TCI indication-based continuation of multi-cell activation

Abstract

Systems and methods provide multi-cell activation. A user equipment (UE) receives a command to simultaneously activate multiple cells from a wireless network. In response, the UE initiates a cell activation procedure for the plurality of cells. These cell activation procedures include waiting for an active transmission configuration indicator (TCI) indication. The UE monitors the active TCI indication on any of the plurality of cells. In response to receiving the active TCI indication on a first cell of the plurality of cells, the UE determines one or more second cells of the plurality of cells, the one or more second cells sharing the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to one or more predetermined rules, and autonomously continuing the cell activation procedures for the first cell and the one or more second cells.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application generally relates to wireless communication systems, including multi-cell activation for carrier aggregation (CA). Background Art

[0002] Wireless mobile communication technology uses various standards and protocols to send data between base stations and wireless communication devices. Wireless communication system standards and protocols may include, for example, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) (e.g., 4G), 3GPP New Radio (NR) (e.g., 5G), and the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networks (WLANs) (commonly referred to within industry organizations as WLANs). ).

[0003] As envisioned by 3GPP, different wireless communication system standards and protocols may use various radio access networks (RANs) to communicate between base stations of the RAN (which may also sometimes be referred to as RAN nodes, network nodes, or simply nodes) and wireless communication devices referred to as user equipment (UE). 3GPP RANs may include, for example, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) RAN (GERAN), Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), and / or Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN).

[0004] Each RAN may use one or more radio access technologies (RATs) to perform communications between base stations and UEs. For example, GERAN implements GSM and / or EDGE RAT, UTRAN implements Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) RAT or other 3GPP RAT, E-UTRAN implements LTE RAT (sometimes referred to as LTE), and NG-RAN implements NR RAT (sometimes referred to as 5G RAT, 5G NR RAT, or NR in this document). In some deployments, E-UTRAN may also implement NR RAT. In some deployments, NG-RAN may also implement LTE RAT.

[0005] The base stations used by the RAN may correspond to the RAN. An example of an E-UTRAN base station is an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Node B (also commonly denoted as an evolved Node B, enhanced Node B, eNodeB, or eNB). An example of an NG-RAN base station is a Next Generation Node B (sometimes also referred to as a g-Node B or gNB).

[0006] The RAN provides communication services together with external entities through its connection with the Core Network (CN). For example, E-UTRAN may utilize the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and NG-RAN may utilize the 5G Core Network (5GC).

[0007] The frequency bands of 5G NR can be divided into two or more different frequency ranges. For example, frequency range 1 (FR1) may include frequency bands operating at frequencies below 6 GHz, some of which are available for previous standards and can potentially be expanded to cover new spectrum products from 410 MHz to 7125 MHz. Frequency range 2 (FR2) may include frequency bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. Note that in some systems, FR2 may also include frequency bands from 52.6 GHz to 71 GHz (or higher). The frequency bands in the millimeter wave (mmWave) range of FR2 may have smaller coverage than the frequency bands in FR1 but potentially higher available bandwidth. Technicians will recognize that these frequency ranges, provided by way of example, may vary over time or from region to region. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0008] To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or action, the most significant digit(s) in a reference number refers to the drawing number that first introduces the element.

[0009] Figure 1 is an example drawing illustrating the impact of UEs waiting for per-cell TCI activation.

[0010] Figure 2 is an example drawing illustrating continuation of TCI indication based on multi-cell activation according to one embodiment.

[0011] Figure 3 is a flow chart of a method for a UE to communicate in a wireless network according to one embodiment.

[0012] Figure 4 is a flow chart of a method for a base station to communicate with a UE in a wireless network according to one embodiment.

[0013] Figure 5 An example architecture of a wireless communication system according to embodiments disclosed herein is illustrated.

[0014] Figure 6 A system for performing signaling between a wireless device and a network device according to embodiments disclosed herein is illustrated. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0015] Various embodiments are described with respect to UE. However, reference to UE is provided for illustrative purposes only. The example embodiments may be used with any electronic component that can establish a connection with a network and is configured with hardware, software, and / or firmware for exchanging information and data with the network. Therefore, UE as described herein is used to represent any suitable electronic component.

[0016] Embodiments disclosed herein facilitate activation of multiple FR2 cells for carrier aggregation (CA). CA aims to aggregate segmented spectrum for delivering higher capacity and balanced coverage. After the network (NW) adds and configures SCells (e.g., through radio resource control (RRC) signaling), the NW can perform single SCell activation for CA by initiating a process requesting the UE to implement processing on the configured target SCell.

