Communication method and device

Abstract

The invention provides a communication method and related equipment, which are used for reducing the overhead in a channel measurement process so as to improve the resource utilization rate and reduce the power consumption of terminal equipment. In the method, terminal equipment receives a first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, and each port set comprises one or more ports; the terminal equipment sends first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and a second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application relates to the field of wireless technology, and in particular to a communication method and device. Background Art

[0002] As a key technology of wireless communication, multi-input multi-output (MIMO) technology can be used to meet the needs of high-speed transmission. Through the process of channel measurement (or channel estimation), the network device can use the channel information obtained in the channel measurement process to calculate the precoding information between the network device and the terminal device. Subsequently, the network device and the terminal device can realize MIMO communication through the precoding information.

[0003] Taking the downlink channel measurement process implemented by the network device based on the downlink reference signal as an example, the downlink reference signal sent by the network device may include a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), and the network device may receive feedback of the CSI-RS, so that the network device can obtain channel information based on the feedback of the CSI-RS. Among them, the CSI-RS is sent through the port of the network device, that is, the overhead of the CSI-RS is related to the number of ports of the network device.

[0004] However, in MIMO systems, as the frequency band increases and the demand for high-speed communication increases, the number of ports of network devices may gradually increase, which will increase the overhead of reference signals (such as CSI-RS) used for channel measurement and occupy more transmission resources, thereby increasing the power consumption of terminal devices. Summary of the invention

[0005] The present application provides a communication method and related equipment for reducing the overhead in the channel measurement process, thereby improving resource utilization and reducing the power consumption of terminal equipment.

[0006] In a first aspect, the present application provides a communication method, which is executed by a terminal device (or terminal), or the method is executed by some components in the terminal device (such as a processor, a chip or a chip system, etc.), or the method can also be implemented by a logic module or software that can realize all or part of the functions of the terminal device. In the first aspect and its possible implementation, the communication method is described as being executed by a terminal device. In the method, the terminal device receives a first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set including one or more ports; the terminal device sends first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0007] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device can send the first channel information and the second channel information, wherein the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. After receiving the first channel information and the second channel information, the subsequent network device can obtain the precoding information corresponding to the first port set and the second port set based on the first channel information and the second channel information. Thus, the terminal device can enable the network device to obtain higher-dimensional precoding information through the correlation of channel information of different port sets by sending lower-dimensional channel information (i.e., the first channel information and the second channel information), and reduce the overhead in the channel measurement process, thereby improving resource utilization and reducing power consumption of the terminal device.

[0008] It should be noted that the first reference signal corresponds to the first port set and the second port set, which can be understood as, among the multiple ports of the network device that send the first reference signal, some ports are located in (or included in, or belong to) the first port set, and the other ports are located in (or included in, or belong to) the second port set. In other words, the multiple ports of the network device that send the first reference signal may include ports in the first port set and ports in the second port set.

[0009] Optionally, among the multiple ports through which the network device sends the first reference signal, other ports may not be included except the ports in the first port set and the ports in the second port set. Alternatively, among the multiple ports through which the network device sends the first reference signal, other ports may be included except the ports in the first port set and the ports in the second port set, and the other ports may be included in other port sets, such as the third port set.

[0010] In the present application, the reference signal received by the terminal device from the network device may be a downlink reference signal, for example, the downlink reference signal may include CSI-RS, synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block (SS / PBCH block or SSB), etc. Exemplarily, taking the first reference signal received by the terminal device as CSI-RS as an example, the port corresponding to the first reference signal (for example, a port in the first port set, a port in the second port set, and a port in a possible third port set, etc.) may be a CSI-RS port, and accordingly, the channel information of the CSI-RS port (for example, the second channel information) may be a channel state information (CSI) report, for example, the CSI report may include but is not limited to, precoding matrix indicator (PMI), rank indicator (RI), channel quality indicator (CQI), and layer indicator (LI), etc.

[0011] Optionally, the first reference signal may correspond to one or more discrete Fourier transform (DFT) beam sets (or inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) beam sets). In other words, the above-mentioned "port set" may be replaced with "DFT beam set (or IDFT beam set)", that is, the first reference signal corresponds to the first DFT beam set and the second DFT beam set, each DFT beam set includes one or more DFT beams (or, the first reference signal corresponds to the first IDFT beam set and the second IDFT beam set, each IDFT beam set includes one or more IDFT beams). In addition, "DFT beam" may be replaced with other descriptions, such as DFT vector, DFT basis, IDFT vector, IDFT basis, etc. For example, the first channel information (port level) is obtained based on the first reference signal measurement, and then DFT processing is performed in the port dimension, that is, converted into beam-level channel information. The corresponding channel information of the first DFT beam set and the channel information of the second DFT beam set can be at least one of the corresponding CSI report, rank indication, channel quality indication, layer indication, precoding indication, etc.

[0012] The following text mainly describes port sets, and a similar approach can be extended to beam sets.

[0013] Optionally, in a beam communication-based scenario, the network device may send multiple analog beams. Taking the network device including a transceiver with a hybrid beamforming (HBF) architecture as an example, the network device can select the directions of multiple analog beams and send down reference signals for channel measurement through different analog beams. For the terminal device, the process of the network device selecting an analog beam is called beam training or beam scanning. Among them, in each of the multiple analog beams, each analog beam can send a reference signal. That is, the network device can send a first reference signal through each of the multiple analog beams, so that the channel measurement process corresponding to the reference signals sent by the multiple analog beams can obtain a gain in reducing overhead.

[0014] It should be understood that the terminal device can determine the channel information corresponding to the first port set and the channel information corresponding to the second port set based on the first reference signal corresponding to the first port set and the second port set. Thereafter, the terminal device can send the first channel information and the second channel information based on the channel information corresponding to the first port set and the channel information corresponding to the second port set.

[0015] Optionally, the second channel information is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. It can be understood that the second channel information includes the channel information of the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal (for example, the second channel information includes PMI), or the second channel information is used to indicate the channel information of the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal (for example, the second channel information is used to indicate PMI).

[0016] Optionally, the first channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and a second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and it can be understood that the first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix (or combining coefficient vector or combining coefficient, or weighting coefficient, or coefficient) between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set. Wherein, "corresponding to" can be replaced by other terms, such as including, indicating, etc.

[0017] Further optionally, when the port corresponding to the first reference signal also includes a port in a third port set, the terminal device may also send a combining coefficient matrix (or combining coefficient vector or combining coefficient, or weighting coefficient, or coefficient) between the channel information of the third port set and the channel information of the first port set (or the second port set).

[0018] Optionally, during the process of the terminal device sending the first channel information and the second channel information, the terminal device may send the first channel information and the second channel information themselves, or may send first indication information and second indication information, wherein the first indication information is used to indicate the first channel information, and the second indication information is used to indicate the second channel information.

[0019] Optionally, the first channel information and the second channel information may be carried in the same or different messages / signalings / information.

[0020] Optionally, the first indication information and the second indication information may be carried in the same or different messages / signalings / information.

[0021] In a possible implementation of the first aspect, before the terminal device sends the first channel information and the second channel information, the method also includes: the terminal device sends a second reference signal, the second reference signal is used to determine the third channel information and / or the first port set, and the third channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0022] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device may also send a second reference signal, and after the subsequent network device receives the second reference signal through one or more port sets (including at least the first port set), the network device may determine the third channel information and / or the first port set based on the second reference signal. Thus, the network device may obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set according to the second reference signal.

[0023] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device receiving indication information used to indicate the first port set and / or the second port set.

[0024] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device can also receive indication information for indicating the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the terminal device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the indication of the network device, and then the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0025] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, before the terminal device sends the first channel information and the second channel information, the method also includes: the terminal device receives a third reference signal, the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, the fourth channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; the terminal device sends the fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set.

[0026] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device can also receive a third reference signal corresponding to the first port set, and the terminal device can determine and send the fourth channel information and / or the first port set based on the third reference signal, so that the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set. In addition, the network device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the information sent by the terminal device, so that the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0027] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device sending fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0028] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device may also send the fifth channel information determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal, so that the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set. Moreover, the network device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the fifth channel information, so that the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0029] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device sending the index of the first port set and / or the index of the second port set.

[0030] Based on the above technical solution, the first channel information sent by the terminal device is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information sent by the terminal device is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. Accordingly, the way in which the terminal device sends the index of the first port set and / or the index of the second port set can enable the network device to clearly understand the port sets corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information, thereby enabling the terminal device and the network device to reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0031] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device sending capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

[0032] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device can also send capability information indicating support for sending the first channel information, so that the network device can schedule the terminal device to feedback lower-dimensional channel information based on the capability information, so that the network device can obtain higher-dimensional precoding information, thereby reducing the overhead during the channel measurement process.

[0033] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0034] or

[0035] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, W 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information.

[0036] Optionally, W 0 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, wherein the channel information determined according to the first port set may include at least one of the following:

[0037] third channel information, where the third channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to a second reference signal sent by the terminal device (or received by the network device);

[0038] Fourth channel information, where the fourth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to a third reference signal received by the terminal device (or sent by the network device);

[0039] The fifth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0040] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0041] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0042] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α 0 ,α1 ] is the transpose of ]. Accordingly, the precoding information W satisfies:

[0043]

[0044] Based on the above technical solution, the first channel information and the second channel information sent by the terminal device can be used to determine the precoding information, and the precoding information can satisfy the above relationship to provide a specific implementation method for the network device to determine the precoding information.

[0045] Optionally, W 0 and W 1 They respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream.

[0046] Optionally, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream.

[0047] In a possible implementation manner of the first aspect, the method further includes: the terminal device receiving indication information used to indicate the first data stream and the second data stream.

[0048] Based on the above technical solution, the terminal device can also receive indication information for indicating the first data stream and the second data stream, so that the terminal device can correctly receive and demodulate the first data stream and the second data stream based on the indication information. In addition, by pairing different port sets in different data streams, better system performance can be achieved. For example, the stronger stream of the first port set and the weaker stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted to transmit the first data stream; the weaker stream of the first port set and the stronger stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted to transmit the second data stream; thereby, both data streams are transmitted relatively well, and the overall performance is ultimately improved.

[0049] The second aspect of the present application provides a communication method, which is executed by a network device, or the method is executed by some components in the network device (such as a processor, a chip or a chip system, etc.), or the method can also be implemented by a logic module or software that can realize all or part of the network device functions. In the second aspect and its possible implementation, the communication method is described as an example of being executed by a network device. In this method, the network device sends a first reference signal, and the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set including one or more ports; the network device receives first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0050] Based on the above technical solution, after the network device sends the first reference signal, the network device can receive the first channel information and the second channel information, wherein the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. In other words, after receiving the first channel information and the second channel information, the network device can obtain the precoding information corresponding to the first port set and the second port set based on the first channel information and the second channel information. Thus, the terminal device can obtain the precoding information of a higher dimension by sending the channel information of a lower dimension (i.e., the first channel information and the second channel information), and reduce the overhead in the channel measurement process, thereby improving resource utilization and reducing the power consumption of the terminal device.

[0051] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, before the network device receives the first channel information and the second channel information, the method also includes: the network device receives a second reference signal, the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, and the third channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0052] Based on the above technical solution, the network device can also receive a second reference signal corresponding to the first port set through one or more port sets (at least including the first port set), and the network device can subsequently determine the third channel information and / or the first port set based on the second reference signal. Thus, the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set according to the second reference signal.

[0053] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the method further includes: the network device sending indication information used to indicate the first port set and / or the second port set.

[0054] Based on the above technical solution, the network device can also send indication information for indicating the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the terminal device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the indication of the network device, and then the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0055] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, before the network device receives the first channel information and the second channel information, the method also includes: the network device sends a third reference signal, the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, the fourth channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; the network device receives the fourth channel information and / or the first port set.

[0056] Based on the above technical solution, the network device can also send a third reference signal corresponding to the first port set, and the network device can receive the fourth channel information and / or the first port set determined based on the third reference signal, so that the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set. In addition, the network device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the information sent by the terminal device, so that the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0057] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the method further includes: the network device sending fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0058] Based on the above technical solution, the network device can also receive the fifth channel information determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal, so that the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set. In addition, the network device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the fifth channel information, so that the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0059] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the method further includes: the network device receiving an index of the first port set and / or an index of the second port set.

[0060] Based on the above technical solution, the first channel information received by the network device is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information sent by the terminal device is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. Accordingly, the way in which the terminal device sends the index of the first port set and / or the index of the second port set can enable the network device to clearly identify the port sets corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information, thereby enabling the terminal device and the network device to reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0061] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the method further includes: the network device receiving capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

[0062] Based on the above technical solution, the network device can also receive capability information indicating support for sending the first channel information, so that the network device can schedule the terminal device to feedback lower-dimensional channel information based on the capability information, so that the network device can obtain higher-dimensional precoding information through the correlation of channel information of different port sets, thereby reducing the overhead in the channel measurement process.

[0063] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0064] or

[0065] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, W 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information.

[0066] Optionally, W 0 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, wherein the channel information determined according to the first port set may include at least one of the following:

[0067] third channel information, where the third channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to a second reference signal sent by the terminal device (or received by the network device);

[0068] Fourth channel information, where the fourth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to a third reference signal received by the terminal device (or sent by the network device);

[0069] The fifth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0070] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0071] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0072] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α 0 ,α 1 ] is the transpose of ]. Accordingly, the precoding information W satisfies:

[0073]

[0074] Based on the above technical solution, the first channel information and the second channel information received by the network device can be used to determine the precoding information, and the precoding information can satisfy the above relationship to provide a specific implementation method for the network device to determine the precoding information.

[0075] Optionally, and W 1 They respectively represent the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and the precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream, so that the precoding information can adapt to the scenario of single-stream transmission.

[0076] Optionally, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream, so that the precoding information can adapt to the scenario of multi-stream transmission.

[0077] In a possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the method further includes: the network device sending indication information for indicating the first data flow and the second data flow.

[0078] Based on the above technical solution, the network device can also send indication information for indicating the first data stream and the second data stream, so that the terminal device can correctly receive and demodulate the first data stream and the second data stream based on the indication information. In addition, by pairing different port sets in different data streams, better system performance can be achieved. For example, the stronger stream of the first port set and the weaker stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted to transmit the first data stream; the weaker stream of the first port set and the stronger stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted to transmit the second data stream; so that both data streams are transmitted relatively well, and ultimately the overall performance is improved.

