Decomposing base station and method for operating in decomposing base station

Abstract

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to a method of operating at a distributed unit (DU) of a split base station, a method of operating at a central unit (CU) of a split base station, and a split base station. The method operating at a distributed unit (DU) of a decomposed base station includes receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request including a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; obtaining the at least one value at the DU according to the measurement configuration; and transmitting a measurement report comprising the at least one value and the radio measurement statistics from the DU to the CU according to the report configuration, wherein the measurement report comprises a random access channel (RACH) report.

Description

[0001] This patent application is a divisional application of the following invention patent applications:

[0002] Application number: 202180028942.9

[0003] Application date: April 22, 2021

[0004] Invention Title: Distributed Unit (DU) Measurement and Event Reporting in Disaggregated Base Stations

[0005] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0006] This patent application claims priority to and the benefit of pending non-provisional application No. 17 / 236,946 filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 21, 2021, and provisional patent application No. 63 / 013,987 filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 22, 2020, and these patent applications are assigned to the assignee of this application and are expressly incorporated herein by reference for all applicable purposes, as if fully set forth below. Technical Field

[0007] The techniques discussed below relate generally to a wireless communication network, and more particularly to techniques for measurement and event reporting within a disaggregated base station. Background Art

[0008] In a 5G New Radio wireless communication network, resources can be shared between the access network and the backhaul network. For example, the wireless spectrum can be used for access links (e.g., links between base stations and user equipment (UE)) and backhaul links (e.g., links between base stations and core networks). In such integrated access backhaul (IAB) networks, base station functions can be logically separated into a central unit (CU) and one or more distributed units (DUs). The CU hosts the radio resource control (RRC), service data adaptation protocol (SDAP), and packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layers that control the operation of one or more DUs. The DU hosts the radio link control (RLC), media access control (MAC), and physical (PHY) layers. In an exemplary IAB network architecture, the CU can be implemented at an edge IAB node, and multiple DUs can be distributed throughout the IAB network.

[0009] A CU combined with one or more DUs located in the same location and / or in a distributed arrangement may be referred to as a disaggregated base station. A disaggregated base station may be implemented within an IAB network or other network configurations. The CU and DU are connected via an F1 interface, which utilizes the F1 Application Protocol (F1-AP) to transfer information between the CU and DU. Enhancements to the F1-AP continue to be developed to support the functionality and features of a disaggregated base station. Summary of the invention

[0010] One or more aspects of the present disclosure are briefly summarized below to provide a basic understanding of these aspects. The present invention summary is not a broad overview of all contemplated aspects of the present disclosure, and is neither intended to identify important or key elements of all aspects of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to describe the scope of any or all aspects of the present disclosure. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects of the present disclosure in a specific form as a prelude to a more detailed description presented later.

[0011] In one example, a method operating at a distributed unit (DU) of a decomposed base station is disclosed. The method includes receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The method further includes obtaining at least one value according to the measurement configuration at the DU, and sending a measurement report associated with the at least one value from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration.

[0012] Another example provides a decomposed base station within a wireless communication network. The decomposed base station includes a transceiver, a memory, and a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver and the memory. The processor and the memory may be configured to receive a measurement request at a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The processor and the memory may be further configured to obtain at least one value according to the measurement configuration at the DU, and send a measurement report associated with the at least one value from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration.

[0013] Another example provides a decomposed base station within a wireless communication network. The decomposed base station includes a receiving device for receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station at a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value that the DU is required to obtain and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The decomposed base station further includes: an obtaining device for obtaining at least one value according to the measurement configuration at the DU; and a sending device for sending a measurement report associated with the at least one value from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration.

[0014] Another example provides a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that can be executed by one or more processors of a decomposed base station to receive a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station at a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value that the DU is required to obtain and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The method non-transitory computer-readable medium further includes instructions that can be executed by one or more processors of the decomposed base station to obtain at least one value according to the measurement configuration at the DU, and send a measurement report associated with the at least one value from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration.

[0015] In another example, a method operating at a central unit (CU) of a decomposed base station is disclosed. The method includes sending a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The method further includes receiving a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration, and receiving a measurement report associated with at least one value from the DU according to the reporting configuration.

[0016] Another example provides a decomposed base station within a wireless communication network. The decomposed base station includes a transceiver, a memory, and a processor communicatively coupled to the transceiver and the memory. The processor and the memory may be configured to send a measurement request at a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The processor and the memory may be further configured to receive a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration, and to receive a measurement report associated with at least one value from the DU according to the reporting configuration.

[0017] Another example provides a central unit (CU) of a decomposed base station within a wireless communication network. The CU of the decomposed base station includes a sending device for sending a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The CU of the decomposed base station further includes: a receiving device for receiving a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration, and receiving a measurement report associated with at least one value from the DU according to the reporting configuration.

[0018] Another example provides a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored therein, the instructions being executable by one or more processors of a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station to send a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request includes a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU. The non-transitory computer-readable medium further includes instructions, the instructions being executable by one or more processors of the CU of the decomposed base station to receive a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration, and to receive a measurement report associated with at least one value from the DU according to the reporting configuration.

[0019] Another example provides a method operating at a distributed unit (DU) of a decomposed base station, the method comprising: receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises a radio measurement statistic associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; obtaining the at least one value according to the measurement configuration at the DU; and sending a measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration, wherein the measurement report comprises a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value comprises at least one of the following: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, wherein each measurement report including the RACH report is sent upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE).

[0020] Another example provides a decomposed base station within a wireless communication network, the decomposed base station comprising: a memory; and a processor, the processor being coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to: receive a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; obtain the at least one value at the DU according to the measurement configuration; and generate a measurement request according to the reporting configuration; The method further comprises configuring the DU to send a measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic from the DU to the CU, wherein the measurement report includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value includes at least one of the following items: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, wherein each measurement report including the RACH report is sent upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE).

[0021] Another example provides a method operating at a central unit (CU) of a decomposed base station, the method comprising: sending a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; receiving a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration; and receiving a measurement response from the DU comprising the at least one value to be reported according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration. The CU receives, from the DU, at least one of a plurality of measurement reports including at least one value and the radio measurement statistic, wherein the measurement report comprises a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value comprises at least one of the following: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, and wherein upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE), the CU receives each measurement report including the RACH report from the DU.

[0022] Another example provides a decomposed base station within a wireless communication network, the decomposed base station comprising: a memory; and a processor, the processor being coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to: at a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station: send a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; receive a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration; and The measurement configuration and the reporting configuration receive, from the DU, a measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic, wherein the measurement report includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value includes at least one of the following: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, and wherein upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE), the CU receives each measurement report including the RACH report from the DU.

[0023] After reading the detailed description below, these and other aspects of the present invention can be more fully understood. After reading the following description of specific exemplary embodiments of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, other aspects, features and embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. Although the features of the present invention can be discussed with respect to certain embodiments and drawings below, all embodiments of the present invention may include one or more advantageous features discussed herein. In other words, although one or more embodiments may be discussed as having certain advantageous features, one or more of these features may also be used according to the various embodiments of the present disclosure discussed herein. In a similar manner, although exemplary embodiments may be discussed below as device, system or method embodiments, it should be understood that such exemplary embodiments may be implemented in various devices, systems and methods. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0024] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system according to some aspects.

[0025] Figure 2 is a conceptual illustration of an example of a radio access network in accordance with some aspects.

[0026] Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating the organization of wireless resources in an air interface utilizing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) according to some aspects.

[0027] Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating a wireless communication system supporting beamforming and / or multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications in accordance with some aspects.

[0028] Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a contention-based random access procedure utilizing a random access channel (RACH) in accordance with some aspects.

[0029] Figure 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a non-contention based random access procedure utilizing RACH in accordance with some aspects.

[0030] Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an example two-step RACH procedure in accordance with some aspects.

[0031] Figure 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a radio protocol architecture for user and control planes in accordance with some aspects.

[0032] Fig. 9 A high-level diagram provides an example of a network configuration including an integrated access backhaul (IAB) network according to some aspects.

[0033] Fig.10 is a diagram illustrating an example of IAB node functionality within an IAB network according to some aspects.

[0034] Fig.11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a decomposed base station in accordance with some aspects.

[0035] Fig.12 is a diagram illustrating example signaling between a CU and a DU of a decomposed base station to initiate DU measurement configuration and reporting according to some aspects.

[0036] Fig.13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a measurement request for configuring measurement and event reporting by a DU in accordance with some aspects.

[0037] Fig.14 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation for an IAB node forming at least a portion of a disaggregated base station employing a processing system according to some aspects.

[0038] Fig.15 is a flow chart illustrating an example process for a CU to configure DU measurement and event reporting according to some aspects.

[0039] Fig.16 is a flow chart illustrating an example process for DU measurement and event reporting according to CU configuration in accordance with some aspects. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0040] The detailed description set forth below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings is intended as a description of various configurations and is not intended to represent the only configuration in which the concepts described herein may be practiced. The detailed description includes specific details for the purpose of providing a thorough understanding of the various concepts. However, it is apparent to one skilled in the art that these concepts may be practiced without these specific details. In some cases, well-known structures and components are presented in block diagram form to avoid obfuscation of these concepts.

[0041] The electromagnetic spectrum is often subdivided into various categories, bands, channels, etc. based on frequency / wavelength. In 5G NR, the two initial operating frequency bands have been identified as the frequency ranges FR1 (410 MHz - 7.125 GHz) and FR2 (24.25 GHz–52.6GHz). It should be understood that FR1 is often (interchangeably) referred to as the “sub-6 GHz” band in various documents and articles, even though a portion of FR1 is greater than 6 GHz. FR2 sometimes presents a similar naming issue, being often (interchangeably) referred to as the “millimeter wave” band in various documents and articles, even though it is different from the extremely high frequency (EHF) band (30 GHz–300 GHz) which is identified as the “millimeter wave” band by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

[0042] Frequencies between FR1 and FR2 are often referred to as mid-band frequencies. Recent 5G NR research has identified operating bands for these mid-band frequencies as the frequency range designation FR3 (7.125 GHz - 24.25 GHz). Frequency bands that fall within FR3 may inherit FR1 characteristics and / or FR2 characteristics, and thus may effectively extend the characteristics of FR1 and / or FR2 to mid-band frequencies. In addition, higher frequency bands are currently being explored to extend the operation of 5G NR above 52.6 GHz. For example, three higher operating frequency bands have been identified as the frequency range designations FR4-a or FR4-1 (52.6 GHz–71 GHz), FR4 (52.6 GHz–114.25GHz), and FR5 (114.25 GHz–300 GHz). Each of these higher frequency bands falls within the EHF band.

[0043] In view of the above, unless otherwise explicitly stated, it should be understood that the term "sub-6 GHz" or the like used herein can be broadly used to mean that it may be less than 6 GHz, may be within FR1, or may include mid-band. In addition, unless otherwise specifically stated, it should be understood that the term "millimeter wave" or the like used herein can be broadly used to mean that it may include mid-band frequencies, may be within FR2, FR4, FR4-a or FR4-1 and / or FR5, or may be within the EHF band.

[0044] Although various aspects and embodiments are described in this application by way of illustration of some examples, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that additional implementations and use cases may occur in many different arrangements and scenarios. The innovations described herein can be implemented across many different platform types, devices, systems, shapes, sizes, and packaging arrangements. For example, embodiments and / or use cases may be implemented through integrated chip embodiments and other devices based on non-module components (e.g., end-user devices, vehicles, communication devices, computing devices, industrial devices, retail / procurement devices, medical devices, artificial intelligence-enabled devices, etc.). Although some examples may or may not be specifically targeted at use cases or applications, various applicability of the described innovations may occur. Implementations may range from chip-level or modular components to non-modular, non-chip-level implementations to aggregated, distributed, or OEM devices or systems that incorporate one or more aspects of the described innovations. In some practical scenarios, devices that incorporate the described aspects and features may also have to include additional components and features for implementing and practicing the claimed and described embodiments. For example, the transmission and reception of wireless signals necessarily include multiple components for analog and digital purposes (e.g., hardware components, including antennas, RF chains, power amplifiers, modulators, buffers, processors, interleavers, adders, etc.). The innovations described herein are intended to be practiced in devices of various sizes, shapes, and configurations, chip-level components, systems, distributed arrangements, end-user devices, and the like.

[0045] Various aspects of the present disclosure relate to measurement and event reporting from a distributed unit (DU) of a decomposed base station to a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station. The CU may configure a measurement configuration associated with at least one value obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU for the DU. The measurement report may be sent periodically by the DU, or the measurement report may be triggered by an event based on the reporting configuration. In addition, the measurement report may be UE-specific or DU / cell-specific. For UE-specific measurement reports, a UE identifier (ID) may be included in the measurement configuration and the measurement report.

[0046] The measurement configuration may include one or more of the following: a parameter associated with at least one value, a measurement period for at least one value, or a filtering configuration for filtering at least one value. The report configuration may indicate a selected parameter associated with at least one value to be included in the measurement report. In addition, for event-based reporting, the report configuration may also include one or more thresholds associated with the event. The DU may use the threshold to determine when to send the measurement report.

