Enhanced resource partitioning for new radio (NR) and long term evolution (LTE) coexistence

Abstract

Various embodiments herein provide techniques related to a user equipment (UE). The UE may identify, by a Long Term Evolution (LTE) SL module for facilitating communications via a first sidelink (SL) channel of the first cellular network, resources to be used by another UE for communications in the first SL channel; providing, by the LTE SL module, information related to use of the resource to a new radio (NR) SL module for facilitating communication via a second SL channel of a second cellular network; and excluding, by the NR SL module, the resource for communication via the second SL channel based on the information relating to the use of the resource. Other embodiments may be described and / or claimed.

Description

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0002] This application claims priority to the following applications: U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63 / 356,163 filed on June 28, 2022; and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63 / 410,559 filed on September 27, 2022. Technical Field

[0003] Various embodiments may generally relate to the field of wireless communications.For example, some embodiments may relate to resource partitioning for cellular network coexistence. Background Art

[0004] Various embodiments may generally relate to the field of wireless communications. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0005] The embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To aid this description, similar reference numerals designate similar structural elements. The embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings by way of example and not by way of limitation.

[0006] Figure 1 Examples of the impact of one wireless network on another wireless network are schematically illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0007] Figure 2 Alternative examples of the impact of one wireless network on another wireless network are illustrated in accordance with various embodiments.

[0008] Figure 3 Alternative examples of the impact of one wireless network on another wireless network are illustrated in accordance with various embodiments.

[0009] Figure 4 a and Figure 4 b(collectively referred to as Figure 4 ) illustrates examples of different wireless networks operating in different multiplexing modes according to various embodiments.

[0010] Figure 5 An example of semi-static frequency division multiplexing (FDM) with hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback enabled for a New Radio (NR) system is schematically illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0011] Figure 6 Examples of Type I and Type II resources are illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0012] Figure 7 An example of using time division duplex (TDD) between a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network and NR sidelink (SL) transmissions is illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0013] Figure 8 An example of an enhanced inter-user equipment (UE) coordination scheme is illustrated in accordance with various embodiments.

[0014] Fig. 9 Alternative examples of enhanced inter-UE coordination schemes are illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0015] Fig.10 Alternative examples of enhanced inter-UE coordination schemes are illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0016] Fig.11 Examples of multi-slot configurations related to automatic gain control (AGC) are illustrated according to various embodiments.

[0017] Fig.12 An example wireless network according to various embodiments is schematically illustrated.

[0018] Fig.13 Example components of a wireless network according to various embodiments are schematically illustrated.

[0019] Fig.14 The block diagram illustrates example components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (eg, a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some example embodiments.

[0020] Fig.15 Alternative example networks are illustrated in accordance with various embodiments.

[0021] Fig.16 Depicted are example procedures for implementing the various embodiments discussed herein.

[0022] Fig.17 Another example process for implementing the various embodiments discussed herein is depicted.

[0023] Fig.18 Another example process for implementing the various embodiments discussed herein is depicted. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0024] The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numerals may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, specific details such as specific structures, architectures, interfaces, technologies, etc. are recorded for illustration rather than limitation to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of various embodiments. However, it will be clear to those skilled in the art who benefit from the present disclosure that various aspects of various embodiments may be implemented in other examples that are separated from these specific details. In some cases, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted to avoid blurring the descriptions of various embodiments with unnecessary details. For this document, the phrases "A or B" and "A / B" mean (A), (B), or (A and B).

[0025] Mobile communications have evolved significantly from early voice systems to today's highly sophisticated integrated communications platforms. The next generation of wireless communication systems, 5G or New Radio (NR), will provide access to information and sharing of data by a variety of users and applications anywhere, at any time. NR can act as a unified network / system that meets very different and sometimes conflicting performance dimensions and services. This diverse multi-dimensional requirement can be driven by different services and applications.

[0026] For example, in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 16 (hereinafter referred to as Rel. 16, Rel-16, Rel. 16, etc.) specifications, sidelink (SL) communications were developed at least in part to support advanced vehicle-to-anything (V2X) applications. In Release 17 (hereinafter referred to as Rel. 17, Rel-17, Rel. 17, etc.) specifications, proximity-based services, including public safety and business-related services, were introduced, and as part of Rel. 17, power saving solutions (e.g., partial sensing, discontinuous reception (DRX)) and user equipment (UE) coordination were developed, at least in part to improve power consumption and reliability of SL transmissions for battery-limited terminals. While NR SL may initially be applicable to V2X applications, there is growing interest in extending the applicability of NR SL to commercial use cases such as sharing of sensor information (including video) between vehicles with high levels of driving automation. For commercial SL applications, the following two elements may be desirable:

[0027] - Increase SL data rate

[0028] -Support new carrier frequencies for SL.

[0029] To achieve these aspects, the goals in the 3GPP Release 18 (which may be referred to as Rel. 18, Rel. 18, Rel-18, etc.) specifications may be at least partially to support SL carrier aggregation, SL on unlicensed spectrum, and frequency range 2 (FR2 or FR-2, which may refer to transmissions at frequencies below approximately 7 gigahertz (GHz), or in some embodiments, transmissions below approximately 6 GHz) SL operations. However, another aspect to consider is the V2X deployment scenario, in which both LTE V2X and NR V2X devices will coexist in the same frequency channel. In order for these two different types of devices to coexist, while using a common carrier frequency, it may be desirable to have (one or more) mechanisms to efficiently utilize the resource allocations of the two technologies without negatively impacting the operation of each technology. In addition, it may be desirable to design these mechanisms without requiring changes to the LTE design.

[0030] In this scenario, several challenges may be considered when designing a resource partitioning mechanism to achieve better coexistence between LTE V2X and NR V2X. These challenges may, for example, include one or more of the following:

[0031] 1. Automatic gain control (AGC) impact from NR PSFCH transmission: Given the introduction of the physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH) in NR, the power variations associated with NR V2X transmissions in the case of NR slots configured with PSFCH symbols may have a negative impact on the LTE AGC settings, due to the power envelope that LTE devices may observe during the subframe, such as Figure 1 Specifically, Figure 1 Depicted is an example of the impact of NR transmissions on LTE-related AGC when the NR SL slot overlaps with an LTE SL subframe and contains PSFCH symbols. In fact, the LTE receiver (Rx) may perform AGC adjustments in the first symbol of the LTE SL subframe, and the gain of the AGC may be adjusted based on the received signal power. When the NR UE performs a PSFCH transmission in the second part of the subframe, its signal will be added to the ongoing LTE SL transmission - which increases the total received power at the LTE Rx - while the AGC gain determined in the first part of the subframe is still applied. As a result, the above situation may cause the ADC to become saturated, thus affecting the decoding of the LTE transmission at the LTE Rx.

[0032] 2. AGC impact from using different subcarrier spacing (SCS) between LTE and NR:

[0033] a. Given that LTE and NR may use different SCSs, the AGC settings for LTE may be adversely affected regardless of whether an NR timeslot may or may not carry PSFCH symbols due to the power envelope that the LTE device may observe along the subframe. This may cause the LTE device to see large variations in power along the subframe and be unable to cope with such variations, similar to the scenario described above. Figure 2 An example of this problem is illustrated, where the NR SL supports 30 kilohertz (KHz) SCS and the LTE SL supports 15KHz SCS. In this example, two NR V2X slots overlap with the LTE V2X subframe, and the first NR SL slot carries the PSFCH, while the second NR SL slot does not.

[0034] b. Figure 3 As shown in , the same effect can be observed if the NR V2X system may have nothing to transmit in a particular NR timeslot. Figure 3 An example of the impact of NR transmission on AGC related to LTE can be depicted when the SCS supported by the NR SL is different from that of the LTE SL and the NR SL will not or does not transmit in one of the two time slots.

[0035] 3. Non-ideal resource orthogonality between LTE and NR: Regardless of whether LTE and NR may be configured to use the same SCS, and whether NR may or may not transmit PSFCH, given that the LTE SL and NR SL cannot indicate to each other how the resources will be used, LTE and NR transmissions may conflict with each other and negatively impact the overall system performance. Note that even in the case where the resources for LTE and NR may be configured to be orthogonal, this issue may occur if the subframe boundaries between the two technologies are not aligned due to synchronization errors.

[0036] In view of this, the embodiments of this document may provide several options and design considerations on how to alleviate the above-mentioned problems and improve coexistence between NR and LTE.

[0037] One of the typical scenarios of V2X may include both LTE V2X and NR V2X devices, which need to coexist in the same frequency channel. In order for these two different types of devices to coexist, it may be desirable to have (one or more) mechanisms to efficiently utilize the resource allocation of the two technologies while using a common carrier frequency without negatively affecting the operation of each technology. In addition, the conception and design of these mechanisms should not require changes to the LTE design. In view of this, the embodiments of this document may provide several options and design considerations on how to improve the coexistence of NR V2X and LTE V2X when they are co-deployed.

[0038] Semi-static resource pool partitioning

[0039] In one embodiment, LTE V2X and NR V2X may be operated on orthogonal resources via higher layer signaling configuration (e.g., radio resource control (RRC) configuration), pre-configuration, or both, which may be semi-statically configured.

[0040] Specifically, for NR V2X, IE SL-ResourcePool is used to configure the parameters of NR SL related to the resource pool, and:

[0041] ● For devices in coverage and in RRC_CONNECTED state, the information element (IE) may be updated by SL-ConfigDedicatedNR in RRCReconfiguration;

[0042] ●For devices in coverage but in RRC_INACTIVE or RRC_IDLE state, the IE may be further updated by SIB12 in SystemInformation.