[0017] The process may be triggered by a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) command or by an SCell activation / deactivation process for a configured SCell. In response, the UE behavior includes: configuring the UE's radio frequency (RF) and baseband circuits and processors for the parameters of the target SCell, detecting the target SCell (if necessary), assisting the NW in selecting a downlink (DL) transmit beam, and determining the receive beam of the UE in FR2, improving time and frequency offset (TO / FO), and measuring and reporting channel quality indicators (CQI). Unlike conventional LTE, NR uses a periodic discontinuous reference signal for the above process. Therefore, longer delays may be incurred while waiting for the next instance of a discontinuous reference signal (which may have a periodicity of, for example, 20ms, 40ms, or 80ms).

[0018] In addition, the complexity may increase when the NW chooses to activate multiple SCells simultaneously. Some systems (e.g., 3GPP Release 16 (Rel-16)) impose a delay on the activation of multiple secondary cells (SCells). For example, the activation delay includes the time period (e.g., T) between the reception of the activation command for the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI), the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) TCI (when applicable), and the SCell activation command for the unknown SCell. uncertainty_MAC_multiple_scells ). The UE may be configured to apply an activation delay for each FR2 cell being activated.

[0019] When activating multiple FR2 in-band SCells, the multiple SCells may already be known to the UE and / or the multiple SCells may be unknown to the UE. For example, within a frequency band, some cells may be active, some cells to be activated may already be known to the UE, and some cells to be activated may not be known to the UE. In order to activate multiple FR2 cells to a frequency band without any active cells, the network indicates the active TCI state of the target cell. The TCI state may indicate the directionality or characteristics of the downlink beam, such as one or more quasi-co-location (QCL) attributes of the DL beam. The QCL attributes may include, for example, Doppler shift, Doppler spread, average delay, delay spread, or spatial reception parameters, as well as other examples. In some examples, each base station transmit beam may be associated with a synchronization signal block (SSB), and the UE may indicate a preferred transmit beam by sending an uplink transmission in a resource of the SSB associated with the preferred transmit beam 305. A specific SSB may have an associated TCI state (e.g., for an antenna port or for beamforming).

[0020] Since some systems intend to retain the flexibility to indicate the TCI state to each of the multiple FR2 cells being activated, the UE is configured to remain activated and wait for the TCI indication via the MAC-CE of each cell individually before continuing with the activation of the cell. Although the NW has the flexibility to activate TCI individually, the fact that the UE remains activated by default may increase the overall latency to complete the activation of all cells. If some cells receive TCI indications when other cells suspend TCI indications via MAC-CE commands, they can proceed.

[0021] Figure 1 is an example plot illustrating the impact of a UE waiting for per-cell TCI activation. The plot shows SSB bursts 102 corresponding to component carriers (CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4, CC5, CC6, and CC7) of the respective cells to be activated. At time T MAC-CE , the NW issues one MAC-CE command 104 to the UE for activating multiple cells in CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4, CC5, CC6 and CC7. At time T0, activation starts in parallel for multiple cells and the TCI indication is shelved.

[0022] At time T1, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC1 from the NW, and activation continues (i.e., an active TCI indication MAC-CE command may be received on another active special cell (sPCell) or an active SCell in another frequency band. At time T2, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC2 from the NW, and activation continues. At time T3, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC3 from the NW, and activation continues. At time T4, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC4 from the NW, and activation continues. At time T5, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC5 from the NW, and activation continues. At time T6, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC6 from the NW, and activation continues. At time T7, the UE receives an active TCI indication for a cell corresponding to CC7 from the NW, and activation continues. The total delay is determined by the last cell (corresponding to CC7) that receives the TCI indication. In other words, the total delay is increased by the delay between time T1 and time T7.

[0023] Note that for a particular cell, once the UE receives a TCI indication, the UE may decide to further perform time offset refinement and / or continue channel state information (CSI) reference signal (RS) measurements and CSI reporting for link adaptation. Therefore, the longer the activated CC waits for a TCI indication, the longer the overall delay.