[0047] The values ​​included in the measurement report may include random access channel (RACH) report values, uplink measurement values, radio link protocol (RLC) measurement values, medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement values, or other values ​​associated with other types of measurements or events. For RACH reports, the parameters may include at least one of the following: RACH indication, timing advance, detected power, detected signal quality, RACH trigger, beam identifier, synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, uplink frequency band, physical RACH (PRACH) resource, RACH type, or random access response (RAR) window size. In addition, for uplink measurements, the parameters may include at least one of the following: sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, arrival angle measurement, thermal interference (IoT), hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, maximum number of HARQ retransmissions reached indicator, or beam measurement report. In addition, for RLC measurements, the parameters may include at least one of the following: downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions has been detected. For MAC protocol measurements, the parameters may include at least beam failure recovery statistics. Other types of values ​​may include, for example, DU load, an indicator that a remote interference measurement has been detected, or an indicator that a strong uplink interference measurement has been detected.

[0048] The various concepts presented throughout this disclosure may be implemented across a variety of telecommunication systems, network architectures and communication standards. Figure 1 , various aspects of the present disclosure are described with reference to a wireless communication system 100 as a non-limiting illustrative example. The wireless communication system 100 includes three interacting domains: a core network 102, a radio access network (RAN) 104, and a user equipment (UE) 106. By virtue of the wireless communication system 100, the UE 106 may be enabled to perform data communications with an external data network 110 such as (but not limited to) the Internet.

[0049] The RAN 104 may implement any suitable wireless communication technology or technologies to provide radio access to the UE 106. As an example, the RAN 104 may operate in accordance with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) New Radio (NR) specifications, commonly referred to as 5G. As another example, the RAN 104 may operate under a mix of 5G NR and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (eUTRAN) standards, commonly referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE). 3GPP refers to such a hybrid RAN as the Next Generation RAN, or NG-RAN. Of course, many other examples may be used within the scope of the present disclosure.

[0050] As shown, RAN 104 includes multiple base stations 108. Broadly speaking, a base station is a network element in a radio access network that is responsible for radio transmission and reception to or from a UE in one or more cells. In different technologies, standards, or contexts, a base station may be referred to as a transceiver base station (BTS), a radio base station, a radio transceiver, a transceiver function, a basic service set (BSS), an extended service set (ESS), an access point (AP), a node B (NB), an eNode B (eNB), a gNode B (gNB), a transmission and reception point (RTP), or some other appropriate terminology by a technician in the field. In some examples, a base station may include two or more TRPs that may be collocated or non-collocated. Each TRP may communicate on the same or different carrier frequencies in the same or different frequency bands. In an example where RAN 104 operates according to both LTE and 5G NR standards, one of the base stations may be an LTE base station, and the other may be a 5G NR base station.

[0051] RAN 104 is further illustrated as supporting wireless communications for multiple mobile devices. A mobile device may be referred to as a user equipment (UE) in the 3GPP standard, but may also be referred to as a mobile station (MS), a subscriber station, a mobile unit, a subscriber unit, a wireless unit, a remote unit, a mobile device, a wireless device, a wireless communication device, a remote device, a mobile subscriber station, an access terminal (AT), a mobile terminal, a wireless terminal, a remote terminal, a handset, a terminal, a user agent, a mobile client, a client, or some other appropriate terminology by those skilled in the art. A UE may be a device (e.g., a mobile device) that provides a user with access to network services.

[0052] In the present disclosure, a "mobile" device does not necessarily have mobile capabilities and can be stationary. The term mobile device or mobile device refers broadly to a variety of devices and technologies. A UE may include many hardware structural components whose size, shape, and arrangement facilitate communication; such components may include antennas, antenna arrays, RF chains, amplifiers, one or more processors, etc. that are electrically coupled to each other. For example, some non-limiting examples of mobile devices include mobile phones, cellular phones (cell phones), smart phones, session initiation protocol (SIP) phones, laptops, personal computers (PCs), notebook computers, netbooks, smart books, tablet devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and a wide array of embedded systems, for example, corresponding to the "Internet of Things" (IoT).

[0053] The mobile device may also be a car or other vehicle, a remote sensor or actuator, a robot or robotic device, a satellite radio, a global positioning system (GPS) device, an object tracking device, a drone, a multirotor, a quadcopter, a remote control device, a consumer and / or wearable device, such as glasses, a wearable camera, a virtual reality device, a smart watch, a health or fitness tracker, a digital audio player (e.g., an MP3 player), a camera, a game console, etc. The mobile device may also be a digital home or smart home device, such as home audio, video, and / or multimedia devices, appliances, vending machines, smart lighting, home security systems, smart meters, etc. The mobile device may also be a smart energy device, a security device, a solar panel or solar array, a municipal infrastructure device that controls power (e.g., a smart grid), lighting, water, etc., an industrial automation and enterprise device, a logistics controller, and / or agricultural equipment, etc. In addition, the mobile device may provide connected health or telemedicine support, such as telehealth care. Telemedicine devices may include telemedicine monitoring devices and telemedicine management devices, and communications thereon may be given priority treatment or priority access over other types of information, for example, in terms of priority access for transmission of critical service data and / or associated QoS for transmission of critical service data.

[0054] Wireless communication between RAN 104 and UE 106 can be described as utilizing an air interface. Transmissions over the air interface from a base station (e.g., base station 108) to one or more UEs (e.g., similar to UE 106) can be referred to as downlink (DL) transmissions. According to certain aspects of the present disclosure, the term downlink can refer to point-to-multipoint transmissions originating from a base station (e.g., base station 108). Another way to describe this scheme might be to use the term broadcast channel multiplexing. Transmissions from a UE (e.g., UE 106) to a base station (e.g., base station 108) can be referred to as uplink (UL) transmissions. According to further aspects of the present disclosure, the term uplink can refer to point-to-point transmissions originating from a UE (e.g., UE 106).

[0055] In some instances, access to the air interface may be scheduled, wherein a scheduling entity (e.g., a base station 108) allocates resources for communications between some or all devices and equipment within its service area or cell. In the present disclosure, as discussed further below, a scheduling entity may be responsible for scheduling, allocating, reconfiguring, and releasing resources for one or more scheduled entities (e.g., UEs 106). That is, for scheduled communications, multiple UEs 106 (which may be scheduled entities) may utilize resources allocated by the scheduling entity 108.

[0056] Base station 108 is not the only entity that can act as a scheduling entity. That is, in some instances, a UE can act as a scheduling entity to schedule resources for one or more scheduled entities (e.g., one or more other UEs). For example, a UE can communicate directly with other UEs in a peer-to-peer or device-to-device manner and / or in a relay configuration.

[0057] like Figure 1 As shown, the scheduling entity 108 may broadcast downlink traffic 112 to one or more scheduled entities (e.g., one or more UEs 106). Broadly speaking, the scheduling entity 108 is a node or device responsible for scheduling traffic in the wireless communication network, including downlink traffic 112 and, in some instances, uplink traffic 116 from one or more scheduled entities 106 (one or more UEs 106) to the scheduling entity 108. On the other hand, the scheduled entity (e.g., UE 106) is a node or device that receives downlink control information 114, including but not limited to scheduling information (e.g., grants), synchronization or timing information, or other control information from another entity in the wireless communication network, such as the scheduling entity 108.

[0058] In addition, uplink and / or downlink control information and / or traffic information may be sent on a waveform that may be time-divided into frames, subframes, time slots, and / or symbols. As used herein, a symbol may refer to a time unit in which each subcarrier carries one resource element (RE) in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform. A time slot may carry 7 or 14 OFDM symbols. A subframe may refer to a duration of 1 ms. Multiple subframes or time slots may be combined together to form a single frame or radio frame. In the present disclosure, a frame may refer to a predetermined duration (e.g., 10 ms) for wireless transmission, each frame consisting of, for example, 10 subframes, each subframe being 1 ms. Of course, these definitions are not required, and any appropriate scheme for organizing waveforms may be used, and the various time divisions of waveforms may have any appropriate duration.

[0059] Typically, the base stations 108 may include a backhaul interface for communicating with a backhaul portion 120 of the wireless communication system 100. The backhaul portion 120 may provide a link between the base stations 108 and the core network 102. Additionally, in some instances, a backhaul network may provide interconnections between the respective base stations 108. Various types of backhaul interfaces may be employed, such as a direct physical connection using any suitable transport network, a virtual network, etc.

[0060] The core network 102 may be part of the wireless communication system 100 and may be independent of the radio access technology used in the RAN 104. In some instances, the core network 102 may be configured according to 5G standards (e.g., 5GC). In other instances, the core network 102 may be configured according to 4G Evolved Packet Core (EPC) or any other appropriate standard or configuration.

[0061] Now refer to Figure 2 , as a non-limiting illustrative example, a schematic diagram of a radio access network (RAN) 200 according to some aspects of the present disclosure is provided. In some instances, the RAN 200 may be similar to the one described above and in Figure 1 The RAN 104 is the same as shown in FIG.

[0062] The geographic area covered by the RAN 200 may be divided into cellular areas (cells) that may be uniquely identified by a user equipment (UE) based on an identity broadcast from an access point or base station in a certain geographic area. Figure 2 Cells 202, 204, 206, and 208 are shown, each of which may include one or more sectors (not shown). A sector is a sub-area of ​​a cell. All sectors within a cell are served by the same base station. A radio link within a sector may be identified by a single logical identifier belonging to the sector. In a cell divided into sectors, multiple sectors within a cell may be formed by multiple groups of antennas, each antenna being responsible for communicating with a UE in a portion of the cell.

[0063] Various base station arrangements can be used. Figure 2, two base stations, base station 210 and base station 212, are shown in cells 202 and 204. A third base station, base station 214, is illustrated as controlling a remote radio head (RRH) 216 in cell 206. That is, the base station may have an integrated antenna or may be connected to an antenna or RRH 216 via a feeder cable. In the illustrated example, cells 202, 204, and 206 may be referred to as macro cells because base stations 210, 212, and 214 support cells of large size. In addition, base station 218 is illustrated as being within cell 208, which may overlap with one or more macro cells. In this example, cell 208 may be referred to as a small cell (e.g., micro cell, pico cell, femto cell, home base station, home node B, home eNode B, etc.) because base station 218 supports cells of relatively small size. The cell size may be determined based on system design and component constraints.

[0064] It should be understood that the RAN 200 may include any number of wireless base stations and cells. In addition, relay nodes may be deployed to extend the size or coverage area of ​​a given cell. Base stations 210, 212, 214, 218 provide wireless access points to the core network for any number of mobile devices. In some examples, base stations 210, 212, 214, and / or 218 may be similar to those described above and in Figure 1 The scheduling entity 108 shown in FIG. 1 is the same as or similar to that shown in FIG.

[0065] Figure 2 Also included is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) 220, which may be a drone or a quadcopter. UAV 220 may be configured to function as a base station, or more specifically, as a mobile base station. That is, in some instances, a cell may not necessarily be fixed, and the geographic area of ​​a cell may move depending on the location of a mobile base station such as UAV 220.

[0066] Within the RAN 200, cells may include UEs that may communicate with one or more sectors of each cell. In addition, each base station 210, 212, 214, 218, and 220 may be configured to provide access to the core network 102 (see FIG. 1 ) for all UEs in the corresponding cell. Figure 1 ) access point. For example, UEs 222 and 224 may communicate with base station 210; UEs 226 and 228 may communicate with base station 212; UEs 230 and 232 may communicate with base station 214 via RRH 216; UE 234 may communicate with base station 218; and UE 236 may communicate with mobile base station 220. In some instances, UEs 222, 224, 226, 228, 230, 232, 234, 236, 238, 240, and / or 242 may communicate with the above-described and Figure 1202. The UE / scheduled entity 106 shown in FIG. 202 is the same or similar to the UE / scheduled entity 106 shown in FIG. 202. In some examples, the UAV 220 (eg, a quadcopter) may be a mobile network node and may be configured to function as a UE. For example, the UAV 220 may operate within the cell 202 by communicating with the base station 210.

[0067] In another aspect of the RAN 200, sidelink signals may be used between UEs without relying on scheduling or control information from a base station. For example, sidelink communications may be used in a device-to-device (D2D) network, a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) network, a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) network, and / or other appropriate sidelink networks. For example, two or more UEs (e.g., UEs 238, 240, and 242) may communicate with each other using sidelink signals 237 without relaying the communication through a base station. In some instances, UEs 238, 240, and 242 may each serve as a scheduling entity or a transmitting sidelink device and / or a scheduled entity or a receiving sidelink device to schedule resources and transmit sidelink signals 237 therebetween without relying on scheduling or control information from a base station. In other examples, two or more UEs (e.g., UEs 226 and 228) within the coverage area of ​​a base station (e.g., base station 212) may also transmit sidelink signals 227 via a direct link (sidelink) without transmitting the communication through base station 212. In this example, base station 212 may allocate resources to UEs 226 and 228 for sidelink communication.

[0068] In order to achieve a low block error rate (BLER) while still achieving very high data rates for transmission over the air interface, channel coding can be used. That is, wireless communications can often utilize suitable error-correcting block codes. In a typical block code, an information message or sequence is divided into code blocks (CBs), and then an encoder (e.g., CODEC) at the transmitting device mathematically adds redundancy to the information message. Exploiting this redundancy in the encoded information message can improve the reliability of the message, thereby being able to correct any bit errors that may occur due to noise.

