​for triggering a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission by the UE, triggering the PUSCH transmission by the UE, and limiting uplink (UL) channel scheduling by triggering the PUSCH transmission using a single port. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] Figure 1 An exemplary architecture of a system of networks according to various exemplary embodiments is shown.

[0008] Figure 2 Examples of infrastructure equipment are shown according to various exemplary embodiments.

[0009] Figure 3 Examples of platforms (or "devices") are shown according to various exemplary embodiments.

[0010] Figure 4 Exemplary components of a baseband circuit and a radio front end module (RFEM) are shown according to various exemplary embodiments.

[0011] Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and capable of performing any one or more of the methods in the set of methods discussed herein, according to some exemplary embodiments.

[0012] Figure 6 Various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device according to various exemplary embodiments are shown.

[0013] Figure 7 An exemplary architecture of a system including a first core network according to various embodiments is shown.

[0014] Figure 8 The architecture of a system including a second core network according to various embodiments is shown.

[0015] Fig. 9 Components of a core network are shown according to various embodiments.

[0016] Fig.10 is a block diagram illustrating components of a NFV-enabled system according to some exemplary embodiments.

[0017] Fig.11a An example of three antenna modules and their corresponding radiation patterns is shown.

[0018] Fig.11b Examples of directions in which antenna modules may propagate beams are shown.

[0019] Figures 12a to 12d Four different handover scenarios that may be encountered at a user equipment (UE) are shown.

[0020] Fig.13 An exemplary UE antenna panel and associated circuitry for simultaneously transmitting data streams (beams) to multiple network cells via beamforming is shown.

[0021] Fig.14 A method for a UE to simultaneously transmit data streams to multiple network cells during handover is shown.

[0022] Fig.15 A method for a gNB to restrict uplink (UL) channel scheduling for a UE to simultaneously transmit data streams to multiple network cells during handover is shown. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0023] The following specific embodiments relate to the accompanying drawings. The same figure numbers may be used to identify the same or similar elements in different drawings. In the following description, for the purpose of illustration and not limitation, specific details, such as specific structures, architectures, interfaces, technologies, etc., are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art who benefit from the present disclosure that various aspects of various embodiments may 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 description of various embodiments will not be obscured by unnecessary details. For the purposes of this document, the phrase "A or B" refers to (A), (B), or (A and B).

[0024] The exemplary embodiments may be further understood with reference to the following description and the associated drawings and slides, in which similar elements have the same reference numerals. The exemplary embodiments are described with reference to beamforming, which is an antenna technique for propagating directional signals over the mmWave frequency band. Throughout this specification, the term "beam" may refer to a beamformed signal. However, references to beams are merely exemplary. Different networks may refer to signals propagated over mmWave frequencies by different names. Figure 11a to Figure 11b Beamforming is described in further detail. The exemplary embodiments describe devices, systems, and methods for mitigating interference problems and related problems that may occur during simultaneous transmission (Tx) and / or reception (Rx) of beamforming signals to multiple network cells during handover from a source cell to a target cell. The exemplary embodiments will be described below with reference to FIGS. 11 to 12. Fig.15 Described in further detail.

[0025] System Architecture

[0026] Figure 1 An exemplary architecture of a network system 100 according to various exemplary embodiments is shown. The following description is provided for an exemplary system 100 operating in conjunction with the 5G NR system standard provided by the 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 legacy (e.g., LTE) 3GPP systems, future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G) systems), IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), etc.

[0027] like Figure 1As shown, system 100 includes UE 101a and UE 101b (collectively referred to as "UE 101"). In this example, UE 101 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.

[0028] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 101 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.

[0029] UE 101 may be configured to connect, e.g., be communicatively coupled, to a radio access network (RAN) 110. In some embodiments, RAN 110 may be a 5G NR RAN, while in other embodiments, RAN 110 may be an E-UTRAN or a legacy RAN, such as a UTRAN or GERAN. As used herein, the term "5G NR RAN" or the like may refer to a RAN 110 operating in an NR or 5G system 100, while the term "E-UTRAN" or the like may refer to a RAN 110 operating in an LTE or 4G system 100. Multiple UEs 101 utilize connections (or channels) 103 and 104, respectively, each connection comprising a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in further detail below).

[0030] In this example, connections 103 and 104 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 other communication protocol discussed herein. In an embodiment, UE 101 may directly exchange communication data via a proximity service (ProSe) interface 105. ProSe interface 105 may alternatively be referred to as SL interface 105, and may include one or more logical channels, including but not limited to PSCCH, PSSCH, PSDCH, and PSBCH.

[0031] UE 101b is further configured to access WLAN node 106 (also referred to as "WLAN 106", "WLAN terminal 106", "WT 106", etc.) via connection 107. Connection 107 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein AP 106 will include Wireless Fidelity. Router. In this example, WLAN node 106 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 101b, RAN 110 and WLAN node 106 may be configured to utilize LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) operation and / or LTE / WLAN radio level operation integrated with IPsec tunnel (LWIP). LWA operation may involve UE 101b in RRC_CONNECTED state being configured by RAN nodes 111a-b to utilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve UE 101b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 107) via an IPsec protocol tunnel to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent through connection 107. 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.

[0032] The RAN 110 includes one or more RAN nodes 111a and 111b (collectively referred to as "multiple RAN nodes 111" or "RAN node 111") that enable connections 103 and 104. 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 base stations (BS), next generation Node Bs (gNBs), RAN nodes, eNBs, Node Bs, RSUs, TRxPs, or TRPs, 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 "5G NR RAN nodes" and the like may refer to RAN nodes 111 (e.g., gNBs) operating in NR or 5G systems 100, while the terms "E-UTRAN nodes" and the like may refer to RAN nodes 111 (e.g., eNBs) operating in LTE or 4G systems 100. According to various embodiments, the RAN node 111 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.

[0033] In some embodiments, all or part of the RAN node 111 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 splits, such as PDCP splits, where the RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, while other L2 protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes 111; MAC / PHY splits, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP, and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 111; or "lower PHY" splits, 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 111. This virtualization framework allows idle processor cores of multiple RAN nodes 111 to execute other virtualized applications. In some specific implementations, individual RAN nodes 111 may represent a plurality of RAN nodes 111 connected to the RAN via individual F1 interfaces ( Figure 1 In these embodiments, the gNB-DU may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., Figure 2RFEM 215), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server (not shown) located in RAN 110 or by a server pool in a manner similar to CRAN / vBBUP. In addition or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 111 may be a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), which is a terminal that provides E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocols to UE 101 and is connected to 5GC via a 5G NR interface (e.g., Figure 8 CN 820) RAN node.

[0034] In a V2X scenario, one or more of the RAN nodes 111 may be a road side unit (RSU) or act as an RSU. The term "road side 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 101 (vUE 101). 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.

[0035] Any of the RAN nodes 111 may serve as a termination point for the air interface protocol and may be the first point of contact for the UE 101. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 111 may perform various logical functions of the RAN 110, including but not limited to the functions of a radio network controller (RNC), such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0036] In some exemplary embodiments, UE 101 may be configured to communicate with each other or any of RAN nodes 111 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 communications) or SC-FDMA communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. OFDM signals may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0037] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid may be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 111 to the UE 101, 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.

[0038] According to various embodiments, the UE 101 and the RAN node 111 communicate data (e.g., transmit data and receive data) through a licensed medium (also referred to as a "licensed spectrum" and / or a "licensed band") and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to as an "unlicensed spectrum" and / or an "unlicensed band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range of about 400 MHz to about 3.8 GHz, and the unlicensed spectrum may include a 5 GHz band or other unlicensed spectrum.

[0039] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UE 101 and the RAN node 111 may operate using LAA, eLAA, feLAA, or NR-U mechanisms. In these implementations, the UE 101 and the RAN node 111 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.

[0040] Listen before talk (LBT) is a mechanism by which equipment (e.g., UE 101, RAN node 111, 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 clear channel assessment (CCA) that utilizes at least energy detection (ED) to determine whether other signals are present on the channel in order to determine whether the channel is occupied or clear. The LBT mechanism allows cellular / LAA (licensed assisted access) 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.

[0041] 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 101, WLAN node 106, etc.) intends 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 YECCA 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.

[0042] The LAA mechanism is built on the carrier aggregation (CA) technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is called a component carrier (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 aggregate 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.

[0043] 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 referred to as 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 the UE 101 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.

[0044] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to multiple UEs 101. The PDCCH carries, among other information, information about the transport format and resource allocation related to the PDSCH channel. It may also inform multiple UEs 101 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 UEs 101b within a cell) may be performed at any one of the RAN nodes 111 based on channel quality information fed back from any one of the UEs 101. Downlink resource allocation information may be sent on the PDCCH for (e.g., allocated to) each of the UEs 101.

[0045] PDCCH uses control channel elements (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).

[0046] 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.

[0047] RAN nodes 111 may be configured to communicate with each other via interface 112. In embodiments where system 100 is an LTE system (eg, when CN 120 is a Figure 7 720 in the EPC 120), the interface 112 may be an X2 interface 112. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC 120, and / or between two eNBs connected to the EPC 120. 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 protocol data units (PDUs) from the SeNB to the UE 101 for user data; information about PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to the UE 101; 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.

[0048] In an embodiment where the system 100 is a 5G or NR system, the interface 112 may be an Xn interface 112. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more gNBs, etc.) connected to the 5GC 120, between a RAN node 111 (e.g., a gNB) and an eNB connected to the 5GC 120, and / or between two eNBs connected to the 5GC 120. 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 UE 101 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED) includes functions for managing UE mobility in a connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 111. The mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 111 to the new (target) serving RAN node 111; and control of the user plane tunnel between the old (source) serving RAN node 111 and the new (target) serving RAN node 111. 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.

[0049] RAN 110 is shown as being communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 120. CN 120 may include a plurality of network elements 122 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of a plurality of UEs 101) connected to CN 120 via RAN 110. The components of CN 120 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes, which include components for reading and executing 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 120 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instance of a portion of CN 120 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.

[0050] Generally speaking, the application server 130 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 130 may also be configured to support one or more communication services for the UE 101 via the CN 120 (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social network services, etc.).

[0051] In an embodiment, CN 120 may be a 5GC (referred to as "5GC 120" or the like), and RAN 110 may be connected to CN 120 via a 5G NR interface 113. In an embodiment, 5G NR interface 113 may be divided into two parts: a 5G NR user plane (NG-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between RAN node 111 and UPF; and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 115, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 111 and AMF 821. Reference Figure 8 Discussed in more detail, CN 120 is an implementation of 5GC 120.