[0079] The third aspect of the present application provides a communication device, which can implement the method in the above-mentioned first aspect and any implementation thereof. The device includes a corresponding unit or module for executing the above-mentioned method. The unit or module included in the device can be implemented by software and / or hardware. For example, the device can be a terminal device, or the device can be a component in the terminal device (such as a processor, a chip or a chip system, etc.), or the device can also be a logical module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the terminal device. Among them, the device includes a processing unit and a transceiver unit, the transceiver unit is used to receive a first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set includes one or more ports; the processing unit is used to determine the first channel information and the second channel information; the transceiver unit is also used to send the first channel information and the second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0080] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to send a second reference signal, where the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, where the third channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0081] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set.

[0082] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to receive a third reference signal, where the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, where the fourth channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; the transceiver unit is further used to send the fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set.

[0083] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to send fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0084] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix or a combining coefficient vector or a combining coefficient (or a weighting coefficient, or a coefficient) between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set.

[0085] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to send an index of the first port set and / or an index of the second port set.

[0086] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to send capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

[0087] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0088] or

[0089] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0 represents precoding information corresponding to the channel information (eg, one or more of the third channel information, the fourth channel information, and the fifth channel information) determined according to the first port set, W 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information.

[0090] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0091] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0092] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α 0 ,α 1 ] is the transpose of ].

[0093] In a possible implementation of the third aspect, W 0 and W 1They respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream.

[0094] In a possible implementation of the third aspect, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream.

[0095] In a possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to receive indication information indicating the first data stream and the second data stream.

[0096] In the third aspect of the present application, the constituent modules of the communication device can also be used to execute the steps performed in each possible implementation method of the first aspect and achieve corresponding technical effects. For details, please refer to the first aspect and will not be repeated here.

[0097] In a fourth aspect of the present application, a communication device is provided, which can implement the method in the second aspect and any implementation thereof. The device includes a corresponding unit or module for executing the above method. The unit or module included in the device can be implemented by software and / or hardware. For example, the device can be a network device, or the device can be a component in the network device (such as a processor, a chip or a chip system, etc.), or the device can also be a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the network device function. Among them, the device includes a processing unit and a transceiver unit, the processing unit is used to determine a first reference signal, the transceiver unit is used to send a first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set includes one or more ports; the transceiver unit is also used to receive first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0098] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to receive a second reference signal, where the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, where the third channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0099] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to send indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set.

[0100] In a possible implementation of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to send a third reference signal, where the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, where the fourth channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; the network device receives the fourth channel information and / or the first port set.

[0101] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to send fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0102] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix or a combining coefficient vector or a combining coefficient (or a weighting coefficient, or a coefficient) between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set.

[0103] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further configured to receive an index of the first port set and / or an index of the second port set.

[0104] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to receive capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

[0105] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0106] or

[0107] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, W 1 Indicates the second channel information.

[0108] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0109] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0110] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α0 ,α 1 ] is the transpose of ].

[0111] In a possible implementation of the fourth aspect, W 0 and W 1 They respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream.

[0112] In a possible implementation of the fourth aspect, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream.

[0113] In a possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the transceiver unit is further used to send indication information used to indicate the first data stream and the second data stream.

[0114] In the fourth aspect of the present application, the constituent modules of the communication device can also be used to execute the steps performed in each possible implementation method of the second aspect and achieve corresponding technical effects. For details, please refer to the second aspect and will not be repeated here.

[0115] In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a communication device, comprising at least one processor, the at least one processor coupled to a memory; the processor is used to execute the method described in the first aspect or any possible implementation of the first aspect. For example, the memory is used to store a program or instruction; the at least one processor is used to execute the program or instruction so that the device implements the method described in the first aspect or any possible implementation of the first aspect.

[0116] In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a communication device, comprising at least one processor, the at least one processor coupled to a memory; the processor is used to execute the method described in the aforementioned second aspect or any possible implementation of the second aspect. For example, the memory is used to store a program or instruction; the at least one processor is used to execute the program or instruction so that the device implements the method described in the aforementioned second aspect or any possible implementation of the second aspect.

[0117] In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a communication device, comprising at least one logic circuit and an input / output interface; the logic circuit is used to execute the method described in the first aspect and any possible implementation method thereof.

[0118] In an eighth aspect, the present application provides a communication device, comprising at least one logic circuit and an input / output interface; the logic circuit is used to execute the method described in the second aspect and any possible implementation method thereof.

[0119] In a ninth aspect, the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium, which is used to store one or more computer-executable instructions. When the computer-executable instructions are executed by a processor, the processor executes the method described in any possible implementation method of any aspect of the first to second aspects above.

[0120] The tenth aspect of the present application provides a computer program product (or computer program). When the computer program product is executed by the processor, the processor executes a method in any possible implementation manner of any aspect from the first to the second aspect.

[0121] In the eleventh aspect of the present application, a chip system is provided, which includes at least one processor for supporting a communication device to implement the functions involved in any possible implementation method of any aspect of the first to second aspects.

[0122] In a possible design, the chip system may also include a memory for storing program instructions and data necessary for the communication device. The chip system may be composed of a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete devices. Optionally, the chip system also includes an interface circuit, which provides program instructions and / or data for the at least one processor.

[0123] The twelfth aspect of the present application provides a communication system, which includes the communication device of the third aspect and the calling device of the fourth aspect, or the communication system includes the communication device of the fifth aspect and the communication device of the sixth aspect, or the communication system includes the communication device of the seventh aspect and the communication device of the eighth aspect.

[0124] Among them, the technical effects brought about by any design method from the third aspect to the twelfth aspect can refer to the technical effects brought about by the above-mentioned first aspect to the second aspect and their different design methods, and will not be repeated here. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0125] Figure 1a A schematic diagram of a signal transmission method involved in this application;

[0126] Figure 1b Another schematic diagram of the signal transmission method involved in this application;

[0127] Figure 1c Another schematic diagram of the signal transmission method involved in this application;

[0128] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of a communication system involved in this application;

[0129] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of the reference signal receiving and sending process involved in this application;

[0130] Figure 4 Another schematic diagram of the reference signal receiving and sending process involved in the present application;

[0131] Figure 5 A schematic diagram of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0132] Figure 6a Another schematic diagram of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0133] Figure 6b Another schematic diagram of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0134] Figure 6c Another schematic diagram of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0135] Figure 7a A schematic diagram of an application example of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0136] Figure 7b Another schematic diagram of an application example of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0137] Figure 8 Another schematic diagram of the reference signal receiving and sending process involved in the present application;

[0138] Fig. 9 Another schematic diagram of the communication method provided by the present application;

[0139] Fig.10 A schematic diagram of a communication device provided for this application;

[0140] Fig.11 Another schematic diagram of a communication device provided by the present application;

[0141] Fig.12 Another schematic diagram of a communication device provided by the present application;

[0142] Fig.13 Another schematic diagram of a communication device provided by the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0143] First, some terms in the embodiments of the present application are explained to facilitate understanding by those skilled in the art.

[0144] (1) Configuration and pre-configuration: In this application, configuration and pre-configuration will be used at the same time. Configuration refers to the base station or server and other network devices sending some parameter configuration information or parameter values ​​to the terminal through messages or signaling, so that the terminal can determine the communication parameters or resources during transmission based on these values ​​or information. Pre-configuration is similar to configuration. It can be a method in which a base station or server and other network devices send parameter information or values ​​to the terminal through a communication link or carrier; it can also be a definition of corresponding parameters or parameter values ​​given in the standard, or by setting the relevant parameters or values ​​in the terminal device in advance. This application does not limit this. Furthermore, these values ​​and parameters can be changed or updated.

[0145] (2) In this application, "used for indication" may include being used for direct indication and being used for indirect indication. When describing that a certain indication information is used for indicating A, it can be understood that the indication information carries A, directly indicates A, or indirectly indicates A.

[0146] In this application, the information indicated by the indication information is referred to as the information to be indicated. In the specific implementation process, there are many ways to indicate the information to be indicated. For example, it can be implemented by direct indication, such as by indicating the information to be indicated itself or the index of the information to be indicated. It can also be implemented by indirectly indicating other information, wherein there is an association between the other information and the information to be indicated. It is also possible to indicate only a part of the information to be indicated, while the other parts of the information to be indicated are known or agreed in advance. For example, the indication of specific information can also be achieved with the help of the arrangement order of each information agreed in advance (for example, specified by the protocol), thereby reducing the indication overhead to a certain extent.

[0147] The information to be indicated can be sent as a whole, or divided into multiple sub-information and sent separately, and the sending period and / or sending time of these sub-information can be the same or different. The specific sending method is not limited in this application. Among them, the sending period and / or sending time of these sub-information can be pre-defined, for example, pre-defined according to the protocol, or can be configured by the transmitting device by sending configuration information to the receiving device. Among them, the configuration information can include, for example, but not limited to, one or a combination of at least two of radio resource control (RRC) signaling, media access control (MAC) layer signaling and physical layer signaling. Among them, MAC layer signaling, for example, includes MAC control element (CE); physical layer signaling, for example, includes downlink control information (DCI).

[0148] (3) Reference signal (RS), also known as pilot signal. In communication systems, it is necessary to estimate the uplink channel or downlink channel in order to send and receive data, obtain system synchronization and feedback channel information. Channel estimation refers to the process of reconstructing or restoring the received signal in order to compensate for the signal distortion caused by channel fading and noise fading. It uses the reference signal known in advance by the transmitter and receiver to track the time and frequency domain changes of the channel. The above reference signals are also called reference signals. They are distributed on different resource elements (RE) in the two-dimensional space of time and frequency within the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and have known amplitude and phase.

[0149] At the physical layer, uplink communication may include transmission of uplink physical channels and uplink signals. Among them, uplink physical channels include random access channel (PRACH), uplink control channel (physical uplink control channel, PUCCH), uplink data channel (physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH), etc., and uplink signals include channel sounding signal SRS, uplink control channel demodulation reference signal (PUCCH de-modulation reference signal, PUCCH-DMRS), uplink data channel demodulation reference signal PUSCH-DMRS, uplink phase noise tracking signal (phase noise tracking reference signal, PTRS), uplink positioning signal (uplink positioning RS), etc.

[0150] At the physical layer, downlink communication may include transmission of downlink physical channels and downlink signals. Among them, downlink physical channels include broadcast channels (physical broadcast channel, PBCH), downlink control channels (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), downlink data channels (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), etc. Downlink signals include primary synchronization signal (PSS for short) / secondary synchronization signal (SSS), downlink control channel demodulation reference signal PDCCH-DMRS, downlink data channel demodulation reference signal PDSCH-DMRS, phase noise tracking signal PTRS, channel status information reference signal (CSI-RS), cell signal (Cell reference signal, CRS) (NR does not have), fine synchronization signal (time / frequency trackingreference signal, TRS) (LTE does not have), LTE / NR positioning signal (positioning RS), etc.

[0151] (4) The terms "system" and "network" in the embodiments of the present application can be used interchangeably. "At least one" means one or more, and "plurality" means two or more. "And / or" describes the association relationship of associated objects, indicating that three relationships may exist. For example, A and / or B can represent: the existence of A alone, the existence of A and B at the same time, and the existence of B alone, where A and B can be singular or plural. The character " / " generally indicates that the objects associated with each other are in an "or" relationship. "At least one of the following" or similar expressions refers to any combination of these items, including any combination of single items or plural items. For example, "at least one of A, B and C" includes A, B, C, AB, AC, BC or ABC. And, unless otherwise specified, the ordinal numbers such as "first" and "second" mentioned in the embodiments of the present application are used to distinguish multiple objects, and are not used to limit the order, timing, priority or importance of multiple objects.

[0152] (5) "Send" and "receive" in the embodiments of the present application indicate the direction of signal transmission. For example, "send information to device X" can be understood as the destination of the information is device X, which can include direct sending through the air interface, and also include indirect sending through the air interface by other units or modules. "Receive information from device Y" can be understood as the source of the information is device Y, which can include direct receiving from device Y through the air interface, and also include indirect receiving from device Y through the air interface from other units or modules. "Send" can also be understood as the "output" of the chip interface, and "receive" can also be understood as the "input" of the chip interface.

[0153] Exemplarily, the communication process between entity A and entity B is taken as an example. In the present application, entity A sends information to entity B, which may be A directly sending to B, or A indirectly sending to B through other entities. Similarly, entity B receives information from entity A, which may be entity B directly receiving the information sent by entity A, or entity B indirectly receiving the information sent by entity A through other entities. Entities A and B here may be RAN nodes or terminals, or modules inside RAN nodes or terminals. The sending and receiving of information may be information interaction between a RAN node and a terminal, for example, information interaction between a base station and a terminal; the sending and receiving of information may also be information interaction between two RAN nodes, for example, information interaction between a CU and a DU; the sending and receiving of information may also be information interaction between different modules inside a device, for example, information interaction between a terminal chip and other modules of the terminal, or information interaction between a base station chip and other modules in the base station.

[0154] (6) Precoding technology: When the channel state is known, the transmitter can process the signal to be transmitted with the help of a precoding matrix that matches the channel and then transmit it, so that the precoded transmission signal is adapted to the channel. Therefore, compared with the process of receiving the non-precoded transmission signal and eliminating the influence between channels at the receiving end, the complexity of the process of receiving the precoded transmission signal and eliminating the influence between channels at the receiving end is reduced. Therefore, by precoding the signal to be transmitted, the quality of the received signal (such as signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR)) can be improved. The use of precoding technology can also realize the transmission of the transmitter and multiple receivers on the same time-frequency resources, that is, multiple user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) is realized.

[0155] Optionally, the sending end may be a network device, and the receiving end may be a terminal device; or, the sending end may be a terminal device, and the receiving end may be a terminal device.

[0156] In one implementation, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology is used to increase system capacity and improve throughput. The mathematical expression is y=Hx+n, where y is the received signal, H is the channel information of the MIMO channel, x is the transmitted signal, and n is the noise. In a communication system with multiple antennas, the signals of multiple transmitting antennas will be superimposed on any receiving antenna. Therefore, the method of transmitting signals at the transmitting end affects the performance of the system, and it is often complicated to restore the transmitted signal at the receiving end. In this context, precoding is used to reduce system overhead and maximize the system capacity of MIMO on the one hand, and to reduce the complexity of the receiver to eliminate the impact between channels on the other hand. At this time, the mathematical expression is y=HPx+n, and P is the precoding matrix (or vector). In order to simplify the implementation complexity, P can be selected from a predefined set of matrices (or vectors), which is called a codebook. The method is also called a codebook-based transmission method. If the transmitter can obtain all the information of H, then P can be obtained by itself at the transmitter. This method is also called a non-codebook transmission method (NCB).