[0043] As for LTE V2X, IE SL-CommResourcePoolV2X is the corresponding IE for configuring LTE V2X parameters related to resource pool, and:

[0044] ● For devices in coverage and in RRC_CONNECTED state, the IE may be updated by SL-CommConfig within RRCConnectionReconfiguration;

[0045] ●For devices in coverage but in RRC_IDLE state, it can be further updated by SystemInformationBlockType21 within SystemInformation.

[0046] As for pre-configuration, this may be updated via over-the-air signaling to one or both of a mobile equipment (ME, which may be similar to a UE) and / or a universal integrated circuit card (UICC).

[0047] Using this solution, you can Figure 4 a and Figure 4LTE V2X and NR V2X are operated in a time division multiplexed (TDM) or frequency division multiplexed (FDM) mode as shown in FIG. Figure 4 a (left) illustrates an example of NR V2X and LTE V2X operating in TDM mode, while Figure 4 b (right) illustrates an example of NR V2X and LTE V2X operating in FDM mode.

[0048] In one option of this embodiment, the LTE SL is configured to not use the timeslots containing PSFCH transmissions from the NR system. Figure 5 An example of this option is shown in the figure, which depicts the situation when the PSFCH period is set to 4. Specifically, Figure 5 An example of a semi-static FDM case with HARQ feedback enabled for a NR system is depicted.

[0049] Dynamic resource pool partitioning

[0050] In one embodiment, the resources within the NR SL resource pool may be divided into two types: Type I, where the resources are used in such a way that LTE V2X and NR V2X may be operated in an orthogonal manner via higher layer signaling (e.g., RRC configuration), pre-configuration, or both; and Type II, where the resources are not necessarily allocated between LTE V2X and NR V2X in an orthogonal manner, and may be allocated in a more dynamic manner in accordance with one or more of the mechanisms described below in the present disclosure. Figure 6 Example illustrations of Type I and Type II resources are provided in .

[0051] In one embodiment, the UE may include both NR SL and LTE SL modules, and the LTE SL module shares one or more of the following example parameters (and / or some other parameters) with the NR SL module:

[0052] ■ Reserve time and frequency locations for LTE transmission

[0053] ■Resource reservation period

[0054] ■SL RSRP and / or SL RSSI measurement report

[0055] ■ Half-duplex subframes not monitored by LTE SL UEs.

[0056] In another embodiment, Type I and Type II resources are separated into separate resource pools for Mode 2 of the NR SL system. UEs that are not capable of receiving LTE SL transmissions transmit only in the Type I resource pool, but can decode all NR SL transmissions in the Type II resources. UEs that are capable of receiving LTE SL transmissions may be allowed to transmit in both Type I and Type II resource pools.

[0057] In one embodiment, in SL resource allocation mode 2, one or more of the following example mechanisms may be employed for the UE (note that the following are examples of such mechanisms, and other embodiments may include additional / alternative mechanisms):

[0058] ● Resource selection based on NR+LTE sensing and reserved resources: For Type II resources or an aggregation of Type I and Type II resources, the UE may perform selection of candidate resources to be used through the conventional sensing and resource selection process defined in Section 8.1.4 of TS 38.124, where the exclusion rules defined in step 6 of this process may now include reserved resources from LTE devices, and also LTE sensing: Such information may be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding LTE sidelink control information (SCI) itself via appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or single module implementing NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In this regard, the UE may exclude any candidate single-slot resource if all of the following example conditions (and / or one or more additional / alternative conditions) are met:

[0059] o The UE receives NR SCI (i.e., format 1-A) and / or LTE SCI, whose reserved SL resources overlap with the candidate resources;

[0060] ■ In one option, any LTE reserved SL resources that overlap with the candidate resources are considered;

[0061] ■ In one option, only LTE reserved SL resources that overlap with the candidate resources and are associated with a higher or same priority than the candidate resources are considered.

[0062] ○ The reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement (i.e., NR+LTE) is above a configured threshold defined based on: Rx NR priority (i.e., the priority carried in NR SCI format 1-A) or Rx LTE priority (i.e., the priority carried in LTE SCI format 1) or the highest (or lowest) or stricter (or looser) of the two. In addition, the priority of resources reserved for the LTE system may be interpreted as having the highest priority, despite the priority being set in the relevant LTE SCI information.

[0063] o NR and LTE reserved resources overlap with the considered candidate resources, including potential future overlap outside the resource selection window that may occur due to different periodicities.

[0064] In one embodiment, the modified exclusion rules may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the modified exclusion rules may be enabled or disabled based on higher layer signaling (eg, RRC signaling) and / or pre-configuration.

[0065] In one embodiment, in the modified exclusion rules described above, the UE may additionally consider excluding any resources overlapping with subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE SL UE due to half-duplex reasons, during which the SL UE in LTE mode is transmitting or receiving or not performing any sensing at all. In one option, resources overlapping with subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE SL UE due to half-duplex reasons are included in the reserved SL resources for resource exclusion.

[0066] Note that the embodiments listed herein may not be mutually exclusive, and one or more of them may be applied together.

[0067] ● Resource exclusion of LTE reserved resources: For type II resources or an aggregation of type I and type II resources, for determining a time slot set for the NR SL communication resource pool, a time slot set for LTE SL resource allocation may be excluded. Specifically, the following process may be used to determine a time slot set for the NR SL communication resource pool, where the time slot set includes all time slots except the following example time slots (and / or some other types of time slots):

[0068] ○Time slots configured with SL synchronization signal block (S-SSB) resources;

[0069] o A time slot identified as a non-SL time slot, where some orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) symbols are not semi-statically configured as uplink UL in this time slot as determined in Section 8 of 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 38.214.

[0070] ○ Time slots for LTE SL resource allocation, where such information can be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding the LTE SCI itself via appropriate implementation (for example, via a dual module or a single module implementing NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0071] o The reserved time slots identified in Section 8 of 3GPP TS 38.214.

[0072] In one embodiment, the above modified exclusion rules may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the above modified exclusion rules may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration. In one embodiment, the set of time slots that may need to be excluded from the set of time slots of the NR SL communication resource pool may additionally include time slots overlapping with any of the following subframes: these subframes cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons and can be retrieved by the UE via an appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0073] ● Resource exclusion of LTE reserved resources based on priority: For Type II resources or an aggregation of Type I and Type II resources, the UE may perform the selection of candidate resources to be used through the conventional sensing and resource selection process defined in Section 8.1.4 of 3GPP TS 38.124, and in addition, the UE may a priori exclude any time slots that may have been reserved by the LTE UE, where such information may be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding the LTE SCI, or by decoding the LTE SCI itself via appropriate implementation (e.g., via implementing a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In one option, the UE may consider all resources when excluding LTE reserved resources, while in another option, the UE may only consider LTE reserved SL resources with an associated higher or same priority as the candidate resources.

[0074] In one embodiment, the modified exclusion rules may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the modified exclusion rules may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration.

[0075] Note that the embodiments listed here are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them may be applied together.

[0076] Resource selection based on LTE reserved resources: For type II resources or an aggregation of type I and type II resources (where type I and type II resources are as defined in the previous embodiments), the UE may perform selection of candidate resources to be used by first identifying a set of candidate resources in accordance with the conventional sensing and resource selection process defined in 3GPP TS 38.124 section 8.1.4, and then applying one or more of the following additional exclusion rules:

[0077] o If the UE determines that an LTE SL UE may have reserved the same single-slot resource or an overlapping single-slot resource on which it may perform a transmission, the transmission may be discarded;

[0078] ○ If the UE determines that the LTE SL UE may have reserved one or more single-slot resources that overlap with some of the candidate resources defined during the NR SL sensing and resource selection process, then these resources shall be excluded from the candidate resources.

[0079] The UE may retrieve the reserved resources from the LTE device via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding LTE SCI itself via appropriate implementation (e.g., via implementing a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In addition, in one option, when discarding transmission or excluding candidate resources based on LTE reserved resources, the UE may consider all reserved resources of LTE, while in another option, the UE may only consider LTE reserved SL resources with an associated priority higher than or the same as the candidate resources or resources that may be intended for transmission.

[0080] In one embodiment, the above rules may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the above modified exclusion rules may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration. In one embodiment, in addition to the exclusion rules listed above, the UE may additionally discard or cancel any transmission that may overlap with any of the following resources, which overlap with any of the following subframes: These subframes cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons and can be retrieved by the UE via appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0081] Note that the embodiments listed here are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them may be applied together.

[0082] ● TDD between LTE and NR via superframes: A superframe can consist of a radio frame or N subframes, where N can be fixed or configurable. Within a superframe, subframes of type II or both type I and type II can be associated to LTE or NR via a specific configuration known to both technologies and can be semi-statically configured. The specific TDD configuration to be used can be RRC configured or pre-configured. Figure 7 An example illustration of TDD between LTE resources and NR SL resources is depicted.

[0083] ● Detect and avoid (DAA) mechanism: For Type II resources or an aggregation of Type I and Type II resources, the UE may perform a detect and avoid procedure by performing a short-term sensing just before the single slot resource selected for transmission. In this case, if the RSRP measurement result performed just before the potential transmission is higher than the configured or pre-configured threshold, the UE may discard its transmission and select another resource from the candidate resources to perform the transmission, otherwise the device may transmit immediately. In one option, the sensing process may be equivalent to Cat-2A LBT or Cat-1 LBT with the lowest priority category, or a single 9us clear channel assessment. In one option, if NR supports 15KHz SCS, the SL slot may never start in symbol #0.

[0084] In one embodiment, the above process may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the above process may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration.

[0085] Note that the embodiments listed here are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them may be applied together.