[0052] In an embodiment, CN 120 may be a 5G CN (referred to as "5GC 120", etc.), while in other embodiments, CN 120 may be an EPC. In the case where CN 120 is an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) (referred to as "EPC 120", etc.), RAN 110 may be connected to CN 120 via an S1 interface 113. In an embodiment, S1 interface 113 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between RAN node 111 and S-GW; and an S1-MME interface 115, which is a signaling interface between RAN node 111 and MME.

[0053] Figure 7 FIG. 7 shows an exemplary architecture of a system 700 including a first CN 720 according to various embodiments. In this example, the system 700 may implement the LTE standard, where the CN 720 is a Figure 1 In addition, UE 701 may communicate with Figure 1 The UE 101 is the same as or similar to the UE 101, and the E-UTRAN 710 may be Figure 1 The CN 720 may be a RAN that is the same as or similar to the RAN 110 of the present invention and may include the RAN node 111 discussed previously. The CN 720 may include a mobility management entity (MEE) 721, a serving gateway (S-GW) 722, a PDN gateway (P-GW) 723, a home subscriber server (HSS) 724, and a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) 725.

[0054] The MME 721 may be similar in function to the control plane of a conventional SGSN, and may implement MM functions to keep track of the current location of the UE 701. The MME 721 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 701, providing user identity confidentiality to users / subscribers, and / or performing other similar services. Each UE 701 and MME 721 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and when the attachment procedure is successfully completed, an MM context may be established in the UE 701 and the MME 721. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM-related information of the UE 701. The MME 721 may be coupled to the HSS 724 via an S6a reference point, to the SGSN 725 via an S3 reference point, and to the S-GW 722 via an S11 reference point.

[0055] SGSN 725 may be a node that serves UE 701 by tracking the location of individual UE 701 and performing security functions. In addition, SGSN 725 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 721; handling of UE 701 time zone functions, as specified by MME 721; and MME selection for handover to E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. The S3 reference point between MME 721 and SGSN 725 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in an idle state and / or an active state.

[0056] The HSS 724 may include a database for network users, which includes subscription-related information for supporting network entities in handling communication sessions. The EPC 720 may include one or several HSSs 724, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, the capacity of the equipment, the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 724 may provide support for routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / addressing solutions, location dependencies, etc. The S6a reference point between the HSS 724 and the MME 721 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating / authorizing users to access the EPC 720 between the HSS 724 and the MME 721.

[0057] The S-GW 722 may terminate the S1 interface 113 towards the RAN 710 (at Figure 7 The S-GW 722 may be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handovers and may 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 the S-GW 722 and the MME 721 may provide a control plane between the MME 721 and the S-GW 722. The S-GW 722 may be coupled to the P-GW 723 via the S5 reference point.

[0058] The P-GW 723 may terminate the SGi interface toward the PDN 730. The P-GW 723 may communicate with the PDN 730 via the IP interface 125 (see, e.g., Figure 1 ) routes data packets between EPC 720 and external networks such as a network including application server 130 (alternatively referred to as "AF"). In an embodiment, P-GW 723 can communicate with the network via IP communication interface 125 (see, e.g., Figure 1 ) is communicatively coupled to an application server ( Figure 1 Application server 130 or Figure 7The S5 reference point between the P-GW 723 and the S-GW 722 may provide user plane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 723 and the S-GW 722. The S5 reference point may also be used for S-GW 722 relocation due to the mobility of the UE 701 and whether the S-GW 722 needs to be connected to a non-colocated P-GW 723 for the required PDN connectivity. The P-GW 723 may also include nodes for policy implementation and charging data collection (e.g., PCEF (not shown)). In addition, the SGi reference point between the P-GW 723 and the packet data network (PDN) 730 may be an operator external public, private PDN, or an internal operator packet data network, for example, for providing IMS services. The P-GW 723 may be coupled to the PCRF 726 via a Gx reference point.

[0059] PCRF 726 is a policy and charging control element of EPC 720. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 726 in a domestic public land mobile network (HPLMN) associated with an Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session of UE 701. In a roaming scenario with local traffic breakout, there may be two PCRFs associated with the IP-CAN session of UE 701: a domestic PCRF (H-PCRF) in the HPLMN and a visited PCRF (V-PCRF) in a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN). PCRF 726 may be communicatively coupled to application server 730 via P-GW 723. Application server 730 may signal PCRF 726 to indicate a new service flow and select appropriate QoS and charging parameters. PCRF 726 may configure the rule to a PCEF (not shown) with the appropriate TFT and QCI, which function starts QoS and charging as specified by application server 730. The Gx reference point between PCRF 726 and P-GW 723 may allow for the transfer of QoS policies and charging rules from PCRF 726 to PCEF in P-GW 723. The Rx reference point may reside between PDN 730 (or "AF 730") and PCRF 726.

[0060] Figure 8The architecture of a system 800 including a second CN 820 is shown according to various embodiments. System 800 is shown as including UE 801, which may be the same or similar to UE 101 and UE 701 discussed previously; (R)AN 810, which may be the same or similar to RAN 110 and RAN 710 discussed previously, and which may include RAN node 111 discussed previously; and data network (DN) 803, which may be, for example, an operator service, Internet access, or a 3rd party service; and 5GC 820. 5GC 820 may include authentication server function (AUSF) 822; access and mobility management function (AMF) 821; session management function (SMF) 824; network exposure function (NEF) 823; policy control function (PCF) 826; NF repository function (NRF) 825; unified data management (UDM) 827; application function (AF) 828; user plane function (UPF) 802; and network slice selection function (NSSF) 829.

[0061] UPF 802 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point interconnected with DN 803, and a branch point to support multi-host PDU sessions. UPF 802 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 (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL / DL rate enforcement) on the user plane, perform uplink traffic verification (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. UPF 802 may include an uplink classifier for supporting routing of traffic flows to data networks. DN 803 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party services. DN 803 may include or be similar to the application server 130 discussed previously. UPF 802 may interact with SMF 824 via the N4 reference point between SMF 824 and UPF 802.

[0062] The AUSF 822 may store data for authentication of the UE 801 and handle authentication-related functions. The AUSF 822 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. The AUSF 822 may communicate with the AMF 821 via the N12 reference point between the AMF 821 and the AUSF 822; and may communicate with the UDM 827 via the N13 reference point between the UDM 827 and the AUSF 822. In addition, the AUSF 822 may present an interface based on the Nausf service.

[0063] AMF 821 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., responsible for registering UE 801, etc.), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. AMF 821 may be the termination point of the N11 reference point between AMF 821 and SMF 824. AMF 821 may provide transport for SM messages between UE 801 and SMF 824, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 821 may also provide a transport mechanism for UE 801 and SMSF ( Figure 8 801). AMF 821 may act as a SEAF, which may include interaction with AUSF 822 and UE 801, receiving intermediate keys established as a result of the UE 801 authentication process. In the case of USIM-based authentication, AMF 821 may retrieve security material from AUSF822. AMF 821 may also include an SCM function that receives keys from SEA for deriving access network-specific keys. In addition, AMF 821 may be a termination point for the RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between (R)AN 810 and AMF821; and AMF 821 may be a termination point for NAS (N1) signaling, and perform NAS encryption and integrity protection.

[0064] AMF 821 may also support NAS signaling with UE 801 over the N3 IWF interface. N3IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. N3IWF may be the termination point for the N2 interface between (R)AN 810 and AMF 821 for the control plane, and may be the termination point for the N3 reference point between (R)AN 810 and UPF 802 for the user plane. Thus, AMF 821 may process N2 signaling for PDU sessions and QoS from SMF 824 and AMF 821, 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 801 and the AMF 821 via the N1 reference point between the UE 801 and the AMF 821, and relay uplink and downlink user plane packets between the UE 801 and the UPF 802. The N3IWF also provides a mechanism for establishing an IPsec tunnel with the UE 801. The AMF 821 may present an interface based on the Namf service, and may be an N14 reference point between the two AMF 821 and the AMF 821 and the 5G-EIR ( Figure 8 The termination point of the N17 reference point between the two (not shown).

[0065] UE 801 may need to register with AMF 821 in order to receive network services. RM is used to register UE 801 with the network (e.g., AMF 821) or deregister the UE, and establish a UE context in the network (e.g., AMF 821). UE 801 may operate in the RM-REGISTERED state or the RM-DEREGISTERED state. In the RM-DEREGISTERED state, UE 801 is not registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 821 does not maintain the valid location or routing information of UE 801, so AMF 821 cannot reach UE 801. In the RM-REGISTERED state, UE 801 is registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 821 may maintain the valid location or routing information of UE 801, so AMF 821 can reach UE 801. In the RM-REGISTERED state, UE 801 may perform a mobility registration update procedure, perform a periodic registration update procedure triggered by the expiration of a periodic update timer (e.g., to notify the network that UE 801 is still active), and perform a registration update procedure to update UE capability information or renegotiate protocol parameters with the network, etc.

[0066] AMF 821 may store one or more RM contexts for UE 801, 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, a registration status and a periodic update timer for each access type. AMF 821 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 821 may store CE mode B restriction parameters for UE 801 in an associated MM context or RM context. AMF 821 may also derive values ​​from usage setting parameters of the UE already stored in the UE context (and / or MM / RM context) when necessary.

[0067] Connection Management (CM) may be used to establish and release a signaling connection between the UE 801 and the AMF 821 through the N1 interface. The signaling connection is used to enable NAS signaling exchange between the UE 801 and the CN 820, and includes 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 801 between the AN (e.g., the RAN 810) and the AMF 821. The UE 801 may operate in one of two CM states (CM-IDLE mode or CM-CONNECTED mode). When the UE 801 operates in the CM-IDLE state / mode, the UE 801 may not have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 821 through the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN 810 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 801. When the UE 801 operates in the CM-CONNECTED state / mode, the UE 801 may have a NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 821 through the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN 810 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 801. Establishing an N2 connection between the (R)AN 810 and the AMF 821 may cause the UE 801 to transition from the CM-IDLE mode to the CM-CONNECTED mode, and when the N2 signaling between the (R)AN 810 and the AMF 821 is released, the UE 801 may transition from the CM-CONNECTED mode to the CM-IDLE mode.