[0069] Data encoding can be implemented in a variety of ways. In early 5G NR specifications, user data was encoded using quasi-cyclic low-density parity check (LDPC) with two different basemaps: one basemap for large code blocks and / or high code rates, and another basemap for use in other ways. Control information and the physical broadcast channel (PBCH) are encoded using polarization (Polar) coding based on nested sequences. For these channels, puncturing, shortening, and repetition are used for rate matching.

[0070] Aspects of the present disclosure may be implemented using any suitable channel code. Various implementations of base stations and UEs may include appropriate hardware and capabilities (eg, encoders, decoders, and / or CODECs) to use one or more of these channel codes for wireless communications.

[0071] In the RAN 200, the ability of a UE to communicate independently of its location while moving is called mobility. Various physical channels between the UE and the RAN 200 are usually established, maintained, and released under the control of an access and mobility management function (AMF). In some scenarios, the AMF may include a security context management function (SCMF) and a security anchor function (SEAF) that performs authentication. The SCMF may manage the security context of the control plane and user plane functions in whole or in part.

[0072] In various aspects of the present disclosure, the RAN 200 may utilize DL-based mobility or UL-based mobility to implement mobility and handover (i.e., transferring a UE's connection from one radio channel to another). In a network configured for DL-based mobility, during a call with a scheduling entity, or at any other time, a UE may monitor various parameters of a signal from its serving cell and various parameters of neighboring cells. Depending on the quality of these parameters, the UE may maintain communication with one or more neighboring cells. During this time, if the UE moves from one cell to another, or if the signal quality from a neighboring cell exceeds the signal quality from the serving cell for a given time, the UE may perform a handover or handover from the serving cell to a neighboring (target) cell. For example, a UE 224 may move from a geographic area corresponding to its serving cell 202 to a geographic area corresponding to a neighboring cell 206. When the signal strength or quality from a neighboring cell 206 exceeds the signal strength or quality of its serving cell 202 for a given amount of time, the UE 224 may send a report message to its serving base station 210 to indicate the situation. In response, UE 224 may receive a handover command, and the UE may undergo a handover to cell 206 .

[0073] In a network configured for UL-based mobility, the UL reference signal from each UE can be used by the network to select a serving cell for each UE. In some instances, base stations 210, 212, and 214 / 216 can broadcast a unified synchronization signal (e.g., a unified primary synchronization signal (PSS), a unified secondary synchronization signal (SSS), and a unified physical broadcast channel (PBCH)). UEs 222, 224, 226, 228, 230, and 232 can receive the unified synchronization signal, derive carrier frequency and slot timing from the synchronization signal, and send an uplink pilot or reference signal in response to the derived timing. The uplink pilot signal sent by the UE (e.g., UE 224) can be received simultaneously by two or more cells (e.g., base stations 210 and 214 / 216) within the RAN 200. Each cell can measure the strength of the pilot signal, and the radio access network (e.g., one or more of the base stations 210 and 214 / 216 and / or a central node within the core network) can determine the serving cell of UE 224. As the UE 224 moves through the RAN 200, the RAN 200 may continue to monitor the uplink pilot signals sent by the UE 224. When the signal strength or quality of the pilot signals measured by the neighboring cell exceeds the signal strength or quality measured by the serving cell, the RAN 200 may handover the UE 224 from the serving cell to the neighboring cell, with or without notifying the UE 224.

[0074] Although the synchronization signals transmitted by base stations 210, 212, and 214 / 216 may be uniform, the synchronization signals may not identify a specific cell, but may identify a region of multiple cells operating on the same frequency and / or with the same timing. The use of regions in 5G networks or other next generation communication networks supports an uplink-based mobility framework and improves the efficiency of both the UE and the network because the number of mobility messages that need to be exchanged between the UE and the network may be reduced.

[0075] In various embodiments, the air interface in the radio access network 200 may use licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, or shared spectrum. Licensed spectrum typically provides exclusive use of a portion of the spectrum by a mobile network operator purchasing a license from a government regulator. Unlicensed spectrum provides shared use of a portion of the spectrum without the need for a government-granted license. Although some technical rules generally still need to be followed to access the unlicensed spectrum, generally, any operator or device can obtain access. Shared spectrum may be between licensed and unlicensed spectrum, where technical rules or restrictions may be required to access the spectrum, but the spectrum may still be shared by multiple operators and / or multiple RATs. For example, a licensee of a portion of the licensed spectrum may provide licensed shared access (LSA) to share the spectrum with other parties, for example, with conditions for obtaining access determined by the appropriate licensee.

[0076] Device communications in the radio access network 200 may utilize one or more multiplexing techniques and multiple access algorithms to enable simultaneous communication of multiple devices. For example, the 5G NR specification provides multiple access for UL transmissions from UEs 222 and 224 to the base station 210, and multiplexes DL transmissions from the base station 210 to one or more UEs 222 and 224 using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with a cyclic prefix (CP). In addition, for UL transmissions, the 5G NR specification provides support for discrete Fourier transform spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) with CP (also known as single carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA)). However, within the scope of the present disclosure, multiplexing and multiple access are not limited to the above schemes, and may be provided using time division multiple access (TDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), sparse code multiple access (SCMA), resource extension multiple access (RSMA), or other appropriate multiple access schemes. Furthermore, multiplexed DL transmissions from base station 210 to UEs 222 and 224 may be provided using time division multiplexing (TDM), code division multiplexing (CDM), frequency division multiplexing (FDM), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), sparse code multiplexing (SCM), or other suitable multiplexing schemes.

[0077] The equipment in the radio access network 200 may also utilize one or more duplex algorithms. Duplex refers to a point-to-point communication link in which two endpoints can communicate with each other in two directions. Full-duplex means that two endpoints can communicate with each other at the same time. Half-duplex means that only one endpoint can send information to the other endpoint at a time. Half-duplex simulation is often implemented for wireless links by utilizing time division duplex (TDD). In TDD, transmissions in different directions on a given channel are separated from each other using time division multiplexing. That is, in some scenarios, a channel is dedicated to transmissions in one direction, while a channel is dedicated to transmissions in another direction at other times, where the direction may change very quickly, for example, several times per time slot. In wireless links, full-duplex channels generally rely on physical isolation of transmitters and receivers and appropriate interference cancellation techniques. Full-duplex simulation is often implemented for wireless links by utilizing frequency division duplex (FDD) or space separation duplex (SDD). In FDD, transmissions in different directions operate on different carrier frequencies (e.g., within a paired spectrum). In SDD, transmissions in different directions on a given channel are separated from each other using space division multiplexing (SDM). In other instances, full-duplex communication can be implemented in an unpaired spectrum (e.g., in a single carrier bandwidth), where transmissions in different directions occur in different sub-bands of the carrier bandwidth. This type of full-duplex communication may be referred to herein as sub-band full-duplex (SBFD), also known as flexible duplex.

[0078] Will refer to Figure 3 Various aspects of the present disclosure are described using the OFDM waveform schematically shown in FIG. A person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that various aspects of the present disclosure can be applied to SC-FDMA waveforms in substantially the same manner as described below. That is, although some examples of the present disclosure may focus on OFDM links for clarity, it should be understood that the same principles can also be applied to SC-FDMA waveforms.

[0079] Now refer to Figure 3 , shows an expanded view of an exemplary subframe 302, thereby showing an OFDM resource grid. However, as will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art, the PHY transmission structure for any particular application may differ from the example described herein, depending on any number of factors. Here, time is in the horizontal direction, in units of OFDM symbols; frequency is in the vertical direction, in units of subcarriers of a carrier.

[0080] Resource grid 304 can be used to schematically represent the time-frequency resources of a given antenna port. That is, in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) implementation with multiple available antenna ports, corresponding multiple resource grids 304 can be used for communication. Resource grid 304 is divided into multiple resource elements (REs) 306. RE is 1 subcarrier × 1 symbol, is the smallest discrete part of the time-frequency grid, and contains a single complex value representing data from a physical channel or signal. Depending on the modulation used in a specific implementation, each RE can represent one or more information bits. In some instances, RE blocks can be referred to as physical resource blocks (PRBs) or more simply resource blocks (RBs) 308, which contain any appropriate number of consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain. In one instance, an RB can include 12 subcarriers, which is independent of the numerology used. In some instances, depending on the parameters, an RB can include any appropriate number of consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain. In the present disclosure, it is assumed that a single RB such as RB 308 corresponds entirely to a single communication direction (transmission or reception of a given device).

[0081] A group of contiguous or non-contiguous resource blocks may be referred to herein as a resource block group (RBG), a subband, or a bandwidth part (BWP). A group of subbands or BWPs may span the entire bandwidth. Scheduling of a scheduled entity (e.g., a UE) for downlink, uplink, or sidelink transmission typically involves scheduling one or more resource elements 306 within one or more subbands or bandwidth parts (BWPs). Thus, a UE typically uses only a subset of a resource grid 304. In some instances, an RB may be the smallest resource unit that may be allocated to a UE. Thus, the more RBs scheduled for a UE and the higher the modulation scheme selected for the air interface, the higher the data rate for the UE. The RBs may be scheduled by a scheduling entity, such as a base station (e.g., gNB, eNB, etc.), or may be self-scheduled by a UE implementing D2D sidelink communication.

[0082] In this illustration, RB 308 is shown as occupying less than the entire bandwidth of subframe 302, with some subcarriers shown above and below RB 308. In a given embodiment, subframe 302 may have a bandwidth corresponding to any number of one or more RBs 308. Furthermore, in this illustration, RB 308 is shown as occupying less than the entire duration of subframe 302, although this is merely one possible example.

[0083] Each 1 ms subframe 302 may consist of one or more adjacent time slots. Figure 3 In the example shown, as an illustrative example, a subframe 302 includes four time slots 310. In some examples, a time slot can be defined according to a specified number of OFDM symbols with a given cyclic prefix (CP) length. For example, a time slot can include 7 or 14 OFDM symbols with a nominal CP. Other examples may include mini-time slots with shorter durations (e.g., one to three OFDM symbols), sometimes referred to as shortened transmission time intervals (TTIs). In some cases, these mini-time slots or shortened transmission time intervals (TTIs) may occupy resources scheduled for ongoing time slot transmissions of the same or different UEs to transmit these mini-time slots. Any number of resource blocks can be used within a subframe or time slot.

[0084] The enlarged view of one of the time slots 310 illustrates the time slot 310 including a control region 312 and a data region 314. In general, the control region 312 may carry control channels, and the data region 314 may carry data channels. Of course, a time slot may contain all DL, all UL, or at least one DL portion and at least one UL portion. Figure 3 The structure shown is merely exemplary in nature, and different slot structures may be used and may include one or more of each of the control region and the data region.

[0085] Despite Figure 3 Not shown in the figure, various REs 306 within the RB 308 can be scheduled to carry one or more physical channels, including control channels, shared channels, data channels, etc. Other REs 306 within the RB 308 can also carry pilot or reference signals. These pilot or reference signals can be provided to a receiving device to perform channel estimation of the corresponding channel, which can achieve coherent demodulation / detection of the control and / or data channels within the RB 308.

[0086] In some examples, time slot 310 may be used for broadcast, multicast, groupcast, or unicast communications. For example, broadcast, multicast, or groupcast communications may refer to point-to-multipoint transmissions from one device (e.g., a base station, UE, or other similar device) to other devices. Here, broadcast communications are delivered to all devices, while multicast or groupcast communications are delivered to multiple intended recipient devices. Unicast communications may refer to point-to-point transmissions from one device to a single other device.

[0087] In an example of cellular communication on a cellular carrier via a Uu interface, for DL ​​transmission, a scheduling entity (e.g., a base station) may allocate one or more REs 306 (e.g., within a control region 312) to carry DL control information for one or more scheduled entities (e.g., UEs), including one or more DL control channels, such as a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). The PDCCH carries downlink control information (DCI), including but not limited to power control commands (e.g., one or more open-loop power control parameters and / or one or more closed-loop power control parameters), scheduling information, grants, and / or RE allocations for DL ​​and UL transmissions. The PDCCH may also carry HARQ feedback transmissions, such as acknowledgments (ACKs) or negative acknowledgments (NACKs). HARQ is a technique well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, in which the integrity of packet transmissions may be checked on the receiving side to ensure accuracy, for example, using any appropriate integrity check mechanism, such as a checksum or cyclic redundancy check (CRC). If the integrity of the transmission is confirmed, an ACK may be sent, and if not, a NACK may be sent. In response to the NACK, the transmitting device may send a HARQ retransmission, which may enable chase combining, incremental redundancy, and the like.

[0088] The base station may further allocate one or more REs 306 (e.g., in the control region 312 or the data region 314) to carry other DL signals, such as a demodulation reference signal (DMRS); a phase tracking reference signal (PT-RS); a channel state information (CSI) reference signal (CSI-RS); and a synchronization signal block (SSB). The SSB may be broadcast periodically based on a periodicity (e.g., 5, 10, 20, 30, 80, or 130 ms). The SSB includes a primary synchronization signal (PSS), a secondary synchronization signal (SSS), and a physical broadcast control channel (PBCH). The UE may utilize the PSS and SSS to achieve radio frame, subframe, time slot, and symbol synchronization in the time domain, identify the center of the channel (system) bandwidth in the frequency domain, and identify the physical cell identity (PCI) of the cell.