[0024] In contrast, based on the assumption that multiple intra-band FR2 cells are co-located (e.g., as in 3GPP Rel-16), certain embodiments disclosed herein allow the remaining cells to continue the CA activation process as long as one of the multiple cells receives a TCI indication. In order to be spatially co-located, the two cells share the same DL direction. Therefore, the case of co-located CA deployment can be identified to exploit the fact that multiple serving cells share the same spatial relationship. In some systems, for example, the UE may assume that the signal sent from the serving cell should have the same DL spatial domain transmit filter on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol in the same frequency band in FR2. In addition, or in other embodiments, for cells that are consecutive in the frequency domain, the assumption of co-location can be extended to the same frequency band in FR1. Therefore, under certain assumptions or conditions in FR2 and / or FR1, if one of the serving cells being activated receives an active TCI indication through the NW, the remaining shelved serving cells can autonomously resume the activation process.

[0025] For example, Figure 2 is an example drawing illustrating the continuation of TCI indication based multi-cell activation according to one embodiment. Figure 1 , Figure 2The plot in FIG. 2 shows SSB bursts 202 corresponding to component carriers (CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4, CC5, CC6, and CC7) of the respective cells to be activated. MAC-CE , the NW issues one MAC-CE command 204 to the UE for activating multiple cells in CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4, CC5, CC6 and CC7. At time T0, activation starts in parallel for multiple cells and the TCI indication is shelved.

[0026] At time T1, the NW sends an active TCI indication 206 for any of the multiple cells of CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4, CC5, CC6 and CC7. When the UE receives the TCI indication 206 for any of the cells being activated, instead of waiting for an explicit TCI indication for each cell from the NW, the UE may autonomously resume the activation process for one or more (or all) of the other cells being activated. Figure 1 Compared to the example shown, there is a much shorter latency, and multiple cells share similar activation delays. In addition, the NW reduces signaling overhead by avoiding multiple TCI indication MAC-CE commands. In addition, some embodiments provide the flexibility to apply to FR2 or FR1 when certain predefined conditions are met.

[0027] In one embodiment, when the UE waits for an active TCI indication during the process of activating multiple cells simultaneously, the UE monitors whether an active TCI indication is received for any one or more cells being activated, and checks whether any other cells being activated share the same spatial relationship (e.g., TCI state) according to a predetermined rule. The UE then autonomously continues the activation process for those cells that share the same spatial relationship. The predetermined rules may be based on a common understanding or predefined criteria between the infrastructure and the UE. For example, within the same frequency band in FR2, the serving cells may share the same downlink spatial filter. As another example, within the same frequency band in FR1, frequency-contiguous serving cells may share the same downlink spatial filter. As another example, the NW and the UE may agree that consecutively numbered cell identifiers (IDs) may be assumed to be co-located. A technician will recognize from the disclosure herein that these rules are not limited to these examples and that other predetermined rules may apply.

[0028] In certain embodiments, a set of serving cells sharing the same TCI state is defined as a TCI cell group. Upon receiving an active TCI indication for any of the cells being activated, the UE autonomously continues the activation process for other cells in the same TCI cell group.

[0029] In one embodiment, the UE determines to autonomously continue to activate all other cells activated in the same TCI cell group by continuing to perform additional processes of refining the time offset and measuring the CSI-RS signal for link adaptation. In some such embodiments, additional conditions are applied to trigger continued activation of other cells in the same TCI cell group. These conditions can be measurement-based or RRC-configured. For example, the measured signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions of the QCL src SSB on those cells are comparable to the cells that have received the active TCI indication. For RRC configuration, the SSB setting of the serving cell can be used for other cells being activated.

[0030] In certain embodiments, as disclosed herein, a UE supporting automatic continue behavior may indicate to the NW in a UE capability message that the autonomous behavior may be triggered by a TCI indication for a serving cell being activated.

[0031] In certain embodiments, the NW may distinguish different UEs based on UE capability reports to transmit one or more TCI indications (ie, one TCI indication per cell) to the UEs accordingly for activating multiple serving cells with shelved TCI provisioning.

[0032] Figure 3 300 is a flow chart of a method 300 for a UE to communicate in a wireless network according to one embodiment. In box 302, the method 300 includes receiving a command to activate multiple cells simultaneously from the wireless network. The command can be, for example, a MAC-CE command. In box 304, in response to the command, the method 300 includes initiating a cell activation process for multiple cells. The cell activation process includes waiting for an active TCI indication. In box 306, the method 300 includes monitoring the active TCI indication on any cell in the multiple cells. In box 308, in response to receiving an active TCI indication on a first cell in the multiple cells, the method 300 includes determining one or more second cells in the multiple cells, the one or more second cells sharing the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to one or more predetermined rules, and (in box 310) autonomously continuing the cell activation process for the first cell and the one or more second cells. In box 312, the method 300 includes receiving downlink communications on the first cell and the one or more second cells from the wireless network at the UE.