[0086] ● Inter-UE coordination and exchange of information related to LTE reserved resources: For Type II resources or an aggregation of Type I and Type II resources, one of the following mechanisms may be used:

[0087] o Inter-UE coordination scheme 1 may be enhanced so that the inter-UE coordination (IUC) feedback information sent from UE-A to UE-B includes not only the set of resources preferred by UE-A, but also the resources reserved by LTE sensed by UE-A. In this case, the candidate resources selected by UE-B will exclude all preferred resources indicated by UE-A, including resources reserved by LTE and sensed by UE-A. Figure 8 An example diagram of an enhanced inter-UE coordination scheme (Scheme 1) is depicted.

[0088] In one embodiment, the above process may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the above process may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration.

[0089] In one embodiment, the resources preferred by UE-A may additionally include any resources overlapping with any subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons and can be retrieved by the UE via appropriate implementation (e.g., via implementing a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0090] Note that the embodiments listed here are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them can be applied together. Also note that UE-A can retrieve the reserved resources from the LTE device by decoding the LTE SCI itself via an appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0091] o Inter-UE coordination scheme 1 may be enhanced to include a set of resources that are not preferred by UE-A within the inter-UE coordination (IUC) feedback information sent from UE-A to UE-B, which may need to exclude any resources reserved by LTE sensed by UE-A. In this case, the candidate resources selected by UE-B may include all non-preferred resources, excluding resources reserved by LTE and sensed by UE-A. Fig. 9 An example of enhancement to the inter-UE coordination scheme 1 is depicted.

[0092] In one embodiment, the above process may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the above process may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration.

[0093] In one embodiment, the non-preferred resources of UE-A may additionally exclude any resources overlapping with any subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons and may be retrieved by the UE via appropriate implementation (e.g., via implementation of a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0094] Note that the embodiments listed here are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them can be applied together. Also note that UE-A can retrieve the reserved resources from the LTE device by decoding the LTE SCI itself via an appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0095] The inter-UE coordination scheme 2 can be enhanced so that UE-A can generate IUC feedback information indicating a potential conflict with UE-B's reserved resources if it can not only detect the expected / potential SL conflict on UE-B's reserved resources, but also take into account any potential conflict with the resources sensed by UE-A that are reserved by LTE and / or any resources that overlap with any subframes that cannot be monitored by UE-A's LTE module due to half-duplex reasons and can be retrieved by UE-A via appropriate implementation (for example, via implementing a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). Fig.10 An example diagram of an enhanced inter-UE coordination scheme (eg, Scheme 2) is depicted.

[0096] In one embodiment, the above process may only be used by the UE based on capability signaling. In another embodiment, the above process may be enabled or disabled based on RRC signaling or pre-configuration.

[0097] Note that the embodiments listed here are not mutually exclusive, and one or more of them can be applied together. Also note that UE-A can retrieve the reserved resources from the LTE device by decoding the LTE SCI itself via an appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0098] In one embodiment, whether semi-static or dynamic resource partitioning is adopted, when LTE V2X and NR V2X may need to coexist, NR V2X may only support 15KHz SCS. In another embodiment, whether semi-static or dynamic resource partitioning is adopted, when LTE V2X and NR V2X may need to coexist, PSFCH should never be configured.

[0099] In one embodiment, when LTE V2X and NR V2X may need to coexist, NR V2X may support both 15KHz and 30KHz SCS. In this case, one or more of the following options may be adopted:

[0100] ● Exclude all time slots overlapping with busy or potentially busy subframes: When the NR V2X system operates at 30KHz SCS or 60KHz, the NR SL UE in Mode 2 may a priori exclude all time slots overlapping with subframes belonging to resources reserved for LTE transmission from the appropriate resource set for SL transmission, where such information may be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding the LTE SCI itself via an appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module implemented with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In addition, the NR SL UE in Mode 2 may also a priori exclude any subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons, and may be retrieved by the UE via an appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or a single module implemented with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0101] ● Exclude all time slots overlapping with busy or potentially busy subframes, except the first time slot: When the NR V2X system operates under 30KHz or 60KHz SCS, the NR SL UE in Mode 2 may a priori exclude all time slots overlapping with subframes belonging to resources reserved for LTE transmission from the appropriate resource set for SL transmission, except the first time slot of this subframe. Such information may be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding LTE SCI itself via appropriate implementation (e.g., via implementing a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In addition, the NR SL UE in Mode 2 may also a priori exclude all time slots overlapping with subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons, except the first time slot of this subframe. Subframes that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons may be retrieved by the UE via appropriate implementation (e.g., via implementing a dual module or a single module with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0102] ●Multi-continuous slot transmission: When NR V2X uses 30 or 60kHz SCS, gapless multi-slot transmission is used for SL transmission, which means that the SL transmission can continuously span a number of slots equivalent to the duration of a 15KHz SCS slot (i.e., 2 slots for 30KHz and 4 slots for 60KHz). Note that these will occupy the same time as the corresponding LTE V2X subframe. For 30kHz SCS, this means that only n*2 slots can be transmitted in combination to avoid AGC issues with the LTE system. For 60kHz, this means that n*4 slots need to be combined for one multi-slot transmission. In both cases, n is a natural number (non-negative integer) greater than zero. Note that this solution is applicable to dynamic coexistence as well as FDM-based coexistence. Fig.11 An example of multi-slot transmission for coexistence when the NR system operates at 30KHz SCS is shown in FIG. Fig.11 An example diagram of a multi-slot solution to avoid the AGC problem of the LTE V2X system is depicted. In one option, to implement the above solution, the first symbol of each additional SL time slot transmission can be an AGC symbol (such as Fig.11 ), or symbols used for PSCCH / PSSCH transmission. Note that in one option, control information may be transmitted only in the first slot of a combined multi-slot transmission.

[0103] In one embodiment, when LTE V2X and NR V2X may need to coexist and NR V2X may configure PSFCH, one or more of the following options may be used:

[0104] ● In one option, resources are distinguished as type I and type II resources as defined in the previous embodiments, and PSFCH resources may always belong to type I resources. In other words, LTE (pre-)configured resources will not overlap with NR resources configured with PSFCH.

[0105] ●In one option, an NR SL UE in Mode 2 may discard a PSFCH transmission if such transmission overlaps with any resources reserved for LTE transmission, where such information may be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding the LTE SCI itself via appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or single module implemented with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In addition, the UE may also discard a PSFCH transmission if such transmission overlaps with any resources belonging to a subframe that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons (but with the exception of the first time slot of such a subframe), where such information may be retrieved by the UE via appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or single module implemented with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0106] ●In one option, an NR SL UE in Mode 2 may discard PSSCH / PSCCH transmissions if the corresponding PSFCH may overlap with any resources reserved for LTE transmissions, where such information may be retrieved by the UE via inter-UE coordination / signaling via other UEs capable of decoding LTE SCI, or by decoding LTE SCI itself via appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or single module implemented with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities). In addition, the UE may also discard PSSCH / PSCCH transmissions if the corresponding PSFCH may overlap with any resources belonging to a subframe that cannot be monitored by the LTE module due to half-duplex reasons (but with the exception of the first time slot of this subframe), where such information may be retrieved by the UE via appropriate implementation (e.g., via a dual module or single module implemented with NR-SL and LTE-SL capabilities).

[0107] In another embodiment, to prevent accidental interference during the time when the synchronization source of either LTE or NR V2X changes, the system does not transmit if such a situation is detected or can be predicted to occur. Note that it is also possible for a device with the ability to communicate using both standards to detect or predict such a change on only one of these systems and then drop transmissions for both. The detection of synchronization changes can be based on a subset of the following information:

[0108] ● Entering or leaving network coverage

[0109] ● Entering or leaving GNSS coverage

[0110] ● Entering or leaving SL S-SSB coverage area

[0111] ●The reception quality of one of the synchronization sources is rapidly deteriorating

[0112] ● Channel quality deteriorates rapidly

[0113] ●Increase in transmission sending or receiving errors

[0114] ● Rapid changes in congestion control status

[0115] ● Auxiliary information outside the communication system, such as location information of cameras and stored past context information

[0116] ● Combination of AI / ML-based contextual information to predict changes in synchronization sources

[0117] System and implementation

[0118] Figure 12-Figure 15 Various systems, devices, and components are illustrated in which aspects of the disclosed embodiments may be implemented.

[0119] Fig.12 A network 1200 according to various embodiments is illustrated. The network 1200 may operate in a manner consistent with the 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G / NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited thereto, and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems, etc.

[0120] The network 1200 may include a UE 1202, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with the RAN 1204 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 1202 may be communicatively coupled to the RAN 1204 via a Uu interface. The UE 1202 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, a tablet computer, a wearable computer device, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment device, an in-vehicle entertainment device, a dashboard, a head-up display device, an onboard diagnostic device, a dashboard mobile device, a mobile data terminal, an electronic engine management system, an electronic / engine control unit, an electronic / engine control module, an embedded system, a sensor, a microcontroller, a control module, an engine management system, a networked appliance, a machine type communication device, an M2M or D2D device, an IoT device, and the like.

[0121] In some embodiments, the network 1200 may include multiple UEs that are directly coupled to each other via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M / D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels, such as but not limited to PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc.

[0122] In some embodiments, UE 1202 may also communicate with AP 1206 via an over-the-air connection. AP 1206 may manage a WLAN connection that may be used to offload some / all network traffic from RAN 1204. The connection between UE 1202 and AP 1206 may conform to any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where AP 1206 may be a Wireless Fidelity Router. In some embodiments, UE 1202, RAN 1204, and AP 1206 may utilize cellular-WLAN aggregation (eg, LWA / LWIP). Cellular-WLAN aggregation may involve UE 1202 being configured by RAN 1204 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

[0123] RAN 1204 may include one or more access nodes, such as AN 1208. AN 1208 may terminate air interface protocols for UE 1202 by providing access layer protocols including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and L1 protocols. In this way, AN 1208 may enable data / voice connectivity between CN 1220 and UE 1202. In some embodiments, AN 1208 may be implemented in a separate device, or as one or more software entities running on a server computer, as part of a virtual network, such as CRAN or a virtual baseband unit pool. AN 1208 may be referred to as BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. AN 1208 may be a macro cell base station, or a low power base station for providing a femto cell, pico cell, or other similar cell with a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth than a macro cell.