[0068] SMF 824 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 801 and a data network (DN) 803 identified by a data network name (DNN). A PDU session may be established upon request by UE 801, modified upon request by UE 801 and 5GC 820, and released upon request by UE 801 and 5GC 820 using NAS SM signaling exchanged over the N1 reference point between UE 801 and SMF 824. Upon request from an application server, 5GC 820 may trigger a specific application in UE 801. In response to receiving a trigger message, UE 801 may deliver the trigger message (or relevant parts / information of the trigger message) to one or more identified applications in UE 801. The identified applications in UE 801 may establish a PDU session to a specific DNN. SMF 824 may check whether the UE 801 request complies with user subscription information associated with UE 801. In this regard, SMF 824 may retrieve and / or request to receive update notifications about SMF 824 level subscription data from UDM 827.

[0069] SMF 824 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 824 may be included in the system 800, which may be located between an SMF 824 in a visited network and another SMF 824 in a home network. In addition, SMF 824 may present an interface based on Nsmf services.

[0070] NEF 823 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 828), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, NEF 823 may authenticate, authorize and / or restrict AF. NEF 823 may also convert information exchanged with AF 828 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, NEF 823 may convert between AF service identifiers and internal 5GC information. NEF 823 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 823 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 823, and / or used for other purposes such as analysis. In addition, NEF 823 may present an interface based on Nnef services.

[0071] NRF 825 may support service discovery functionality, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 825 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 825 may present an interface based on Nnrf services.

[0072] The PCF 826 may provide for control plane functions to enforce their policy rules, and may also support a unified policy framework for managing network behavior. The PCF 826 may also implement a FE to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of the UDM 827. The PCF 826 may communicate with the AMF 821 via the N15 reference point between the PCF 826 and the AMF 821, which may include the PCF 826 in the visited network and the AMF 821 in the case of a roaming scenario. The PCF 826 may communicate with the AF 828 via the N5 reference point between the PCF 826 and the AF 828; and communicate with the SMF 824 via the N7 reference point between the PCF 826 and the SMF 824. The system 800 and / or the CN 820 may also include an N24 reference point between the PCF 826 (in the home network) and the PCF 826 in the visited network. In addition, the PCF 826 may present an interface based on Npcf services.

[0073] UDM 827 may process subscription-related information to support the processing of communication sessions by network entities, and may store subscription data of UE 801. For example, subscription data may be transmitted between UDM 827 and AMF 821 via an N8 reference point between UDM 827 and AMF 821. UDM 827 may include two parts: application FE and UDR ( Figure 8 FE and UDR are not shown). UDR can store subscription data and policy data of UDM 827 and PCF 826, and / or structured data for exposure and application data of NEF 823 (including PFD for application detection, application request information of multiple UE 801). Nudr service-based interface can be presented by UDR 221 to allow UDM 827, PCF 826 and NEF 823 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 SMF824 via the N10 reference point between UDM 827 and SMF 824. UDM 827 may also support SMS management, where SMS-FE implements similar application logic as described above. In addition, UDM 827 may present an interface based on Nudm services.

[0074] AF 828 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 820 and AF 828 to provide information to each other via NEF 823, which can be used for edge computing implementation. In such implementations, network operators and third-party services can be hosted near the UE 801 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 802 near UE 801 and perform traffic steering from UPF 802 to DN 803 via N6 interface. This can be based on UE subscription data, UE location and information provided by AF 828. In this way, AF 828 can affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 828 is considered a trusted entity, the network operator can allow AF 828 to interact directly with the relevant NF. In addition, AF 828 can present an interface based on Naf services.

[0075] NSSF 829 may select a set of network slice instances to serve UE 801. If necessary, NSSF 829 may also determine the allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAI. NSSF 829 may also determine the AMF set, or a list of candidate AMF 821, to serve UE 801 based on appropriate configuration and possibly by querying NRF 825. The selection of a set of network slice instances for UE 801 may be triggered by AMF 821, where UE 801 registers by interacting with NSSF 829, which may cause AMF 821 to change. NSSF 829 may interact with AMF 821 via the N22 reference point between AMF 821 and NSSF 829; and may communicate with AMF 821 via the N31 reference point ( Figure 8 The NSSF 829 may communicate with another NSSF 829 in the visited network (not shown). In addition, the NSSF 829 may present an interface based on the Nnssf service.

[0076] As discussed previously, CN 820 may include SMSF, which may be responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification, and relaying SM messages from / to other entities, such as SMS-GMSC / IWMSC / SMS routers, to / from UE 801. SMS may also interact with AMF 821 and UDM 827 for notification procedures that UE 801 is available for SMS transmission (e.g., setting a UE unreachable flag and notifying UDM 827 when UE 801 is available for SMS).

[0077] CN 120 may also include Figure 8 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 ( Figure 8 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 ( Figure 8 (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.

[0078] Additionally, there may be more reference points and / or service-based interfaces between NF services in a NF; however, for clarity, Figure 8These interfaces and reference points are omitted. In one example, CN 820 may include an Nx interface, which is an inter-CN interface between an MME (e.g., MME 721) and AMF 821 to enable intercommunication between CN 820 and CN 720. 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.

[0079] Fig. 9 Components of a core network according to various embodiments are shown. The components of CN 720 may be implemented in one physical node or in separate physical nodes, including components for reading and executing 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 820 may be implemented in the same or similar manner as discussed herein with respect to the components of CN 720. 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 720 may be referred to as a network slice 901, and each logical instance of CN 720 may provide specific network functions and network characteristics. A logical instance of a portion of CN 720 may be referred to as a network sub-slice 902 (e.g., a network sub-slice 902 is shown as including a P-GW 723 and a PCRF 726).

[0080] 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.

[0081] Compared to 5G systems (see e.g. Figure 8 ), a network slice always includes a RAN part and a CN part. Support for network slicing relies on the principle that traffic for different slices is handled by different PDU sessions. The network can implement different network slices by scheduling and also by providing different L1 / L2 configurations. If NAS has provided an RRC message, UE 801 provides auxiliary information for network slice selection in an 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.

[0082] The network slice may include the CN 820 control plane and user plane NF, the NG-RAN 810 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 differ in terms of supported features and network function optimizations, and / or multiple network slice instances may deliver the same service / feature, but differ for different groups of UE 801 (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 by one or more network slice instances via a 5G AN and be associated with eight different S-NSSAIs. In addition, an AMF 821 instance serving a single UE 801 may belong to each network slice instance serving the UE.

[0083] Network slicing in NG-RAN 810 involves RAN slice awareness. RAN slice awareness includes differentiated processing for traffic of different network slices that have been pre-configured. Slice awareness in NG-RAN 810 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 810 supports enabling slices in terms of NG-RAN functions (e.g., a set of network functions including each slice) depends on the specific implementation. NG-RAN810 selects the RAN part of the network slice using auxiliary information provided by UE 801 or 5GC 820, which explicitly identifies one or more network slices in the pre-configured network slices in the PLMN. NG-RAN 810 also supports resource management and policy enforcement between slices according to SLA. A single NG-RAN node can support multiple slices, and NG-RAN810 can also appropriately apply appropriate RRM policies for SLA to each supported slice. NG-RAN 810 can also support QoS differentiation within a slice.

[0084] The NG-RAN 810 may also use the UE assistance information to select an AMF 821 during the initial attach, if available. The NG-RAN 810 routes the initial NAS to the AMF 821 using the assistance information. If the NG-RAN 810 cannot select the AMF 821 using the assistance information, or the UE 801 does not provide any such information, the NG-RAN 810 sends the NAS signaling to the default AMF 821, which may be in the AMF 821 pool. For subsequent access, the UE 801 provides the temporary ID assigned to the UE 801 by the 5GC 820 to enable the NG-RAN 810 to route the NAS message to the appropriate AMF 821, as long as the temporary ID is valid. The NG-RAN 810 knows and can reach the AMF 821 associated with the temporary ID. Otherwise, the method for initial attach applies.

[0085] The NG-RAN 810 supports resource isolation between slices. NG-RAN 810 resource isolation can be achieved with the help of RRM policies and protection mechanisms that should avoid starvation of shared resources if one slice breaks the service level agreement for another slice. In some implementations, NG-RAN 810 resources can be fully assigned to a slice. How the NG-RAN 810 supports resource isolation depends on the specific implementation.

[0086] Some slices may be only partially available in the network. Awareness in the NG-RAN 810 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 810 and 5GC 820 are responsible for handling service requests for slices that may or may not be available in a given area. Granting or denying access to a slice may depend on factors such as support for the slice, availability of resources, and support of the requested service by the NG-RAN 810.

[0087] The UE 801 may be associated with multiple network slices simultaneously. In the case where the UE 801 is associated with multiple slices simultaneously, only one signaling connection is maintained and for intra-frequency cell reselection, the UE 801 attempts to camp on the best cell. For inter-frequency cell reselection, dedicated priorities may be used to control the frequency that the UE 801 camps on. The 5GC 820 will verify that the UE 801 has the right to access the network slice. Prior to receiving the Initial Context Setup Request message, the NG-RAN 810 may be allowed to apply some temporary / local policies based on the awareness of the specific slice that the UE 801 is requesting access to. During the Initial Context Setup, the NG-RAN 810 is informed of the slice whose resources are being requested.

[0088] 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.

[0089] Fig.10 1000 is a block diagram illustrating components of a NFV-enabled system 1000 according to some exemplary embodiments. System 1000 is shown to include VIM 1002, NFVI 1004, VNFM 1006, VNF 1008, EM 1010, NFVO 1012, and NM 1014.

[0090] The VIM 1002 manages resources of the NFVI 1004. The NFVI 1004 may include physical or virtual resources and applications (including a hypervisor) for executing the system 1000. The VIM 1002 may utilize the NFVI 1004 to manage the lifecycle of virtual resources (e.g., creation, maintenance, and teardown of VMs associated with one or more physical resources), track VM instances, track performance, failures, and security of VM instances and associated physical resources, and expose VM instances and associated physical resources to other management systems.

[0091] The VNFM 1006 may manage the VNF 1008. The VNF 1008 may be used to perform EPC components / functions. The VNFM 1006 may manage the lifecycle of the VNF 1008 and track the performance, failures, and security of the virtual aspects of the VNF 1008. The EM 1010 may track the performance, failures, and security of the functional aspects of the VNF 1008. The tracking data from the VNFM 1006 and the EM 1010 may include, for example, PM data used by the VIM 1002 or the NFVI 1004. The VNFM 1006 and the EM 1010 may both scale up / down the number of VNFs of the system 1000.