[0157] It should be understood that the relevant description of the precoding technology is only for ease of understanding and is not intended to limit the scope of protection of the embodiments of the present application. In the specific implementation process, the transmitting end can also perform precoding in other ways. For example, when channel information (such as but not limited to the channel matrix) cannot be obtained, a pre-set precoding matrix or a weighted processing method is used for precoding. For the sake of brevity, the specific content is not repeated herein.

[0158] (7) Precoding Matrix Indicator (PMI): can be used to indicate the precoding matrix. The precoding matrix can be, for example, a precoding matrix determined by the terminal device based on a channel matrix of a frequency domain unit. The channel matrix can be determined by the terminal device through channel estimation or based on channel reciprocity. However, it should be understood that the specific method for the terminal device to determine the precoding matrix is ​​not limited to the above description. The specific implementation method can refer to the prior art. For the sake of brevity, it is not listed here one by one.

[0159] For example, the precoding matrix can be obtained by performing singular value decomposition (SVD) on the channel matrix or the covariance matrix of the channel matrix, or by performing eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) on the covariance matrix of the channel matrix. It should be understood that the determination method of the precoding matrix listed above is only an example and should not constitute any limitation to the present application.

[0160] It should be noted that, according to the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, the network device can determine the CSI RS port, the frequency domain DFT vector, and the merging coefficient of the space-frequency vector used to construct the precoding vector based on the feedback of the terminal device, and then determine the precoding matrix corresponding to each frequency domain unit. The precoding matrix can be used directly for downlink data transmission; it can also be subjected to some beamforming methods, such as zero forcing (ZF), regularized zero-forcing (RZF), minimum mean-squared error (MMSE), maximizing the signal-to-leakage-and-noise ratio (SLNR), etc., to obtain the final precoding matrix for downlink data transmission. This application is not limited to this. Unless otherwise specified, the precoding matrix involved below may refer to the precoding matrix determined based on the method provided in this application.

[0161] It is understandable that the precoding matrix determined by the terminal device can be understood as the precoding matrix to be fed back. The terminal device can indicate the precoding matrix to be fed back through the PMI, so that the network device can recover the precoding matrix based on the PMI. It is understandable that the precoding matrix recovered by the network device based on the PMI can be the same as or similar to the precoding matrix to be fed back.

[0162] In downlink channel measurement, the higher the approximation between the precoding matrix determined by the network device based on the PMI and the precoding matrix determined by the terminal device, the more the precoding matrix determined by the network device for data transmission can adapt to the channel state, thereby improving the signal reception quality.

[0163] (8) Antenna port: It can be referred to as port for short. It can be understood as a transmitting antenna identified by the receiving end, or a transmitting antenna that can be distinguished in space. An antenna port can be pre-configured for each virtual antenna. Each virtual antenna can be a weighted combination of multiple physical antennas. Each antenna port can correspond to a reference signal. Therefore, each antenna port can be called a reference signal port, for example, a CSI-RS port, a demodulation reference signal (DMRS), an SRS port, etc.

[0164] Among them, the antenna port is a logical concept, and there is generally no direct correspondence between an antenna port and a physical antenna. The antenna port is usually associated with a reference signal, and its meaning can be understood as a transceiver interface on the channel that the reference signal passes through. For low frequencies, an antenna port may correspond to one or more antenna elements, which jointly send reference signals. The receiver can treat them as a whole without distinguishing these elements. For high-frequency systems, the antenna port may correspond to a beam. Similarly, the receiver only needs to regard this beam as an interface without distinguishing each element.

[0165] In addition, a port group may refer to a collection corresponding to multiple antenna ports. One way is to group multiple digital ports of a network device to form multiple port groups. In another way (especially under a hybrid digital analog beam architecture), a port group may be multiple digital ports corresponding to the same analog beam, also referred to as a port group, or a digital-analog port group. Alternatively, a port group may be a collection of digital ports corresponding to multiple analog beams, also referred to as a port group, or a digital-analog port group. Alternatively, multiple digital ports of the same analog beam are divided into multiple subsets, each of which is called a port group, or a digital-analog port group.

[0166] (9) Channel state information (CSI) report: In a wireless communication system, information used to describe the channel properties of a communication link reported by a receiving end (such as a terminal device) to a transmitting end (such as a network device). The CSI report may include, but is not limited to, precoding matrix indication (PMI), rank indication (RI), channel quality indication (CQI), channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), CSI-RS resource indicator (CSI-RS resource indicator, CRI) and layer indicator (LI), etc. It should be understood that the specific contents of the CSI listed above are only exemplary and should not constitute any limitation to the present application. The CSI may include one or more of the items listed above, and may also include other information used to characterize the CSI in addition to the above items, and the present application does not limit this.

[0167] (10) Beam. Among them, beam and beam pair link (BPL) are introduced into the communication system. Beam is a communication resource. Beam can be divided into transmit beam and receive beam. The technology for forming the beam can be beamforming technology or other technical means. Beamforming includes transmit beamforming and receive beamforming.

[0168] Among them, a beam is a communication resource. A beam can be a wide beam, a narrow beam, or other types of beams. The technology for forming a beam can be a beamforming technology or other technical means. The beamforming technology can be specifically digital beamforming technology, analog beamforming technology, and hybrid digital / analog beamforming technology. Different beams can be considered as different resources. The same information or different information can be sent through different beams. Optionally, multiple beams with the same or similar communication characteristics can be regarded as a beam. A beam can include one or more antenna ports for transmitting data channels, control channels, and detection signals. For example, a transmit beam can refer to the distribution of signal strength formed in different directions of space after the signal is transmitted by the antenna, and a receive beam can refer to the signal strength distribution of wireless signals received from the antenna in different directions of space. It can be understood that one or more antenna ports that form a beam can also be regarded as an antenna port set. The embodiment of the beam in the protocol can still be a spatial filter.

[0169] Transmit beam: The transmitting end device transmits a signal with a certain beamforming weight, so that the transmitted signal forms a beam with spatial directivity. In the uplink direction, the transmitting end device can be a terminal; in the downlink direction, the transmitting end device can be a network device.

[0170] Receive beam: The receiving device receives the signal with a certain beamforming weight, so that the received signal forms a beam with spatial directivity. In the uplink direction, the receiving device can be a network device; in the downlink direction, the receiving device can be a terminal.

[0171] Transmit beamforming: When a transmitting device with an antenna array transmits a signal, a specific amplitude and phase are set on each antenna element of the antenna array so that the transmitted signal has a certain spatial directivity, that is, the signal power is high in some directions and low in some directions. The direction with the highest signal power is the direction of the transmit beam. The antenna array includes multiple antenna elements, and the specific amplitude and phase attached are the beamforming weights.

[0172] Receive beamforming: When a receiving device with an antenna array receives a signal, a specific amplitude and phase are set on each antenna element of the antenna array so that the power gain of the received signal has directionality, that is, the power gain is high when receiving signals in certain directions, and low when receiving signals in other directions. The direction with the highest power gain when receiving a signal is the direction of the receive beam. The antenna array includes multiple antenna elements, and the specific amplitude and phase added are the beamforming weights.

[0173] Optionally, using a certain transmit beam to send a signal can be understood as using a certain beamforming weight to send a signal.

[0174] Optionally, receiving a signal using a receiving beam may be understood as receiving a signal using a certain beamforming weight.

[0175] Generally, different beams can be considered as different resources. The same information or different information can be sent using (or through) different beams. A beam pair is based on the concept of beams. A beam pair usually includes a transmit beam of a transmitting device and a receive beam of a receiving device.

[0176] The following will take the network device as a base station as an example. Figure 1a to Figure 1c The implementation content shown in the figure provides an exemplary description of the implementation process of the beam. Generally, in communication systems with higher frequency bands, base stations (and terminals in some frequency bands) usually use large-scale array antennas (for example, more than 500 to 1,000 antenna units) to counteract the path loss caused by the increase in frequency band through higher array gain, thereby improving coverage capabilities. From the perspective of the implementation method of the base station, the same large array, different frequency bands and different array sizes use different array weighting methods (that is, different beamforming methods), which can be roughly divided into the following three categories according to the implementation scheme of beamforming.

[0177] One implementation method is digital beamforming (DBF), whose basic structure is as follows: Figure 1a As shown, each or a group of antenna elements is directly connected to a digital channel. This structure is a typical structure of massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO) in the low-frequency band. Since each antenna signal is directly converted to the digital domain, the subsequent array weighting is performed in the digital domain, so it is called digital beamforming. The digital domain signal processing has the highest degree of freedom and can support very complex signal processing methods. Therefore, under the same array scale, the performance of the DBF architecture is also the best. On the other hand, due to the high power consumption and cost of digital to analog converters (DAC) / analog to digital converters (ADC) (especially under large bandwidth conditions). Generally speaking, under the same array scale conditions, the cost of DBF is also the highest.

[0178] Another implementation method is analog beamforming (ABF), whose structure is as follows: Figure 1b As shown, each or a group of antenna units is connected to an analog phase shifter, and then multiple antenna units are combined in the analog domain and passed through a digital-to-analog / analog-to-digital converter. Compared with DBF, the entire ABF array corresponds to only one digital-to-analog / analog-to-digital converter, so the biggest advantage of the ABF architecture is low cost and power consumption. The bottleneck of ABF is also obvious. The phase shifter setting in the analog domain determines the direction of the beam after beamforming. Since the signal is directly combined in the analog domain, it cannot be weighted by digital signal processing like DBF. ABF must pre-configure the phase shifter setting during transmission and reception (that is, point the analog beam to the target terminal). This process needs to be completed through beam scanning during the link establishment phase, which brings additional delays. Generally speaking, once the analog beam is blocked or moved to cause misalignment, the link quality of the system will rapidly degrade or even terminate, so the communication reliability of ABF is not as good as DBF.

[0179] Another implementation method is hybrid beamforming (HBF), whose structure is as follows: Figure 1c The figure shows an intermediate form between ABF and DBF. The figure shows a HBF architecture with 3 channels and 2 analog phase shifters for each channel. On the one hand, HBF has a certain number of digital ports to support digital beamforming, and each digital port drives an ABF subarray. Compared with ABF, at the same array size, the analog subarray driven by each digital channel is smaller ( Figure 1c 4 vs Figure 1b6 in 1), so the beam is wider, the reliability is better, and the beam scanning overhead is smaller. Generally, the ratio of HBF digital ports and analog phase shifters is inconsistent with different frequencies and system design requirements. For example, the number of digital ports in the high-frequency band is very small (4 to 16), and the analog phase shifters corresponding to a single digital channel are more (16 to 32), which is closer to ABF, while the low-frequency band system has more digital ports (32 to 128), and the analog phase shifters for a single digital channel are fewer (for example, 2 to 10).

[0180] Generally, both HBF and ABF architectures have analog beams. When the beams are aligned with the communication target, the signal quality will be improved. The direction of the analog beam (determined by the beam weight) needs to be configured before sending and receiving. For a certain terminal, the process of the base station selecting an analog beam is called beam training or beam scanning. Beam scanning is usually performed by the base station sending reference signals using different analog beam weights. The terminal measures the reference signals respectively and feeds back its measurement results to help the base station determine which beam has the best quality.

[0181] See also Figure 2 , is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a communication system 1000 used in an embodiment of the present application. Figure 2 As shown, the communication system includes a radio access network (RAN) 100 and a core network 200. Optionally, the communication system 1000 may also include the Internet 300. The RAN 100 includes at least one RAN node (such as Figure 2 110a and 110b in the figure, collectively referred to as 110), and may also include at least one terminal (such as Figure 2 RAN 100 may also include other RAN nodes, such as wireless relay equipment and / or wireless backhaul equipment ( Figure 2 (not shown in the figure). The terminal 120 is connected to the RAN node 110 by wireless means, and the RAN node 110 is connected to the core network 200 by wireless or wired means. The core network device in the core network 200 and the RAN node 110 in the RAN 100 may be independent and different physical devices, or may be the same physical device that integrates the logical functions of the core network device and the logical functions of the RAN node. Terminals and terminals and RAN nodes and RAN nodes may be connected to each other by wired or wireless means.

[0182] RAN100 may be an evolved universal terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA) system, a new radio (NR) system, and a future radio access system defined in the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP). RAN100 may also include two or more of the above-mentioned different radio access systems. RAN100 may also be an open RAN (O-RAN).

[0183] RAN node, also known as radio access network equipment, RAN entity or access node, is used to help terminals access the communication system wirelessly. In one application scenario, the RAN node can be a base station, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), a transmission reception point (TRP), a next generation NodeB (gNB) in the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system, a next generation NodeB in the sixth generation (6G) mobile communication system, or a base station in a future mobile communication system. RAN nodes can be macro base stations (such as Figure 2 110a), or a micro base station or an indoor station (such as Figure 2 110b) in the figure, it can also be a relay node or a donor node.

[0184] In another application scenario, the cooperation of multiple RAN nodes can be used to help the terminal achieve wireless access, and different RAN nodes respectively implement part of the functions of the base station. For example, the RAN node can be a centralized unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU) or a radio unit (RU). The CU here completes the functions of the radio resource control protocol and the packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) of the base station, and can also complete the function of the service data adaptation protocol (SDAP); the DU completes the functions of the radio link control layer and the medium access control (MAC) layer of the base station, and can also complete the functions of part of the physical layer or all of the physical layer. For the specific description of the above-mentioned various protocol layers, please refer to the relevant technical specifications of 3GPP. RU can be used to implement the transceiver function of radio frequency signals. CU and DU can be two independent RAN nodes, or they can be integrated in the same RAN node, such as integrated in a baseband unit (BBU). RU can be included in a radio frequency device, such as a remote radio unit (RRU) or an active antenna unit (AAU). The CU can be further divided into two types of RAN nodes: CU-control plane and CU-user plane.