[0124] In an embodiment where the RAN 1204 includes multiple ANs, they may be coupled to each other via an X2 interface (if the RAN 1204 is an LTE RAN) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 1204 is a 5G RAN). The X2 / Xn interface (which may be separated into a control / user plane interface in some embodiments) may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handover, data / context transfer, mobility, load management, interference coordination, and the like.

[0125] The ANs of the RAN 1204 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, etc. to provide an air interface for network access to the UE 1202. The UE 1202 may be simultaneously connected to multiple cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 1204. For example, the UE 1202 and the RAN 1204 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 1202 to connect to multiple component carriers, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In a dual connectivity scenario, the first AN may be a primary node providing an MCG, and the second AN may be a secondary node providing an SCG. The first / second AN may be any combination of eNBs, gNBs, ng-eNBs, etc.

[0126] RAN 1204 may provide an air interface via a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum. In order to operate in an unlicensed spectrum, a node may use LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology and PCell / Scell. Before accessing an unlicensed spectrum, a node may perform a medium / carrier sensing operation based on, for example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0127] In the V2X scenario, the UE 1202 or AN 1208 may be or may act as an RSU, which may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity used for V2X communication. The RSU may be implemented in or by an appropriate AN or a fixed (or relatively fixed) UE. 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, an RSU is a computing device coupled to a roadside RF circuit that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuits to store intersection map geometry, traffic flow statistics, media, and applications / software to sense and control ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic flow. The RSU may provide extremely low latency communications required for high-speed events such as collision avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular / WLAN communication services. The components of the RSU may be housed in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (eg, Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or backhaul network.

[0128] In some embodiments, the RAN 1204 may be an LTE RAN 1210 with an eNB, such as, for example, the eNB 1212. The LTE RAN 1210 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; CP-OFDM waveform for DL ​​and SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo coding for data and TBCC for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; rely on PDSCH / PDCCH DMRS for PDSCH / PDCCH demodulation; and rely on CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurement, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation / detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operate on frequency bands below 6 GHz.

[0129] In some embodiments, the RAN 1204 may be a NG-RAN 1214 with a gNB, such as gNB 1216, or a NG-RAN 1214 with a ng-eNB, such as ng-eNB 1218. The gNB 1216 may be connected to a 5G-enabled UE using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 1216 may be connected to the 5G core via an NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The ng-eNB 1218 may also be connected to the 5G core via an NG interface, but may be connected to the UE via an LTE air interface. The gNB 1216 and the ng-eNB 1218 may be connected to each other via an Xn interface.

[0130] In some embodiments, the NG interface can be divided into two parts, one is the NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries traffic data between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1214 and the UPF 1248 (e.g., the N3 interface), and the other is the NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is the signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1214 and the AMF 1244 (e.g., the N2 interface).

[0131] NG-RAN 1214 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following features: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control, and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH / PDCCH DMRS, similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use CRS, but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking of PDSCH; and tracking reference signals for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operate on FR1 bands including bands below 6 GHz or FR2 bands including bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include an SSB, which is a region of a downlink resource grid including PSS / SSS / PBCH.

[0132] In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWP for various purposes. For example, BWP may be used for dynamic adaptation of SCS. For example, UE 1202 may be configured with multiple BWPs, each of which is configured with a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to UE 1202, the SCS of the transmission may also be changed. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. Specifically, UE 1202 may be configured with multiple BWPs with different amounts of frequency resources (e.g., PRBs) to support data transmission in different traffic load scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs may be used for data transmission with a small traffic load, while allowing power savings at UE 1202 and in some cases at gNB 1216. A BWP containing a larger number of PRBs may be used for scenarios with higher traffic loads.

[0133] The RAN 1204 is communicatively coupled to the CN 1220, which includes network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of UE 1202). The components of the CN 1220 may be implemented in one physical node or in separate physical nodes. In some embodiments, any or all functions provided by the network elements of the CN 1220 may be virtualized onto physical computing / storage resources in servers, switches, etc. using NFV. A logical instantiation of the CN 1220 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 1220 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

[0134] In some embodiments, CN 1220 may be LTE CN 1222, which may also be referred to as EPC. LTE CN 1222 may include MME 1224, SGW 1226, SGSN 1228, HSS 1230, PGW 1232, and PCRF 1234, which are coupled to each other via interfaces (or "reference points"), as shown. The functions of the elements of LTE CN 1222 may be briefly described as follows.

[0135] The MME 1224 may implement mobility management functions to track the current location of the UE 1202 to facilitate paging, bearer activation / deactivation, handover, gateway selection, authentication, and the like.

[0136] The SGW 1226 may terminate the S1 interface towards the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and the LTE CN 1222. The S-GW 1226 may be the local mobility anchor point for handovers between RAN nodes and may also provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and some policy enforcement.

[0137] The SGSN 1228 may track the location of the UE 1202 and perform security functions and access control. In addition, the SGSN 1228 may perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; select PDN and S-GW as specified by the MME 1224; select MME for handover; etc. The S3 reference point between the MME 1224 and the SGSN 1228 may enable user and bearer information exchange for mobility between 3GPP access networks in idle / active states.

[0138] The HSS 1230 may include a database for network users, including subscription-related information, to support the handling of communication sessions by network entities. The HSS 1230 may provide support for routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / addressing resolution, location dependency, etc. The S6a reference point between the HSS 1230 and the MME 1224 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data to authenticate / authorize user access to the LTE CN 1220.

[0139] The PGW 1232 may terminate the SGi interface towards a data network (DN) 1236, which may include an application / content server 1238. The PGW 1232 may route data packets between the LTE CN 1222 and the data network 1236. The PGW 1232 may be coupled to the SGW 1226 via an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 1232 may also include a node (e.g., PCEF) for policy enforcement and charging data collection. In addition, the SGi reference point between the PGW 1232 and the data network 1236 may be an operator-external public, private PDN, or an intra-operator packet data network, such as for the provisioning of IMS services. The PGW 1232 may be coupled to the PCRF 1234 via a Gx reference point.

[0140] PCRF 1234 is the policy and charging control element of LTE CN 1222. PCRF 1234 may be communicatively coupled with application / content server 1238 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flows. PCRF 1232 may provision the associated rules into PCEF (via Gx reference point) with the appropriate TFT and QCI.

[0141] In some embodiments, CN 1220 may be 5GC 1240. 5GC 1240 may include AUSF 1242, AMF 1244, SMF 1246, UPF 1248, NSSF 1250, NEF 1252, NRF 1254, PCF 1256, UDM 1258, and AF 1260, which are coupled to each other through interfaces (or "reference points") as shown. The functions of the elements of 5GC 1240 may be briefly described as follows.

[0142] AUSF 1242 may store data for authentication of UE 1202 and handle authentication related functions. AUSF 1242 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of 5GC 1240 through reference points as shown, AUSF 1242 may also present a Nausf service-based interface.

[0143] AMF 1244 may allow other functions of 5GC 1240 to communicate with UE 1202 and RAN 1204, and subscribe to notifications about mobility events for UE 1202. AMF 1244 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., for registering UE 1202), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, legal interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. AMF 1244 may provide transport for SM messages between UE 1202 and SMF 1246, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 1244 may also provide transport for SMS messages between UE 1202 and SMSF. AMF 1244 may interact with AUSF 1242 and UE 1202 to perform various security anchoring and context management functions. In addition, AMF 1244 can be a termination point for the RAN CP interface, which may include or may be an N2 reference point between RAN 1204 and AMF 1244; and AMF 1244 can be a termination point for NAS (N1) signaling and perform NAS encryption and integrity protection. AMF 1244 can also support NAS signaling with UE 1202 through the N3 IWF interface.

[0144] SMF 1246 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 1248 and AN 1208); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP functions; configuration of traffic steering at UPF 1248 to route traffic to the appropriate destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; control portions of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful interception (for SM events and interfaces to LI systems); termination of the SM portion of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiation of AN-specific SM information sent to AN 1208 via AMF 1244 over N2; and determination of the SSC mode for a 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 UE 1202 and data network 1236.

[0145] The UPF 1248 may serve as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point for interconnection to the data network 1236, and a branch point to support multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF 1248 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, enforce the user plane portion of policy rules, lawful interception of packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for the user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL / DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic validation (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 1248 may include an uplink classifier to support routing of traffic flows to the data network.

[0146] NSSF 1250 may select a set of network slice instances to serve UE 1202. If necessary, NSSF 1250 may also determine the allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAI. NSSF 1250 may also determine the set of AMFs to be used to serve UE 1202, or a list of candidate AMFs, based on appropriate configuration and possibly by querying NRF 1254. The selection of a set of network slice instances for UE 1202 may be triggered by the AMF 1244 with which UE 1202 is registered by interacting with NSSF 1250, which may result in a change of AMF. NSSF 1250 may interact with AMF 1244 via the N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in the visited network via the N31 reference point (not shown). In addition, NSSF 1250 may present an Nnssf service-based interface.

[0147] NEF 1252 can safely expose services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions, internal exposure / re-exposure, AF (e.g., AF 1260), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. to third parties. In this embodiment, NEF 1252 can authenticate, authorize or throttle AF. NEF 1252 can also translate information exchanged with AF 1260 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, NEF 1252 can translate between AF service identifiers and internal 5GC information. NEF 1252 can also receive information from other NFs based on the exposed capabilities of other NFs. This information can be stored at NEF 1252 as structured data, or stored at a data storage NF using a standardized interface. The stored information can then be exposed to other NFs and AFs by NEF 1252, or used for other purposes, such as parsing. In addition, NEF 1252 can present Nnef service-based interfaces.