[0092] The NFVO 1012 may coordinate, authorize, release, and engage the resources of the NFVI 1004 in order to provide the requested service (e.g., to execute an EPC function, component, or slice). The NM 1014 may provide an end-user functional package responsible for network management, which may include network elements with VNFs, non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of the VNFs may occur via the EM 1010).

[0093] Equipment / Parts

[0094] Figure 2An example of infrastructure equipment 200 according to various exemplary embodiments is shown. Infrastructure equipment 200 (or "system 200") can be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node (such as the RAN node 111 and / or the WLAN node 106 shown and described previously), an application server 130, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. In other examples, system 200 can be implemented in or by a UE.

[0095] System 200 includes: application circuit 205, baseband circuit 210, one or more radio front end modules (RFEM) 215, memory circuit 220, power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 225, power tee circuit 230, network controller circuit 235, network interface connector 240, satellite positioning circuit 245 and user interface circuit 250. In some embodiments, device 200 may include additional elements, such as, for example, 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.

[0096] The application circuit 205 may include 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, I2C or a general programmable serial interface module, a real-time clock (RTC), a timer (including an interval timer and a watchdog timer), a general input / output (I / O or IO), a memory card controller such as a secure digital (SD) multimedia card (MMC) or similar products, a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interface, and a joint test access group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 205 may be coupled to or may include a memory / storage element, and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage element to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 200. In some implementations, the memory / storage element can be an on-chip memory circuit that 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.

[0097] The processor of the application circuit 205 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, the application circuit 205 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein. As an example, the processor of the application circuit 205 may include one or more Intel 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 200 may not utilize application circuit 205, and instead may include a dedicated processor / controller to process IP data received, for example, from an EPC or 5GC.

[0098] In some specific implementations, the application circuit 205 may include one or more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, etc. 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), 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 circuitry of the application circuit 205 may include logic blocks or logic structures, and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions such as the processes, methods, functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of the application circuit 205 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 a lookup table (LUT), etc.

[0099] The baseband circuit 210 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. Figure 4 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuitry 210 are discussed further.

[0100] The user interface circuit 250 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable a user to interact with the system 200 or a peripheral component interface designed to enable a peripheral component to interact with the system 200. 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.

[0101] The radio front end module (RFEM) 215 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 connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., Figure 4Antenna array 411), and 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 RFEM215 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0102] The memory circuit 220 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), 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 220 may be implemented as one or more of the following: a solder-in package integrated circuit, a socket memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

[0103] PMIC 225 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 brownout (undervoltage) and a surge (overvoltage) condition. Power tee circuit 230 may provide power extracted from a network cable to provide both power and data connections for infrastructure equipment 200 using a single cable.

[0104] The network controller circuit 235 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 200 via a network interface connector 240, which may be an electrical connection (commonly referred to as a "copper interconnect"), an optical connection, or a wireless connection. The network controller circuit 235 may include one or more dedicated processors and / or FPGAs for communicating using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the network controller circuit 235 may include multiple controllers for providing connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

[0105] The positioning circuit 245 includes circuits for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcasted by a positioning network of a global satellite navigation system (or 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 245 includes various hardware elements for communicating with components of the positioning network such as navigation satellite constellation nodes (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. for facilitating OTA communications). In some embodiments, the positioning circuit 245 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 245 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 210 and / or the RFEM 215 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. The positioning circuit 245 may also provide location data and / or time data to the application circuit 205, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RAN node 111, etc.), etc.

[0106] Figure 2 The components shown can communicate with each other using interface circuits that can 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 can be a proprietary bus, for example, used in a SoC-based system. Other bus / IX systems can be included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, a point-to-point interface, and a power bus, etc.

[0107] Figure 3 An example of a platform 300 (or "device 300") according to various exemplary embodiments is shown. In an embodiment, the computer platform 300 may be suitable for use as a UE 101, an application server 130, and / or any other element / device discussed herein. The platform 300 may include any combination of components shown in the example. The components of the platform 300 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 300, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassis of a larger system. Figure 3The block diagram is intended to show a high-level view of the components of computer platform 300. 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.

[0108] The application circuit 305 includes circuits such as, but not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more of an LDO, an interrupt controller, a serial interface (such as SPI), I2C or a general programmable serial interface module, an RTC, a timer (including an interval timer and a watchdog timer), a general I / O, a memory card controller (such as an SD MMC or similar controller), a USB interface, a MIPI interface, and a JTAG test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuit 305 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 300. In some specific implementations, 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.

[0109] The processor of the application circuit 305 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, the application circuit 305 may include or may be a dedicated processor / controller for operating according to various embodiments herein.

[0110] As an example, the processor of the application circuit 305 may include a processor based on Architecture TM Processors such as Quark TM 、Atom TM , i3, i5, i7 or MCU class processors, or available from Santa Clara, CA The processor of application circuit 305 may also be one or more of the following: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Processor or Accelerated Processing Unit (APU); from Inc.'s A5-A9 processors, 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 305 can be part of a system on a chip (SoC), in which the application circuit 305 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.

[0111] Additionally or alternatively, the application circuit 305 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 305 may include logic blocks or logic structures, and other interconnected resources that may 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 305 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 a lookup table (LUT), etc.

[0112] The baseband circuit 310 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. Figure 4 The various hardware electronic components of baseband circuit 310 are discussed.

[0113] The RFEM 315 may include a millimeter wave (mm Wave) 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 mm Wave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., Figure 4 Antenna array 411), 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 315 that combines both millimeter wave antennas and sub-millimeter waves.

[0114] The memory circuit 320 may include any number and type of memory devices for providing a quantitative system memory. For example, the memory circuit 320 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 320 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 320 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 320 may be an on-chip memory or register associated with the application circuit 305. In order to provide persistent storage of information such as data, applications, operating systems, etc., the memory circuit 320 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 300 may be combined with a computer system obtained from and Three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory.

[0115] Removable memory circuitry 323 may include devices, circuitry, housings / casings, ports or receptacles, etc., for coupling portable data storage devices to platform 300. 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.

[0116] The platform 300 may further include an interface circuit (not shown) for connecting external devices to the platform 300. External devices connected to the platform 300 via the interface circuit include a sensor circuit 321 and an electromechanical component (EMC) 322, and a removable memory device coupled to a removable memory circuit 323.

[0117] Sensor circuitry 321 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; and the like.

[0118] The EMC 322 includes devices, modules or subsystems that are intended to enable the platform 300 to change its state, position and / or orientation or to move or control a mechanism or (sub) system. In addition, the EMC 322 may be configured to generate messages / signaling and send messages / signaling to other components of the platform 300 to indicate the current state of the EMC 322. Examples of EMC 322 include one or more power switches, relays (including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and / or solid-state relays (SSRs)), 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, the platform 300 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 322 based on one or more capture events and / or instructions or control signals received from a service provider and / or various clients.

[0119] In some specific implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 300 to the positioning circuit 345. The positioning circuit 345 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 345 includes 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 345 may include a micro PNT IC that uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance. The positioning circuit 345 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuit 310 and / or RFEM 315 to communicate with nodes and components of the positioning network. Positioning circuitry 345 may also provide position data and / or time data to application circuitry 305 , which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (eg, radio base stations) for use in turn-by-turn navigation applications, and the like.

[0120] In some implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 300 with a near field communication (NFC) circuit 340. The NFC circuit 340 is configured to provide contactless short-range communication based on the radio frequency identification (RFID) standard, wherein magnetic field induction is used to enable communication between the NFC circuit 340 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an "NFC touch point") external to the platform 300. The NFC circuit 340 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 340 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 340, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuit 340 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or an NFC-enabled POS terminal) proximate to the platform 300.

[0121] The driver circuit 346 may include software and hardware elements for controlling specific devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to the platform 300. The driver circuit 346 may include various drivers to allow other components of the platform 300 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to the platform 300. For example, the driver circuit 346 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 300, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of the sensor circuit 321 and controlling and allowing access to the sensor circuit 321, an EMC driver for obtaining an actuator position of the EMC 322 and / or controlling and allowing access to the EMC 322, 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.

[0122] A power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 325 (also referred to as “power management circuit 325”) may manage power provided to various components of platform 300. Specifically, PMIC 325 may control power source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion with respect to baseband circuit 310. PMIC 325 may be typically included when platform 300 is capable of being powered by battery 330, such as when the device is included in UE 101, 701, or 801.

[0123] In some embodiments, the PMIC 325 may control or otherwise be part of various power saving mechanisms of the platform 300. For example, if the platform 300 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 known as discontinuous reception mode (DRX). During this state, the platform 300 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 300 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, in which the device is disconnected from the network and no operations such as channel quality feedback, handovers, etc. are performed. The platform 300 enters a very low power state and performs paging, in which the device wakes up periodically again to listen to the network and then powers off again. The platform 300 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.

[0124] The battery 330 can power the platform 300, but in some examples, the platform 300 can be mounted in a fixed location and can have a power source coupled to a power grid. The battery 330 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 330 can be a typical lead-acid car battery.

[0125] In some implementations, the battery 330 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 300 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 330. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 330, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 330 to provide fault prediction. The BMS may transmit information about the battery 330 to the application circuit 305 or other components of the platform 300. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 305 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 330 or the current from the battery 330. The battery parameters may be used to determine actions that the platform 300 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, etc.

[0126] A power block or other power source coupled to the grid can be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 330. In some examples, the power block can be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in the computer platform 300. 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 330 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.

[0127] The user interface circuit 350 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present in or connected to the platform 300, and includes one or more user interfaces designed to implement user interaction with the platform 300 and / or a peripheral component interface designed to implement interaction with the peripheral components of the platform 300. The user interface circuit 350 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 the platform 300. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printers, etc. In some embodiments, the sensor circuitry 321 may be used as an input device circuitry (e.g., an image capture device, a motion capture device, etc.) and one or more EMCs may be used as output device circuitry (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. The peripheral component interface may include, but is not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0128] Although not shown, the components of platform 300 can communicate with each other using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which can 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 can be a proprietary bus / IX, such as used in a SoC-based system. Other bus / IX systems can be included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, a point-to-point interface, and a power bus, etc.

[0129] Figure 4 4 shows exemplary components of a baseband circuit 410 and a radio front end module (RFEM) 415 according to various exemplary embodiments. The baseband circuit 410 corresponds to Figure 2 The baseband circuit 210 and Figure 3Baseband circuit 310. RFEM 415 corresponds to Figure 2 RFEM 215 and Figure 3 RFEM 315. As shown, RFEM 415 may include radio frequency (RF) circuitry 406, front end module (FEM) circuitry 408, and at least an antenna array 411 coupled together as shown.