[0089] The PBCH in the SSB may also include a master information block (MIB), which includes various system information, and parameters for decoding a system information block (SIB). The SIB may be, for example, SystemInformationType 1 (SIB1), which may include various additional system information. The MIB and SIB1 together provide minimum system information (SI) for initial access. Examples of system information sent in the MIB may include, but are not limited to, subcarrier spacing (e.g., default downlink parameters), system frame number, configuration of the PDCCH control resource set (CORESET) (e.g., PDCCH CORESET0), cell barring indicator, cell reselection indicator, raster offset, and search space of SIB1. Examples of remaining minimum system information (RMSI) sent in SIB1 may include, but are not limited to, random access search space, paging search space, downlink configuration information, and uplink configuration information. The base station may also send other system information (OSI).

[0090] In an UL transmission, a scheduled entity (e.g., a UE) may utilize one or more REs 306 to carry UL control information (UCI) to a scheduling entity, including one or more UL control channels, such as a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH). UCI may include multiple packet types and categories, including pilots, reference signals, and information configured to enable or assist in decoding uplink data transmissions. Examples of uplink reference signals may include sounding reference signals (SRS) and uplink DMRS. In some instances, UCI may include a scheduling request (SR), i.e., a request by a scheduling entity to schedule an uplink transmission. Here, in response to the SR sent on the UCI, the scheduling entity may send downlink control information (DCI) that may schedule resources for uplink packet transmissions. UCI may also include HARQ feedback, channel state feedback (CSF), such as a CSI report, or any other appropriate UCI.

[0091] In addition to control information, one or more REs 306 (e.g., within the data region 314) may be allocated for data traffic. Such data traffic may be carried on one or more traffic channels, such as, for DL ​​transmissions, on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH); or, for UL transmissions, on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). In some instances, one or more REs 306 within the data region 314 may be configured to carry other signals, such as one or more SIBs and DMRS.

[0092] In an example of sidelink communication on a sidelink carrier via a ProSe (ProSe) PC5 interface, a control region 312 of a time slot 310 may include a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) including sidelink control information (SCI) sent by an initiating (transmitting) sidelink device (e.g., a Tx V2X device or other Tx UE) to a group of one or more other receiving sidelink devices (e.g., an Rx V2X device or other Rx UE). A data region 314 of the time slot 310 may include a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) including sidelink data traffic sent by an initiating (transmitting) sidelink device within resources reserved by the transmitting sidelink device on the sidelink carrier via the SCI. Other information may also be sent via various REs 306 within the time slot 310. For example, HARQ feedback information may be sent from a receiving sidelink device to a transmitting sidelink device in a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) within the time slot 310. Additionally, one or more reference signals may be sent within slot 310 , such as a sidelink SSB, a sidelink CSI-RS, a sidelink SRS, and / or a sidelink positioning reference signal (PRS).

[0093] These physical channels are usually multiplexed and mapped to transport channels for processing at the medium access control (MAC) layer. Transport channels carry information blocks called transport blocks (TBs). Based on the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and the number of RBs in a given transmission, the transport block size (TBS) may be a controlled parameter, which may correspond to a number of information bits.

[0094] Figure 3 The channels or carriers shown are not necessarily all channels or carriers that may be used between devices, and a person of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that other channels or carriers may be used in addition to those shown, such as other traffic, control, and feedback channels.

[0095] In some aspects of the present disclosure, the scheduling entity and / or the scheduled entity may be configured for beamforming and / or multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques. Figure 4 An example of a wireless communication system supporting beamforming and / or MIMO is illustrated. In a MIMO system, a transmitter 402 includes multiple transmit antennas 404 (e.g., N transmit antennas), and a receiver 406 includes multiple receive antennas 408 (e.g., M receive antennas). Therefore, there are N×M signal paths 410 from the transmit antennas 404 to the receive antennas 408. Each of the transmitter 402 and the receiver 406 can be implemented, for example, in a scheduling entity, a scheduled entity, or any other suitable wireless communication device.

[0096] The use of this multiple antenna technology enables wireless communication systems to exploit the spatial domain to support spatial multiplexing, beamforming, and transmit diversity. Spatial multiplexing can be used to send different data streams, also known as layers, simultaneously on the same time-frequency resources. Data streams can be sent to a single UE to increase the data rate, or to multiple UEs to increase the overall system capacity, the latter of which is called multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO). This is achieved by spatially precoding each data stream (i.e., multiplying the data streams with different weights and phase shifts) and then sending each spatially precoded stream through multiple transmit antennas on the downlink. The spatially precoded data streams arrive at the UEs with different spatial signatures, which enables each UE to recover one or more data streams destined for that UE. On the uplink, each UE sends a spatially precoded data stream, which enables the base station to identify the source of each spatially precoded data stream.

[0097] The number of data streams or layers corresponds to the rank of transmission. Typically, the rank of a MIMO system is limited by the number of transmit or receive antennas 404 or 408, whichever is lower. In addition, other considerations such as the channel conditions of the UE and the available resources of the base station may also affect the transmission rank. For example, the rank (and therefore the number of data streams) assigned to a particular UE on the downlink can be determined based on a rank indicator (RI) sent from the UE to the base station. The RI can be determined based on the antenna configuration (e.g., the number of transmit and receive antennas) and the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) measured on each receive antenna. The RI can indicate, for example, the number of layers that can be supported under current channel conditions. The base station can use the RI along with resource information (e.g., the available resources and amount of data to be scheduled for the UE) to assign a transmission rank to the UE.

[0098] In one example, if Figure 4As shown, a rank 2 spatial multiplexing transmission on a 2×2 MIMO antenna configuration will transmit one data stream from each transmit antenna 404. Each data stream arrives at each receive antenna 408 along a different signal path 410. The receiver 406 can then reconstruct the data stream using the received signal from each receive antenna 408.

[0099] Beamforming is a signal processing technique that can be used at a transmitter 402 or a receiver 406 to shape or direct an antenna beam (e.g., a transmit beam or a receive beam) along a spatial path between the transmitter 402 and the receiver 406. Beamforming can be achieved by combining signals transmitted via antennas 404 or 408 (e.g., antenna elements of an antenna array module) such that some signals experience constructive interference and other signals experience destructive interference. To produce the desired constructive / destructive interference, the transmitter 402 or the receiver 406 can apply an amplitude and / or phase offset to the signal transmitted or received from each of the antennas 404 or 408 associated with the transmitter 402 or the receiver 406.

[0100] In some instances, to select a specific beam for communicating with a UE, a base station may send a reference signal, such as an SSB or a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), in a beam-sweeping manner on each of a plurality of beams (SSB beams). The UE may measure the reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), or SINR on each beam, and send a beam measurement report indicating the RSRP of each measured beam to the base station. The base station may then select a specific beam for communicating with the UE based on the beam measurement report. In other instances, when the channel is reciprocal, the base station may derive a specific beam to communicate with the UE based on uplink measurements of one or more uplink reference signals, such as a sounding reference signal (SRS).

[0101] To access a cell, the UE may perform a random access procedure on a physical random access channel (PRACH). The UE may identify from SIB1 a random access search space including PRACH resources for initiating a RACH procedure. For example, the random access procedure may be started after the UE acquires a cell and determines the occurrence of a RACH opportunity (e.g., PRACH resources) after reading the SSB and SIB1. The SSB provides initial system information (SI), while SIB1 (and other SIB blocks) provide the remaining minimum SI (RMSI). For example, the PBCH MIB of the SSB may carry the first part of the SI required by the user equipment (UE) to access the network. The SIBs (e.g., SIB1 and SIB2) may carry the RMSI required for the UE to access the network.

[0102] The RACH procedure can be performed in various scenarios, such as loss of uplink synchronization, lack of available PUCCH resources, scheduling request failure, and other use cases. In addition, the RACH procedure can be contention-based or contention-free, and can include a two-step RACH process (contention-based or contention-free), a three-step RACH process (contention-free), or a four-step RACH process (contention-based).

[0103] Figure 5 is a diagram showing an example of a contention-based four-step random access (CBRA) procedure 500 between a base station 502 and a UE 504. For example, the base station 502 may correspond to, for example Figure 1 and / or Figure 2 In addition, the base station 504 may correspond to, for example, Figure 1 and / or Figure 2 Any scheduled entity shown in .

[0104] Figure 5 The random access process 500 shown is initiated by a UE 504, which randomly selects a preamble from a set of available preambles within a cell served by a base station 502, and sends the selected preamble to the base station 502 in a RACH preamble message 506 (msg1). In one example, the UE 504 can select a preamble sequence for inclusion in the RACH preamble message 506 from 64 possible preamble sequences. Msg1 506 can be sent by the UE 504 on a selected PRACH resource with a power ramp. The selected PRACH resource can include a supplemental uplink resource or a normal uplink resource. Here, the supplemental uplink resource includes a lower frequency resource than the normal uplink resource. Therefore, the supplemental uplink resource and the uplink resource each correspond to a different respective uplink frequency band. Msg1 506 can be further transmitted on a beam selected by the UE 504 based on a beam measurement (e.g., RSRP / RSRQ / SINR) performed by the UE 504. The beam may correspond to, for example, an SSB beam.

[0105] If the base station 502 successfully detects the preamble, the base station 502 sends a random access response (RAR) message 508 (msg2) including the PDCCH and the PDSCH to the UE 504. If msg2 (RAR) 508 is not received within the RAR window, the UE 504 may resend msg1 506 with increased power. msg2 508 (PDCCH+PDSCH) includes an identifier of the preamble sent by the UE 504, a timing advance (TA), a temporary cell radio network temporary identifier (TC-RNTI) or a random access (RA) RNTI for the UE 504, and a grant of the allocated uplink (UL) resources. The PDCCH in msg2 508 may be scrambled with a RA-RNTI, which is a function of the RACH opportunity (RO) (e.g., the time-frequency resources allocated to the RACH msg1) used by the UE 504 to send msg1 506. The medium access control-control element (MAC-CE) in the PDSCH provides confirmation of the reception of msg1 and the UL grant. To receive msg2 508, the UE 504 can monitor DCI 1_0 for a PDCCH scrambled with a RA-RNTI corresponding to the RO used by the UE 504 to send msg1 506, and if detected, proceed with PDSCH decoding. After receiving the RAR message 508, the UE 504 compares the preamble ID with the preamble sent by the scheduled entity in the RACH preamble message 506. If the preamble ID matches the preamble sent in the RACH preamble message 506, the UE 504 applies the timing advance and starts the contention resolution process.

[0106] Since the preamble is randomly selected by the scheduled entity, if another scheduled entity selects the same preamble in the same RO, a conflict may occur between the two scheduled entities. A contention resolution process may then be used to resolve any conflict. During contention resolution, the UE 504 sends an uplink message (msg3) 510 on a common control channel (CCCH) using the TA and the allocated uplink resources in the PDSCH of msg2 508. In one example, the uplink message 510 is a layer 2 / layer 3 (L2 / L3) message, such as a radio resource control (RRC) connection request message. The uplink message 510 includes an identifier (UE-ID) of the UE 504 for use by the scheduling entity in resolving any conflicts. Although other scheduling entities may use the TA and the allocated uplink resources to send conflicting uplink messages, these conflicting uplink messages may not be successfully decoded at the scheduling entity because the conflicting uplink messages are sent with TAs that are not intended for these scheduled entities.

[0107] After successfully decoding the uplink message, the base station 502 sends a contention resolution message 512 (msg4) to the UE 504. For example, the contention resolution message 512 can be an RRC connection establishment message. In addition, the contention resolution message 512 includes the identifier of the UE 504 received in the uplink message 510. After receiving its own identity back from the contention resolution message 512, the UE 504 determines that the random access procedure is successful and completes the RRC connection establishment procedure. Any other scheduling entity that receives the RRC connection establishment message with the identity of the UE 504 will determine that the random access procedure has failed and re-initiate the random access procedure.

[0108] Figure 6 6 is a diagram showing an example of a contention-free random access (CFRA) procedure 600 between a base station 602 and a UE 604. For example, the base station 602 may correspond to, for example Figure 1 and / or Figure 2 In addition, base station 604 may correspond to, for example, Figure 1 and / or Figure 2 Any scheduled entity shown in .

[0109] The CFRA procedure 600 may be used, for example, during handover, after loss of uplink synchronization or positioning of a scheduled entity. The CFRA procedure is initiated by a base station 602, which selects a preamble from a set of preambles reserved within a cell served by the base station 602 and sends the selected preamble to a UE 604 in a RACH preamble allocation message 606. In one example, the reserved set of preambles may be separated from a pool of randomly selected preambles that may be used in contention-based random access. Thus, the reserved set of preambles may be allocated by the scheduling entity in a contention-free manner to avoid PRACH collisions.

[0110] The UE 604 may then send the allocated preamble in a RACH preamble message 608 to the base station 602 on the selected PRACH resources and the selected beam within the SUL or normal UL resources. The base station 602 may then send a random access response (RAR) message 610 on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). The RAR message 610 includes an identifier of the preamble sent by the UE 604, a timing advance (TA), a temporary cell radio network temporary identifier (TC-RNTI) or a random access (RA) RNTI for the UE 604, and a grant of the allocated uplink resources. After receiving the RAR message 610, the UE 604 applies the timing advance and may initiate an uplink transmission 612 using the allocated uplink resources.