[0148] NRF 1254 may support service discovery functionality, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information about discovered NF instances to NF instances. NRF 1254 also maintains information about available NF instances and the services they support. As used herein, the term "instantiation" or the like may refer to the creation of an instance, while "instance" may refer to the specific occurrence of an object, which may occur during the execution of program code, for example. In addition, NRF 1254 may present an Nnrf service-based interface.

[0149] PCF 1256 can provide policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them, and can also support a unified policy framework to constrain network behavior. PCF 1256 can also implement a front end to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of UDM 1258. In addition to communicating with functions through reference points as shown, PCF 1256 can also expose Npcf service-based interfaces.

[0150] UDM 1258 can handle subscription-related information to support the handling of communication sessions by network entities, and can store subscription data for UE 1202. For example, subscription data can be communicated via the N8 reference point between UDM 1258 and AMF 1244. UDM 1258 may include two parts, an application front end and a UDR. UDR may store subscription data and policy data for UDM 1258 and PCF 1256, and / or store structured data and application data for exposure for NEF 1252 (including PFD for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 1202). Nudr service-based interfaces may be presented by UDR 221 to allow UDM 1258, PCF 1256, and NEF 1252 to access a specific set of stored data, as well as read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of changes in related data in the UDR. UDM may include UDM-FE, which is responsible for handling credentials, location management, subscription management, and the like. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identity handling, access authorization, registration / mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs through reference points as shown, UDM 1258 can also expose Nudm service-based interfaces.

[0151] The AF 1260 may provide application influence on traffic routing, provide access to the NEF, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

[0152] In some embodiments, 5GC 1240 can implement edge computing by selecting an operator / third-party service to be geographically close to the point where UE 1202 is attached to the network. This can reduce latency and load on the network. In order to provide edge computing implementation, 5GC 1240 can select a UPF 1248 close to UE 1202 and perform traffic manipulation from UPF 1248 to data network 1236 via the N6 interface. This can be based on UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by AF 1260. In this way, AF 1260 can affect UPF (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1260 is considered a trusted entity, the network operator can allow AF 1260 to interact directly with related NFs. In addition, AF 1260 can present a Naf service-based interface.

[0153] The data network 1236 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party services, which may be provided by one or more servers, including, for example, an application / content server 1238 .

[0154] Fig.13 A wireless network 1300 is schematically illustrated in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 1300 may include a UE 1302 in wireless communication with an AN 1304. The UE 1302 and the AN 1304 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, similarly named components described elsewhere herein.

[0155] UE 1302 may be communicatively coupled with AN 1304 via connection 1306. Connection 1306 is illustrated as an air interface to enable the communicative coupling and may conform to a cellular communication protocol, such as an LTE protocol or a 5G NR protocol operating at mmWave or sub-6 GHz frequencies.

[0156] UE 1302 may include a host platform 1308 coupled to a modem platform 1310. Host platform 1308 may include application processing circuitry 1312, which may be coupled to protocol processing circuitry 1314 of modem platform 1310. Application processing circuitry 1312 may run various applications that source / sink application data for UE 1302. Application processing circuitry 1312 may further implement one or more layer operations to send / receive application data to / from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (e.g., UDP) and Internet (e.g., IP) operations.

[0157] The protocol processing circuitry 1314 may implement one or more layer operations to facilitate sending or receiving data over the connection 1306. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuitry 1314 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC, and NAS operations.

[0158] The modem platform 1310 may also include digital baseband circuitry 1316, which may implement one or more layer operations in the network protocol stack "below" the layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 1314. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations, including one or more of the following: HARQ-ACK functionality, scrambling / descrambling, encoding / decoding, layer mapping / demapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol / bit metric determination, multiple antenna port precoding / decoding (which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency, or space coding), reference signal generation / detection, preamble sequence generation and / or decoding, synchronization sequence generation / detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

[0159] The modem platform 1310 may also include a transmit circuit 1318, a receive circuit 1320, an RF circuit 1322, and an RF front end (RFFE) 1324, which may include or be connected to one or more antenna panels 1326. In brief, the transmit circuit 1318 may include a digital-to-analog converter, a mixer, an intermediate frequency (IF) component, and the like; the receive circuit 1320 may include an analog-to-digital converter, a mixer, an IF component, and the like; the RF circuit 1322 may include a low noise amplifier, a power amplifier, a power tracking component, and the like; the RFFE 1324 may include a filter (e.g., a surface / bulk acoustic wave filter), a switch, an antenna tuner, a beamforming component (e.g., a phased array antenna component), and the like. The selection and arrangement of the components of transmit circuitry 1318, receive circuitry 1320, RF circuitry 1322, RFFE 1324, and antenna panel 1326 (generally referred to as "transmit / receive components") may depend on the details of the specific implementation, e.g., whether the communications are TDM or FDM, at mmWave or sub-6 GHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit / receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit / receive chains, may be arranged in the same or different chips / modules, etc.

[0160] In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuit 1314 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functionality for the transmit / receive components.

[0161] UE reception may be established by and via antenna panel 1326, RFFE 1324, RF circuitry 1322, receive circuitry 1320, digital baseband circuitry 1316, and protocol processing circuitry 1314. In some embodiments, antenna panel 1326 may receive transmissions from AN 1304 via receive beamforming signals received by multiple antennas / antenna elements of one or more antenna panels 1326.

[0162] UE transmission may be established by and via protocol processing circuitry 1314, digital baseband circuitry 1316, transmit circuitry 1318, RF circuitry 1322, RFFE 1324, and antenna panel 1326. In some embodiments, the transmit component of UE 1304 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of antenna panel 1326.

[0163] Similar to UE 1302, AN 1304 may include a host platform 1328 coupled to a modem platform 1330. Host platform 1328 may include application processing circuitry 1332 coupled to protocol processing circuitry 1334 of modem platform 1330. The modem platform may also include digital baseband circuitry 1336, transmit circuitry 1338, receive circuitry 1340, RF circuitry 1342, RFFE circuitry 1344, and antenna panel 1346. The components of AN 1304 may be similar to the like-named components of UE 1302 and may be substantially interchangeable. In addition to performing data transmission / reception as described above, the components of AN 1308 may also perform various logical functions including, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

[0164] Fig.14 The block diagram of illustrates components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and executing any one or more of the methods discussed herein according to some example embodiments. Specifically, Fig.14 A diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1400 is shown, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1410, one or more memory / storage devices 1420, and one or more communication resources 1430, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1440 or other interface circuitry. For embodiments utilizing node virtualization (e.g., NFV), a hypervisor 1402 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / subslices utilizing the hardware resources 1400.

[0165] Processor 1410 may include, for example, processor 1412 and processor 1414. Processor 1410 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 of these.

[0166] The memory / storage device 1420 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination of these. The memory / storage device 1420 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semi-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, and the like.

[0167] The communication resources 1430 may include an interconnect or network interface controller, component, or other appropriate device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1404 or one or more databases 1406 or other network elements via the network 1408. For example, the communication resources 1430 may include a wired communication component (e.g., for coupling via USB, Ethernet, etc.), a cellular communication component, an NFC component, (or low energy consumption ) component, components, and other communication components.

[0168] The instructions 1450 may include software, programs, applications, applet programs, apps, or other executable code for causing at least any one of the processors 1410 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 1450 may reside in whole or in part within at least one of the processors 1410 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), within the memory / storage device 1420, or any suitable combination of these. In addition, any portion of the instructions 1450 may be transmitted to the hardware resources 1400 from any combination of the peripheral device 1404 or the database 1406. Therefore, the memory of the processor 1410, the memory / storage device 1420, the peripheral device 1404, and the database 1406 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

[0169] Fig.15 The network 1500 according to various embodiments is illustrated. The network 1500 may operate in a manner that complies with the 3GPP technical specifications or technical reports of the 6G system. In some embodiments, the network 1500 may operate simultaneously with the network 1200. For example, in some embodiments, the network 1500 may share one or more frequency or bandwidth resources with the network 1200. As a specific example, a UE (e.g., UE 1502) may be configured to operate in the network 1500 and the network 1200. This configuration may be based on the UE including a circuit configured to communicate with the frequency and bandwidth resources of both the network 1200 and the network 1500. In general, several elements of the network 1500 may share one or more characteristics with elements of the network 1200. For the sake of brevity and clarity, these elements may not be repeated in the description of the network 1500.

[0170] The network 1500 may include a UE 1502, which may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with the RAN 1508 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 1502 may be similar to, for example, the UE 1202. The UE 1502 may be, but is not limited to, a smartphone, a tablet computer, a wearable computer device, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment device, an in-vehicle entertainment device, a dashboard, a head-up display device, an onboard diagnostic device, a dashboard mobile device, a mobile data terminal, an electronic engine management system, an electronic / engine control unit, an electronic / engine control module, an embedded system, a sensor, a microcontroller, a control module, an engine management system, a networked appliance, a machine type communication device, an M2M or D2D device, an IoT device, and the like.

[0171] Although in Fig.15Although not specifically shown in FIG. 1 , in some embodiments, network 1500 may include multiple UEs that are directly coupled to each other via a sidelink interface. The UEs may be M2M / D2D devices that communicate using physical sidelink channels, such as but not limited to PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc. Similarly, although in Fig.15 Although not specifically shown, UE 1502 can communicate with AP (e.g., Fig.12 1206) is communicatively coupled. Fig.15 Although not specifically shown, in some embodiments, the RAN 1508 may include one or more ANs, such as Fig.12 The RAN 1508 and / or the AN of the RAN 1508 may be referred to as a base station (BS), a RAN node, or by some other terminology or name.