[0130] The baseband circuit 410 includes circuits and / or control logic components that are configured to execute various radio / network protocols and radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuit 406. 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 410 may include fast Fourier transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping / demapping functions. In some embodiments, the encoding / decoding circuit of the baseband circuit 410 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 410 is configured to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of the RF circuit 406 and generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 406. The baseband circuit 410 is configured to communicate with the application circuit 205 / 305 (see Figure 2 and Figure 3 ) to generate and process baseband signals and control the operation of RF circuit 406. Baseband circuit 410 may handle various radio control functions.

[0131] The aforementioned circuits and / or control logic components of the baseband circuit 410 may include one or more single-core or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 404A, a 4G / LTE baseband processor 404B, a 5G / NR baseband processor 404C, or some other baseband processors 404D 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, part or all of the functions of the baseband processors 404A-404D may be included in a module stored in the memory 404G and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 404E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functions of the baseband processors 404A to 404D 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 404G may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS), which, when executed by the CPU 404E (or other baseband processor), will enable the CPU 404E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of the baseband circuit 410, schedule tasks, etc. Examples of RTOS may include: Operating System Embedded (OSE) provided TM , by Mentor Nucleus RTOS provided TM , by Mentor Versatile Real-TimeExecutive (VRTX) provided by Express Provided by ThreadX TM ,Depend on FreeRTOS and REX OS provided by Open OKL4 is provided, or any other suitable RTOS, such as those discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuit 410 includes one or more audio digital signal processors (DSPs) 404F. The audio DSP 404F includes elements for compression / decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

[0132] In some embodiments, each of processors 404A-404E includes a corresponding memory interface to send data to / receive data from memory 404G. Baseband circuit 410 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 410; an interface for sending data to / receiving data from a memory external to the baseband circuit; Figures 2 to 3An application circuit interface for sending data to / receiving data from the application circuit 205 / 305; Figure 4 RF circuit 406 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 for sending power or control signals to / receiving power or control signals from the PMIC 325.

[0133] In an alternative embodiment (which can be combined with the above embodiment), the baseband circuit 410 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 interconnect subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem can also be coupled to the digital baseband interface and the mixed signal baseband subsystem via another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems may include a bus system, a point-to-point connector, a network on chip (NOC) structure and / or some other suitable bus or interconnect 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 410 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 415).

[0134] although Figure 4Not shown, but in some embodiments, the baseband circuit 410 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 410 and / or the RF circuit 406 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 the first example, the protocol processing circuit will operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. In a second example, when the baseband circuit 410 and / or the RF circuit 406 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system, the protocol processing circuit may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols. In the second example, the protocol processing circuit will operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more memory structures (e.g., 404G) for 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 circuitry 410 may also support radio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

[0135] The various hardware elements of the baseband circuit 410 discussed herein may be implemented as, for example, a solder-in substrate including one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged integrated circuit 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 410 may be appropriately combined in a single chip or a single chipset, or disposed on the same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 410 and the RF circuit 406 may be implemented together, such as, for example, a system on a chip (SOC) or a system-level package (SiP). In another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 410 may be implemented as a separate SoC communicatively coupled to the RF circuit 406 (or multiple instances of the RF circuit 406). In yet another example, some or all of the components of the baseband circuit 410 and the application circuit 205 / 305 may be implemented together as a separate SoC mounted to the same circuit board (e.g., a "multi-chip package").

[0136] In some embodiments, baseband circuitry 410 may provide communications compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, baseband circuitry 410 may support communications with E-UTRAN or other WMANs, WLANs, WPANs. Embodiments in which baseband circuitry 410 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0137] RF circuit 406 can communicate with a wireless network through a non-solid medium using modulated electromagnetic radiation. In various embodiments, RF circuit 406 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate communication with a wireless network. RF circuit 406 may include a receive signal path, which may include circuits for down-converting an RF signal received from FEM circuit 408 and providing a baseband signal to baseband circuit 410. RF circuit 406 may also include a transmit signal path, which may include circuits for up-converting a baseband signal provided by baseband circuit 410 and providing an RF output signal for transmission to FEM circuit 408.

[0138] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuit 406 may include a mixer circuit 406a, an amplifier circuit 406b, and a filter circuit 406c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuit 406 may include a filter circuit 406c and a mixer circuit 406a. The RF circuit 406 may also include a synthesizer circuit 406d, which is used to synthesize the frequencies used by the mixer circuit 406a of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 406a of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert the RF signal received from the FEM circuit 408 based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 406d. The amplifier circuit 406b may be configured to amplify the down-converted signal, and the filter circuit 406c may be a low pass filter (LPF) or a band pass filter (BPF), which is configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to the baseband circuit 410 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 406a of the receive signal path may include a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0139] In some embodiments, mixer circuit 406a of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert an input baseband signal based on a synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuit 406d to generate an RF output signal for FEM circuit 408. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuit 410 and may be filtered by filter circuit 406c.

[0140] In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 406a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 406a 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 406a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 406a 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 406a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 406a of the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct down-conversion and direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 406a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 406a of the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[0141] 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, RF circuit 406 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuits, and baseband circuit 410 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with RF circuit 406.

[0142] 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.

[0143] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 406d 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 406d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer including a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0144] Synthesizer circuit 406d may be configured to synthesize an output frequency based on the frequency input and the divider control input for use by mixer circuit 406a of RF circuit 406. In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 406d may be a fractional-N / N+1 synthesizer.

[0145] 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 410 or the application circuit 205 / 305 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 205 / 305.

[0146] The synthesizer circuit 406d of the RF circuit 406 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.

[0147] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuit 406d 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 406 can include an IQ / polarity converter.

[0148] FEM circuitry 408 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antenna array 411, amplify the received signals, and provide an amplified version of the received signals to RF circuitry 406 for further processing. FEM circuitry 408 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by RF circuitry 406 for transmission by one or more antenna elements in antenna array 411. In various embodiments, amplification by either the transmit signal path or the receive signal path may be accomplished only in RF circuitry 406, only in FEM circuitry 408, or in both RF circuitry 406 and FEM circuitry 408.

[0149] In some embodiments, FEM circuit 408 may include a TX / RX switch to switch between transmission mode and reception mode operation. FEM circuit 408 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of FEM circuit 408 may include an LNA to amplify a received RF signal and provide the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to RF circuit 406). The transmit signal path of FEM circuit 408 may include a power amplifier (PA) for amplifying an input RF signal (e.g., provided by RF circuit 406), and one or more filters for generating an RF signal for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of antenna array 411.

[0150] The antenna array 411 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 410 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 411 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 411 may include a microstrip antenna or a printed antenna fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 411 may be formed as a patch of metal foil of various shapes (e.g., a patch antenna) and may be coupled to the RF circuit 406 and / or the FEM circuit 408 using a metal transmission line or the like.

[0151] The processor of the application circuit 205 / 305 and the processor of the baseband circuit 410 can be used to execute elements of one or more instances of the protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuit 410 can be used alone or in combination to perform layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuit 205 / 305 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.

[0152] Figure 5 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and capable of performing any one or more of the methods in the method set discussed herein according to some exemplary embodiments. Specifically, Figure 5A diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 500 is shown, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 510, one or more memory / storage devices 520, and one or more communication resources 530, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 540. For embodiments utilizing node virtualization (e.g., NFV), a hypervisor 502 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices utilizing hardware resources 500.

[0153] Processor 510 may include, for example, processor 512 and processor 514. Processor 510 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.

[0154] The memory / storage device 520 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory / storage device 520 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.

[0155] The communication resources 530 may include an interconnect or network interface component or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 504 or one or more databases 506 via the network 508. For example, the communication resources 530 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.

[0156] The instructions 550 may include software, programs, applications, applet, applications, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 510 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 550 may reside completely or partially in at least one of the processors 510 (e.g., in a cache memory of the processor), the memory / storage device 520, or any suitable combination thereof. In addition, any portion of the instructions 550 may be transferred to the hardware resources 500 from any combination of the peripheral device 504 or the database 506. Thus, the memory of the processor 510, the memory / storage device 520, the peripheral device 504, and the database 506 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0157] Protocol Layer

[0158] Figure 6 Various protocol functions that can be implemented in a wireless communication device according to various exemplary embodiments are shown. Specifically, Figure 6 An arrangement 600 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. Figure 6 The following description, but Figure 6 Some or all aspects of the invention may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

[0159] In addition to other higher layer functions not shown, the protocol layers of arrangement 600 may also include one or more of PHY 610, MAC 620, RLC 630, PDCP 640, SDAP 647, RRC 655, and NAS layer 657. These protocol layers may include one or more service access points (SAPs) (e.g., Figure 6 Items 659, 656, 650, 649, 645, 635, 625 and 615).

[0160] PHY 610 can send and receive physical layer signals 605, which can be received or sent from one or more other communication devices to one or more other communication devices. Physical layer signals 605 may include one or more physical channels, such as those discussed herein. PHY 610 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 (e.g., RRC 655). PHY 610 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, an instance of PHY 610 may process a request from an instance of MAC 620 via one or more PHY-SAP 615, and provide an indication thereto. According to some embodiments, the request and indication transmitted via PHY-SAP 615 may include one or more transmission channels.

[0161] An instance of MAC 620 may process requests from an instance of RLC 630 via one or more MAC-SAPs 625 and provide indications thereto. These requests and indications transmitted via MAC-SAP 625 may include one or more logical channels. MAC 620 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 610 via transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs delivered from PHY 610 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.

[0162] An instance of RLC 630 may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of PDCP 640 via one or more radio link control service access points (RLC-SAPs) 635. These requests and indications transmitted via RLC-SAPs 635 may include one or more logical channels. RLC 630 may operate in a variety of operating modes, including: transparent mode (TM), unacknowledged mode (UM), and acknowledged mode (AM). RLC 630 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 630 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.

[0163] An instance of PDCP 640 may process requests from an instance of RRC 655 and / or an instance of SDAP 647 via one or more Packet Data Convergence Protocol Service Points (PDCP-SAP) 645 and provide indications thereto. These requests and indications transmitted via PDCP-SAP 645 may include one or more radio bearers. PDCP 640 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.).