[0185] In different systems, RAN nodes may have different names. For example, in an open access network (open RAN, O-RAN or ORAN) system, CU may also be called O-CU (open CU), DU may also be called O-DU, CU-CP may also be called O-CU-CP, CU-UP may also be called O-CU-UP, and RU may also be called O-RU. For the convenience of description, this application takes CU, CU-CP, CU-UP, DU and RU as examples for description. Any unit in the CU (or CU-CP, CU-UP), DU and RU in this application can be implemented by a software module, a hardware module, or a combination of a software module and a hardware module.

[0186] The communication between the access network device and the terminal device follows a certain protocol layer structure. The protocol layer may include a control plane protocol layer and a user plane protocol layer. The control plane protocol layer may include at least one of the following: a radio resource control (RRC) layer, a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, a media access control (MAC) layer, or a physical (PHY) layer. The user plane protocol layer may include at least one of the following: a service data adaptation protocol (SDAP) layer, a PDCP layer, an RLC layer, a MAC layer, or a physical layer.

[0187] For the correspondence between network elements in the ORAN system and their achievable protocol layer functions, refer to Table 1 below.

[0188] Table 1

[0189]

[0190]

[0191] For the convenience of description, a base station is taken as an example of a RAN node for description below.

[0192] A terminal is a device with wireless transceiver function, which can send signals to a base station or receive signals from a base station. A terminal can also be called a terminal device, user equipment (UE), a mobile station, a mobile terminal, etc. The terminal can be widely used in various scenarios, for example, device-to-device (D2D), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, machine-type communication (MTC), Internet of Things (IOT), virtual reality, augmented reality, industrial control, automatic driving, telemedicine, smart grid, smart furniture, smart office, smart wear, smart transportation, smart city, etc. The terminal can be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a computer with wireless transceiver function, a wearable device, a vehicle, an airplane, a ship, a robot, a mechanical arm, a smart home device, etc. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the specific technology and specific device form adopted by the terminal.

[0193] Base stations and terminals can be fixed or movable. Base stations and terminals can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, handheld or vehicle-mounted; they can also be deployed on the water surface; they can also be deployed on airplanes, balloons, and artificial satellites. The embodiments of this application do not limit the application scenarios of base stations and terminals.

[0194] The roles of the base station and the terminal can be relative, for example, Figure 2 The helicopter or drone 120i in the figure can be configured as a mobile base station. For the terminal 120j that accesses the wireless access network 100 through 120i, the terminal 120i is a base station; but for the base station 110a, 120i is a terminal, that is, 110a and 120i communicate through the wireless air interface protocol. Of course, 110a and 120i can also communicate through the interface protocol between base stations. In this case, relative to 110a, 120i is also a base station. Therefore, base stations and terminals can be collectively referred to as communication devices. Figure 2 110a and 110b in the figure may be referred to as communication devices having base station functions. Figure 2 120a-120j in the figure can be called communication devices with terminal functions.

[0195] Base stations and terminals, base stations and base stations, and terminals and terminals can communicate through authorized spectrum, unauthorized spectrum, or both; they can communicate through spectrum below 6 gigahertz (GHz), spectrum above 6 GHz, or spectrum below 6 GHz and spectrum above 6 GHz. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the spectrum resources used for wireless communication.

[0196] In the embodiments of the present application, the functions of the base station may also be performed by a module (such as a chip) in the base station, or by a control subsystem including the base station function. The control subsystem including the base station function here may be a control center in the above-mentioned application scenarios such as smart grid, industrial control, smart transportation, and smart city. The functions of the terminal may also be performed by a module (such as a chip or a modem) in the terminal, or by a device including the terminal function.

[0197] In wireless communication systems (such as Figure 2In the communication system shown in FIG. 1 , MIMO technology, as a key technology for wireless communication, can be used to meet the high-speed transmission requirements. Taking the communication process between a network device and a terminal device as an example, the network device performs channel measurement through a reference signal to obtain channel state information (CSI) (or channel information). Thereafter, the network device can use the channel information to calculate the precoding information between the network device and the terminal device, and the network device and the terminal device can subsequently implement MIMO communication through the precoding information.

[0198] In an implementation example, in order to send data to a terminal device, the network device can perform precoding on the digital port and select appropriate coding and modulation orders. For example, the role of precoding is to make the antenna (or beam) more matched to the channel to ensure better signal quality and less interference when the transmitted data reaches the terminal side, while a better modulation order and code rate can ensure that the channel transmission capacity is maximized under the condition of reliable data transmission. The settings of precoding and modulation coding scheme (MCS) need to be determined according to the channel quality and channel response. A common method is to send a downlink reference signal through the network device, the terminal device determines the channel according to the downlink reference signal, and then feedbacks the corresponding channel state information, including precoding information, the number of transmission streams supported by the channel (ie, RI) and CQI (used to feedback the MCS recommended by the terminal under the current channel quality). This process is called channel state information feedback (CSI feedback). Another way is to measure and obtain uplink channel information through the uplink reference signal, and then further obtain downlink channel information based on channel reciprocity. The following will be respectively described through Figure 3 and Figure 4 The implementation example shown exemplarily describes the implementation process of the downlink reference signal and the uplink reference signal.

[0199] like Figure 3 As shown, the implementation process of the downlink reference signal includes the following steps.

[0200] S301. A network device sends configuration information to a terminal device, wherein the configuration information includes channel information reporting (or measurement) configuration information.

[0201] Specifically, the channel information reporting configuration information may be sent by the network device to the terminal device through RRC signaling, and mainly includes two parts: resource configuration information and reporting configuration information.

[0202] Among them, resource configuration information is information related to measurement resources, which can be configured through a three-level structure (resource configuration (resourceConfig)-resource set (resourceSet)-resource (resource)). In other words, the network device can configure one or more resource configurations for the terminal device, each resource configuration includes one or more resource sets, and each resource set can include one or more resources. Each resource configuration / resource set / resource includes its own index. Optionally, the channel information reporting configuration information can also include some other parameters, such as the period of the resource, the signal type corresponding to the resource, etc.

[0203] In addition, reporting configuration information refers to information related to the measurement result reporting, which is configured in the protocol through reporting configuration (ReportConfig). The network device can configure one or more reporting configurations (ReportConfig) for the terminal device, and each reporting configuration includes reporting indicators, reporting time and period, reporting format and other reporting-related information. In addition, the reporting configuration also includes the index of the resource configuration, which is used to indicate the measurement configuration through which the reported result is measured.

[0204] Optionally, the channel information reporting configuration information includes codebook configuration information (CodebookConfig), which is used to configure the first type or the second type of codebook. For example, the fields included in the channel information reporting configuration information may be as shown in Table 2.

[0205] Table 2

[0206]

[0207]

[0208] In an implementation example, in Release 16 (R16), when based on the DFT codebook, the corresponding codebook parameter combination configuration is as shown in Table 3 below. In Table 3, L is the number of bases selected for each polarization, p υ For each IDFT basis, a scale is selected, β is the scale of non-zero elements, and υ is the rank.

[0209] Table 3

[0210]

[0211]

[0212] In another implementation example, in R16, when based on the port codebook, the corresponding codebook parameter combination configuration is as shown in Table 4. In Table 4, L is the number of bases p selected for each polarization. υ For each IDFT basis, a scale is selected, β is the scale of non-zero elements, and υ is the rank.

[0213] Table 4

[0214]

[0215] S302, the network device sends a downlink reference signal. For example, the network device sends a downlink signal (generally a downlink reference signal) on the resource configured by the resource configuration information, so that the terminal device can measure the downlink signal and determine the quality of each resource (ie, the quality of the beam corresponding to the resource).

[0216] S303, the terminal device measures the downlink reference signal according to the configuration information reported by the channel information. The downlink reference signal mainly includes SSB, CSI-RS, tracking reference signal (TRS), etc. In PBCH, the master information block (MIB) can be carried to configure the main system information of the cell.

[0217] S304. The terminal device sends channel information to the network device. For example, the channel information may include a beam measurement report, and the report includes channel state information (CSI). The channel state information may include one or more of the following: an index of one or more resources, CQI, reference signal received power (RSRP), precoding matrix indicator (PMI), rank indicator (RI), layer indicator (LI), channel state information resource index (CSI-RSIndex, CRI) field, synchronization / broadcast signal block resource index (Synchronization Signal / Physicalbroadcast channel Block Resource Index, SSBRI), etc.

[0218] Optionally, for the codebook of Release 15 (R15), the PMI matrix of each layer can be equivalent to: W = W 1 W 2 , the dimension of W is P CSI-RS ×N 3 , W 1 The dimension is P CSI-RS ×2L (or wideband precoding matrix), W 2 The dimension is 2L×N 3(or the precoding matrix of each subband), where P CSI-RS is the number of CSI-RS ports, N 3 The number of subbands (or the number of PMIs) fed back by PMI.

[0219] Alternatively, the PMI matrix can be equivalently expressed as: The dimension of W is P CSI-RS ×N 3 , W 1 The dimension is P CSI-RS ×2L (or wideband precoding matrix), The dimension is 2L×N 3 (corresponding to Release 15's W 2 , which is the precoding matrix of each subband). The dimension is 2L×M (or a compressed matrix), The dimension is M×N 3 (The dimension is N 3 ×N 3 The IDFT matrix has M rows, i.e., dimension N 3 ×N 3 The DFT matrix W f The conjugate of the M column in CSI-RS is the number of CSI-RS ports, Choose the number of IDFT basis vectors, N 3 The number of subbands (or PMI number) for PMI feedback. When the final feedback is given, only W needs to be fed back. 1 Related port or DFT codebook information, Related IDFT basis selection information, For more details, please refer to 38.214.

[0220] For example, Table 5 is the format of some fields in the beam measurement reporting information in the R15 protocol. Among them, the CRI field and the SSBRI field are used to indicate the resource index to be reported. Only CRI or SSBRI can be reported, or both can be reported. and is the length of the CRI field and the SSBRI field, where Indicates the number of CSI-RS resources in resource set s, Indicates the number of SSB resources in resource set s, RSRP is reported using a differential reporting criterion, that is, the RSRP of the best resource (RSRP field in Table 1) is reported using 7-bit quantization, while other RSRP fields (differential RSRP in Table 1) are reported using 4-bit quantization.

[0221] Table 5

[0222]

[0223] Optionally, the channel state information may be carried in uplink control information (UCI) and transmitted through a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) or a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

[0224] In addition, after obtaining the channel information in step S304, the network device can determine the scheduling information, including one or more of the following: MCS, RB resource allocation, transmit beam, receive beam, and improve the degree of beam matching channel, which is conducive to improving communication rate and efficiency.

[0225] like Figure 4 As shown, the implementation process of the uplink reference signal includes the following steps.

[0226] S401. The network device sends configuration information to the terminal device. For example, the configuration information may include configuration information of a reference signal, for example, the reference signal may be a sounding reference signal (SRS).

[0227] Specifically, the configuration information may be sent by the network device to the terminal device through RRC signaling, and the configuration information mainly includes the resource configuration information of the reference signal. Among them, the resource configuration information of the reference signal is information related to the measurement resource, which is configured in the protocol through a two-level structure (resource set resourceSet-resource resource). The network device can configure one or more resource sets for the terminal device, and each resource set may include one or more resources. Each resource set / resource includes its own index. In addition, some other parameters are also included, such as the period of the resource, the signal type corresponding to the resource, etc.

[0228] Exemplarily, the resource configuration information of the reference signal may include the content shown in Table 6.

[0229] Table 6

[0230]

[0231]

[0232]

[0233] S402. The terminal sends one or more uplink reference signals.

[0234] S403: The network device measures the uplink reference signal to obtain channel information, and can subsequently perform data scheduling, precoding, etc. based on the channel information.

[0235] The above implementation example can be applied to a MIMO system. Figure 3 Taking the implementation process of the downlink reference signal shown as an example, CSI-RS is sent through the port of the network device, that is, the overhead of the CSI-RS is related to the number of ports of the network device. In the MIMO system, with the increase of frequency bands and the increase of demand for high-speed communication, the number of ports of network devices may gradually increase, which will lead to an increase in the overhead of reference signals (such as CSI-RS) used for channel measurement and occupy more transmission resources, thereby affecting the throughput performance of the network.

[0236] In order to solve the above problems, the present application provides a communication method and related equipment, which are used to reduce the overhead in the channel measurement process, improve resource utilization and reduce the power consumption of terminal equipment.

[0237] See also Figure 5 , is a schematic diagram of an implementation of the communication method provided in this application, and the method includes the following steps.

[0238] It should be noted that Figure 5 In the example, the terminal device and the network device are used as the execution subjects of the interaction diagram to illustrate the method, but the present application does not limit the execution subjects of the interaction diagram. Figure 5 The terminal device that executes S501-S502 in the corresponding implementation method can be the terminal device, or a chip, chip system, or processor that supports the terminal device to implement the method, or a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the terminal device functions. Figure 5 The network device that performs S501-S502 in the corresponding implementation may be the network device, or a chip, a chip system, or a processor that supports the network device to implement the method, or may be replaced by a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the network device functions. Figure 6a / Figure 6b / Figure 6c / Fig. 9 The method shown can be executed by a terminal device (and / or a network device), or by a chip, a chip system, a processor, a logic module or software that supports the terminal device (and / or a network device) to implement the method.

[0239] Optionally, execute Figure 5 / Figure 6a / Figure 6b / Figure 6c / Fig. 9 The network device of the method shown may be an ORAN network element, including but not limited to one or more of O-CU-CP, O-CU-UP, O-DU, and O-RU.

[0240] S501. A network device sends a first reference signal. Correspondingly, a terminal device receives the first reference signal. The first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each of which includes one or more ports.

[0241] In the present application, the reference signal (e.g., the first reference signal, the third reference signal mentioned later, etc.) received by the terminal device from the network device may be a downlink reference signal, for example, the downlink reference signal may include CSI-RS, SSB, etc. Exemplarily, taking the first reference signal received by the terminal device in step S501 as CSI-RS as an example, the port corresponding to the first reference signal (e.g., the port in the first port set, the port in the second port set, and the port in the third port set that may exist, etc.) may be a CSI-RS port, and accordingly, the channel information of the CSI-RS port (e.g., the second channel information mentioned later) may be a channel state information (CSI) report, for example, the CSI report may include, but is not limited to, one or more of a precoding matrix indicator (PMI), a rank indicator (RI), a channel quality indicator (CQI), and a layer indicator (LI).