[0172] UE 1502 and RAN 1508 may be configured to communicate via an air interface that may be referred to as a sixth generation (6G) air interface. The 6G air interface may include one or more features, such as communication in terahertz (THz) or sub-THz bandwidths, or joint communication and sensing. As used herein, the term "joint communication and sensing" may refer to a system that implements wireless communication and radar-based sensing via various types of multiplexing. As used herein, THz or sub-THz bandwidth may refer to communications in a frequency range of 80 GHz and above. This frequency range may be additionally or alternatively referred to as a "millimeter wave" or "mmWave" frequency range.

[0173] The RAN 1508 may allow communication between the UE 1502 and the 6G core network (CN) 1510. Specifically, the RAN 1508 may facilitate the transmission and reception of data between the UE 1502 and the 6G CN 1510. The 6G CN 1510 may include various functions, such as NSSF 1250, NEF 1252, NRF 1254, PCF 1256, UDM 1258, AF 1260, SMF 1246, and AUSF 1242. Fig.15 As shown, 6G CN 1510 may also include UPF 1248 and DN 1236.

[0174] In addition, RAN 1508 may include various additional functions that are in addition to or in place of the functions of a traditional cellular network (e.g., a 4G or 5G network). Two such functions may include a computing control function (computing CF) 1524 and a computing service function (computing SF) 1536. Computing CF 1524 and computing SF 1536 may be parts or functions of a computing service plane. Computing CF 1524 may be a control plane function that provides functions such as: management of computing SF 1536, computing task context generation and management (e.g., create, read, modify, delete), interacting with the underlying computing infrastructure for computing resource management, and the like. Computing SF 1536 may be a user plane function that acts as an interface gateway for computing service users (e.g., UE 1502) and computing nodes behind computing SF instances. Some functions of computing SF 1536 may include: parsing computing service data received from users to compute tasks that computing nodes can perform; maintaining a service mesh entry gateway or service API gateway; service and billing policy enforcement; performance monitoring and telemetry collection, and the like. In some embodiments, a compute SF 1536 instance may serve as a user plane gateway for a cluster of compute nodes.A compute CF 1524 instance may control one or more compute SF 1536 instances.

[0175] Two other such functions may include a communication control function (communication CF) 1528 and a communication service function (communication SF) 1538, which may be part of the communication service plane. The communication CF 1528 may be a control plane function for managing the communication SF 1538, communication session creation / configuration / release, and managing communication session contexts. The communication SF 1538 may be a user plane function for data transmission. The communication CF 1528 and the communication SF 1538 may be considered as upgrades to the SMF 1246 and the UPF 1248, both of which have been referenced. Fig.12 The 5G system in FIG. 15 is described. The upgrade provided by the communication CF 1528 and the communication SF 1538 enables service-aware transmission. For traditional (e.g., 4G or 5G) data transmission, SMF 1246 and UPF 1248 can still be used.

[0176] Two other such functions may include a data control function (data CF) 1522 and a data service function (data SF) 1532, which may be part of the data service plane. The data CF 1522 may be a control plane function and provide functions such as data SF 1532 management, data service creation / configuration / release, data service context management, etc. The data SF 1532 may be a user plane function and act as a gateway between data service users (e.g., various functions of UE 1502 and 6G CN 1510) and data service endpoints behind the gateway. Specific functions may include: parsing data service user data and forwarding to corresponding data service endpoints, generating billing data, reporting data service status.

[0177] Another such function may be a service orchestration and chaining function (SOCF) 1520, which may discover, orchestrate, and chain communication / computing / data services provided by functions in the network. Upon receiving a service request from a user, SOCF 1520 may interact with one or more of the computing CF 1524, the communication CF 1528, and the data CF 1522 to identify computing SF 1536, communication SF 1538, and data SF 1532 instances, configure service resources, and generate a service chain, which may include multiple computing SF 1536, communication SF 1538, and data SF 1532 instances and their associated computing endpoints. Workload processing and data movement may then be performed within the generated service chain. SOCF 1520 may also be responsible for maintaining, updating, and releasing the created service chain.

[0178] Another such function may be a service registration function (SRF) 1514, which may act as a registration center for system services provided in the user plane, such as services provided by service endpoints behind the compute SF 1536 and data SF 1532 gateways and services provided by the UE 1502. The SRF 1514 may be viewed as a counterpart to the NRF 1254, which may act as a registration center for network functions.

[0179] Other such functions may include an evolved service communication proxy (eSCP) and a service infrastructure control function (SICF) 1526, which may provide service communication infrastructure for control plane services and user plane services. The eSCP may be related to the service communication proxy (SCP) of 5G, with the addition of user plane service communication proxy capabilities. The eSCP is thus expressed in two parts: eCSP-C 1512 and eSCP-U 1534, for control plane service communication proxy and user plane service communication proxy, respectively. The SICF 1526 may control and configure the eCSP instance in terms of service traffic routing policies, access rules, load balancing configuration, performance monitoring, and so on.

[0180] Another such function is AMF 1544. AMF 1544 may be similar to 1244, but with additional functionality. Specifically, AMF 1544 may include potential functional re-division, such as moving message forwarding functionality from AMF 1544 to RAN 1508.

[0181] Another such function is a service orchestration exposure function (SOEF) 1518. SOEF may be configured to expose service orchestration and chaining services to external users (eg, applications).

[0182] UE 1502 may include an additional function called a compute client service function (compute CSF) 1504. Compute CSF 1504 may have both control plane functions and user plane functions, and may interact with corresponding network-side functions (e.g., SOCF 1520, compute CF 1524, compute SF 1536, data CF 1522, and / or data SF 1532) to implement service discovery, request / response, computing task workload exchange, etc. Compute CSF 1504 may also cooperate with network-side functions to decide whether computing tasks should be run on elements of UE 1502, RAN 1508, and / or 6G CN 1510.

[0183] UE 1502 and / or computing CSF 1504 may include a service mesh proxy 1506. Service mesh proxy 1506 may act as a proxy for service-to-service communications in the user plane. Functions of service mesh proxy 1506 may include one or more of addressing, security, load balancing, and the like.

[0184] Example Process

[0185] In some embodiments, Figure 12-Figure 15 Or some other figure(s) of this or that electronic device(s), network(s), system(s), chip(s) or component(s) or some part or implementation thereof may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques or methods as described herein, or some part thereof. One such process is in Fig.16 Depicted in . The process may involve a method to be performed by a user equipment (UE), one or more elements of the UE, and / or an electronic device that includes or implements one or more elements of the UE. The process may include, at 1601, identifying a first side link (SL) message related to a long term evolution (LTE) network to be transmitted on a carrier frequency; at 1602, identifying a second SL message related to a new radio (NR) network to be transmitted on the carrier frequency; at 1603, identifying a first one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the first SL message and a second one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the second SL message; and at 1604, transmitting the first SL message on the first one or more resources and transmitting the second SL message on the second one or more resources.

[0186] Another such process is Fig.17 Depicted in . The process may involve a method to be performed by a user equipment (UE), one or more elements of a UE, and / or an electronic device that includes or implements one or more elements of a UE. The process may include, at 1701, identifying a first side link (SL) message related to a long term evolution (LTE) network to be transmitted on a carrier frequency; at 1702, identifying a second SL message related to a new radio (NR) network to be transmitted on the carrier frequency; at 1703, identifying a first one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the first SL message and a second one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the second SL message; and at 1704, identifying a first SL message received on the first one or more resources and a second SL message received on the second one or more resources.

[0187] Another such process is Fig.18Depicted in . The process of Example 18 may involve or include a method to be performed by a user equipment (UE). The process may include, at 1801, identifying, by a long term evolution SL module that is to facilitate communication via a first side link (SL) channel of a first cellular network, resources to be used by another UE for communication in the first SL channel; at 1802, providing, by the LTE SL module, information related to the use of the resources to a new radio (NR) SL module that is to facilitate communication via a second SL channel of a second cellular network; and at 1803, excluding, by the NR SL module, the resources for communication via the second SL channel based on the information related to the use of the resources.

[0188] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components described 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 example section below. For example, the baseband circuit described above in connection with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more examples described below. For another example, the circuits associated with UE, base station, network element, etc. described above in connection with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more examples described below in the example section.

[0189] Example

[0190] Example 1 may include systems and methods of wireless communications for enabling coexistence between LTE and NRSL systems operating in the same carrier frequency.

[0191] Example 2 may include a method as described in Example 1 or some other example herein, wherein a semi-static resource partitioning method is introduced.

[0192] Example 3 may include a method as described in Example 1 or some other example herein, wherein a method is introduced to allow dynamic resource partitioning.

[0193] Example 4 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein a resource selection method based on NR+LTE sensing and reserved resources and related details are introduced.

[0194] Example 5 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein resource exclusion rules and related details of LTE reserved resources are introduced.

[0195] Example 6 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein resource exclusion rules and related details of LTE reserved resources based on resource priorities are introduced.

[0196] Example 7 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein a resource selection method based on LTE reserved resources and related details are introduced.

[0197] Example 8 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein a dynamic TDD method and related details between LTE and NR through superframes are introduced.

[0198] Example 9 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein detection and avoidance mechanisms and related details are introduced.

[0199] Example 10 may include a method as described in Example 2 or some other example herein, wherein an inter-UE coordination mechanism and related details with exchange of information related to LTE reserved resources are introduced.

[0200] Example 11 includes a method to be performed by a user equipment (UE), one or more elements of the UE, and / or an electronic device including or implementing one or more elements of the UE, wherein the method includes: identifying a first side link (SL) message related to a long term evolution (LTE) network to be transmitted on a carrier frequency; identifying a second SL message related to a new radio (NR) network to be transmitted on the carrier frequency; identifying first one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the first SL message and second one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the second SL message; and transmitting the first SL message on the first one or more resources and transmitting the second SL message on the second one or more resources.