[0111] The four-step CBRA process 500 or the three-step CFRA process 600 can be condensed into Figure 7 The two-step random access procedure 700 is shown. The two-step random access procedure 700 reduces the overhead and delay associated with control signaling by removing transmissions in each direction between the UE 704 and the base station or scheduling entity (e.g., the gNB 702 shown). Figure 5 In contrast, the two-step random access procedure 700 begins with the UE 704 sending a single message (msgA 706) that includes the RACH preamble message 506 and the uplink message 510 sent by the contention-based random access procedure 500. Here, the uplink message 510 may be a scheduled PUSCH transmission sent over a PUSCH resource, and the RACH preamble message 506 may be sent over a selected PRACH resource. The gNB 702 responds with a single message (msgB 708) that includes a random access response 508 and a contention resolution message 512.

[0112] Radio protocol architecture for radio access networks, e.g. Figure 1 The radio access network 104 shown in FIG. 1 and / or Figure 2 The wireless access network 200 shown may take various forms depending on specific applications. Figure 8 An example of a radio protocol architecture for the user and control planes is shown.

[0113] like Figure 8 As shown, the radio protocol architecture of the UE and the base station includes three layers: Layer 1 (L1), Layer 2 (L2), and Layer 3 (L3). L1 is the lowest layer and implements various physical layer signal processing functions. L1 will be referred to as the physical layer 806 in this article. L2 808 is above the physical layer 806 and is responsible for the link between the UE and the base station on the physical layer 806.

[0114] In the user plane, the L2 layer 808 includes a medium access control (MAC) layer 810, a radio link control (RLC) layer 812, a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer 814, and a service data adaptation protocol (SDAP) layer 816, which are terminated at a base station on the network side. Although not shown, the UE may have several upper layers above the L2 layer 808, including at least one network layer (e.g., an IP layer and a user data protocol (UDP) layer) and one or more application layers, which are terminated at a user plane function (UPF) on the network side.

[0115] The SDAP layer 816 provides mapping between 5G core (5GC) quality of service (QoS) flows and data radio bearers, and performs QoS flow ID marking in downlink and uplink packets. The PDCP layer 814 provides packet sequence numbering, in-order delivery of packets, retransmission of PDCP protocol data units (PDUs), and transmission of upper layer data packets to the lower layer. For example, PDUs may include Internet Protocol (IP) packets, Ethernet frames, and other unstructured data (i.e., machine type communications (MTC), hereinafter collectively referred to as "packets"). The PDCP layer 814 also provides header compression for upper layer data packets to reduce radio transmission overhead, security of encrypted data packets, and integrity protection of data packets. The PDCP context may indicate whether the PDCP copy is used for a unicast connection.

[0116] The RLC layer 812 provides segmentation and reassembly of upper layer data packets, error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ), and sequence numbering independent of PDCP sequence numbering. The RLC context may indicate whether the RLC layer 812 uses a confirmed mode (e.g., using a reordering timer) or an unconfirmed mode. The MAC layer 810 provides multiplexing between logical and transport channels. The MAC layer 810 is also responsible for allocating various radio resources (e.g., resource blocks) in a cell between UEs and is responsible for HARQ operations. The MAC context may enable, for example, HARQ feedback schemes, resource selection algorithms, carrier aggregation, beam failure recovery, or other MAC parameters for unicast connections. The physical layer 806 is responsible for sending and receiving data on a physical channel (e.g., within a time slot). The PHY context may indicate the transmission format and radio resource configuration (e.g., bandwidth part (BWP), parameters, etc.) of a unicast connection.

[0117] In the control plane, for L1 806 and L2 808, the radio protocol architecture of the UE and the base station is basically the same, except that there is no SDAP layer in the control plane and the control plane has no header compression function. The control plane also includes the radio resource control (RRC) layer 818 in L3 and the higher non-access stratum (NAS) layer 820. The RRC layer 818 is responsible for establishing and configuring signaling radio bearers (SRBs) and data radio bearers (DRBs) between the base station and the UE, paging initiated by the 5GC or NG-RAN, and broadcasting of system information related to the access stratum (AS) and non-access stratum (NAS). The RRC layer 818 is also responsible for QoS management, mobility management (e.g., handover, cell selection, inter-RAT mobility), UE measurement and reporting, and security functions. The NAS layer 820 terminates at the AMF in the core network and performs various functions such as authentication, registration management, and connection management.

[0118] In a 5G NR network, a base station can be a converged base station, where the radio protocol stack is logically integrated in a single RAN node, or a disaggregated base station, where the radio protocol stack is logically separated between a central unit (CU) and one or more distributed units (DUs). The CU hosts the radio resource control (RRC), service data adaptation protocol (SDAP), and packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layers that control the operation of one or more DUs. The DU hosts the radio link control (RLC), medium access control (MAC), and physical (PHY) layers. The CU can be implemented within an edge RAN node, while one or more DUs can be co-located with the CU and / or distributed in multiple RAN nodes that are physically separated from each other. For example, a disaggregated base station can be used in an integrated access backhaul (IAB) network.

[0119] Fig. 9 900 is a schematic diagram that provides a high-level illustration of an example of an IAB network configuration 900 according to some aspects. In the illustration, a communication network 902, such as an IAB network, is coupled to a remote network 904, such as a primary backhaul network or a mobile core network. In such IAB networks 902, wireless spectrum can be used for both access links and backhaul links. In some examples, the wireless spectrum can utilize millimeter wave (mmWave) or sub-6 GHz carrier frequencies.

[0120] The IAB network 902 may be similar to Figure 2 , where an IAB network 902 may be divided into a plurality of cells 906, 908, 910, 912, and 914, each of which may be served by a corresponding IAB node 916, 918, 920, 922, and 924. Each of the IAB nodes 916-924 may be a base station (e.g., a gNB), or utilize a wireless spectrum (e.g., a radio frequency (RF) spectrum) to support access to one or more UEs located within the cell 906-914 served by the IAB node.

[0121] exist Fig. 9In the example shown, IAB node 916 communicates with UEs 926 and 928 via wireless access links 930 and 932, IAB node 918 communicates with UE 934 via wireless access link 936, and IAB node 922 communicates with UE 938 via wireless access link 940. IAB nodes 916-924 are further interconnected via one or more wireless backhaul links 942, 944, 946, 948, 950, and 952. Each of the wireless backhaul links 942-952 can use the same wireless spectrum (e.g., radio frequency (RF) spectrum) as access links 930-940 to backhaul access traffic to and from the remote network 904. This can be referred to as wireless self-backhaul. Such wireless self-backhaul can quickly and easily deploy high-density small cell networks. That is, instead of each new gNB deployment being equipped with its own hardwired backhaul connection, the wireless spectrum used for communication between gNBs and UEs can be utilized to perform backhaul communications between any number of IAB nodes to form an IAB network 902.

[0122] exist Fig. 9 In the example shown, IAB node 916 communicates with IAB node 920 via wireless backhaul link 942, IAB node 920 communicates with IAB node 922 via wireless backhaul link 944, IAB node 922 communicates with IAB node 924 via wireless backhaul link 946, IAB node 924 communicates with IAB node 918 via wireless backhaul link 948, IAB node 918 communicates with IAB node 916 via wireless backhaul link 950, and IAB node 918 communicates with IAB node 920 via wireless backhaul link 952. Fig. 9 As shown, each IAB node 916-924 may be connected to two or more other IAB nodes via respective wireless backhaul links 942-952 for robustness.

[0123] Some or all of the IAB nodes 916-924 may also be connected via wired backhaul links (e.g., optical fiber, coaxial cable, Ethernet, copper wire, etc.) and / or microwave backhaul links. Thus, the IAB network 902 may support wired / microwave and wireless backhaul services. At least one of the IAB nodes (e.g., IAB node 924) may be a border IAB node, also referred to herein as an IAB donor node, which also provides a communication link 954 to the remote network 904. For example, the IAB donor node 924 may include a wired (e.g., optical fiber, coaxial cable, Ethernet, copper wire), microwave, or other suitable link 954 to the remote network 904.

[0124] To facilitate wireless communications between IAB nodes 916-924 and between IAB nodes 916-924 and UEs served by IAB nodes 916-924, each IAB node 916-924 can be configured to operate both as a scheduling entity and as a scheduled entity. Therefore, an IAB node (e.g., IAB node 916) can utilize the same wireless spectrum to send access traffic to and from the UE and then backhaul access traffic to and from the remote network 904. For example, to backhaul access traffic to and from IAB node 918, IAB node 918 can communicate with IAB node 920 to send backhaul access traffic via wireless backhaul link 942, IAB node 920 can communicate with IAB node 922 to send backhaul access traffic via wireless backhaul link 944, and IAB node 922 can communicate with IAB node 924 to send backhaul access traffic via wireless backhaul link 946. In this example, IAB nodes 920 and 922 may each operate as a scheduling entity and a scheduled entity to backhaul access traffic to and from IAB node 916. Thus, communications between a pair of IAB nodes may be solely scheduled by one of the IAB nodes in the pair.

[0125] In other examples, the IAB node can schedule wireless backhaul communications between other IAB node pairs. For example, the IAB node 924 can operate as a scheduling entity of the IAB network 902, and the IAB nodes 916, 920, and 922 each operate as a scheduled entity to backhaul access services to / from the IAB node 916. In this example, the IAB node 924 can schedule wireless backhaul communications between each pair of IAB nodes (e.g., between the IAB node 916 and the IAB node 920, between the IAB node 920 and the IAB node 922, and between the IAB node 922 and the IAB node 924). As another example, the IAB node 922 can operate as a scheduling entity to schedule wireless backhaul communications between the IAB nodes 916 and 920 and between the IAB node 920 and the IAB node 922. The IAB node 922 can then operate as a scheduled entity to allow the IAB node 924 to schedule wireless backhaul communications between the two.

[0126] Fig.10 1 is a schematic diagram showing an example of the functionality of an IAB node within the IAB network 1000. Fig.10In the example shown, the IAB node 1002 is shown coupled to the core network 1004 via a wired connection. The IAB node 1002 may be referred to herein as an IAB donor node, which may be, for example, an enhanced gNB including functionality for controlling the IAB network 1000. In some examples, the IAB donor node 1002 may include a central unit (CU) 1006 and a distributed unit (DU) 1008. The CU 1006 is configured to operate as a centralized network node (or central entity) within the IAB network 1000. For example, the CU 1006 may include a radio resource control (RRC) layer function and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer function to control / configure other nodes (e.g., IAB nodes and UEs) within the IAB network 1000. Therefore, the CU 1006 may be configured to implement centralized mechanisms for handover decisions, topology changes, routing, bearer mapping, UE security, and other appropriate services.

[0127] The DU 1008 is configured to operate as a scheduling entity to schedule scheduled entities (e.g., other IAB nodes and UEs) of the IAB donor node 1002. For example, the DU 1008 of the IAB donor node 1002 may operate as a scheduling entity to schedule the IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 and the UEs 1014 and 1016. Thus, the DU 1008 of the IAB donor node 1002 may schedule communications with the IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 via respective backhaul links and schedule communications with the UEs 1014 and 1016 via respective access links. In some instances, the DU 1008 may include radio link control (RLC), medium access control (MAC), and physical (PHY) layer functions to implement operations as a scheduling entity.

[0128] Each of the IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 may be configured as a layer 2 (L2) relay node including a corresponding DU 1020 and a mobile terminal (MT) unit 1018, so that each L2 relay IAB node 1010 and 1012 can operate as a scheduling entity and a scheduled entity. For example, the MT unit 1018 within each of the L2 relay IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 is configured to operate as a scheduled entity that can be scheduled by the IAB donor node 1002. Each MT unit 1018 within the L2 relay IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 further facilitates communication with the IAB donor node 1002 via respective backhaul links. Furthermore, the DU 1020 within each of the L2 relay IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 operates similarly to the DU 1008 within the IAB donor node 1002 to serve as a scheduling entity to schedule one or more corresponding scheduled entities (eg, other IAB nodes and / or UEs) of the L2 relay IAB nodes 1010 and 1012 .

[0129] For example, the DU 1020 of the L2 relay IAB node 1012 serves as a scheduling entity to schedule communication with the UE 1022 via an access link, while the DU 1020 of the L2 relay IAB node 1010 serves as a scheduling entity to schedule communication with the MT unit 1018 of the L2 relay IAB nodes 1024 and 1026 via corresponding backhaul links and communication with the UE 1028 via an access link. Each of the L2 relay IAB nodes 1024 and 1026 also includes a respective DU 1020, which serves as a scheduling entity to communicate with the corresponding UEs 1030 and 1032.

[0130] Therefore, in Fig.10 In the network topology shown, the IAB donor node 1002 is combined with each of the L2 relay IAB nodes 1010, 1012, 1024 and 1026 to form a decomposed base station. The decomposed base station includes a CU 1006 and each of the DUs 1008 and 1020 controlled by the CU 1006. The CU / DU functional split in the decomposed base station can facilitate the implementation of time-critical services, such as scheduling, retransmission, segmentation and other similar services in the DU 1008 / 1020, while concentrating services with lower time criticality in the CU 1006. In addition, the CU / DU separation can terminate the external interface in the CU 1006 instead of each DU, and further supports the centralized termination of the PCDP to allow dual connection and switching between different DUs of the decomposed base station. It should be understood that the decomposed base station can be implemented in a network other than the IAB network, and the present disclosure is not limited to any particular type of network.