[0164] An instance of SDAP 647 may process requests from one or more higher layer protocol entities via one or more SDAP-SAP 649 and provide instructions thereto. These requests and instructions transmitted via SDAP-SAP 649 may include one or more QoS flows. SDAP 647 may map QoS flows to DRBs and vice versa, and may also mark QFIs in DL packets and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 647 may be configured for a separate PDU session. In the UL direction, 5G NR-RAN 110 may control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways (reflective mapping or explicit mapping). For reflective mapping, the SDAP 647 of UE 101 may monitor the QFI of the DL packets of each DRB, and may apply the same mapping to packets flowing in the UL direction. For DRBs, the SDAP 647 of UE 101 may 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 reflective mapping, 5G NR-RAN 110 may mark DL packets with a QoS flow ID over the Uu interface. Explicit mapping may involve RRC 655 configuring SDAP 647 with explicit mapping rules for QoS flows to DRBs, which may be stored and followed by SDAP 647. In an embodiment, SDAP 647 may be used only in NR implementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

[0165] The RRC 655 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY 610, MAC 620, RLC 630, PDCP 640, and SDAP 647, via one or more Management Service Access Points (M-SAPs). In an embodiment, an instance of the RRC 655 may process requests from one or more NAS entities 657 and provide instructions thereto via one or more RRC-SAPs 656. The main services and functions of the RRC 655 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 101 and the RAN 110 (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.

[0166] NAS 657 may form the highest layer of the control plane between UE 101 and AMF 821. NAS 657 may support the mobility and session management procedures of UE 101 to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 101 and P-GW in the LTE system.

[0167] According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 600 may be implemented in UE 101, RAN node 111, AMF in NR implementation or MME in LTE implementation, UPF in NR implementation or S-GW and P-GW 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 101, gNB 111, AMF, etc. may communicate with corresponding peer protocol entities that may be implemented in or on another device (using the services of corresponding lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication). In some embodiments, the gNB-CU of gNB 111 may host the RRC 655, SDAP 647, and PDCP 640 of the gNB that control the operation of one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of gNB 111 may each host the RLC 630, MAC 620, and PHY 510 of gNB 111.

[0168] In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may include, in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer, NAS 557, RRC 555, PDCP 640, RLC 630, MAC 520, and PHY 510. In this example, an upper layer 660 may be built on top of NAS 557, which includes an IP layer 661, SCTP 662, and an application layer signaling protocol (AP) 663.

[0169] In an NR specific implementation, the AP 663 may be a 5G NR application protocol layer (5G NR AP or NG-AP) 663 for the 5GNR interface 113 defined between the 5G NR-RAN node 111 and the AMF, or the AP 663 may be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 663 for the Xn interface 112 defined between two or more RAN nodes 111.

[0170] The 5G NR-AP 663 may support the functionality of the 5G NR interface 113 and may include a primary procedure (EP). The 5G NR-AP EP may be an interaction unit between the 5G NR-RAN node 111 and the AMF. The 5G NR-AP 663 service may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., services related to UE 101) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., services related to the entire 5G NR interface instance between the 5G NR-RAN node 111 and the AMF). These services may include functions including, but not limited to: a paging function for sending a paging request to a 5G NR-RAN node 111 involved in a specific paging area; a UE context management function for allowing the AMF to establish, modify and / or release the UE context in the AMF and the 5G NR-RAN node 111; a mobility function for the UE 101 in ECM-CONNECTED mode, for enabling intra-system HO to support mobility within the 5G NR-RAN and 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 101 and the AMF; a NAS node selection function for determining the association between the AMF and the UE 101; a 5G NR interface management function for setting up the 5GNR interface and monitoring errors through the 5G NR interface; a warning message sending function for providing a means for transmitting a warning message via the 5G NR interface or cancelling an ongoing warning message broadcast ... 120 A configuration transmission function for requesting and transmitting RAN configuration information (eg, SON information, performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes 111; and / or other similar functions.

[0171] The XnAP 663 may support the functionality of the Xn interface 112 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures for handling UE mobility within the 5G NR RAN 111 (or E-UTRAN 111), 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. The XnAP global procedures may include procedures that are not related to a specific UE 101, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, 5G NR-RAN update procedures, cell activation procedures, etc.

[0172] In an LTE specific implementation, the AP 663 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 663 for the S1 interface 113 defined between the E-UTRAN node 111 and the MME, or the AP 663 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP) 663 for the X2 interface 112 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 111.

[0173] The S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 663 may support the functionality of the S1 interface, and similar to the 5G NR-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 111 and the MME within the LTE CN 120. The S1-AP 663 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.

[0174] The X2AP 663 may support the functions of the X2 interface 112 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 120, 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 101, such as an X2 interface setup and reset procedure, a load indication procedure, an error indication procedure, a cell activation procedure, etc.

[0175] The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP / IP layer) 662 may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., 5G NRAP or XnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTE implementations). The SCTP 662 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 111 and the AMF / MME based in part on the IP protocol supported by the IP 661. The Internet Protocol layer (IP) 661 may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 661 may deliver and transmit PDUs using point-to-point transport. In this regard, the RAN node 111 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME / AMF to exchange information.

[0176] In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may include SDAP 647, PDCP 640, RLC 630, MAC 520, and PHY 510 in order from the highest layer to the lowest layer. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between UE 101, RAN node 111, and UPF in a NR implementation, or between S-GW and P-GW in a LTE implementation. In this example, an upper layer 651 may be built on top of SDAP 647 and may include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP / IP) 652, a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol for a user plane layer (GTP-U) 653, and a user plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 663.

[0177] The transport network layer 654 (also referred to as the "transport layer") may be built on an IP transport, and the GTP-U 653 may be used on top of the UDP / IP layer 652 (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.

[0178] GTP-U 653 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 652 may provide a checksum for data integrity, a port number for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication of selected data flows. The RAN node 111 and the S-GW may utilize the S1-U interface via a protocol stack including an L1 layer (e.g., PHY 610), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 620, RLC 630, PDCP 640 and / or SDAP 647), a UDP / IP layer 652, and a GTP-U 653 to exchange user plane data. The S-GW and the P-GW may utilize the S5 / S8a interface via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP / IP layer 652, and a GTP-U 653 to exchange user plane data. As previously discussed, the NAS protocol may support the mobility of UE 101 and session management procedures to establish and maintain an IP connection between UE 101 and the P-GW.

[0179] In addition, despite Figure 6Not shown, but an application layer may exist above the AP 663 and / or transport network layer 654. The application layer may be a layer where a user of the UE 101, RAN node 111, or other network element interacts with a software application, for example, executed by the application circuitry 205 or the application circuitry 305, 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 circuitry 410) of the UE 101 or RAN node 111. In some implementations, the IP layer and / or the application layer may provide functionality that is the same or similar to layers 5 to 7 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, or portions thereof (e.g., OSI layer 7—application layer, OSI layer 6—presentation layer, and OSI layer 5—session layer).

[0180] Beamforming Overview

[0181] To generate a beam, multiple antenna elements can be configured to radiate the same signal. Increasing the number of antenna elements radiating a signal reduces the width of the radiation pattern and increases the gain. Fig.11a An example of three antenna modules 1110, 1120, 1130 and their corresponding radiation patterns 1112, 1123, 1135 is shown. Antenna module 1110 includes a single antenna element 1111 and generates a radiation pattern 1112. Antenna module 1120 includes two antenna elements 1121, 1122 and generates a radiation pattern 1123. Antenna module 30 includes four antenna elements 1141-1144 and generates a radiation pattern 1135. Comparison of the radiation patterns 1112, 1123, 1135 shows the effect that the number of antenna elements has on the geometry of the radiation pattern. For example, in this example, radiation pattern 1112 is the widest radiation pattern because antenna module 1110 has the fewest antenna elements (e.g., one). Antenna module 1120 has two antenna elements 1121, 1122. The additional antenna elements allow antenna module 1120 to generate a radiation pattern 1123 that is narrower than radiation pattern 1112. Antenna module 1130 has four antenna elements 1141-1144. Therefore, antenna module 1130 has the most antenna elements compared to antenna modules 1110, 1120. Therefore, antenna module 1130 can generate a radiation pattern 1135 that is narrower than radiation patterns 1112, 1123 and provides maximum gain.

[0182] To establish and / or maintain a communication link with a base station, the UE may transmit a beam in any of a plurality of different directions. The direction in which the beam is propagated may be based on the phase and / or magnitude of the signal provided to each antenna element of the antenna module. Thus, by appropriately weighting the phase and / or magnitude of the signal provided to each antenna element for each beam, the antenna module may be able to cover a spatial region with multiple beams, each of which propagates in a different direction.

[0183] Fig.11b An example of a direction in which antenna module 1150 can propagate a beam is shown. Antenna module 1150 is located at the center of spherical coordinate system 1160 and represents a transmit point. Points 1151, 1152, 1153 on spherical coordinate system 1160 each represent a different receive point. At a first time, the antenna elements of antenna module 1150 are provided with a first input signal to propagate beam 1171 in the direction of receive point 1151. The direction of beam 1171 is generated based on the phase and / or magnitude of the signal provided to each antenna element of antenna module 1150. At a second time, the antenna elements of antenna module 1150 are provided with a second input signal to propagate beam 1172 in the direction of receive point 1152. Similarly, the direction of beam 1172 is generated based on the phase and / or magnitude of the signal provided to each antenna element of antenna module 1150. At a third time, the antenna elements of antenna module 1150 are provided with a third input signal to propagate beam 1173 in the direction of receive point 1153. Likewise, the direction of beam 1173 is generated based on the phase and / or magnitude of the signal provided to each antenna element of antenna module 1150. Thus, antenna module 1150 can transmit beams 1171, 1172, 1173 from the same transmit point to receive points 1151, 1152, 1153, even though receive points 1151, 1152, 1153 are each located at different horizontal and vertical directions relative to antenna element 1150. The above examples are provided for illustrative purposes only. Exemplary embodiments may propagate beams in any direction and control the direction of the beams in any suitable manner.

[0184] Establishing and / or maintaining a communication link over mmWave spectrum may include a process known as beam management. The term beam management may cover various mechanisms and operations that may be performed on both the UE side and the network side. Beam management mechanisms may be used for various types of scenarios, including, but not limited to, establishing beam pairs, switching from a first base station to a second base station, transitioning between operating states (e.g., idle to connected mode), exiting a sleep mode utilized according to a connected discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle, adjusting a receiver beam relative to a transmitter beam based on measurement data, and the like. However, any reference to transmitter beams, receiver beams, or beam management is for illustrative purposes only. Different networks and / or entities may refer to similar concepts by different names.