[0033] In certain embodiments, the method 300 further includes defining the first cell and the one or more second cells as being in a TCI cell group having the same TCI state based on one or more predetermined rules.

[0034] In certain embodiments of method 300, one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and one or more second cells are in the same frequency band in a first frequency range (FR1), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells include frequency-contiguous serving cells that share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

[0035] In certain embodiments of method 300, the one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and the one or more second cells are in the same frequency band, wherein the same frequency band is in a second frequency range (FR2), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

[0036] In certain embodiments of method 300, the one or more predetermined rules include predefined criteria set between the wireless network and the UE. In certain such embodiments, the predefined criteria include assuming that consecutively numbered cell identifiers (IDs) in a frequency band are spatially co-located.

[0037] In certain embodiments of the method 300, autonomously continuing the cell activation procedure includes selectively determining, for each of the one or more second cells, whether one or more additional conditions trigger continuation of the cell activation procedure. For example, the one or more additional conditions may be based on a synchronization signal block (SSB) measurement for determining a QCL of the first cell with the one or more second cells. Alternatively, the one or more additional conditions may be based on a radio resource configuration (RRC) configuration set by a synchronization signal block (SSB) between the first cell and the one or more second cells.

[0038] In certain embodiments, the method 300 further includes reporting, from the UE to the wireless network, a UE capability message indicating the UE's support for autonomous continuation of multi-cell activation based on a single TCI indication.

[0039] Embodiments contemplated herein include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of the method 300. The apparatus may be, for example, an apparatus of a UE (such as the wireless device 602 as a UE, as described herein).

[0040] Embodiments contemplated herein include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media containing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of method 300. The non-transitory computer-readable medium may be, for example, a memory of a UE (such as memory 606 of wireless device 602 as a UE, as described herein).

[0041] Embodiments contemplated herein include an apparatus comprising logical components, modules, or circuits for performing one or more elements of the method 300. The apparatus may be, for example, an apparatus of a UE (such as the wireless device 602 as a UE, as described herein).

[0042] Embodiments contemplated herein include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform one or more elements of the method 300. The apparatus may be, for example, an apparatus of a UE (such as the wireless device 602 as a UE, as described herein).

[0043] Embodiments contemplated herein include signals as described in or associated with one or more elements of method 300 .

[0044] Embodiments contemplated herein include a computer program or computer program product including instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processor causes the processor to perform one or more elements of the method 300. The processor may be a processor of a UE (such as the processor 604 of the wireless device 602 as a UE, as described herein). These instructions may be located, for example, in a processor and / or on a memory of the UE (e.g., the memory 606 of the wireless device 602 as a UE, as described herein).

[0045] Figure 4 is a flow chart of a method 400 for a base station to communicate with a UE in a wireless network according to one embodiment. In box 402, the method 400 includes receiving a UE capability message from the UE, the UE capability message indicating the UE's support for autonomous continuation of multi-cell activation based on a single transmission configuration indicator (TCI). In box 404, the method 400 includes sending a command from the base station to the UE to initiate a cell activation process for multiple cells. The cell activation process includes waiting for an active TCI indication. In box 406, based on the UE capability message, the method 400 includes sending an active TCI indication to the UE on a first cell among the multiple cells to continue the cell activation process for the first cell and one or more second cells among the multiple cells, the one or more second cells sharing the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to one or more predetermined rules.

[0046] In certain embodiments, method 400 further includes defining the first cell and the one or more second cells as being in a TCI cell group having the same TCI state based on one or more predetermined rules.

[0047] In certain embodiments of method 400, one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and one or more second cells are in the same frequency band in a first frequency range (FR1), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells include frequency-contiguous serving cells that share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

[0048] In certain embodiments of method 400, the one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and the one or more second cells are in the same frequency band, wherein the same frequency band is in a second frequency range (FR2), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

[0049] In certain embodiments of method 400, the one or more predetermined rules include predefined criteria set between the wireless network and the UE. In certain such embodiments, the predefined criteria include assuming that consecutively numbered cell identifiers (IDs) in a frequency band are spatially co-located.