[0201] Example 12 includes a method as described in Example 11 and / or some other example herein, wherein the second SL message is to be transmitted on a physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH).

[0202] Example 13 includes a method as in any of Examples 11-12 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first one or more resources or the second one or more resources are identified based on semi-static resource partitioning or dynamic resource partitioning.

[0203] Example 14 includes a method as described in any of Examples 11-13 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first one or more resources or the second one or more resources are identified based on NR+LTE sensing.

[0204] Example 15 includes a method as in any of Examples 11-14 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first one or more resources are orthogonal to the second one or more resources.

[0205] Example 16 includes a method to be performed by a user equipment (UE), one or more elements of the UE, and / or an electronic device that includes or implements one or more elements of the UE, wherein the method includes: identifying a first side link (SL) message related to a long term evolution (LTE) network to be transmitted on a carrier frequency; identifying a second SL message related to a new radio (NR) network to be transmitted on the carrier frequency; identifying first one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the first SL message and second one or more resources on the carrier frequency for the second SL message; and identifying the first SL message received on the first one or more resources and the second SL message received on the second one or more resources.

[0206] Example 17 includes a method as described in Example 16 and / or some other example herein, wherein the second SL message is to be transmitted on a physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH).

[0207] Example 18 includes a method as in any of Examples 16-17 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first one or more resources or the second one or more resources are identified based on semi-static resource partitioning or dynamic resource partitioning.

[0208] Example 19 includes a method as described in any of Examples 16-18 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first one or more resources or the second one or more resources are identified based on NR+LTE sensing.

[0209] Example 20 includes a method as in any of Examples 16-19 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first one or more resources are orthogonal to the second one or more resources.

[0210] Example 21 includes a method as described in any of Examples 11-20, wherein the first SL message and the second SL transmission are related to one or more of: a shared time / frequency location reserved for LTE transmission; a shared resource reservation period; SL RSRP and / or SL RSSI measurement reports; and a half-duplex subframe.

[0211] Example 22 includes a method to be performed by a user equipment (UE), wherein the method includes: identifying, by a long term evolution (LTE) SL module that is to facilitate communication via a first side link (SL) channel of a first cellular network, resources to be used by another UE for communication in the first SL channel; providing, by the LTE SL module, information related to use of the resources to a new radio (NR) SL module that is to facilitate communication via a second SL channel of a second cellular network; and excluding, by the NR SL module, the resources for communication via the second SL channel based on the information related to use of the resources.

[0212] Example 23 includes a method as described in Example 22 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first cellular network is an LTE network and the second cellular network is a NR network.

[0213] Example 24 includes a method as described in any of Examples 22-23 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resource includes information related to the time or frequency location of the resource.

[0214] Example 25 includes a method as described in any of Examples 22-24 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period for the resource.

[0215] Example 26 includes a method as described in any of Examples 22-25 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resources includes information related to a quality measurement of the first SL channel.

[0216] Example 27 includes a method as described in Example 26 and / or some other example herein, wherein the quality measurement is a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement or a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement.

[0217] Example 28 includes a method as described in Example 26 and / or some other example herein, wherein the method further includes excluding the resource by the NR module when the value related to the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value related to the quality measurement.

[0218] Example 29 includes a method as described in any of Examples 22-28 and / or some other example herein, further comprising identifying, by the LTE SL module, the resource based on SL control information (SCI) received from the other UE.

[0219] Example 30 includes a method as described in any of Examples 22-29 and / or some other example herein, wherein the communication via the second SL channel is a received physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH) transmission, and wherein the method further includes excluding the resources by the NR module by not transmitting a physical SL shared channel (PSSCH) transmission that would result in a PSFCH transmission using the resources.

[0220] Example 31 may include a user equipment (UE) comprising: a long term evolution (LTE) sidelink (SL) module to facilitate communication via a first SL channel of a first cellular network; and a new radio (NR) SL module to facilitate communication via a second SL channel of a second cellular network; wherein the LTE SL module is configured to: identify resources to be used by another UE for communication in the first SL channel; and provide information regarding use of the resources to the NR module; wherein the NR module is configured to exclude the resources for communication via the second SL channel based on the information regarding use of the resources.

[0221] Example 32 may include a UE as described in Example 31 and / or some other example herein, wherein the first cellular network is an LTE network and the second cellular network is a NR network.

[0222] Example 33 may include a method as described in any of Examples 31-32 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resource includes information related to the time or frequency location of the resource.

[0223] Example 34 may include a method as described in any of Examples 31-33 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period for the resource.

[0224] Example 35 may include a UE as described in any of Examples 31-34 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resources includes information related to a quality measurement of the first SL channel.

[0225] Example 36 may include a UE as described in Example 35 and / or some other example herein, wherein the quality measurement is a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement or a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement.

[0226] Example 37 may include a UE as described in Example 35 and / or some other example herein, wherein the NR module excludes the resource if the value related to the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value related to the quality measurement.

[0227] Example 38 may include a method as described in any of Examples 31-37 and / or some other example herein, wherein the LTE SL module is configured to identify the resource based on SL control information (SCI) received from the other UE.

[0228] Example 39 may include a method as described in any of Examples 31-38 and / or some other example herein, wherein the communication via the second SL channel is a received physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH) transmission, and wherein the NR module excludes the resources by not transmitting a physical SL shared channel (PSSCH) transmission that would result in a PSFCH transmission using the resources.

[0229] Example 40 may include a long term evolution (LTE) sidelink (SL) module for use in a user equipment (UE), wherein the LTE SL module is configured to: identify resources to be used by another UE for communications in a first SL channel of an LTE network based on SL control information (SCI) received from the other UE; and provide information regarding use of the resources to a new radio (NR) module of the UE, wherein the NR module is configured to exclude the resources for communications via a second SL channel of the NR network based on the information regarding use of the resources.

[0230] Example 41 may include an LTE SL module as described in Example 40 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resources includes information related to the time or frequency location of the resources.

[0231] Example 42 may include an LTE SL module as described in any of Examples 40-41 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period of the resource.

[0232] Example 43 may include an LTE SL module as described in any of Examples 40-42 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resources includes information related to a quality measurement of the first SL channel.

[0233] Example 44 may include an LTE SL module as described in Example 43 and / or some other example herein, wherein the quality measurement is a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement or a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement.

[0234] Example 45 may include an LTE SL module as described in Example 43 and / or some other example herein, wherein the NR module excludes the resource if the value related to the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value related to the quality measurement.

[0235] Example 46 may include a new radio (NR) sidelink (SL) module for use in a user equipment (UE), wherein the NR SL module is configured to: identify resources to be used by the other UE for communication in a first SL channel of an LTE network based on SL control information (SCI) received from the other UE in accordance with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) SL module of the UE; and exclude the resources for communication via a second SL channel of the NR network based on information related to the use of the resources.

[0236] Example 47 may include an NR SL module as described in Example 46, wherein the information related to the use of the resources includes information related to the time or frequency location of the resources.

[0237] Example 48 may include an NR SL module as described in any of Examples 46-47 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period for the resource.

[0238] Example 49 may include an NR SL module as described in any of Examples 46-48 and / or some other example herein, wherein the information related to the use of the resources includes information related to a quality measurement of the first SL channel.

[0239] Example 50 may include an NR SL module as described in Example 49 and / or some other example herein, wherein the NR module excludes the resource if the value related to the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value related to the quality measurement.

[0240] Example Z01 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Examples 1-50, or any other method or process described herein.

[0241] Example Z02 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media including instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Examples 1-50 or any other method or process described herein.

[0242] Example Z03 may include an apparatus including logic, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Examples 1-50, or any other method or process described herein.

[0243] Example Z04 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of Examples 1-50, or portions thereof.

[0244] Example Z05 may include a device comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portions thereof, as described in or related to any of Examples 1-50.

[0245] Example Z06 may include signals as described in or associated with any of Examples 1-50, or portions thereof.

[0246] Example Z07 may include a datagram, packet, frame, fragment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message as described in or related to any of Examples 1-50, or some portion thereof, or a datagram, packet, frame, fragment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0247] Example Z08 may include a signal encoding data as described in or associated with any of Examples 1-50, or portions thereof, or data otherwise described in this disclosure.

[0248] Example Z09 may include a signal encoding a datagram, packet, frame, fragment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message as described in or related to any of Examples 1-50, or some portion thereof, or a datagram, packet, frame, fragment, protocol data unit (PDU) or message otherwise described in the present disclosure.

[0249] Example Z10 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portions thereof, as described in or related to any of Examples 1-50.

[0250] Example Z11 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 portions thereof, as described in or related to any of Examples 1-50.

[0251] Example Z12 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0252] Example Z13 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0253] Example Z14 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0254] Example Z15 may include an apparatus for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

[0255] Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any of the above examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples). The above description of one or more implementations provides illustrations and descriptions, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise forms disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be obtained by implementing the various embodiments.

[0256] abbreviation

[0257] Unless used differently herein, the terms, definitions and abbreviations may be consistent with those defined in 3GPP TR 21.905v16.0.0 (2019-06). For the purposes of this document, the following abbreviations may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

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[0276] the term

[0277] For purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

[0278] The term "application" may refer to a complete, deployable, packaged environment that implements a certain functionality in an operating environment. The term "AI / ML application" or similar terms may refer to an application that contains some AI / ML models and application-level descriptions.

[0279] The term "circuit" as used herein refers to a hardware component such as, a part of, or including an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or grouped) and / or a memory (shared, dedicated, or grouped), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), a digital signal processor (DSP), etc. In some embodiments, the circuit may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the functions described. The term "circuit" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or circuits used in electrical or electronic systems) and program code to perform the functions of the program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a specific type of circuit.