[0242] It should be noted that the first reference signal sent by the network device in step S501 corresponds to the first port set and the second port set, which can be understood as, among the multiple ports of the network device sending the first reference signal, a part of the ports are located in (or included in, or belong to) the first port set, and another part of the ports are located in (or included in, or belong to) the second port set. In other words, the multiple ports of the network device sending the first reference signal may include ports in the first port set and ports in the second port set.

[0243] Exemplarily, the number of ports in the first port set may be denoted as L 1 , the number of ports in the second port set can be recorded as L 2 In one implementation, L 1 and L 2 are not equal. For example, it can be L 2>L 1 Alternatively, it can be L 2 <L 1 .

[0244] In another implementation, L 1 and L 2 Equal, that is, L 1 =L 2 .

[0245] Optionally, L 1 or L 2 The value of is one of 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 16.

[0246] Optionally, among the multiple ports through which the network device sends the first reference signal, other ports may not be included except the ports in the first port set and the ports in the second port set. Alternatively, among the multiple ports through which the network device sends the first reference signal, other ports may be included except the ports in the first port set and the ports in the second port set, and the other ports may be included in other port sets, such as the third port set.

[0247] Optionally, in addition to corresponding to one or more port sets, the first reference signal may also correspond to one or more discrete Fourier transform (DFT) beam sets (or IDFT beam sets). In other words, the above-mentioned "port set" can be replaced by "DFT beam set (or IDFT beam set)", that is, the first reference signal corresponds to the first DFT beam set and the second DFT beam set, and each DFT beam set includes one or more DFT beams (or, the first reference signal corresponds to the first IDFT beam set and the second IDFT beam set, and each IDFT beam set includes one or more IDFT beams). In addition, "DFT beam" can be replaced by other descriptions, such as DFT vector, DFT basis, IDFT vector, IDFT basis, etc. For example, the first channel information (port level) is obtained based on the first reference signal measurement, and then DFT processing is performed in the port dimension, that is, converted into beam-level channel information. The corresponding channel information of the first DFT beam set and the channel information of the second DFT beam set can be at least one of the corresponding CSI report, rank indication, channel quality indication, layer indication, precoding indication, etc.

[0248] The following description is mainly based on a port set, and a similar approach can be extended to a beam set (eg, a DFT beam set or an IDFT beam set).

[0249] S502. The terminal device sends first channel information and second channel information. Correspondingly, the network device receives the first channel information and the second channel information. The first channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and a second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0250] Optionally, before step S501, the terminal device may also receive configuration information from the network device, where the configuration information is used to configure the first reference signal. The specific implementation of the configuration information may refer to the process of step S301 above, which will not be described in detail here.

[0251] It should be understood that after the terminal device receives the first reference signal in step S501, the terminal device can determine the channel information corresponding to the first port set and the channel information corresponding to the second port set based on the first reference signals corresponding to the first port set and the second port set. Thereafter, in step S502, the terminal device can send the first channel information and the second channel information based on the channel information corresponding to the first port set and the channel information corresponding to the second port set.

[0252] Optionally, the second channel information is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. It can be understood that the second channel information includes the channel information of the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal (for example, the second channel information includes PMI), or the second channel information is used to indicate the channel information of the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal (for example, the second channel information is used to indicate PMI).

[0253] Optionally, the first channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and a second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and it can be understood that the first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix (or combining coefficient vector, or combining coefficient, or weighting coefficient, or coefficient) between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set. Wherein, "corresponding to" can be replaced by other terms, such as including, indicating, etc.

[0254] Further optionally, when the port corresponding to the first reference signal also includes a port in a third port set, the terminal device may also send a combining coefficient matrix (or combining coefficient vector, or combining coefficient, or weighting coefficient, or coefficient) between the channel information of the third port set and the channel information of the first port set (or the second port set).

[0255] Optionally, in the process of sending the first channel information and the second channel information by the terminal device in step S502, the terminal device may send the first channel information and the second channel information themselves, or may send the first indication information and the second indication information, wherein the first indication information is used to indicate the first channel information, and the second indication information is used to indicate the second channel information.

[0256] Optionally, the first channel information and the second channel information may be carried in the same or different messages / signalings / information.

[0257] Optionally, the first indication information and the second indication information may be carried in the same or different messages / signalings / information.

[0258] In a possible implementation, the terminal device and the network device may reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and the second port set. In other words, the terminal device may clarify the port sets corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information sent in step S502, and after the network device receives the first channel information and the second channel information in step S502, the network device may clarify the port sets corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information, and determine the precoding information based on the determined port sets. Among them, the terminal device and the network device can clarify the first port set and the second port set in a variety of ways, which will be described below in conjunction with some implementation examples.

[0259] Implementation example 1, such as Figure 6a As shown, before the terminal device sends the first channel information and the second channel information in step S502, the method further includes:

[0260] Step A: The terminal device sends a second reference signal, and the network device receives the second reference signal accordingly, wherein the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, and the third channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0261] It should be noted that step A can be performed before step S501 or after step S501, which is not limited here. The figure takes the former as an example for description.

[0262] Specifically, in implementation example 1, the terminal device may also send a second reference signal, and after the subsequent network device receives the second reference signal through one or more port sets (including at least the first port set), the network device may determine the third channel information and / or the first port set based on the second reference signal. Thus, the network device may obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set according to the second reference signal.

[0263] Optionally, in implementation example 1, the terminal device may also receive indication information for indicating the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the terminal device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the indication of the network device, thereby enabling the terminal device and the network device to reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information (and / or the third channel information). In addition, since the third channel information and the first port set information do not need to be fed back, the feedback overhead of the terminal device is smaller.

[0264] Optionally, before the terminal device sends the second reference signal, the terminal device may also receive configuration information corresponding to the second reference signal, for example, the second reference signal may include SRS. The configuration information corresponding to the second reference signal may refer to the process of step S401 above, which is not described here.

[0265] Implementation example 2, such as Figure 6b As shown, before the terminal device sends the first channel information and the second channel information in step S502, the method further includes:

[0266] Step B. The network device sends a third reference signal, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the third reference signal. The third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, and the fourth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal;

[0267] Step C: The terminal device sends the fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set. Correspondingly, the network device receives the fourth channel information and / or indication information corresponding to the first port channel set.

[0268] It should be noted that step B and step C may be performed before step S501 or after step S501, which is not limited here. The figure takes the former as an example for description.

[0269] Specifically, in implementation example 2, the terminal device can also receive a third reference signal corresponding to the first port set, and the terminal device can determine and send fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set based on the third reference signal, so that the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set. In addition, the network device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the information sent by the terminal device, so that the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information. In addition, since the fourth channel information and the first port set information have been fed back before, the feedback overhead of the terminal device is smaller.

[0270] Furthermore, the combination of step B and step C, step S501 and step S502 can also adopt different cycles to achieve different overheads and cope with different channel changes. For example, step B and step C are performed with a cycle of T, and step S501 and step S502 are performed with a cycle of kT, where k>1. The former is for ports with faster channel changes, and the latter is for ports with slower channel changes.

[0271] Optionally, before receiving the third reference signal, the terminal device may also receive configuration information corresponding to the third reference signal, for example, the third reference signal may include CSI-RS. The configuration information corresponding to the third reference signal may refer to the process of step S401 above, which is not described here.

[0272] Optionally, in implementation example 2, the fourth channel information, the indication information indicating the first port set, the first channel information in step S502, and the second channel information in step S502 can be carried in the same message / signaling / information or in different messages / signaling / information, which is not limited here.

[0273] Implementation example three, such as Figure 6c As shown, in addition to sending the first channel information and the second channel information in step S502, the terminal device further includes the following steps:

[0274] Step D: The terminal device sends fifth channel information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the fifth channel information, wherein the fifth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0275] Specifically, in implementation example three, the terminal device may also send the fifth channel information determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal, so that the network device can obtain the channel information corresponding to the first port set. Moreover, the network device can clarify the port set corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information based on the fifth channel information, so that the terminal device and the network device can reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information. Further, the first port set may be determined by the terminal device. For example, the terminal device determines the first port set and the second port set, as well as the corresponding first channel information, second channel information, and fifth channel information based on the first reference signal. Thus, by splitting the multiple ports of the first reference signal into more port groups, it is beneficial to feedback more channel information and reduce the total feedback overhead.

[0276] Furthermore, the combination of step D, step S501 and step S502 adopts different cycles to achieve different overheads and cope with different channel changes. For example, step D is performed with a cycle of T, and step S501 and step S502 are performed with a cycle of kT, where k>1. The former is for ports with faster channel changes, and the latter is for ports with slower channel changes.

[0277] Optionally, in implementation example three, the fifth channel information in step D, the first channel information in step S502, and the second channel information in step S502 may be carried in the same message / signaling / information, or in different messages / signalings / information, which is not limited here. For example, in implementation example three, when the fifth channel information in step D and the first channel information and the second channel information in step S502 are carried in different messages / signalings / information, step D may be performed before step S502 or after step S502, which is not limited here. The latter is described as an example in the figure.

[0278] In one possible implementation, Figure 5In the method shown, the method also includes: the terminal device sends the index of the first port set and / or the index of the second port set. Specifically, the first channel information sent by the terminal device is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information sent by the terminal device is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. Accordingly, the manner in which the terminal device sends the index of the first port set and / or the index of the second port set can enable the network device to clearly identify the port sets corresponding to the first channel information and the second channel information, thereby enabling the terminal device and the network device to reach a consistent understanding of the first port set and / or the second port set, so that the network device can obtain accurate precoding information based on the first channel information and the second channel information.

[0279] Optionally, the four items of information, namely, the index of the first port set, the index of the second port set, the first channel information in step S502, and the second channel information in step S502, sent by the terminal device can be carried in the same message / signaling / information or in different messages / signaling / information, which is not limited here.

[0280] In one possible implementation, Figure 5 In the method shown, the method also includes: the terminal device sends capability information, and the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information (or support for one or more implementation examples in this application). Specifically, the terminal device can also send capability information indicating support for sending the first channel information, so that the network device can schedule the terminal device to feedback lower-dimensional channel information based on the capability information, so that the network device can obtain higher-dimensional precoding information, thereby reducing the overhead in the channel measurement process.

[0281] Optionally, the capability information sent by the terminal device, the first channel information in step S502 and the second channel information in step S502 can be carried in the same message / signaling / information or in different messages / signaling / information, which is not limited here.

[0282] In a possible implementation, the first channel information and the second channel information received by the network device in step S502 are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0283] or

[0284] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, W 1 represents the second channel information (ie, the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the second port set).

[0285] Optionally, W 0 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, wherein the channel information determined according to the first port set may include at least one of the following:

[0286] The third channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal sent by the terminal device (or received by the network device). The determination process of the third channel information can refer to the above Figure 6a Description of

[0287] The fourth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal received by the terminal device (or sent by the network device). The determination process of the fourth channel information can refer to the above Figure 6b Description of

[0288] The fifth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal. The determination process of the fifth channel information can refer to the above Figure 6c Description.

[0289] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0290] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0291] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α 0 ,α 1 ] is the transpose of ]. Correspondingly, the precoding information W satisfies:

[0292]

[0293] Furthermore, if the number of ports in the first port set is L 1 , the number of ports in the second port set is L 2 Then W 0 The dimension can be 2L 1 ×1, then W 1 The dimension can be 2L 2 ×1.

[0294] In addition, in the implementation process of the above precoding information, W 0 and W 1 It can be used to represent the transmission of one or more data streams, which will be described below in conjunction with some implementation examples.

[0295] Implementation Example A, W 0 and W 1 They respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream.

[0296] The channel information determined according to the first port set may include one or more of the third channel information, the fourth channel information and the fifth channel information. The second channel information is the channel information determined according to the second port set.

[0297] For the convenience of description, in implementation example A, the same data stream is recorded as the first data stream (or layer) as an example, that is, W 0 and W 1 They respectively represent the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, and the precoding information corresponding to the second channel information. A similar approach can be directly extended to multiple streams.

[0298] In implementation example A, the channel information corresponding to the first port set (eg, the third channel information, the fourth channel information, or the fifth channel information) is denoted as H 0 , the channel information corresponding to the second port set (eg, the second channel information) is H 1 The precoding matrices (or vectors) obtained from the two sets of channel information are W 0 and W 1 Through any of the above implementation examples 1 to 3, the network device can determine W 0 (ie, the channel information corresponding to the first port set).

[0299] For example, in the implementation example 1 described above, the network device can obtain the channel information of the first port set (ie ) or precoding information (i.e., precoding matrix W 0 ), therefore, the terminal device may not need to report the precoding information separately in step S502 (ie, W 0 ).

[0300] For example, in the implementation example 2 described above, the network device can obtain the channel information of the first port set (ie, ) or precoding information (i.e., precoding matrix W 0 ), therefore, the terminal device may not need to report the channel information separately in step S502 (ie, W 0 ).

[0301] Further, the first channel information sent by the terminal device in step S502 can be understood as the weighting coefficient between the two groups of channels, or can be understood as the weighting coefficient of the precoding matrix between the two port sets. For example, the vector corresponding to the weighting coefficient is recorded as α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ,in Correspondingly, the lth stream data x 1 (t) is transmitted through two port sets, which can be expressed as:

[0302]

[0303] Among them, [H 0 ,H 1 ] can be considered as the channel coefficient corresponding to the two port sets, is the joint precoding of two port sets. The weighting coefficients can be obtained by conventional methods. For example, [H 0 W 0 ,H 1 W 1 ]The corresponding singular value decomposition: [H 0 W 0 ,H 1 W 1 ]=U×Λ×V H , get the matrix V = [v 0 ,v 1 ], that is, α=v 0 .

[0304] As an application example of implementing Example A, Figure 7a The figure shows a schematic diagram of joint transmission of two port sets. 0 represents the channel between the first port set and the receiving end, H 1 W represents the channel between the second port set and the receiving end; 0 and W 1 are the precodings corresponding to the two port sets respectively; and α corresponds to the combining coefficient between the two port sets (ie, the first channel information).

[0305] Optionally, for two port sets, the coefficients corresponding to one of the port sets can be further normalized, that is, α 0 =1, only feedback coefficient is needed Correspondingly, after receiving the feedback coefficient (ie, the first channel information) in step S501, the network device may normalize it.

[0306] In another implementation, the amplitude of the coefficient k in the precoding matrix corresponding to one of the port sets may be further normalized (or the phase may be normalized to 0), or the entire coefficient may be normalized. Further, the coefficient k is specified by the network device, or the coefficient k is determined by the terminal device and reported to the network device.