[0050] In certain embodiments, method 400 also includes: determining one or more third cells among the multiple cells, wherein the one or more third cells do not share the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to one or more predetermined rules; and sending an additional active TCI indication for each of the one or more third cells from the base station to the UE.

[0051] Embodiments contemplated herein include an apparatus including means for performing one or more elements of method 400. The apparatus may be, for example, an apparatus that is a base station (such as network device 618 that is a base station, as described herein).

[0052] Embodiments contemplated herein include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media including instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of method 400. The non-transitory computer-readable medium may be, for example, a memory of a base station (such as memory 622 of network device 618 acting as a base station, as described herein).

[0053] Embodiments contemplated herein include an apparatus comprising logical components, modules, or circuits operable to perform one or more elements of method 400. The apparatus may be, for example, an apparatus that is a base station (such as network device 618 as a base station, as described herein).

[0054] Embodiments contemplated herein include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform one or more elements of method 400. The apparatus may be, for example, an apparatus that is a base station (such as network device 618 that is a base station, as described herein).

[0055] Embodiments contemplated herein include a signal as described in or associated with one or more elements of method 400 .

[0056] Embodiments contemplated herein include a computer program or computer program product that includes instructions, where execution of the program by a processing element causes the processing element to perform one or more elements of method 400. The processor may be a processor of a base station (such as processor 620 of network device 618 as a base station, as described herein). These instructions may be located, for example, in a processor and / or on a memory of a base station (such as memory 622 of network device 618 as a base station, as described herein).

[0057] Figure 5 An example architecture of a wireless communication system 500 according to an embodiment disclosed herein is illustrated. The description provided below is for an example wireless communication system 500 operating in conjunction with the LTE system standard and / or the 5G or NR system standard provided in the 3GPP technical specifications.

[0058] like Figure 5 As shown, wireless communication system 500 includes UE 502 and UE 504 (however, any number of UEs may be used). In this example, UE 502 and UE 504 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touch screen mobile computing devices capable of connecting to one or more cellular networks), but may also include any mobile or non-mobile computing device configured for wireless communication.

[0059] UE 502 and UE 504 may be configured to be communicatively coupled to RAN 506. In an embodiment, RAN 506 may be NG-RAN, E-UTRAN, etc. UE 502 and UE 504 utilize connections (or channels) (shown as connection 508 and connection 510, respectively) with RAN 506, each of which includes a physical communication interface. RAN 506 may include one or more base stations (such as base station 512 and base station 514) that implement connection 508 and connection 510.

[0060] In this example, connection 508 and connection 510 are the air interfaces used to enable such communicative coupling and may conform to the RAT used by RAN 506, such as, for example, LTE and / or NR.

[0061] In some embodiments, UE 502 and UE 504 may also directly exchange communication data via side link interface 516. UE 504 is illustrated as being configured to access an access point (illustrated as AP 518) via connection 520. For example, connection 520 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection conforming to any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein AP 518 may include In this example, AP 518 can connect to another network (eg, the Internet) without going through CN 524.

[0062] In an embodiment, UE 502 and UE 504 may be configured to communicate with each other or with base station 512 and / or base station 514 over a multi-carrier communication channel using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals according to various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) communication techniques (e.g., for downlink communication) or single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) communication techniques (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communication), although the scope of the embodiment is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signal may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0063] In some embodiments, all or part of the base station 512 or the base station 514 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network. In addition, or in other embodiments, the base station 512 or the base station 514 may be configured to communicate with each other via the interface 522. In an embodiment where the wireless communication system 500 is an LTE system (e.g., when the CN 524 is an EPC), the interface 522 may be an X2 interface. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more base stations (e.g., two or more eNBs, etc.) connected to the EPC and / or between two eNBs connected to the EPC. In an embodiment where the wireless communication system 500 is an NR system (e.g., when the CN 524 is a 5GC), the interface 522 may be an Xn interface. The Xn interface is defined between two or more base stations (e.g., two or more gNBs, etc.) connected to the 5GC, between the base station 512 (e.g., gNB) and the eNB connected to the 5GC, and / or between two eNBs connected to the 5GC (e.g., CN 524).

[0064] RAN 506 is illustrated as being communicatively coupled to CN 524. CN 524 may include one or more network elements 526 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., UE 502 and users of UE 504) connected to CN 524 via RAN 506. The components of CN 524 may be implemented in one physical device or separate physical devices including components for reading and executing instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium).