[0280] The term "processor circuit" used herein refers to a circuit that is part of or includes a circuit that can sequentially and automatically perform a sequence of operations or logical operations, or record, store and / or transmit digital data. The processing circuit may include one or more processing cores to execute instructions, and one or more memory structures to store program and data information. The term "processor circuit" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a single-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and / or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer executable instructions such as program code, software modules and / or functional processes. The processing circuit may include more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, and the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and / or deep learning (DL) accelerators. The terms "application circuit" and / or "baseband circuit" may be considered synonymous with "processor circuit" and may be referred to as "processor circuit".

[0281] As used herein, the term "interface circuit" refers to, is a part of, or includes a circuit that enables information exchange between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuit" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I / O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, and the like.

[0282] The term "user equipment" or "UE" as used herein refers to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communication network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous with and may be referred to as the following terms: client, mobile phone, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio device, reconfigurable radio device, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. In addition, the term "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless / wired device or any computing device that includes a wireless communication interface.

[0283] The term "network element" as used herein refers to a physical or virtualized device and / or infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered synonymous with and / or referred to as the following terms: networked computer, networking hardware, network device, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN equipment, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, etc.

[0284] As used herein, the term "computer system" refers to any type of interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" may refer to components of a computer that are communicatively coupled to one another. Additionally, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" may refer to multiple computer devices and / or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled to one another and configured to share computing and / or networking resources.

[0285] As used herein, the terms "appliance", "computer appliance" and the like refer to a computer device or computer system having program code (e.g., software or firmware) specifically designed to provide specific computing resources. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or is otherwise dedicated to providing specific computing resources.

[0286] The term "resource" as used herein refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and / or a physical or virtual component within a specific device, such as a computer device, a mechanical device, a memory space, a processor / CPU time, a processor / CPU usage, a processor and accelerator load, a hardware time or usage, a power supply, an input / output operation, a port or a network socket, a channel / link allocation, a throughput, a memory usage, a storage device, a network, a database and an application, a workload unit, and the like. "Hardware resources" may refer to computing, storage and / or network resources provided by (one or more) physical hardware elements. "Virtualized resources" may refer to computing, storage and / or network resources provided by a virtualized infrastructure to applications, devices, systems, and the like. The term "network resources" or "communication resources" may refer to resources accessible by a computer device / system via a communication network. The term "system resources" may refer to any kind of shared entity that provides a service, and may include computing and / or network resources. System resources may be considered as a collection of coherent functions, network data objects, or services accessible through a server, wherein such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

[0287] The term "channel" as used herein refers to any transmission medium, whether tangible or intangible, for communicating data or data streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous and / or equivalent to "communication channel", "data communication channel", "transmission channel", "data transmission channel", "access channel", "data access channel", "link", "data link", "carrier", "radio frequency carrier" and / or any other similar terms representing a passage or medium through which data is communicated. In addition, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection that occurs between two devices over a RAT in order to send and receive information.

[0288] As used herein, the term "instantiation" or the like refers to the creation of an instance. "Instance" also refers to the concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during the execution of program code.

[0289] The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," and their derivatives are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, may mean that two or more elements are in indirect contact with each other, but still cooperate or interact with each other, and / or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements allegedly coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in contact with each other by means of communication, including by wires or other interconnections, by wireless communication channels or links, and the like.

[0290] The term "information element" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to the individual content of an information element, or a data element that contains content.

[0291] The term "SMTC" refers to the SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

[0292] The term "SSB" refers to a SS / PBCH block.

[0293] The term "primary cell" refers to an MCG cell operating on a primary frequency, in which the UE either performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

[0294] The term "primary SCG cell" refers to an SCG cell in which a UE performs random access when performing a reconfiguration procedure with synchronization for DC operation.

[0295] The term "secondary cell" refers to a cell that provides additional radio resources for UEs configured with CA over a special cell.

[0296] The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells including a PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UE configured with DC.

[0297] The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell for a UE in RRC_CONNECTED that is not configured with CA / DC, and there is only one serving cell consisting of the primary cell.

[0298] The term "serving cell" refers to a set of cells including special cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE configured with CA / in RRC_CONNECTED.

[0299] The term "special cell" refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell of the SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term "special cell" refers to the Pcell.

[0300] The term "machine learning" or "ML" refers to the use of a computer system that implements an algorithm and / or statistical model to perform (one or more) specific tasks without the use of explicit instructions, but instead relying on patterns and reasoning. ML algorithms build or estimate (one or more) mathematical models (referred to as "ML models" and the like) based on sample data (referred to as "training data", "model training information", and the like) in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform such tasks. In general, an ML algorithm is a computer program that learns from experience and some performance metric about a certain task, and an ML model can be an object or data structure created after training an ML algorithm with one or more training data sets. After training, the ML model can be used to make predictions on new data sets. Although the term "ML algorithm" refers to a different concept than the term "ML model", these terms as described herein can be used interchangeably for the purposes of the present disclosure.

[0301] The terms "machine learning model", "ML model" or similar terms may also refer to the ML methods and concepts used by ML-assisted solutions. "ML-assisted solutions" are solutions that use ML algorithms to solve specific use cases during operation. ML models include supervised learning (e.g., linear regression, k-nearest neighbor (KNN), decision tree algorithm, support machine vector, Bayesian algorithm, lumping algorithm, etc.), unsupervised learning (e.g., K-means clustering, principal component analysis (PCA), etc.), reinforcement learning (e.g., Q-learning, multi-armed bandit learning, deep RL, etc.), neural networks, etc. Depending on the implementation, a specific ML model may have many sub-models as components, and the ML model may train all sub-models together. During inference, separately trained ML models may also be chained together in an ML pipeline. "ML pipeline" is a set of functions, functions, or functional entities that depend on an ML-assisted solution; an ML pipeline may include one or several data sources in a data pipeline, a model training pipeline, a model evaluation pipeline, and actors. An "actor" is an entity that uses the output of ML model inference to host an ML-assisted solution. The term "ML training host" refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts the training of a model. The term "ML inference host" refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts a model during inference mode (this includes both model execution and any online learning, if applicable). The ML host informs the actor of the output of the ML algorithm, and the actor makes decisions for actions (an "action" is performed by the actor as a result of the output of the ML-assisted solution). The term "model inference information" refers to information used as input to an ML model in order to determine (one or more) inferences; the data used to train an ML model and the data used to determine inferences may overlap, however, "training data" and "inference data" refer to different concepts.

Claims

1. A user equipment (UE), comprising: a long term evolution (LTE) sidelink (SL) module for facilitating communication via a first SL channel of a first cellular network; as well as a new radio (NR) SL module to facilitate communication via a second SL channel of a second cellular network; The LTE SL module is configured as follows: identifying resources to be used by another UE for communication in the first SL channel; and providing information related to the use of the resource to the NR module; The NR module is configured to exclude the resources for communication via the second SL channel based on information related to the use of the resources.

2. The UE according to claim 1, wherein: The first cellular network is an LTE network, and the second cellular network is a NR network.

3. The UE according to claim 1, wherein: The information about the usage of the resource comprises information about the time or frequency location of the resource.

4. The UE according to claim 1, wherein: The information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period of the resource.

5. The UE according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein: The information about the usage of the resources includes information about quality measurement of the first SL channel.

6. The UE according to claim 5, wherein: The quality measurement is a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) measurement or a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurement.

7. The UE according to claim 5, wherein: The NR module is configured to exclude the resource if a value associated with the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value associated with the quality measurement.

8. The UE according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein: The LTE SL module is configured to identify the resource based on SL control information (SCI) received from the other UE.

9. The UE according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein: The communication via the second SL channel is a received physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH) transmission, and wherein the NR module is used to exclude the resources by not transmitting a physical SL shared channel (PSSCH) transmission that would result in a PSFCH transmission using the resources.

10. A long term evolution (LTE) side link (SL) module for use in a user equipment (UE), wherein the LTE SL module is configured to: identifying, based on SL control information (SCI) received from another UE, resources to be used by the other UE for communications in a first SL channel of the LTE network; and providing information related to the use of the resources to a new radio (NR) module of the UE, wherein: The NR module is configured to exclude the resources for communication via a second SL channel of the NR network based on information related to the use of the resources.

11. The LTE SL module of claim 10, wherein: The information about the usage of the resource comprises information about the time or frequency location of the resource.

12. The LTE SL module of claim 10, wherein: The information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period of the resource.

13. The LTE SL module according to any one of claims 10 to 12, wherein: The information about the usage of the resources includes information about quality measurement of the first SL channel.

14. The LTE SL module of claim 13, wherein: The quality measurement is a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) measurement or a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurement.

15. The LTE SL module of claim 13, wherein: The NR module is configured to exclude the resource if a value associated with the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value associated with the quality measurement.

16. A New Radio (NR) Side Link (SL) module for use in a User Equipment (UE), wherein the NR SL module is configured to: identifying, by a long term evolution (LTE) SL module of the UE, resources to be used by the other UE for communication in a first SL channel of an LTE network based on SL control information (SCI) received from the other UE; and Based on the information related to the use of the resources, the resources are excluded for communication via the second SL channel of the NR network.

17. The NR SL module of claim 16, wherein: The information about the usage of the resource comprises information about the time or frequency location of the resource.

18. The NR SL module of claim 16, wherein: The information related to the use of the resource includes information related to a resource reservation period of the resource.

19. The NR SL module according to any one of claims 16 to 18, wherein: The information about the usage of the resources includes information about quality measurement of the first SL channel.

20. The NR SL module of claim 19, wherein: The NR module is configured to exclude the resource if a value associated with the quality measurement is greater than a pre-identified value associated with the quality measurement.

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