[0307] Without loss of generality, the first port set is the corresponding precoding W 0 =[w 0,0 ,w 0,1 ,…] T (The number of elements in this vector is the same as the number of ports in the port set.) For example, the coefficient k can be k=0, which can make w 0,0 =|w 0,0 |; or, w 0,0 = 1. In this way, the W calculated by the network device can be guaranteed 0 , and the merging coefficient α, have no deviation or can be ignored compared with those calculated on the terminal side.

[0308] Or without loss of generality, the second port set is the corresponding precoding W 1 =[w 1,0 ,w 1,1 ,…] T (The number of elements in this vector is the same as the number of ports in the port set.) For example, the coefficient k can be k=0, which can make w 1,0 =|w 1,0 |; or, w 1,0 = 1. In this way, the W calculated by the network device can be guaranteed 1 , and the merging coefficient α, have no deviation or can be ignored compared with those calculated on the terminal side.

[0309] In another implementation, the relative amplitude and / or phase of the coefficient k in the precoding matrix corresponding to two of the port sets may also be reported, that is, w 1,k / w 0,k The corresponding amplitude and / or phase, or report w 0,k / w 1,k The corresponding amplitude and / or phase. Further, the coefficient k is specified by the network device, or the coefficient k is determined by the terminal device and reported to the network device.

[0310] In another implementation, all the schemes in the present application can be extended to more port sets (for example, a third port set, denoted as G), wherein the precoding matrices between different port sets can be obtained through different uplink or downlink signals, respectively. At this time, it is necessary to feedback the combining coefficients between the G port sets. Similarly, the corresponding relationship between each port set and the combining coefficient can be agreed upon.

[0311] Implementation Example B, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream.

[0312] The channel information determined according to the first port set may include one or more of the third channel information, the fourth channel information and the fifth channel information. The second channel information is the channel information determined according to the second port set.

[0313] It should be understood that in implementation example B, the consideration is how to pair data streams when there are two or more data streams. By pairing multiple data streams and different port sets, better system performance can be achieved.

[0314] For the convenience of description, in implementation example B, the first data stream is recorded as l 0 , the second data stream is recorded as l 1 Similarly, the channel information corresponding to the first port set (eg, the third channel information, the fourth channel information, or the fifth channel information) is denoted as H 0 , the channel information corresponding to the second port set (eg, the second channel information) is H 1 The precoding matrix (or vector) corresponding to the lth data stream (or layer) is W 0,l and W 1,l , where l = 0, 1, ..., L-1, and L is the maximum number of data streams (or the number of layers, or the number of ranks). If one of the port sets does not support more data streams, the corresponding precoding matrix is ​​W = 0.

[0315] For example, the first stream data x l (t) The transmission is carried out through the different layers of the two port sets, which can be expressed as:

[0316]

[0317] Among them, [H 0 ,H 1 ] can be considered as the channel coefficient corresponding to the two port sets, is the joint precoding of two port sets. The weighting coefficients can be obtained by conventional methods. For example, [H 0 W 0,l0 ,H 1 W 1,l1 ]The corresponding singular value decomposition is: Get the matrix V = [v 0 ,v 1 ], that is, α=v 0 .

[0318] In implementation example B, better system performance can be achieved by pairing different flows on different port sets. Figure 7b In the implementation example shown, data is transmitted through two streams, the strongest stream of the first port set and the weaker stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted to transmit the first data stream; the weaker stream of the first port set and the strongest stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted to transmit the second data stream; thereby, both data streams are transmitted relatively well, and ultimately the overall performance is improved.

[0319] In a possible implementation of Example B, the method further includes: the terminal device receives indication information for indicating the first data stream and the second data stream. Specifically, the terminal device can also receive indication information for indicating the first data stream and the second data stream, so that the terminal device can correctly receive and demodulate the first data stream and the second data stream based on the indication information. Moreover, by pairing different port sets in different data streams, better system performance can be achieved. For example, the stronger stream of the first port set and the weaker stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted as the first data stream; the weaker stream of the first port set and the stronger stream of the second port set are jointly transmitted as the second data stream; thereby, both data streams are transmitted relatively well, and the overall performance is ultimately improved.

[0320] It should be noted that in implementation example B, the terminal device can receive the indication information in a variety of ways. For example, the network device can carry indication information for indicating the first data stream and the second data stream in the configuration information of the first reference signal. For another example, in the above implementation example 1, during the process of the terminal device receiving indication information for indicating the first port set and / or the second port set, the terminal device can also receive indication information for indicating the first data stream and the second data stream.

[0321] As an implementation example, when the rank index is 2 (or the number of reported streams is 2), the corresponding pairing method is (l 0 ,l 1)=(0,1), indicating that the first flow of the first port set is paired with the first flow of the second port set, and the second flow of the first port set is paired with the second flow of the second port set; or (l 0 ,l 1 )=(1,0), indicating that the first flow of the first port set is paired with the second flow of the second port set, and the second flow of the first port set is paired with the first flow of the second port set.

[0322] Similarly, when the rank index is 4 (or the number of reported streams is 4), the corresponding pairing method is (l 0 ,l 1 ,l 2 ,l 3 )=(0,1,2,3), which respectively means that the first flow of the first port set is paired with the first flow of the second port set, the second flow of the first port set is paired with the second flow of the second port set, the third flow of the first port set is paired with the third flow of the second port set, and the fourth flow of the first port set is paired with the fourth flow of the second port set. Similarly, the corresponding configuration can also be (l 0 ,l 1 ,l 2 ,l 3 )=(3,1,2,0), or (l 0 ,l 1 ,l 2 ,l 3 )=(3,2,1,0), or (l 0 ,l 1 ,l 2 ,l 3 )=(3,0,2,1), or (l 0 ,l 1 ,l 2 ,l 3 )=(0,2,1,3), etc.

[0323] In a possible implementation, for different rank indices (or stream numbers), different multiple pairing modes may be predefined or preconfigured. Alternatively, the index may be indicated by indication information. Alternatively, the pairing mode may be determined by reporting values ​​of other channel information, such as CQI, and different index modes may be used for different CQI ranges.

[0324] based on Figure 5Technical solution, the terminal device can send the first channel information and the second channel information in step S502, wherein the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. After receiving the first channel information and the second channel information, the subsequent network device can obtain the precoding information corresponding to the first port set and the second port set based on the first channel information and the second channel information. Thus, the terminal device can enable the network device to obtain higher-dimensional precoding information through the correlation of channel information of different port sets by sending lower-dimensional channel information (i.e., the first channel information and the second channel information), and reduce the overhead in the channel measurement process, thereby improving resource utilization and reducing power consumption of the terminal device.

[0325] It should be noted that in a beam-based communication scenario, a network device may send multiple analog beams or multiple digital beams, and each analog beam or digital beam corresponds to multiple ports. Taking a network device including a transceiver with a hybrid beamforming (HBF) architecture as an example, the network device can select the direction of multiple analog beams and send down reference signals for channel measurement through different analog beams. For a terminal device, the process of selecting an analog beam by a network device is called beam training or beam scanning. Among them, in each of the multiple analog beams, each analog beam can send a reference signal.

[0326] For example, Figure 8 As shown, on different time domain resources, the network device can send N (or N copies, N groups) CSI-RS through N (N is an integer greater than or equal to 2) beams, denoted as CSI-RS#0, CSI-RS#1, ..., CSI-RS#N-1. Correspondingly, the terminal device can feed back PMI for the N beams, denoted as PMI#0, PMI#1, ..., PMI#N-1.

[0327] In the implementation process of the traditional solution, for each of the N CSI-RSs, the terminal device needs to feedback the complete PMI, so that the network device obtains the channel information corresponding to the N beams based on the N PMIs. In the above technical solution, when the network device can send CSI-RS through each of the multiple simulated beams, the terminal device can send lower-dimensional channel information (i.e., the first channel information and the second channel information) so that the network device can obtain higher-dimensional precoding information through the correlation of channel information of different port sets, thereby enabling the channel measurement process corresponding to the reference signals sent by the multiple simulated beams to obtain the gain of reducing overhead.

[0328] In order to facilitate the understanding of the above technical solution, the following will take the previous implementation example 1 as an example, combined with Fig. 9 The communication process shown is Figure 5 The technical solution shown is described as an example. It should be understood that Fig. 9 In the example, step S902 is an implementation example of the above step S501, and step S905 is an implementation example of the above step S502. Fig. 9 The other steps in the process may or may not be executed (for example, step S907 may not be executed). Fig. 9 The order of the steps can be swapped (for example, the order of executing step S901 and step S902 can be swapped, the order of executing step S902 and step S903 can be swapped, etc.).

[0329] S901. The terminal device sends an uplink signal to the network device.

[0330] In step S901, the terminal device may send one or more uplink signals, such as one or more uplink reference signals, such as SRS. Correspondingly, the network device receives the uplink reference signal and obtains uplink channel information.

[0331] Prior to this, the network device may also send configuration information of the uplink reference signal to the terminal device.

[0332] The configuration information of the uplink reference signal may include information related to the reference signal port grouping. For example, the number of groups is S, and the number of ports in each group is P. SRS,s ,s=0,1,…,S-1. Optionally, the number of ports in each port group can be exactly the same, for example, P SRS .

[0333] and / or,

[0334] The configuration information of the uplink reference signal may include information related to the reference signal resource grouping. For example, the number of reference signal resource groups S, the number of reference signal resources and / or ports in each group P respectively. SRS,s ,s=0,1,…,S-1. Optionally, the total number of ports in each resource group is exactly the same, for example, P SRS In the following text, unless otherwise specified, the embodiments are described based on the reference signal port group (or port grouping). The same method can be applied to the scenario of reference resource grouping.

[0335] It should be understood that the configuration information of the uplink reference signal can also refer to the description of step S401 above, which will not be repeated here.

[0336] Specifically, group #s can correspond to a simulated beam of a network device. The principle of the network device estimating the channel based on the reference signal can be abstracted into the following formula:

[0337] y #s =F #s H UL x SRS,s +n #s ;

[0338] Among them, y #s is the signal received by the network device (dimension P TRX ×P SRS,s , P TRX is the number of digital channels), H UL is a channel (with dimension P BS,AE ×P SRS,s , P BS,AE is the number of antenna arrays of network equipment), F #s is the weight corresponding to the receiving beam of the network device (for example, the weight matrix of the simulated beam, with dimension P TRX ×P BS,AE ; For another example, the mixed analog digital weight matrix, dimension is P Port ×P BS,AE , where P Port is the number of digital ports), x SRS,s is the signal sent by the sender (dimension P SRS,s ×1), n #s is the noise (dimension P SRS,s ×1). Assume that the uplink and downlink channels are reciprocal, that is, the channel estimated by the network device through the uplink reference signal can be used for the downlink channel, that is, By using the reference signal, the network device estimates F # s H UL To describe the aspect, remember Or, omitting the transpose:

[0339] Hereinafter, the channel (or channel coefficient) obtained through the uplink reference signal is referred to as the channel of the first port set. It should be understood that in another implementation (such as the above implementation example 2 and implementation example 3), the channel information can be obtained through downlink reference information.

[0340] S902: The network device sends a downlink signal.

[0341] Specifically, in step S902, the network device may send N (or N copies, N groups) of downlink reference signals through N analog beams. For example, it may include step S902 (0) downlink signal #0, step S902 (1) downlink signal #1, ..., step S902 (N-1) downlink signal #N-1, etc. In general, the downlink signal may be a downlink reference signal, such as CSI-RS, and the downlink signal and downlink reference signal may be used interchangeably hereinafter.

[0342] Prior to this, the network device may also send configuration information to the terminal device, including configuration information of the downlink reference signal and channel information reporting (or measurement) configuration information.

[0343] The configuration information of the downlink reference signal may include information related to the reference signal port grouping. For example, the number of groups is K, and the number of ports in each group is P. CSI-RS,k , k=0,1,…,K-1. In one case, the number of ports in each port group is exactly the same, for example, P CSI-RS .

[0344] and / or,

[0345] The configuration information of the downlink reference signal may include information related to the reference signal resource grouping. For example, the number of reference signal resource groups is K, and the number of reference signal resources and / or ports in each group is P. CSI-RS,k , k=0,1,…,K-1. In one case, the total number of ports in each resource group is exactly the same, for example, P CSI-RS In the following text, unless otherwise specified, the embodiments are described based on the reference signal port group (or port grouping). The same method can be applied to the scenario of reference resource grouping.

[0346] The channel information reporting configuration information may include the content and quantity of the report. For example, the configuration information includes the number M of measured channel information groups, the number P of reported channel information groups, and the PMI configuration corresponding to each information group. For example, PMI reporting related parameters.

[0347] In addition, the reference signal configuration information and / or the channel information reporting configuration information may also include a reference signal transmission method and / or a relationship between the reference signal and the channel information (see S904 for details).

[0348] It should be understood that other configuration information related to the reporting of the reference signal and channel information can refer to the description of step S301 above, which will not be repeated here.

[0349] In one implementation, different reference signal port groups or different reference signal resource groups are transmitted in a time-division manner, that is, they are transmitted on different time-domain resources (i.e., time slots or OFDM symbols). The time-division manner can facilitate the transmission of multiple reference signals based on different analog beams in the HBF architecture to implement the measurement of channel information.

[0350] In one implementation, different reference signal port groups or different reference signal resource groups are transmitted on different frequency-domain resources (i.e., component carriers, resource blocks, or different subcarriers). For example, the first antenna group is adopted to transmit based on the first analog beam; the second antenna group is adopted to transmit based on the second analog beam. This frequency-division manner is used for the network device to quickly scan channel information.

[0351] Optionally, the port group or resource group of K downlink reference signals is associated with the port group or resource group corresponding to S uplink reference signals. For example, according to the increasing or decreasing relationship of the port group index, the port group of K downlink reference signals is associated with the port group of S uplink reference signals at a time, and / or the resource group of K downlink reference signals is associated with the resource group of S uplink reference signals at a time. For another example, in each downlink reference signal port group or resource group, the information of the associated uplink reference signal port group or resource group is configured. For another example, K = S.

[0352] For another example, K < S. At this time, the unassociated uplink reference signal port group or resource group is not associated with any downlink reference signal port group or resource group.