[0065] In an embodiment, CN 524 may be an EPC, and RAN 506 may be connected to CN 524 via an S1 interface 528. In an embodiment, S1 interface 528 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface, which carries communication traffic data between base station 512 or base station 514 and a serving gateway (S-GW); and an S1-MME interface, which is a signaling interface between base station 512 or base station 514 and a mobility management entity (MME).

[0066] In an embodiment, CN 524 may be a 5GC, and RAN 506 may be connected to CN 524 via an NG interface 528. In an embodiment, NG interface 528 may be divided into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface, which carries communication service data between base station 512 or base station 514 and a user plane function (UPF); and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between base station 512 or base station 514 and an access and mobility management function (AMF).

[0067] In general, the application server 530 may be an element that provides applications that use Internet Protocol (IP) bearer resources with the CN 524 (e.g., packet-switched data services). The application server 530 may also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, group communication sessions, etc.) for the UE 502 and UE 504 via the CN 524. The application server 530 may communicate with the CN 524 via an IP communication interface 532.

[0068] Figure 6 A system 600 for performing signaling 634 between a wireless device 602 and a network device 618 according to an embodiment disclosed herein is illustrated. The system 600 may be part of a wireless communication system as described herein. The wireless device 602 may be, for example, a UE of a wireless communication system. The network device 618 may be, for example, a base station (e.g., an eNB or a gNB) of a wireless communication system.

[0069] The wireless device 602 may include one or more processors 604. The processor 604 may execute instructions to perform various operations of the wireless device 602 as described herein. The processor 604 may include one or more baseband processors implemented using, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a controller, a field programmable gate array (FPGA) device, another hardware device, a firmware device, or any combination thereof configured to perform the operations described herein.

[0070] The wireless device 602 may include a memory 606. The memory 606 may be a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions 608 (which may include, for example, instructions executed by the processor 604). The instructions 608 may also be referred to as program code or a computer program. The memory 606 may also store data used by the processor 604 and results calculated by the processor.

[0071] The wireless device 602 may include one or more transceivers 610, which may include radio frequency (RF) transmitter and / or receiver circuitry that uses an antenna 612 of the wireless device 602 to facilitate signaling (e.g., signaling 634) to and / or from the wireless device 602 with other devices (e.g., network device 618) in accordance with a corresponding RAT.

[0072] The wireless device 602 may include one or more antennas 612 (e.g., one, two, four, or more). For embodiments with multiple antennas 612, the wireless device 602 may utilize the spatial diversity of such multiple antennas 612 to transmit and / or receive multiple different data streams on the same time-frequency resources. This behavior may be referred to as, for example, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) behavior (referring to multiple antennas used at each of the transmitting device and the receiving device to implement this aspect). The MIMO transmission by the wireless device 602 may be implemented based on precoding (or digital beamforming) applied to the wireless device 602, which multiplexes the data streams between the antennas 612 based on known or assumed channel characteristics, so that each data stream is received with appropriate signal strength relative to the other streams and at a desired location in the spatial domain (e.g., the location of the receiver associated with the data stream). Certain embodiments may use a single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) approach (where data streams are all directed to a single receiver) and / or a multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) approach (where separate data streams may be directed to separate (different) receivers in different locations in the spatial domain).

[0073] In certain embodiments with multiple antennas, the wireless device 602 may implement analog beamforming techniques whereby the phases of signals transmitted by antennas 612 are relatively adjusted so that the (joint) transmissions of antennas 612 can be directed (this is sometimes referred to as beam steering).

[0074] The wireless device 602 may include one or more interfaces 614. The interfaces 614 may be used to provide input to or output from the wireless device 602. For example, a wireless device 602 that is a UE may include an interface 614, such as a microphone, a speaker, a touch screen, buttons, etc., to allow a user of the UE to provide input and / or output to the UE. Other interfaces of such a UE may be composed of transmitters, receivers, and other circuits that allow the UE to communicate with other devices (e.g., in addition to the transceiver 610 / antenna 612 described above), and may communicate according to known protocols (e.g., etc.) to perform the operation.