[0131] Fig.11 An example of a decomposed base station 1100 according to some aspects is shown. The decomposed base station 1100 includes a CU 1102 and one or more DUs (three of which are shown for convenience, 1104a, 1104b, 1104c). Each DU 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c supports the PHY, MAC, and RLC layers of the radio protocol stack. The CU 1102 supports higher layers, such as the PDCP and RRC layers. One of the DUs (e.g., DU 1104a) can be co-located with the CU 1102, while the other DUs 1104b and 1104c can be distributed throughout the network. The CU 1102 and the DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c are logically connected via an F1 interface, which uses an F1 application protocol (F1-AP) to communicate information between the CU 1102 and each of the DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c, and is used to establish a Generic Tunneling Protocol (GTP) tunnel between the DU and the CU for each radio bearer.

[0132] In some instances, CU 1102 may be configured to perform operations related to mobility (e.g., handover, dual connectivity, etc.), minimized drive testing (MDT), and self-organizing networks (SON). SON refers to mobile network automation and minimized human intervention in cellular / wireless network management. The goals of SON include: 1) bringing intelligence and autonomous adaptability into cellular networks; 2) reducing capital and operating expenses; and 3) improving network performance in terms of network capacity, coverage, services / experience provided, etc. SON aims to improve spectrum efficiency, simplify management, and reduce operating costs of next-generation radio access networks (RANs).

[0133] Drive tests are used to collect data about mobile networks. Such data is required for the configuration and maintenance of mobile networks, for example, regarding network capacity optimization, network coverage optimization, UE mobility optimization and Quality of Service (QoS) verification. To perform drive tests, manpower is required. However, these measurements only cover a small part of the network at a time and location. MDT enables operators to utilize UEs to collect radio measurements and related location information to evaluate network performance while reducing the operational expenses associated with conventional drive tests. Thus, MDT allows the use of standard UEs to collect / record and report measurement results to the operator, whereas conventional drive tests use highly developed measurement equipment.

[0134] To facilitate mobility, SON, and MDT operations, CU 1102 may need to be aware of low-level events and measurements performed by various DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c. Various aspects of the present disclosure provide enhancements to F1-AP to enable measurement and event reporting from DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c to CU 1102. CU 1102 may configure each of DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c to obtain values ​​related to measurements or events, and send measurement reports to CU 1102 periodically or after an event occurs. Examples of DU measurements and events that may assist with mobility, SON, MDT, and other CU-related operations of CU 1102 may include RACH reports, uplink (UL) measurements, RLC protocol measurements, MAC protocol measurements, respective loads of each of DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c, detection of remote interference measurements (RIMs) or strong UL interference measurements by one or more of DUs 1104a, 1104b, and 1104c, and other appropriate measurements or events.

[0135] Fig.12FIG. 1 is a diagram of exemplary signaling between CU 1202 and DU 1204 of decomposed base station 1200 for initiating DU measurement configuration and reporting. Signaling between CU 1202 and DU 1204 may be via the F1 interface. For example, CU 1202 may correspond to Fig.10 CU 1006 within the IAB donor node 1002 or Fig.11 CU 1102 is shown. For example, DU 1204 may correspond to Fig.10 and / or any of the DUs shown in 11.

[0136] exist Fig.12 In the example shown, at 1206, CU 1202 may send a measurement request to DU 1204 via the F1 interface. The measurement request may include a measurement configuration associated with at least one value related to a measurement or event to be obtained by DU 1204. The measurement request may also include a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to CU 1202. At 1208, DU 1204 may send a measurement response to CU 1202 to confirm the configuration of DU 1204 according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration.

[0137] At 1210, DU 1204 may obtain at least one value according to the measurement configuration and generate a measurement report including the at least one value according to the report configuration. In some instances, the at least one value may include a RACH report, an uplink (UL) measurement, an RLC protocol measurement, a MAC protocol measurement, a DU load, an indicator of a RIM detected, an indicator of a strong UL interference measurement detected, or other values ​​corresponding to other suitable measurements or events.

[0138] In some instances, the reporting configuration may configure DU 1204 to periodically report or event-based report the measurement report. Thus, in 1212 and 1214, DU 1204 may send an event-based DU measurement report or a periodic DU measurement report.

[0139] Fig.13 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a measurement request 1300 for configuring measurement and event reporting by a DU according to some aspects. The measurement request 1300 includes a measurement configuration 1302 and a reporting configuration 1320 for the measurement configuration 1302. The measurement configuration 1302 may include at least one parameter 1304 associated with at least one value to be reported by the DU. In addition, the measurement configuration 1302 may include a measurement period 1306 over which at least one value is obtained by the DU. The measurement period may include, for example, a measurement window or other time period during which at least one value (e.g., a measurement value) may be obtained.

[0140] The measurement configuration 1302 may also include a filtering configuration 1308 for filtering at least one value. In some instances, lower layer measurement values ​​may fluctuate at a high rate, and therefore, the filtering configuration may indicate a filter to be used by the DU to reduce fluctuations in the measurement. The measurement configuration 1302 may also include an optional F1-AP UE ID field 1310. When the F1-AP UE ID field 1310 is included in the measurement configuration 1302, an identifier (UE ID) of the UE associated with the measurement configuration 1302 is included in the F1-AP UE ID field 1310. In this instance, the measurement configuration is UE-specific (e.g., F1-AP UE-related service). Therefore, the measurement report should include UE-specific values ​​(e.g., values ​​associated with or obtained by the UE) and the UE ID. Otherwise, the measurement configuration 1302 is cell / DU specific.

[0141] The reporting configuration 1320 may configure the DU with a periodic report 1322a or an event-based report 1322b associated with the measurement configuration 1302. When the reporting configuration 1320 is a periodic reporting configuration 1322a, the reporting configuration 1320 may include a periodicity 1324 for the transmission of the measurement report. For example, the periodicity 1324 of the reporting configuration 1320 may indicate that the DU generates and transmits a measurement report for the measurement configuration 1302 at a predefined time interval. The periodic reporting configuration 1322a may also indicate one or more selected parameters 1326 of the measurement configuration parameters 1304 to include in the measurement report. The selected parameters 1326 may include all of the measurement configuration parameters 1304 or a subset of the measurement configuration parameters 1304.

[0142] When the reporting configuration 1320 is an event-based reporting configuration 1322b, the reporting configuration 1320 may include an event-based indicator 1328 that provides an indication of the event that triggered the measurement report. For example, the event-based indicator 1328 may request the DU to generate and send a measurement report after the event corresponding to the measurement configuration 1302 occurs. The event-based reporting configuration 1322b may also include one or more thresholds 1330 that the DU may use to determine whether to send a measurement report. For example, the threshold 1330 may indicate a specific number of times an event occurs before the UE generates and sends a measurement report. The event-based reporting configuration 1322b may also indicate one or more selected parameters 1332 in the measurement configuration parameters 1304 to be included in the measurement report. The selected parameters 1332 may include all measurement configuration parameters 1304 or a subset of the measurement configuration parameters 1304.

[0143] In some instances, at least one value includes a RACH report, and the measurement configuration 1302 configures the DU to send a RACH report. In addition, the report configuration 1320 may be an event-based report configuration 1322b, which configures the DU to send a RACH report after completing a successful RACH process performed by the UE. For initial access and some other scenarios, the CU may be aware of the RACH process and request the UE to send a RACH report to the CU via RRC signaling. In these scenarios, the RACH report can be sent without the need for CU configuration of the DU. However, in other scenarios, such as loss of UL synchronization, no PUCCH resources, scheduling request failure, etc., the CU may not be aware of the RACH process, and therefore, the CU may configure the DU to send a RACH report using the measurement configuration 1302 and the related report configuration 1320 / 1322b.

[0144] For a RACH report, the at least one parameter 1304 included in the measurement configuration 1302 may include one or more RACH parameters. For example, the RACH parameter 1304 may include one or more of the following: a RACH indicator indicating that the report is a RACH report, a timing advance value provided to the UE during the RACH process, a detected power (e.g., RSRP or RSRQ of msg2 or msgB measured by the UE during the RACH process), a RACH trigger indicating the reason (scenario) for initiating the RACH process (if known by the DU), a beam ID or SSB ID corresponding to the beam used for the RACH process, an uplink frequency band (e.g., SUL or normal UL) used in the RACH process, a PRACH resource for msg1 / msgA in the RACH process, a RACH type (e.g., two-step, four-step, CFRA, CBRA, etc.), and a RAR window size of a RAR window configured for msgB of the RACH process (e.g., for CU optimized RAR window to reduce delay).

[0145] Based on the reporting configuration 1320, the CU may configure the DU to generate a RACH report including a corresponding value for each of the RACH parameters 1304 provided in the measurement configuration 1302 or a subset of the RACH parameters 1304 provided in the measurement configuration 1302, as indicated by the selected parameters 1332 in the reporting configuration 1320 / 1322b. In this example, the reporting configuration 1320 may not include the threshold 1330 and the measurement configuration 1302 may not include the measurement period 1306 or the filter configuration 1308 (e.g., these fields may be set to null values).

[0146] In some instances, at least one value includes an uplink measurement, and the measurement configuration 1302 configures the DU to send the uplink measurement. In addition, the reporting configuration 1320 can be a periodic reporting configuration 1322a or an event-based reporting configuration 1322b, which configures the DU to send a measurement report periodically or after an event occurs. In this instance, at least one parameter 1304 included in the measurement configuration 1302 includes at least one uplink measurement parameter. For example, the uplink measurement parameter 1304 may include at least one of the following items: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an angle of arrival (AOA) measurement, a thermal interference (IoT) measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, a maximum number of HARQ retransmissions arriving indicator, or a beam measurement report (e.g., RSRP / RSRQ / SINR for each beam, measured and reported by the UE).

[0147] In an instance where the uplink measurement parameter 1304 includes one or more of an SRS measurement, a PTRS measurement, an AOA measurement, an IOT measurement, or a HARQ retransmission rate, the measurement configuration 1302 may include a measurement period 1306. The report configuration 1320 may also include a periodicity report configuration 1322a that indicates a periodicity 1324 and selected parameters 1326 of the uplink measurement parameter 1304 to include in the measurement report. In addition, for SRS measurements, PTRS measurements, AOA measurements, and IOT measurements, the measurement configuration 1302 may also include a corresponding filter configuration 1308 for one or more of the uplink measurement parameters 1304. In other examples, the report configuration 1320 may include an event-based report configuration 1322b that instructs the DU to send a measurement report when the uplink measurement parameter 1304 exceeds a threshold 1330.

[0148] In an instance where the uplink measurement parameter 1304 includes an indicator of a maximum number of HARQ retransmissions that have arrived or a beam measurement report, the reporting configuration 1320 can be an event-based reporting configuration 1322b that instructs the DU to send a measurement report after determining the maximum number of HARQ retransmissions that have arrived at the UE or after receiving a beam measurement report from the UE.

[0149] In some instances, at least one value includes an RLC measurement and a measurement configuration 1302 that configures the DU to send RLC measurements. In addition, the report configuration 1320 can be a periodic report configuration 1322a or an event-based report configuration 1322b that configures the DU to send measurement reports periodically or after an event occurs. For example, the RLC measurement parameter 1304 can include at least one of the following items: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy rate, a first average RLC retransmission number per data radio bearer, a second average RLC retransmission number per user equipment (UE), a third average RLC retransmission number per cell, or an indicator that a maximum RLC retransmission number has been detected.

[0150] In an instance where the RLC measurement parameter 1304 includes one or more of the RLC buffer occupancy or the average number of RLC transmissions per DRB / cell / UE, the measurement configuration 1302 may include a measurement period 1306. The report configuration 1320 may also include a periodicity report configuration 1322a that indicates the periodicity 1324 and selected parameters 1326 of the RLC measurement parameter 1304 to be included in the measurement report. In other examples, the report configuration 1320 may include an event-based report configuration 1322b that instructs the DU to send a measurement report when the RLC measurement parameter 1304 exceeds a threshold 1330. In an instance where the RLC measurement parameter 1304 includes an indicator of the maximum number of detected RLC retransmissions, the report configuration 1320 may be an event-based report configuration 1322b that instructs the DU to send a measurement report after determining that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions has been detected for the UE. In some instances, the detection of the maximum number of RLC retransmissions may be indicated to the CU in a radio link failure (RLF) report without requiring a CU configuration of the DU.

[0151] In some examples, at least one value includes a MAC measurement and a measurement configuration 1302 that configures the DU to send MAC measurements. For example, the MAC measurement parameters 1304 may include beam failure recovery statistics. In this example, the reporting configuration 1320 may be a periodic reporting configuration 1322a or an event-based reporting configuration 1322b that configures the DU to send measurement reports periodically or after an event occurs (e.g., BFM statistics reach a threshold 1330).