[0353] For another example, K > S. At this time, the unassociated downlink reference signal port group or resource group is not associated with any uplink reference signal port group or resource group.

[0354] In one implementation, the association between the uplink reference signal and the downlink reference signal (i.e., the port group or resource group) may mean that they correspond to exactly the same or partially the same channel. For another example, the associated reference signals are transmitted (downlink) or received (uplink) by the same analog beam. "Association" can also be replaced by other terms, such as corresponding, related, reciprocal.

[0355] Specifically, the packet #k may correspond to an analog beam of a network device. The principle of the network device estimating the channel based on the reference signal can be abstracted into the following formula:

[0356] y #k =H DL G #k x CSI-RS,k +n #k ;

[0357] where y #k is the signal received by the UE receiver (with a dimension of PRX ×P CSI-RS,k , P RX is the number of UE receiving channels, P CSI-RS,k represents the number of CSI-RS ports), H DL is a channel (with dimension P RX ×P TRX , P TRX is the number of digital channels of network equipment), G #k The weight corresponding to the beam sent by the network device (for example, the weight matrix of the analog beam and / or the digital beam, with a dimension of P BS,AE ×P CSI-RS,k AE refers to the antenna element), x CSI-RS,k is the signal sent by the sender (dimension P SRS,k ×1), n #k is the noise (dimension P CSI-RS,k ×1). By using the reference signal, the network device estimates H DL G #k To describe the aspect, let H CSI-RS#k =H DL G #k .

[0358] For a system with reciprocity of transmission and reception, the downlink channel and the uplink channel have a strong correlation. For example, under high signal-to-noise ratio, the channels of the same port group (or the same port set) have Or there is

[0359] S903. The network device sends indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set (for the convenience of reference in the following text, "indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set" is recorded as target information). For example, the target information is used to indicate at least one of Q first port sets, Q first port resource groups (i.e., resource groups corresponding to the first port sets), and Q first port resources (i.e., resources corresponding to the first port sets).

[0360] For simplicity, the following description uses a port set, which can be replaced by a resource group or resource.

[0361] Optionally, the Q first port sets are obtained based on S uplink reference signals. That is, the network device determines the Q first port sets based on the received S uplink reference signals. In one case, an SRS port grouping (or resource grouping) is used to obtain the (uplink) channel information of all digital ports under an analog beam. Assuming that the network device and the terminal device have a certain consistency (or the uplink and downlink channels have reciprocity), the downlink channel information under the same analog beam can be obtained based on the uplink channel information measured by an SRS port grouping. However, in practice, due to limitations in terminal capabilities (such as transmit power, bandwidth, etc.), the downlink channel information obtained in this way is incomplete. For example, only the channel information of a part of the ports can be used (that is, the channel information corresponding to the first port set), and the others cannot be used due to too low signal-to-noise ratio. That is, due to the presence of noise, the network device may only be able to effectively utilize F #s H UL Therefore, it is necessary to further utilize the CSI-RS and the feedback channel information to achieve better transmission performance. Or S uplink reference signals can be used to obtain more channel information. For details, please refer to S904, which will not be repeated here.

[0362] Optionally, the Q first port sets are obtained based on the S downlink reference signals. That is, the network device determines the Q first port sets based on the received S downlink reference signals. In one case, such as the above implementation example 2 and implementation example 3, the S downlink reference signals are sent during the previous (or previous multiple) CSI measurement process.

[0363] In one implementation, S>Q.

[0364] In one implementation, S=Q.

[0365] S904: The terminal device measures the downlink reference signal.

[0366] Specifically, after receiving the downlink reference signal in step S902, the terminal device obtains M groups of channel coefficients according to the reference signal and the channel information reporting configuration information. Then, the feedback channel information is determined according to the M groups of channel coefficients and / or the target information in S903. The feedback channel information includes at least one of the following: channel information of one or more beams (also called channel information of one or more port sets), and a combining coefficient.

[0367] How to obtain M groups of channel coefficients is described in detail below.

[0368] Mode 1: K reference signal port groups can be used to obtain M=K groups of channel coefficients (or channel responses). For example, each reference signal port group corresponds to a simulated beam, and K groups can be used to obtain channel coefficients (or channel responses) of K simulated beams.

[0369] Method 2: K reference signal port groups can be used to obtain M>K group channel information. For example, K reference signal port groups can be used to obtain the channel coefficients (or channel responses) of K port groups, which are respectively denoted as A 0 ,A 1 ,…,A K-1 Taking the channel coefficient on a certain subcarrier as an example, A k =H CSI-RS#k The corresponding dimension is P RX ×P CSI-RS,k , where P RX is the number of UE receive antenna ports. If the number of CSI-RS ports in the K port groups is the same, for example, P CSI-RSk =P CSI-RS Based on the channel information of K port groups and the target information M second channel coefficients can be obtained

[0370] It should be understood that for the HBF architecture (or analog beamforming architecture), mode 2 can use fewer reference signals to obtain more channel information. For example, the network device can use K groups of orthogonal analog weights, each used to send a reference signal port group, so as to obtain the channel information corresponding to the K analog ports; and in the terminal device, through the weighting between the analog port channels (i.e., It can be equivalent to an analog beam), so that the channel information of M>K new analog beams can be obtained. In this way, the terminal device measures the encrypted beam channel information. It should be noted that this method can also be applied to the architecture of digital beamforming.

[0371] In one implementation, the parameter At least one of the is obtained according to the network device configuration information.

[0372] In one implementation, M=K.

[0373] In one implementation, M>K.

[0374] In one implementation, M>Q.

[0375] In one implementation, M=Q.

[0376] In one implementation, M < K. That is, only partial channel information is fed back. For example, it is only fed back when the channel quality exceeds a certain threshold, which can be configured by the network device or preset.

[0377] In one implementation, M < Q. That is, only partial channel information is fed back. For example, it is only fed back when the channel quality exceeds a certain threshold, which can be configured by the network device or preset.

[0378] Further, the m-th group of channel coefficients corresponds to a set of ports (denoted as the target port set), and the target port set includes the first port set. Further, the channel information corresponding to one of its subsets is fed back (i.e., PMI, CQI, RI, etc.), and this subset is called the second port set. In one implementation, the second port set and the first port set are completely different, that is, the intersection is empty.

[0379] And / or, when the m-th group of channel coefficients is fed back, the channel information further includes combining coefficient information. Among them, the combining coefficient is used to indicate the weighting coefficient between the channels corresponding to the first port set and the channels corresponding to the second port set.

[0380] Similar to the association relationship between the K downlink reference signals and the S uplink reference signals in S902, the M groups of channel coefficients here can also be associated / corresponded with the channel information obtained based on the K uplink reference signals in S901, which will not be elaborated here.

[0381] Further, it should be understood that there is an association relationship (or corresponding relationship) among the reference signals (whether downlink or uplink) in S901, the target information in S903, and the combining coefficients in the channel information in S904. This corresponding relationship is used to ensure that the combination between the first port set and the second port set is aligned on the network device side and the terminal device side, so as to obtain better transmission performance. If there is no corresponding relationship, it may lead to misalignment in understanding between the network device and the UE, resulting in performance loss.

[0382] S905. The terminal device sends channel information to the network device, including one or more of the following: indexes of one or more resources, indexes of one or more resource groups, indexes of one or more ports, P (groups) of channel quality indicators (CQI), P (groups) of reference signal received signal qualities (RSRP), P (groups) of precoding matrix indicators (PMI), and C combining coefficient matrices (or C combining coefficient vectors, or C combining coefficients). It should be understood that, in the above one or more, the C combining coefficient matrices may be the content included in the first channel information described above, and the other information may be the content included in the second channel information described above.

[0383] In one implementation, the terminal device reports P groups of channel information, where P=M or K.

[0384] In one implementation, the terminal device reports the channel information of group P, where P <K。

[0385] In one implementation, the terminal device reports the channel information of group P, where P <M。

[0386] In one implementation, the terminal device reports P groups of channel information, where C=P, or C=M, or C=K.

[0387] In one implementation, the terminal device reports the channel information of group P, where C <P。

[0388] In one implementation, the terminal device reports the channel information of group P, where C <M。

[0389] It should be understood that the P individuals (or P groups) here can also be represented by a channel information.

[0390] Further, the terminal reports information of P weighting parameters. The P weighting parameters correspond to P sets of channel information, that is, the P weighting parameters correspond to P second channel coefficients, and these second channel coefficients correspond to P sets of channel information. Specifically, the information of the P weighting parameters can be an index set {i 0 ,i 1 ,…,i P-1}, where i p =0,1,2,…,M-1 is the index of the second channel coefficient in the M (or K) channel information, and p=0,1,…,P-1.

[0391] It should be understood that the C individuals (or C groups) here can also be represented by a channel information.

[0392] It should be understood that some terminals may support the method of this embodiment, while some terminals may not. At this time, whether the terminal device supports any of the reference signal reception or channel information feedback methods in the above process can be determined by the capability information reported by the terminal device. The network device can decide whether to configure the above implementation method based on the capability information reported by the terminal device.

[0393] S906: The network device determines precoding information (eg, precoding matrix) based on the combining coefficient, PMI information, etc.

[0394] S907. The network device sends a downlink signal (or downlink data, downlink information, downlink message, etc.) based on the precoding information.

[0395] It should be noted that in step S906, the network device may send a downlink signal (or downlink data, downlink information, downlink message, etc.) through one or more data streams. The specific implementation process may refer to the above. Figure 5 and descriptions of related implementation examples (such as the previous Figure 7a / Figure 7b The example shown in the figure is not described here.

[0396] based on Fig. 9 The technical solution shown, through the feedback of the merging coefficients between multiple port groups, is beneficial for the network device to calculate the precoding vector based on multiple low-dimensional port group-level channel information; and based on multiple low-dimensional precoding vectors and merging coefficients, the effect of high-dimensional precoding is achieved. Therefore, the overhead in the channel measurement process can be reduced, thereby improving resource utilization and reducing the power consumption of terminal devices.

[0397] In some implementations, by pairing precoding matrices between port groups (pairing precoding vectors corresponding to different streams), power allocation between streams can be achieved, further improving performance.

[0398] See also Fig.10 , the embodiment of the present application provides a communication device 1000, which can implement the functions of the terminal device (or network device) in the above method embodiment, and thus can also achieve the beneficial effects of the above method embodiment. In the embodiment of the present application, the communication device 1000 can be a terminal device (or network device), or it can be an integrated circuit or component inside the terminal device (or network device), such as a chip. The following embodiments are described by taking the communication device 1000 as a terminal device or a network device as an example.

[0399] In a possible implementation, when the device 1000 is used to execute the method executed by the terminal device in the aforementioned embodiment, the device 1000 includes a processing unit 1001 and a transceiver unit 1002; the transceiver unit 1002 is used to receive a first reference signal, and the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set includes one or more ports; the processing unit 1001 is used to determine first channel information and second channel information; the transceiver unit 1002 is also used to send first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0400] In a possible implementation, the transceiver unit 1002 is further used to send a second reference signal, where the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, where the third channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0401] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to receive indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set.

[0402] In a possible implementation, the transceiver unit 1002 is further used to receive a third reference signal, where the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, where the fourth channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; the transceiver unit 1002 is further used to send the fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set.

[0403] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to send fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0404] In a possible implementation, the first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix or a combining coefficient vector or a combining coefficient (or a weighting coefficient, or a coefficient) between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set.

[0405] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to send an index of the first port set and / or an index of the second port set.

[0406] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further used to send capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

[0407] In a possible implementation manner, the first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0408] or

[0409] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, W 1 Indicates the second channel information.

[0410] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0411] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0412] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α 0 ,α 1 ] is the transpose of ]. Accordingly, the precoding information W satisfies:

[0413]

[0414] In one possible implementation, W 0 and W 1 They respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream.

[0415] In one possible implementation, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream.

[0416] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to receive indication information indicating the first data stream and the second data stream.

[0417] In a possible implementation, when the device 1000 is used to execute the method executed by the network device in the aforementioned embodiment, the device 1000 includes a processing unit 1001 and a transceiver unit 1002; the processing unit is used to determine a first reference signal, and the transceiver unit 1002 is used to send the first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set includes one or more ports; the transceiver unit 1002 is also used to receive first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined based on the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0418] In a possible implementation, the transceiver unit 1002 is further used to receive a second reference signal, where the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, where the third channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

[0419] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to send indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set.

[0420] In a possible implementation, the transceiver unit 1002 is also used to send a third reference signal, where the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, where the fourth channel information is determined based on the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; the network device receives the fourth channel information and / or the first port set.

[0421] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to send fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

[0422] In a possible implementation, the first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix or a combining coefficient vector or a combining coefficient (or a weighting coefficient, or a coefficient) between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set.

[0423] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to receive an index of the first port set and / or an index of the second port set.

[0424] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further used to receive capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

[0425] In a possible implementation manner, the first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies:

[0426] or

[0427] Wherein, W represents precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, W 1 Indicates the second channel information.

[0428] Optionally, α satisfies:

[0429] α=[α 0 ,α 1 ] T ;

[0430] Among them, α 0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α 1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α 0 ,α 1 ] T Represents the matrix [α 0 ,α 1 ] is the transpose of ].

[0431] In one possible implementation, and W 1 They respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the same data stream.

[0432] In one possible implementation, W 0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the first data stream, 1 Indicates precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting the second data stream.

[0433] In a possible implementation manner, the transceiver unit 1002 is further configured to send indication information indicating the first data stream and the second data stream.

[0434] It should be noted that the information execution process and other contents of the units of the above-mentioned communication device 1000 can be specifically referred to the description in the method embodiment shown in the above-mentioned application, and will not be repeated here.

[0435] See also Fig.11, is another schematic structural diagram of the communication device 1100 provided in the present application, the communication device 1100 includes a logic circuit 1101 and an input / output interface 1102. The communication device 1100 may be a chip or an integrated circuit.

[0436] in, Fig.10 The transceiver unit 1002 shown may be a communication interface, which may be Fig.11 The input / output interface 1102 in the communication interface may include an input interface and an output interface. Alternatively, the communication interface may also be a transceiver circuit, which may include an input interface circuit and an output interface circuit.

[0437] Optionally, the input-output interface 1102 is used to receive a first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set includes one or more ports; the logic circuit 1101 is used to determine the first channel information and the second channel information; the input-output interface 1102 is also used to send the first channel information and the second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. Among them, the logic circuit 1101 and the input-output interface 1102 can also perform other steps performed by the terminal device in the aforementioned embodiment and achieve corresponding beneficial effects, which will not be repeated here.