[0185] The polarization of an antenna refers to the orientation of the electric field (E plane) of the radio wave relative to the coordinate system. For example, if the oscillation direction of the electric field V is aligned with the vertical direction of the coordinate system, that is, it propagates in a direction orthogonal to the vertical direction of the coordinate system, then the V wave can be considered to be vertically polarized. Similarly, if the oscillation direction of the electric field is in a direction orthogonal to the horizontal direction of the coordinate system, then the H wave can be considered to be horizontally polarized. In dual-polarization beamforming (especially linear polarization), two data streams can be transmitted using polarizations that are in phase and orthogonal to each other (that is, with polarizations of 90 degrees relative to each other) so that the sum of these streams is a linear vector. Other types of polarization include circular polarization (in which the phase difference between H and V is 90 degrees) and elliptical polarization (in which the phase difference between H and V is a value between 0 and 90 degrees).

[0186] Simultaneous UE Interference suppression during Tx / Rx

[0187] Figures 12a to 12d Four different handover scenarios that may be encountered at a user equipment (UE) are shown. Fig.12a An inter-frequency handover scenario for transmit (Tx) beams occurring simultaneously at the UE is shown. For example, for uplink (UL) transmissions to the network, the UE may handover from a source gNB (i.e., cell 1) to which it is connected on a first frequency band (e.g., FR1 or FR2) to a target gNB (i.e., cell 2) to which the UE has established a connection on a second frequency band (e.g., the other of FR1 or FR2). During the handover, the UE maintains Tx connections to both cell 1 and cell 2. Figure 12b An inter-frequency handover scenario for receive (Rx) beams occurring simultaneously at the UE is shown. For example, for a downlink (DL) transmission from the network, the UE may handover from a source gNB (i.e., cell 1) to which it is connected on a first frequency band (e.g., FR1 or FR2) to a target gNB (i.e., cell 2) to which the UE has established a connection on a second frequency band (e.g., the other of FR1 or FR2). During the handover, the UE maintains Rx connections to both cell 1 and cell 2. Fig.12c An intra-frequency handover scenario for transmit beams occurring simultaneously at the UE is shown. For example, for an UL transmission to the network, the UE may handover from a source gNB (i.e., cell 1) to which it is connected on a given frequency band (e.g., FR1 or FR2) to a target gNB (i.e., cell 2) to which the UE has established a connection on the same frequency band (e.g., the same one of FR1 or FR2). During the handover, the UE maintains Tx connections to both cell 1 and cell 2. Fig.12dAn intra-frequency switching scenario for Rx beams occurring simultaneously at the UE is shown. For example, for a downlink (DL) transmission from the network, the UE may switch from a source gNB (i.e., cell 1) to which it is connected on a given frequency band (e.g., FR1 or FR2) to a target gNB (i.e., cell 2) to which the UE has established a connection on the same frequency band (e.g., the same one of FR1 or FR2). Although the Tx and Rx scenarios are shown separately, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the Tx and Rx connections may occur simultaneously.

[0188] For all the above scenarios, it is difficult for a UE supporting only a single active antenna panel to control both beams simultaneously, leading to problems during simultaneous Tx / Rx on the UE side, especially when Cell 1 and Cell 2 are located separately. Figure 12b and Fig.12d One existing mitigation approach for FR2 may involve the UE using a wider beam for simultaneous Rx. However, wide UE beams may not work well for simultaneous Tx scenarios involving FR2 for the following two reasons.

[0189] The first reason is that in FR2, wide beams are achieved by disconnecting multiple activated antenna elements within an active antenna panel. For example, if 50% of the antenna elements are disconnected, 3dB of Rx beamforming gain is lost. For Tx, in addition to the lost 3dB Tx beamforming gain, 3dB of maximum TRx (total radiated power) is lost, resulting in a 6dB loss in maximum EIRP (equivalent isotropic radiated power). This unbalanced link budget for Tx and Rx may significantly degrade handover performance. Therefore, it may be advantageous to avoid using wide beams.

[0190] The second reason is that Fig.12c In the scenario shown for implementing intra-frequency switching for simultaneous Tx for UE on FR2 with only a single active antenna panel in use, UE Tx streams associated with different cells are transmitted from the same physical antenna. Therefore, very strong cooperative interference may occur between the simultaneous Tx streams, further degrading the switching performance.

[0191] The exemplary embodiments described herein relate to a beam transmission mechanism that mitigates the above-mentioned interference problem by using independent Tx streams for simultaneous streams going to different network cells. This can improve Tx performance in at least the following two ways. First, the UE can avoid using wide beams that result in the above-mentioned maximum EIRP loss of 6dB. Instead, the UE configures independent narrow beams for different Tx polarizations. Second, the two simultaneous Tx streams from the UE are separated in the polarization domain (e.g., for linear polarization, V and H are separated by 90 degrees), which can significantly reduce the cooperative interference between the Tx streams.

[0192] Fig.13 An exemplary UE antenna panel 1300 and associated circuitry for simultaneously transmitting data streams (beams) to multiple network cells via beamforming is shown. The UE antenna panel 1300 is operable to transmit two Tx polarizations (V and H) via N antenna elements 1302. Although antenna elements 1302 for propagating V beams and H beams are drawn separately within the block diagram, in the actual physical circuit layout, each H element is co-located with a V element, i.e., the H beam and the V beam are transmitted from the same antenna element 1302. In this embodiment, V and H are two linear polarizations that are essentially separated by 90 degrees.

[0193] According to the exemplary embodiment described herein, two independent Tx streams, each associated with a different network cell, are fed from a UE baseband circuit (not shown) to two independent Tx polarization circuits, i.e., a first polarization circuit 1304a for generating a V beam and a second polarization circuit 1304b for generating an H beam, and beamforming is performed independently. and There are two independent phase shift setting vectors for V polarization and H polarization respectively within the same UE antenna panel. Know It can be different values, resulting in different Tx beam patterns pointing to different network cells.

[0194] In addition, the first polarization circuit 1304a includes a circuit for providing an additional phase shift Δ between V and H. p，q The UE may use the additional phase offset to further adjust the angle difference between the two Tx polarizations for further cooperative interference control. For example, the UE may adjust the setting Δ based on UL quality monitoring or UL interference estimation for two simultaneously occurring Tx streams. p，q .

[0195] The antenna panel 1300 also includes independent RF mixer circuits (not shown) for the two Tx polarizations (V and H) so that the corresponding beams can operate in different frequency layers. Therefore, the exemplary antenna panel 1300 is also suitable for simultaneous Tx beam operation between frequencies (e.g., Fig.12a ).

[0196] Various additional mechanisms may be used to improve the performance of the above described simultaneous Tx streaming configuration.

[0197] Based on the specific UE RF capabilities, a single polarization transmission may have a limited maximum achievable transmission power. For example, the transmission power of the first single Tx polarization may have a 20dBm maximum limit, which is lower than the 23dBm maximum transmission power limit. However, the transmission power of the second single Tx polarization (transmitting to different network cells simultaneously in the above manner) may have a maximum limit of 23dBm and transmit at the maximum transmission power limit. According to one embodiment, in order to use the same transmission power for the transmission power calculation of each Tx stream, the UE may apply a reduction in the maximum transmission power limit. For example, in the above scenario, the UE may apply a 3dB reduction in the maximum transmission power limit.

[0198] In another embodiment, during the period when the UE is transmitting 2 independent Tx streams simultaneously from two co-panel Tx polarizations, the network cell (e.g., NB) can limit the UL scheduling by scheduling the UL channel to utilize only a single port. Specifically, for PUSCH (triggered by DCI format 01), the SRI within the DCI can be selected to point to a single port SRS resource.

[0199] In yet another embodiment, when a UE is triggered by two different gNBs to transmit two independent Tx streams in parallel, when at least one of the triggered Tx streams contains two Tx ports, the UE may apply a predefined priority handling rule to skip the transmission of one Tx stream and transmit only the other Tx stream. For example, the skipping may be based on the number of ports of the stream. The UE may skip the transmission of a Tx stream with a single port and then use dual polarization to transmit the remaining Tx stream with two ports. Alternatively, the UE may skip the transmission of a Tx stream with two ports and then use dual polarization to transmit the remaining Tx stream, which may have one port or two ports. In one embodiment, the skipping rule may also be based on the channel type of the corresponding stream. For example, a PUSCH containing a UCI bit may have a higher priority than a PUSCH without a UCI bit. As another example, a PUCCH may have a higher priority than a PUSCH. As another example, a PUSCH may have a higher priority than an SRS.

[0200] method

[0201] Figures 1 to 10 The electronic device, network, system, chip or component or part thereof or specific implementation in or 13 or some other figures of this document may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques or methods or parts thereof described herein.

[0202] Fig.14A method 1400 of a UE transmitting data streams simultaneously to multiple network cells during handover is shown. In 1405, the UE determines to transmit a first transmission (Tx) stream and a second Tx stream simultaneously to a first gNB and a second gNB for handover of communication with the UE from the first cell to the second cell, wherein the first gNB is a serving gNB in ​​the first cell and the second gNB is a handover target gNB in ​​the second cell. In 1410, the UE transmits the first transmission stream and the second transmission stream to the first gNB and the second gNB simultaneously via a first transmission polarization and a second transmission polarization within a same antenna panel of the UE.

[0203] The above operation can also be performed in a baseband circuit (for example, Figure 4 Baseband circuit 410) shown in FIG. Figure 5 The hardware resources 500 are shown as being executed.

[0204] Fig.15 A method 1500 is shown for a gNB to restrict uplink (UL) channel scheduling for a UE to simultaneously transmit data streams to multiple network cells during handover. At 1505, the gNB triggers a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission by the UE. At 1510, the gNB restricts UL channel scheduling by triggering PUSCH transmission using a single port.

[0205] Example

[0206] 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.

[0207] Embodiment 1 may include a method of operating a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: simultaneously transmitting two different Tx streams by two different Tx polarization circuits within a same UE antenna panel circuit.

[0208] Embodiment 2 may include a method according to embodiment 1 or some other embodiment herein, wherein two Tx polarizations are configured to have independent Tx beam patterns, and each Tx beam pattern is associated with a different Rx beam pattern from one of two different base stations.

[0209] Embodiment 3 may include a method according to Embodiments 1 and 2 or some other embodiment herein, wherein each Tx stream is associated with one of two different base stations.