[0152] In some examples, at least one value includes a load of the DU and the measurement configuration 1302 configures the DU to send the DU load. Here, the measurement parameter 1304 is the DU load, which may have an associated measurement period 1306. In this example, the report configuration 1320 may be a periodic report configuration 1322a or an event-based report configuration 1322b, which configures the DU to send a measurement report periodically or after an event occurs (e.g., the DU load reaches a threshold 1330).

[0153] In some instances, at least one value includes an interference indicator, and the measurement configuration 1302 configures the DU to send the interference indicator. For example, the measurement parameters 1304 may include a detected long-range interference indicator or a detected strong uplink interference indicator. In this instance, the reporting configuration 1320 may be an event-based reporting configuration 1322b that configures the DU to send a measurement report after detecting long-range interference or strong uplink interference.

[0154] Fig.14 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation for a radio access network (RAN) node 1400 using a processing system 1414. For example, the RAN node 1400 may be an IAB donor node, an L2 relay IAB node, or other RAN node (e.g., a base station such as a gNB) forming at least part of a decomposed base station, as described with reference to FIG. Figures 9 to 12 as shown in one or more of .

[0155] The RAN node 1400 may be implemented with a processing system 1414 including one or more processors 1404. Examples of the processor 1404 include a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a digital signal processor (DSP), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a state machine, a gated logic, a discrete hardware circuit, and other suitable hardware configured to perform the various functions described in the present disclosure. In various examples, the RAN node 1400 may be configured to perform any one or more of the functions described herein. That is, the processor 1404 used in the RAN node 1400 may be used to implement any one or more of the processors and processes described below.

[0156] In this example, the processing system 1414 can be implemented with a bus architecture generally represented by bus 1402. Depending on the specific application and overall design constraints of the processing system 1414, the bus 1402 may include any number of interconnecting buses and bridges. The bus 1402 communicatively couples various circuits including one or more processors (generally represented by processor 1404), memory 1405, and computer-readable media (generally represented by computer-readable media 1406). The bus 1402 may also link various other circuits, such as timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators, and power management circuits, which are well known in the art and will not be described further. The bus interface 1408 provides an interface between the bus 1402 and the transceiver 1410. The transceiver 1410 provides a communication interface or component for communicating with various other devices through a transmission medium (e.g., air). Depending on the nature of the device, a user interface 1412 (e.g., a keypad, display, speaker, microphone, joystick, touch screen) may also be provided. Of course, the user interfaces 1412 are optional and may be omitted in some instances.

[0157] The processor 1404 is responsible for managing the bus 1402 and general processing, including the execution of software stored on the computer-readable medium 1406. This software, when executed by the processor 1404, causes the processing system 1414 to perform the various functions described below for any particular device. The computer-readable medium 1406 and memory 1405 can also be used to store data that is manipulated by the processor 1404 when executing the software.

[0158] One or more processors 1404 in the processing system can execute software. Software should be broadly interpreted to mean instructions, instruction sets, codes, code segments, program codes, programs, subroutines, software modules, applications, software applications, software packages, routines, subroutines, objects, executable files, execution threads, programs, functions, etc., whether referred to as software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or otherwise. The software may reside on a computer-readable medium 1406.

[0159] The computer-readable medium 1406 may be a non-transitory computer-readable medium. The non-transitory computer-readable medium includes, for example, a magnetic storage device (e.g., a hard disk, a floppy disk, a magnetic strip), an optical disk (e.g., a compact disk (CD) or a digital versatile disk (DVD)), a smart card, a flash memory device (e.g., a card, a stick, or a key drive), a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM), a register, a removable disk, and any other suitable medium for storing software and / or instructions that can be accessed and read by a computer. The computer-readable medium 1406 may reside in the processing system 1414, outside the processing system 1414, or distributed among multiple entities including the processing system 1414. The computer-readable medium 1406 may be embedded in a computer program product. For example, a computer program product may include a computer-readable medium in a packaging material. Those skilled in the art will recognize how to best implement the functions described throughout this disclosure based on the specific application and the overall design constraints imposed on the entire system.

[0160] In some aspects of the present disclosure, the processor 1404 may include circuits configured for various functions. In an instance where the RAN node 1400 is an IAB donor node, the processor 1404 may include a central unit (CU) circuit 1442 and a distributed unit (DU) circuit 1444. In an instance where the RAN node 1400 is an L2 relay IAB node, the processor 1404 may include only a DU circuit 1444 (e.g., the CU circuit 1442 is omitted in this instance). The CU circuit 1442 may be further configured to execute the CU software 1452 included on the computer-readable medium 1406 to implement one or more functions described herein. In addition, the DU circuit 1444 may be further configured to execute the DU software 1454 included on the computer-readable medium 1406 to implement one or more functions described herein.

[0161] The CU circuit 1442 may also include a DU measurement configuration circuit 1446, which is configured to configure the DU circuit 1444 to obtain values ​​related to the measurement or event, and send a measurement report (MR) 1415 to the CU circuit 1442 periodically or after the event occurs. Examples of values ​​that may be included in the DU measurement report 1415 may include RACH reports, uplink (UL) measurements, RLC protocol measurements, MAC protocol measurements, DU loads, RIM detection, strong UL interference detection, and other appropriate values ​​related to the measurement or event. The DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 may also be configured to configure other DUs controlled by the CU circuit 1442 in other L2 relay IAB nodes via the transceiver 1410.

[0162] In some instances, the DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 can configure the DU circuit 1444 and other DUs by sending a measurement request to the DU circuit 1444 (and other DUs) via the logical F1 interface. The measurement request may include a measurement configuration 1416 associated with at least one value, the at least one value being related to a measurement or event to be obtained by the DU circuit 1444. The measurement request may also include a report configuration 1418 for the DU circuit 1444 to generate a measurement report 1415 and send the measurement report 1415 reporting the at least one value to the CU circuit 1442. The DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 can configure the DU circuit 1444 (and other DUs) with multiple measurement configurations 1416 and associated report configurations 1418, each measurement configuration being associated with a different measurement report, which may be UE-specific or DU / cell-specific. The DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 may be further configured to execute the DU measurement configuration software 1456 included on the computer-readable medium 1406 to implement one or more functions described herein.

[0163] In some examples, the DU circuit 1444 may include a DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 configured to receive a measurement request from the DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 (or an external DU measurement configuration circuit when the RAN node 1400 is an L2 relay IAB node). The DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 may also be configured to send a measurement response to the DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 confirming the configuration of the DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 according to the measurement configuration 1416 and the reporting configuration 1418.

[0164] The DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 may also be configured to obtain at least one value according to the measurement configuration 1416 and generate a measurement report 1415 including the at least one value according to the reporting configuration 1418. In some instances, the at least one value may include a RACH report, an uplink (UL) measurement, an RLC protocol measurement, a MAC protocol measurement, a DU load, a RIM detection indicator, or a strong UL interference measurement detection indicator. In some instances, the reporting configuration 1418 may configure the DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 to be a periodic report or an event-based report of the measurement report 1415. Thus, the DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 may send an event-based DU measurement report or a periodic DU measurement report 1415 to the CU circuit 1442. The DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 may also be configured to execute the DU measurement reporting software 1458 included on the computer-readable medium 1406 to implement one or more functions described herein.

[0165] Fig.151 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary process 1500 for CU configuration of DU measurement and event reporting according to some aspects. As described below, within the scope of the present disclosure, some or all of the illustrated features may be omitted in certain implementations, and some of the illustrated features may not be required for implementation of all embodiments. In some instances, process 1500 may consist of Fig.14 The process 1500 may be performed by the RAN node shown. The RAN node may include a CU and may also include a DU and / or wirelessly communicate with one or more DUs that together form a decomposed base station. In some examples, the process 1500 may be performed by any suitable device or component for performing the functions or algorithms described below.

[0166] In block 1502, a CU may send a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request may include a measurement configuration associated with at least one value obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU.

[0167] For example, at least one value may include a random access channel (RACH) report, and the measurement configuration may include at least one of the following: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size. As another example, at least one value may include an uplink measurement, and the measurement configuration may include at least one of the following: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an angle of arrival measurement, a thermal interference (IoT) measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, an indicator of the maximum number of HARQ retransmissions reached, or a beam measurement report.

[0168] As another example, at least one value may include a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the measurement configuration may include at least one of: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions was detected. As another example, at least one value may include a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and the measurement configuration may include at least beam failure recovery statistics.

[0169] In some instances, the measurement configuration includes at least one parameter associated with at least one value. In this instance, the reporting configuration may indicate at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to include in the measurement report. In some instances, the at least one value includes a load of the DU, a detected remote interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator.

[0170] In some instances, the measurement configuration may further include at least one of a measurement period for the at least one value or a filtering configuration for filtering the at least one value. In some instances, the measurement configuration may also include an identifier of a user equipment (UE) associated with the at least one value.

[0171] In some instances, the reporting configuration may be a periodic reporting configuration, including the periodicity of the measurement report, and one or more selected parameters of the measurement configuration parameters to include in the measurement report. In some instances, the reporting configuration may be an event-based reporting configuration, including an event-based indicator that requests the DU to send a measurement report after an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs. The event reporting configuration may also include one or more selected parameters of the measurement configuration parameters to include in the measurement report. In some instances, the event reporting configuration may also include at least one threshold associated with the event. For example, in conjunction with Fig.14 The DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 is shown and described as being operable to send a measurement request to the DU via the F1 interface.

[0172] At block 1504, the CU may receive a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration. Fig.14 The DU measurement configuration circuit 1446 is shown and described as being operable to receive a measurement response from the DU via the F1 interface.

[0173] In block 1506, the CU may receive a measurement report associated with at least one value from the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration. In some instances, the measurement report includes the at least one value. In addition, when the measurement configuration indicates that the measurement report is UE-specific, the measurement report may also include an identifier of the UE (e.g., the measurement configuration includes an identifier of the UE associated with the at least one value). Here, the UE may be served by a decomposed base station. For example, the above description may be combined with Fig.14 The CU circuit 1442 shown and described may receive the measurement report.

[0174] Fig.16 1600 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary process 1600 for DU measurement and event reporting according to some aspects. As described below, within the scope of the present disclosure, some or all of the illustrated features may be omitted in certain implementations, and certain illustrated features may not be required for implementation of all embodiments. In some instances, process 1600 may consist of Fig.14 The RAN node shown is executed. The RAN node may include a DU and further include a CU or perform wireless communication with the CU, wherein the CU and the DU together form a decomposed base station. In some examples, the process 1600 can be executed by any suitable device or component for performing the functions or algorithms described below.

[0175] In block 1602, a DU may receive a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station. The measurement request may include a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU.

[0176] In some instances, at least one value may include a random access channel (RACH) report, and the measurement configuration may include at least one of the following: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size. As another example, at least one value may include an uplink measurement, and the measurement configuration may include at least one of the following: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an angle of arrival measurement, an over-the-air (IoT) measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, a maximum HARQ retransmission limit indicator reached, or a beam measurement report.

[0177] As another example, at least one value may include a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the measurement configuration may include at least one of the following: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator of a maximum RLC retransmission count being detected. As another example, at least one value may include a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and the measurement configuration may include at least beam failure recovery statistics.

[0178] In some instances, the measurement configuration includes at least one parameter associated with at least one value. In this instance, the reporting configuration may indicate at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to include in the measurement report. In some instances, the at least one value includes a load of the DU, a detected remote interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator.

[0179] In some instances, the measurement configuration may further include at least one of a measurement period for the at least one value or a filtering configuration for filtering the at least one value. In some instances, the measurement configuration may also include an identifier of a user equipment (UE) associated with the at least one value.

[0180] In some instances, the reporting configuration may be a periodic reporting configuration, including the periodicity of the measurement report, and one or more selected parameters of the measurement configuration parameters to include in the measurement report. In some instances, the reporting configuration may be an event-based reporting configuration, including an event-based indicator that requests the DU to send a measurement report after an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs. The event reporting configuration may also include one or more selected parameters of the measurement configuration parameters to include in the measurement report. In some instances, the event reporting configuration may also include at least one threshold associated with the event. For example, in conjunction with Fig.14 The DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 is shown and described as receiving a measurement request from the CU via the F1 interface.

[0181] In block 1604, the DU may obtain at least one value according to the measurement configuration. Fig.14 The DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 is shown and described to obtain at least one value.

[0182] In block 1606, the DU may send a measurement report associated with the at least one value to the CU according to the reporting configuration. In some instances, the measurement report includes the at least one value. In addition, when the measurement configuration indicates that the measurement report is UE-specific, the measurement report may also include an identifier of the UE (e.g., the measurement configuration includes an identifier of the UE associated with the at least one value). Here, the UE may be served by a decomposed base station. For example, the above Fig.14 The DU measurement reporting circuit 1448 is shown and described to transmit the measurement report.

[0183] In one configuration, a decomposed base station (e.g., a DU and / or CU of a decomposed base station) includes various components as described in the present disclosure. In one aspect, the aforementioned components may be Fig.14 The processor 1404 shown in the figure is configured to perform the functions described by the above components. In another aspect, the above components may be a circuit or any component configured to perform the functions described by the above components.

[0184] Of course, in the above examples, the circuits included in the processor 1404 are provided only as examples, and other components for performing the described functions may be included in various aspects of the present disclosure, including but not limited to instructions stored in the computer readable medium 1406, or referenced. Figure 1 , Figure 2 , Figures 4 to 7, Figures 9 to 12 and / or Fig.14 Any of the foregoing, and using, for example, Fig.15 and Fig.16 Any other suitable means or components of the described processes and / or algorithms.