[0438] Optionally, the logic circuit 1101 is used to determine a first reference signal, and the input-output interface 1102 is used to send the first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, and each port set includes one or more ports; the input-output interface 1102 is also used to receive first channel information and second channel information; the first channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal. Among them, the logic circuit 1101 and the input-output interface 1102 can also perform other steps performed by the network device in the aforementioned embodiment and achieve corresponding beneficial effects, which will not be repeated here.

[0439] In one possible implementation, Fig.10 The processing unit 1001 shown can be Fig.11 The logic circuit 1101 in.

[0440] Optionally, the logic circuit 1101 may be a processing device, and the functions of the processing device may be partially or completely implemented by software. The functions of the processing device may be partially or completely implemented by software.

[0441] Optionally, the processing device may include a memory and a processor, wherein the memory is used to store a computer program, and the processor reads and executes the computer program stored in the memory to perform corresponding processing and / or steps in any one of the method embodiments.

[0442] Alternatively, the processing device may include only a processor. A memory for storing a computer program is located outside the processing device, and the processor is connected to the memory via a circuit / wire to read and execute the computer program stored in the memory. The memory and the processor may be integrated together, or may be physically independent of each other.

[0443] Optionally, the processing device may be one or more chips, or one or more integrated circuits. For example, the processing device may be one or more field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), system on chip (SoC), central processor unit (CPU), network processor (NP), digital signal processor (DSP), microcontroller unit (MCU), programmable logic device (PLD) or other integrated chips, or any combination of the above chips or processors.

[0444] See also Fig.12 , is a communication device 1200 involved in the above embodiment provided in an embodiment of the present application, and the communication device 1200 may specifically be a communication device as a terminal device in the above embodiment, Fig.12 The example shown is implemented by a terminal device (or a component in the terminal device).

[0445] Among them, a possible logical structure diagram of the communication device 1200 is shown, and the communication device 1200 may include but is not limited to at least one processor 1201 and a communication port 1202.

[0446] Further optionally, the device may also include at least one of a memory 1203 and a bus 1204 . In an embodiment of the present application, the at least one processor 1201 is used to control and process the actions of the communication device 1200 .

[0447] In addition, the processor 1201 can be a central processing unit, a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor, an application-specific integrated circuit, a field programmable gate array or other programmable logic device, a transistor logic device, a hardware component or any combination thereof. It can implement or execute various exemplary logic blocks, modules and circuits described in conjunction with the disclosure of this application. The processor can also be a combination that implements computing functions, such as a combination of one or more microprocessors, a combination of a digital signal processor and a microprocessor, and the like. Those skilled in the art can clearly understand that for the convenience and simplicity of description, the specific working process of the above-described system, device and unit can refer to the corresponding process in the aforementioned method embodiment, and will not be repeated here.

[0448] It should be noted that Fig.12 The communication device 1200 shown can be specifically used to implement the steps implemented by the terminal device in the aforementioned method embodiment, and achieve the corresponding technical effects of the terminal device. Fig.12 The specific implementation methods of the communication device shown can all refer to the description in the aforementioned method embodiment, and will not be repeated here.

[0449] See also Fig.13 , is a schematic diagram of the structure of the communication device 1300 involved in the above embodiment provided in the embodiment of the present application. The communication device 1300 may specifically be the communication device as the network device in the above embodiment. Fig.13 The example shown is that the network device is implemented by the network device (or a component in the network device), wherein the structure of the communication device can refer to Fig.13 The structure shown.

[0450] The communication device 1300 includes at least one processor 1311 and at least one network interface 1314. Further optionally, the communication device also includes at least one memory 1312, at least one transceiver 1313 and one or more antennas 1315. The processor 1311, the memory 1312, the transceiver 1313 and the network interface 1314 are connected, for example, through a bus. In an embodiment of the present application, the connection may include various interfaces, transmission lines or buses, etc., which are not limited in this embodiment. The antenna 1315 is connected to the transceiver 1313. The network interface 1314 is used to enable the communication device to communicate with other communication devices through a communication link. For example, the network interface 1314 may include a network interface between the communication device and the core network device, such as an S1 interface, and the network interface may include a network interface between the communication device and other communication devices (such as other network devices or core network devices), such as an X2 or Xn interface.

[0451] The processor 1311 is mainly used to process the communication protocol and communication data, and to control the entire communication device, execute the software program, and process the data of the software program, for example, to support the communication device to perform the actions described in the embodiment. The communication device may include a baseband processor and a central processing unit. The baseband processor is mainly used to process the communication protocol and communication data, and the central processing unit is mainly used to control the entire terminal device, execute the software program, and process the data of the software program. Fig.13 The processor 1311 in the embodiment can integrate the functions of the baseband processor and the central processor. It can be understood by those skilled in the art that the baseband processor and the central processor can also be independent processors, which are interconnected through technologies such as buses. It can be understood by those skilled in the art that the terminal device can include multiple baseband processors to adapt to different network formats, and the terminal device can include multiple central processors to enhance its processing capabilities. The various components of the terminal device can be connected through various buses. The baseband processor can also be described as a baseband processing circuit or a baseband processing chip. The central processor can also be described as a central processing circuit or a central processing chip. The function of processing the communication protocol and the communication data can be built into the processor, or it can be stored in the memory in the form of a software program, and the processor executes the software program to realize the baseband processing function.

[0452] The memory is mainly used to store software programs and data. The memory 1312 can exist independently and be connected to the processor 1311. Optionally, the memory 1312 can be integrated with the processor 1311, for example, integrated into a chip. Among them, the memory 1312 can store program codes for executing the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, and the execution is controlled by the processor 1311. The various types of computer program codes executed can also be regarded as drivers of the processor 1311.

[0453] Fig.13 Only one memory and one processor are shown. In an actual terminal device, there may be multiple processors and multiple memories. The memory may also be referred to as a storage medium or a storage device, etc. The memory may be a storage element on the same chip as the processor, i.e., an on-chip storage element, or an independent storage element, which is not limited in the embodiments of the present application.

[0454] The transceiver 1313 can be used to support the reception or transmission of radio frequency signals between the communication device and the terminal, and the transceiver 1313 can be connected to the antenna 1315. The transceiver 1313 includes a transmitter Tx and a receiver Rx. Specifically, one or more antennas 1315 can receive radio frequency signals, and the receiver Rx of the transceiver 1313 is used to receive the radio frequency signal from the antenna, convert the radio frequency signal into a digital baseband signal or a digital intermediate frequency signal, and provide the digital baseband signal or the digital intermediate frequency signal to the processor 1311, so that the processor 1311 further processes the digital baseband signal or the digital intermediate frequency signal, such as demodulation and decoding. In addition, the transmitter Tx in the transceiver 1313 is also used to receive a modulated digital baseband signal or a digital intermediate frequency signal from the processor 1311, and convert the modulated digital baseband signal or the digital intermediate frequency signal into a radio frequency signal, and send the radio frequency signal through one or more antennas 1315. Specifically, the receiver Rx can selectively perform one or more stages of down-mixing and analog-to-digital conversion processing on the RF signal to obtain a digital baseband signal or a digital intermediate frequency signal, and the order of the down-mixing and analog-to-digital conversion processing is adjustable. The transmitter Tx can selectively perform one or more stages of up-mixing and digital-to-analog conversion processing on the modulated digital baseband signal or digital intermediate frequency signal to obtain a RF signal, and the order of the up-mixing and digital-to-analog conversion processing is adjustable. The digital baseband signal and the digital intermediate frequency signal can be collectively referred to as a digital signal.

[0455] The transceiver 1313 may also be referred to as a transceiver unit, a transceiver, a transceiver device, etc. Optionally, a device in the transceiver unit for implementing a receiving function may be regarded as a receiving unit, and a device in the transceiver unit for implementing a sending function may be regarded as a sending unit, that is, the transceiver unit includes a receiving unit and a sending unit, the receiving unit may also be referred to as a receiver, an input port, a receiving circuit, etc., and the sending unit may be referred to as a transmitter, a transmitter, or a transmitting circuit, etc.

[0456] It should be noted that Fig.13 The communication device 1300 shown can be specifically used to implement the steps implemented by the network device in the aforementioned method embodiment, and achieve the corresponding technical effects of the network device. Fig.13 The specific implementation methods of the communication device 1300 shown can all refer to the description in the aforementioned method embodiment, and will not be repeated here.

[0457] An embodiment of the present application also provides a computer-readable storage medium for storing one or more computer-executable instructions. When the computer-executable instructions are executed by a processor, the processor executes the method described in the possible implementation method of the communication device (such as a terminal device or a network device) in the above-mentioned embodiment.

[0458] An embodiment of the present application also provides a computer program product (or computer program). When the computer program product is executed by the processor, the processor executes a method that may be implemented by the above-mentioned communication device (such as a terminal device or a network device).

[0459] The embodiment of the present application also provides a chip system, which includes at least one processor for supporting a communication device to implement the functions involved in the possible implementation methods of the above-mentioned communication device. Optionally, the chip system also includes an interface circuit, which provides program instructions and / or data for the at least one processor. In one possible design, the chip system may also include a memory, which is used to store the necessary program instructions and data for the communication device. The chip system can be composed of chips, or it can include chips and other discrete devices, wherein the communication device can specifically be a terminal device or a network device in the aforementioned method embodiment.

[0460] An embodiment of the present application also provides a communication system, and the network system architecture includes the terminal device and network device in any of the above embodiments.

[0461] In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are only schematic. For example, the division of the units is only a logical function division. There may be other division methods in actual implementation, such as multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. Another point is that the mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed can be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, which can be electrical, mechanical or other forms.

[0462] The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, and the components shown as units may or may not be physical units, that is, they may be located in one place or distributed on multiple network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

[0463] In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application can be integrated into a processing unit, or each unit can exist physically separately, or two or more units can be integrated into one unit. The above-mentioned integrated unit can be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of a software functional unit. If the integrated unit is implemented in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as an independent product, it can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present application is essentially or the part that contributes or all or part of the technical solution can be embodied in the form of a software product, and the computer software product is stored in a storage medium, including several instructions to enable a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to perform all or part of the steps of the method described in each embodiment of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes: U disk, mobile hard disk, read-only memory (ROM, Read-Only Memory), random access memory (RAM, Random Access Memory), disk or optical disk and other media that can store program code.

Claims

1. A communication method, characterized in that: include: receiving a first reference signal, the first reference signal corresponding to a first port set and a second port set, each port set including one or more ports; Sending first channel information and second channel information; The first channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and a second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that Before sending the first channel information and the second channel information, the method further includes: A second reference signal is sent, where the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, and the third channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The method further comprises: Indication information indicating the first port set and / or the second port set is received.

4. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that: Before sending the first channel information and the second channel information, the method further includes: receiving a third reference signal, where the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, where the fourth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; The fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set is sent.

5. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that The method further comprises: Sending fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that: The method further comprises: An index of the first port set and / or an index of the second port set is sent.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that: The method further comprises: Send capability information, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

8. A communication method, characterized in that: include: Sending a first reference signal, wherein the first reference signal corresponds to a first port set and a second port set, each port set including one or more ports; receiving first channel information and second channel information; The first channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal and a second port set corresponding to the first reference signal, and the second channel information is determined according to the second port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

9. The method according to claim 8, characterized in that Before receiving the first channel information and the second channel information, the method further includes: A second reference signal is received, where the second reference signal corresponds to the first port set, and the second reference signal is used to determine third channel information and / or the first port set, where the third channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the second reference signal.

10. The method according to claim 8 or 9, characterized in that: The method further comprises: Send indication information used to indicate the first port set and / or the second port set.

11. The method according to claim 10, characterized in that Before receiving the first channel information and the second channel information, the method further includes: sending a third reference signal, where the third reference signal corresponds to the first port set, where the third reference signal is used to determine fourth channel information and / or the first port set, where the fourth channel information is determined according to the first port set corresponding to the third reference signal; The fourth channel information and / or indication information indicating the first port set is received.

12. The method according to claim 8, characterized in that The method further comprises: Sending fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

13. The method according to any one of claims 8 to 12, characterized in that: The method further comprises: An index of the first set of ports and / or an index of the second set of ports is received.

14. The method according to any one of claims 8 to 13, characterized in that The method further comprises: Capability information is received, where the capability information is used to indicate support for sending the first channel information.

15. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 14, characterized in that The first channel information corresponds to a combining coefficient matrix or a combining coefficient vector or a combining coefficient between the channel information of the first port set and the channel information of the second port set.

16. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 15, characterized in that The first channel information and the second channel information are used to determine precoding information, and the precoding information satisfies: Wherein, W represents the precoding information, α represents the first channel information, represents the Kronecker product, W0 represents the precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set, and W1 represents the precoding information corresponding to the second channel information.

17. The method according to claim 16, characterized in that α satisfies: α＝[α0,α1] T ； Wherein, α0 represents the coefficient of the first port set, α1 represents the coefficient of the second port set, [α0, α1] T Represents the transpose of the matrix [α0,α1].

18. The method according to claim 16 or 17, characterized in that The channel information determined according to the first port set includes at least one of the following: third channel information, where the third channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to a second reference signal sent by the terminal device; Fourth channel information, where the fourth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to a third reference signal received by the terminal device; Fifth channel information, where the fifth channel information is determined according to a first port set corresponding to the first reference signal.

19. The method according to any one of claims 16 to 18, characterized in that W0 and W1 respectively represent precoding information corresponding to the channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting the same data stream, and precoding information corresponding to the second channel information.

20. The method according to any one of claims 16 to 18, characterized in that: W0 represents precoding information corresponding to channel information determined according to the first port set when transmitting a first data stream, and W1 represents precoding information corresponding to the second channel information when transmitting a second data stream.

21. The method according to claim 20, characterized in that The method further comprises: Send or receive indication information used to indicate the first data flow and the second data flow.

22. A communication device, characterized in that: Comprising means for performing the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 21.

23. A communication device, characterized in that: The method comprises at least one processor coupled to a memory; the at least one processor is configured to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 21.

24. A readable storage medium, characterized in that: The storage medium stores a computer program or an instruction. When the computer program or the instruction is executed by the communication device, the communication device implements the method according to any one of claims 1 to 21.

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