[0210] Embodiment 4 may include a method as described in Embodiment 1 or some other embodiment herein, wherein each Tx stream may be associated with one Tx polarization.

[0211] Embodiment 5 may include a method as described in Embodiment 1 or some other embodiment herein, wherein each Tx stream may be associated with two Tx polarizations.

[0212] Embodiment 6 may include the method according to embodiments 2 and 3 or some other embodiment herein, wherein one of the base stations may be a serving base station and the other base station may be a handover target base station.

[0213] Embodiment 7 may include a method according to embodiment 1 or some other embodiment herein, wherein the UE calculates the transmission power of the two Tx streams separately, wherein for each calculated transmission power, the UE applies a 3dB reduction of the maximum transmission power limit.

[0214] Embodiment 8 may include a method according to embodiment 1 or some other embodiment herein, wherein the UE further determines a phase offset setting between two Tx polarizations based on UL interference measurements.

[0215] Embodiment 9 may include a method according to embodiment 6 or some other embodiment herein, wherein the base station limits UL channel scheduling by triggering UL transmission utilizing only a single port.

[0216] Embodiment 10 may include a method according to embodiment 9 or some other embodiment herein, wherein the base station allocates DCI format 0_1 ​​to trigger a PUSCH transmission by the UE, wherein the SRI within the DCI is selected to be associated with a single port SRS resource.

[0217] Embodiment 11 may include a method of operating a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: triggering the UE to transmit two Tx streams simultaneously by two different base stations, wherein one of the triggered Tx streams includes two ports: the UE skips transmission of one of the Tx streams based on a predefined rule.

[0218] Embodiment 12 may include a method as described in Embodiment 11 or some other embodiment herein, wherein the predefined rule may be based on a port number of the triggered Tx flow.

[0219] Embodiment 13 may include a method as described in accordance with Embodiment 11 or some other embodiment herein, wherein the predefined rule may be based on a channel type of the triggered Tx flow.

[0220] Embodiment 14 may include a method for a user equipment (UE) in a wireless network including a first next generation Node B (gNB) and a second gNB communicating with the UE, the method including: determining to simultaneously transmit two transmission (TX) streams to the first gNB and the second gNB for switching communication with the UE from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the first gNB is a serving gNB in ​​the first cell and the second gNB is a switching target gNB in ​​the second cell; and simultaneously transmitting the two transmission streams to the first gNB and the second gNB via two transmission polarizations within the same antenna panel of the UE.

[0221] Embodiment 15 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein determining to transmit two transmission streams is triggered by the first gNB and the second gNB.

[0222] Embodiment 16 may include a method as described in Embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the UE supports only a single active antenna panel.

[0223] Embodiment 17 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the first gNB or the second gNB includes two ports.

[0224] Embodiment 18 may include a method as described in Embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the two transmission streams are within a frequency range FR2.

[0225] Embodiment 19 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein switching communications with the UE from the first cell to the second cell is an intra-frequency handover or an inter-frequency handover.

[0226] Embodiment 20 may include a method according to Embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the first cell and the second cell are located separately.

[0227] Embodiment 21 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein two transmission streams are transmitted by two different Tx polarization circuits within the same antenna panel circuit of the UE.

[0228] Embodiment 22 may include the method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, further comprising: calculating transmission power of two Tx streams separately; and applying a 3dB power reduction of the transmission power for each of the two Tx streams.

[0229] Embodiment 23 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein two Tx polarizations are configured with independent Tx beam patterns, each Tx beam pattern being associated with a different receive (Rx) beam pattern from the first gNB and the second gNB.

[0230] Embodiment 24 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, further comprising: determining a phase offset setting between two Tx polarizations based on uplink (UL) interference measurements.

[0231] Embodiment 25 may include a method according to embodiment 14 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein one of the two Tx streams includes two Tx ports, and the method further includes: applying a predefined priority processing rule to skip transmission of one Tx stream and only transmit the other Tx stream.

[0232] Embodiment 26 may include a method according to embodiment 25 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the UE is to skip transmission of a Tx flow based on the number of ports of the Tx flow.

[0233] Embodiment 27 may include a method according to embodiment 25 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the UE is to skip transmission of a Tx stream based on the channel type of the Tx stream.

[0234] Embodiment 28 may include a method according to any one of embodiments 14 to 27 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the method is performed by a device implemented in a UE or employed by a UE.

[0235] Embodiment 29 may include a method for a next generation Node B (gNB) in a wireless network, the wireless network including the gNB as a first gNB in ​​a first cell and a second gNB in ​​a second cell to communicate with a user equipment (UE), the method including: triggering a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission by the UE; and limiting uplink (UL) channel scheduling by triggering PUSCH transmission utilizing a single port.

[0236] Embodiment 30 may include a method according to embodiment 29 and / or some other embodiment herein, further comprising: allocating downlink control information (DCI) format 0_1 ​​to trigger PUSCH transmission by the UE.

[0237] Embodiment 31 may include a method according to embodiment 30 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the SRI within the DCI is selected to be associated with a single port sounding reference signal (SRS) resource.

[0238] Embodiment 32 may include a method according to embodiment 30 and / or some other embodiment herein, further comprising: receiving a transmission (Tx) stream from a UE, wherein the Tx stream is one of two transmission streams simultaneously sent to a first gNB and a second gNB by two transmission polarizations within the same antenna panel of the UE.

[0239] Embodiment 33 may include a method according to embodiment 32 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the first gNB or the second gNB includes two ports.

[0240] Embodiment 34 may include a method as described in Embodiment 32 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the two transmission streams are within a frequency range FR2.

[0241] Embodiment 35 may include a method according to Embodiment 32 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the first cell and the second cell are separately located.

[0242] Embodiment 36 may include a method according to embodiments 29 to 35 and / or some other embodiment herein, wherein the method is performed by a device implemented in a gNB or employed by a gNB.

[0243] Embodiment 37 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of a method as described or related to any of Embodiments 1 to 36, or any other method or process described herein.

[0244] Embodiment 38 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 or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 36 or any other method or process described herein.

[0245] Embodiment 39 may include an apparatus comprising logic components, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of a method described in accordance with or related to any of Embodiments 1 to 36, or any other method or process described herein.

[0246] Embodiment 40 may include a method, technique or process as described or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 36, or a portion or component thereof.

[0247] Embodiment 41 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, process, or portion thereof described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 36.

[0248] Embodiment 42 may include a signal as described or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 36, or a portion or component thereof.

[0249] Embodiment 43 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message, or a portion or component thereof, as described or associated with any of Embodiments 1 to 36 or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0250] Embodiment 44 may include a signal encoded with data as described or associated with any one of Embodiments 1 to 36, or a portion or component thereof, or otherwise described in this disclosure.

[0251] Embodiment 45 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message, or a portion or component thereof, as described in accordance with or in connection with any of Embodiments 1 to 36 or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0252] Embodiment 46 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, or a portion thereof, described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 36.

[0253] Embodiment 47 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, or a portion thereof, described in or related to any one of Embodiments 1 to 36.

[0254] Embodiment 48 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0255] Embodiment 49 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0256] Embodiment 50 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0257] Embodiment 51 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0258] 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.

[0259] 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.

[0260] It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made to the present disclosure without departing from the spirit or scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, the present disclosure is intended to cover modifications and variations of the present disclosure, provided that these modifications and variations are within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

1. A method for wireless communication, comprising: At a user equipment UE in a wireless network comprising a first base station and a second base station for communicating with the UE: Determine to simultaneously transmit a first transmission Tx stream and a second Tx stream to the first base station and the second base station for switching communication with the UE from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the first base station is a serving base station in the first cell, and the second base station is a switching target base station in the second cell; Simultaneously transmitting the first transmission stream to the first base station using a first polarization and transmitting the second transmission stream to the second base station using a second polarization different from the first polarization within the same antenna panel of the UE; as well as calculating a transmission power for each of the first Tx stream and the second Tx stream, respectively, wherein for each calculated transmission power, the UE applies a 3 dB reduction of a maximum transmission power limit; Transmission of one of the first Tx stream or the second Tx stream is skipped based on a predefined rule, wherein the predefined rule is based on a channel type of one of the first Tx stream or the second Tx stream, wherein a PUSCH including a UCI bit has a higher priority than a PUSCH without a UCI bit.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first Tx polarization and the second Tx polarization is configured to have an independent Tx beam pattern and is associated with a different Rx beam pattern from one of the first base station or the second base station.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: A phase offset setting between the first Tx polarization and the second Tx polarization is determined based on a UL interference measurement. 4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein one of the first base station or the second base station limits UL channel scheduling by triggering UL transmission utilizing only a single port.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein one of the first base station or the second base station allocates DCI format 0_1 ​​to trigger PUSCH transmission by the UE, wherein the SRI within the DCI is selected to be associated with a single-port SRS resource.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein switching the communication with the UE from the first cell to the second cell is one of an intra-frequency handover or an inter-frequency handover. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first cell and the second cell are separately located.

8. A user equipment UE, comprising: a plurality of antenna panels, each antenna panel comprising a plurality of antenna elements; a processor configured to determine to simultaneously transmit a first transmission Tx stream and a second Tx stream to a first base station and a second base station for switching communication with the UE from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the first base station is a serving base station in the first cell, and the second base station is a switching target base station in the second cell; and a transceiver configured to simultaneously transmit the first transmission stream to the first base station using a first Tx polarization and transmit the second transmission stream to the second base station using a second Tx polarization different from the first polarization via the same antenna panel of the UE, wherein the processor is further configured to calculate a transmission power for each of the first Tx stream and the second Tx stream, respectively, wherein for each calculated transmission power, the UE applies a 3dB reduction of a maximum transmission power limit; Transmission of one of the first Tx stream or the second Tx stream is skipped based on a predefined rule, wherein the predefined rule is based on a channel type of one of the first Tx stream or the second Tx stream, wherein a PUSCH including a UCI bit has a higher priority than a PUSCH without a UCI bit.

9. The UE of claim 8, wherein the UE supports only a single active antenna panel.

10. The UE according to claim 8, wherein the transceiver comprises a plurality of Tx polarization circuits, and the first transmission stream and the second transmission stream are transmitted by different Tx polarization circuits.

11. The UE of claim 8, wherein each of the first Tx polarization and the second Tx polarization is configured to have an independent Tx beam pattern and is associated with a different Rx beam pattern from one of the first base station or the second base station.

12. The UE of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to determine a phase offset setting between the first Tx polarization and the second Tx polarization based on UL interference measurement.

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