[0185] Fig.15 and Fig.16 The processes shown in may include additional aspects, such as any single aspect or any combination of aspects described below and / or be related to one or more other processes described elsewhere herein.

[0186] Aspect 1: A method operating at a distributed unit (DU) of a decomposed base station, the method comprising: receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU; obtaining the at least one value according to the measurement configuration at the DU; and sending a measurement report associated with the at least one value from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration.

[0187] Aspect 2: A method according to aspect 1, wherein the at least one value includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the measurement configuration includes at least one of the following items: RACH indication, timing advance, detected power, detected signal quality, RACH trigger, beam identifier, synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, uplink frequency band, physical RACH (PRACH) resource, RACH type or random access response (RAR) window size.

[0188] Aspect 3: A method according to Aspect 1, wherein the at least one value includes an uplink measurement, and the measurement configuration includes at least one of the following items: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an arrival angle measurement, a thermal interference (IoT) measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, an indicator of the maximum number of HARQ retransmissions reached, or a beam measurement report.

[0189] Aspect 4: A method according to aspect 1, wherein the at least one value comprises a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the measurement configuration comprises at least one of the following items: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator of a maximum number of RLC retransmissions detected.

[0190] Aspect 5: The method according to aspect 1, wherein the at least one value comprises a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and wherein the measurement configuration comprises at least beam failure recovery statistics.

[0191] Aspect 6: The method according to any one of aspects 1 to 5, wherein the measurement configuration comprises at least one parameter associated with the at least one value, and the reporting configuration further indicates at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to be included in the measurement report.

[0192] Aspect 7: The method according to aspect 1 or 6, wherein the at least one value includes at least one of the following items: a load of the DU, a detected long-range interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator.

[0193] Aspect 8: The method according to any one of aspects 1 to 7, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises at least one of the following: a measurement period for the at least one value or a filtering configuration for filtering the at least one value.

[0194] Aspect 9: A method according to any one of Aspects 1 to 8, wherein the reporting configuration includes at least one of the following items: a periodicity of the measurement report or an event-based indicator for requesting the DU to send the measurement report after an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs.

[0195] Aspect 10: A method operating at a central unit (CU) of a decomposed base station, the method comprising: sending a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU; receiving a measurement response from the DU confirming the configuration of the DU based on the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration; and receiving a measurement report associated with the at least one value from the DU based on the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration.

[0196] Aspect 11: A method according to aspect 10, wherein the at least one value includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the measurement configuration includes at least one of the following items: RACH indication, timing advance, detected power, detected signal quality, RACH trigger, beam identifier, synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, uplink frequency band, physical RACH (PRACH) resource, RACH type or random access response (RAR) window size.

[0197] Aspect 12: A method according to Aspect 10, wherein the at least one value includes an uplink measurement, and the measurement configuration includes at least one of the following items: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an arrival angle measurement, a thermal interference (IoT) measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, an indicator of the maximum number of HARQ retransmissions reached, or a beam measurement report.

[0198] Aspect 13: A method according to aspect 10, wherein the at least one value comprises a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the measurement configuration comprises at least one of the following items: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions has been detected.

[0199] Aspect 14: The method of aspect 10, wherein the at least one value comprises a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and wherein the measurement configuration comprises at least beam failure recovery statistics.

[0200] Aspect 15: The method according to any one of aspects 10 to 14, wherein the measurement configuration comprises at least one parameter associated with the at least one value, and the reporting configuration further indicates at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to be included in the measurement report.

[0201] Aspect 16: The method according to aspect 10 or 15, wherein the at least one value comprises at least one of the following items: a load of the DU, a detected long-range interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator.

[0202] Aspect 17: The method according to any one of aspects 10 to 16, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises at least one of the following: a measurement period for the at least one value or a filtering configuration for filtering the at least one value.

[0203] Aspect 18: A method according to any one of Aspects 10 to 17, wherein the reporting configuration includes at least one of the following items: a periodicity of the measurement report or an event-based indicator for requesting the DU to send the measurement report after an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs.

[0204] Aspect 19: The method according to any one of aspects 10 to 18, wherein the measurement configuration comprises an identifier of a user equipment (UE) associated with the at least one value, wherein the UE is served by the decomposed base station.

[0205] Aspect 20: The method according to aspect 19, wherein the measurement report includes the identifier of the UE.

[0206] Aspect 21: An apparatus configured for wireless communication, the apparatus comprising a transceiver, a memory, and a processor coupled to the transceiver and the memory, the processor and the memory being configured to perform the method of any one of aspects 1 to 9 or aspects 10 to 20.

[0207] Aspect 22: An apparatus in a wireless communication network, the apparatus comprising at least one component for performing the method of any one of aspects 1 to 9 or aspects 10 to 20.

[0208] Aspect 23: A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable code, comprising code for causing a device in a wireless communication network to perform the method described in any one of aspects 1 to 9 or aspects 10 to 20.

[0209] Several aspects of wireless communication networks have been presented with reference to exemplary embodiments. As those skilled in the art will readily appreciate, various aspects described throughout this disclosure may be extended to other telecommunication systems, network architectures, and communication standards.

[0210] For example, various aspects may be implemented in other systems defined by 3GPP, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE), Evolved Packet System (EPS), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), and / or Global System for Mobile (GSM). Various aspects may also be extended to systems defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2), such as CDMA2000 and / or Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO). Other examples may be implemented in systems employing IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), Bluetooth, and / or other suitable systems. The actual telecommunication standard, network architecture, and / or communication standard employed will depend on the specific application and the overall design constraints imposed on the system.

[0211] In this disclosure, the word "exemplary" is used to mean "serving as an example, instance, or illustration". Any implementation or aspect described herein as "exemplary" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects of the disclosure. Likewise, the term "aspect" does not require that all aspects of the disclosure include the discussed features, advantages, or modes of operation. The term "coupled" as used herein refers to a direct or indirect coupling between two objects. For example, if object A is in physical contact with object B, and object B is in contact with object C, objects A and C may still be considered coupled to each other even if they are not in direct physical contact. For example, a first object may be coupled to a second object even if the first object has never been in direct physical contact with the second object. The terms "circuit" and "circuitry" are used broadly and are intended to include: hardware implementations of electrical devices and conductors that, when connected and configured, are capable of performing the functions described in this disclosure without limitation to the type of electronic circuit; and software implementations of information and instructions that, when executed by a processor, are capable of performing the functions described in this disclosure.

[0212] One or more components, steps, features and / or functions are Figures 1 to 16 Can rearrange and / or combine into single component, step, feature or function, or be implemented in several components, steps or functions.Under the situation that does not deviate from the novel features disclosed herein, additional elements, components, steps and / or functions can also be added. Figure 1 , Figure 2 , Figures 4 to 7 , Figures 9 to 12 as well as Fig.14 The apparatus, devices and / or components illustrated in the figure may be configured to perform one or more of the methods, features or steps described herein. The novel algorithms described herein may also be effectively implemented in software and / or embedded in hardware.

[0213] It should be understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the disclosed methods is an illustration of exemplary processes. Based on design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods may be rearranged. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in an example order, and are not meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented unless specifically recited therein.

[0214] The above description is provided to enable any technician in the field to practice the various aspects described herein. Various modifications to these aspects will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein can be applied to other aspects. Therefore, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but to conform to the full scope consistent with the language claims, wherein, unless otherwise specified, the elements mentioned in the singular are not intended to mean "one and only one", but "one or more". Unless otherwise expressly stated, the term "some" refers to one or more. The phrase "at least one" of a series of items refers to any combination of these items, including a single member. For example, "at least one of a, b or c" is intended to cover: a; b; c; a and b; a and c; b and c; and a, b and c. All structural and functional equivalents of the elements of the various aspects described in this disclosure are known or will be known to those of ordinary skill in the art, and are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be covered by the claims. In addition, nothing disclosed herein is intended to be public, regardless of whether such disclosure is clearly stated in the claims.

Claims

1. A method operating at a distributed unit (DU) of a decomposed base station, the method comprising: receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; obtaining, at the DU, the at least one value according to the measurement configuration; as well as A measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic is sent from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration, wherein the measurement report includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value includes at least one of the following items: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, wherein each measurement report including the RACH report is sent upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE).

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one value further comprises an uplink measurement, and the uplink measurement comprises at least one of: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an angle of arrival measurement, an IoT measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, an indicator of a maximum number of HARQ retransmissions reached, or a beam measurement report.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one value comprises a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the RLC measurement comprises at least one of: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions has been detected. 4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one value further comprises a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and the radio measurement statistics comprise at least beam failure recovery statistics.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises at least one parameter associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU, and the reporting configuration further indicates at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to be included in the measurement report.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one value further comprises at least one of: a load of the DU, a detected long-range interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator. The method of claim 1 , wherein the measurement configuration further comprises a filtering configuration for obtaining the at least one value.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the reporting configuration comprises at least one of: a periodicity of the measurement report, or an event-based indicator requesting the DU to send the measurement report when an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs.

9. A decomposed base station in a wireless communication network, the decomposed base station comprising: Memory; as well as a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to: receiving a measurement request from a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; obtaining, at the DU, the at least one value according to the measurement configuration; as well as A measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic is sent from the DU to the CU according to the reporting configuration, wherein the measurement report includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value includes at least one of the following items: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, wherein each measurement report including the RACH report is sent upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE).

10. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the at least one value further comprises an uplink measurement, and the uplink measurement comprises at least one of the following: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an angle of arrival measurement, an IoT measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, an reached maximum number of HARQ retransmissions indicator, or a beam measurement report.

11. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the at least one value further comprises a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the RLC measurement comprises at least one of: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions is detected.

12. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the at least one value further comprises a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and wherein the radio measurement statistics include at least beam failure recovery statistics.

13. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises at least one parameter associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU, and the reporting configuration further indicates at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to be included in the measurement report.

14. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the at least one value further comprises at least one of: a load of the DU, a detected remote interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator.

15. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises a filtering configuration for obtaining the at least one value.

16. The decomposed base station of claim 9, wherein the reporting configuration comprises at least one of: a period of the measurement report, or an event-based indicator requesting the DU to send the measurement report when an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs.

17. A method operating at a central unit (CU) of a decomposed base station, the method comprising: sending a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; receiving, from the DU, a measurement response confirming a configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration; as well as A measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic is received from the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration, wherein the measurement report includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value includes at least one of the following items: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, and wherein upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE), the CU receives each measurement report including the RACH report from the DU.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one value further comprises an uplink measurement, and the uplink measurement comprises at least one of: a sounding reference signal (SRS) measurement, a phase tracking reference signal (PTRS) measurement, an angle of arrival measurement, an IoT measurement, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) retransmission rate, an indicator of a maximum number of HARQ retransmissions reached, or a beam measurement report.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one value further comprises a radio link protocol (RLC) measurement, and the RLC measurement comprises at least one of: a downlink RLC buffer occupancy, a first average number of RLC retransmissions per data radio bearer, a second average number of RLC retransmissions per user equipment (UE), a third average number of RLC retransmissions per cell, or an indicator that a maximum number of RLC retransmissions has been detected.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one value further comprises a medium access control (MAC) protocol measurement, and the measurement configuration includes at least beam failure recovery statistics.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the measurement configuration comprises at least one parameter associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU, and the reporting configuration further indicates at least one selected parameter of the at least one parameter to be included in the measurement report.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one value further comprises at least one of: a load of the DU, a detected long range interference indicator, or a detected strong uplink interference indicator.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises a filtering configuration for obtaining the at least one value.

24. The method of claim 17, wherein the reporting configuration comprises at least one of: a periodicity of the measurement report, or an event-based indicator requesting the DU to send the measurement report when an event corresponding to the measurement configuration occurs.

25. The method of claim 17, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises an identifier of a user equipment (UE) associated with the at least one value, wherein the UE is served by the decomposed base station.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the measurement report comprises the identifier of the UE.

27. A decomposed base station in a wireless communication network, the decomposed base station comprising: Memory; as well as a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to, at a central unit (CU) of the decomposed base station: sending a measurement request to a distributed unit (DU) of the decomposed base station, the measurement request comprising a measurement configuration associated with at least one value to be obtained by the DU, and a reporting configuration for reporting the at least one value to the CU, wherein the measurement configuration further comprises radio measurement statistics associated with the at least one value to be reported by the DU; receiving, from the DU, a measurement response confirming a configuration of the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration; as well as A measurement report including the at least one value and the radio measurement statistic is received from the DU according to the measurement configuration and the reporting configuration, wherein the measurement report includes a random access channel (RACH) report, and the at least one value includes at least one of the following items: a RACH indication, a timing advance, a detected power, a detected signal quality, a RACH trigger, a beam identifier, a synchronization signal block (SSB) identifier, an uplink frequency band, a physical RACH (PRACH) resource, a RACH type, or a random access response (RAR) window size, and wherein upon completion of a successful RACH procedure performed by a user equipment (UE), the CU receives each measurement report including the RACH report from the DU.

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