[0075] The wireless device 602 may include a cell activation module 616. The cell activation module 616 may be implemented via hardware, software, or a combination thereof. For example, the cell activation module 616 may be implemented as a processor, circuit, and / or instructions 608 stored in the memory 606 and executed by the processor 604. In some examples, the cell activation module 616 may be integrated within the processor 604 and / or the transceiver 610. For example, the cell activation module 616 may be implemented by a combination of software components (e.g., executed by a DSP or general purpose processor) and hardware components (e.g., logic gates and circuits) within the processor 604 or the transceiver 610.

[0076] The cell activation module 616 may be used in various aspects of the present disclosure, for example, Figure 2 and Figure 3 aspects.

[0077] The network device 618 may include one or more processors 620. The processor 620 may execute instructions to perform various operations of the network device 618 as described herein. The processor 620 may include one or more baseband processors implemented using, for example, a CPU, a DSP, an ASIC, a controller, an FPGA device, another hardware device, a firmware device, or any combination thereof configured to perform the operations described herein.

[0078] The network device 618 may include a memory 622. The memory 622 may be a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions 624 (which may include, for example, instructions executed by the processor 620). The instructions 624 may also be referred to as program code or a computer program. The memory 622 may also store data used by the processor 620 and results calculated by the processor.

[0079] The network device 618 may include one or more transceivers 626, which may include RF transmitter and / or receiver circuitry that uses an antenna 628 of the network device 618 to facilitate signaling (e.g., signaling 634) sent or received by the network device 618 with other devices (e.g., wireless device 602) according to a corresponding RAT.

[0080] The network device 618 may include one or more antennas 628 (e.g., one, two, four, or more). In embodiments with multiple antennas 628, the network device 618 may perform MIMO, digital beamforming, analog beamforming, beam steering, etc. as described above.

[0081] The network device 618 may include one or more interfaces 630. The interface 630 may be used to provide input to or output from the network device 618. For example, the network device 618 as a base station may include an interface 630 composed of a transmitter, a receiver, and other circuits (e.g., in addition to the transceiver 626 / antenna 628 described above), which enables the base station to communicate with other equipment in the core network and / or enables the base station to communicate with an external network, computer, database, etc., in order to achieve the purpose of performing operations, management, and maintenance of the base station or other equipment operably connected thereto.

[0082] The network device 618 may include a cell activation module 632. The cell activation module 632 may be implemented via hardware, software, or a combination thereof. For example, the cell activation module 632 may be implemented as a processor, circuit, and / or instructions 624 stored in the memory 622 and executed by the processor 620. In some examples, the cell activation module 632 may be integrated within the processor 620 and / or the transceiver 626. For example, the cell activation module 632 may be implemented by a combination of software components (e.g., executed by a DSP or general purpose processor) and hardware components (e.g., logic gates and circuits) within the processor 620 or the transceiver 626.

[0083] The cell activation module 632 may be used in various aspects of the present disclosure, for example, Figure 2 and Figure 4 aspects.

[0084] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and / or methods as described herein. For example, a baseband processor as described herein in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the examples set forth herein. For another example, circuits associated with a UE, a base station, a network element, etc. as described above in conjunction with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the examples set forth herein.

[0085] Unless otherwise expressly stated, any of the above embodiments may be combined with any other embodiment (or combination of embodiments). The foregoing description of one or more specific implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. In view of the above teachings, modifications and variations are possible, or can be obtained from the practice of various embodiments.

[0086] Embodiments and implementations of the systems and methods described herein may include various operations that may be embodied in machine executable instructions to be executed by a computer system. A computer system may include one or more general or special purpose computers (or other electronic devices). A computer system may include hardware components that include specific logic components for performing operations; or may include a combination of hardware, software, and / or firmware.

[0087] It should be appreciated that the systems described herein include descriptions of specific embodiments. These embodiments may be combined into a single system, partially combined into other systems, separated into multiple systems, or otherwise divided or combined. In addition, it is contemplated that parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. of another embodiment may be used in one embodiment. For clarity, these parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. are described only in one or more embodiments, and it should be appreciated that these parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. may be combined with or substituted for parameters, attributes, aspects, etc. of another embodiment unless expressly stated herein.

[0088] It is understood that the use of personally identifiable information should be subject to privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized to meet or exceed industry or government requirements for maintaining user privacy. Specifically, personally identifiable information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of the authorized use should be clearly stated to users.

[0089] Although the foregoing has been described in considerable detail for the sake of clarity, it will be apparent that certain changes and modifications may be made without departing from the principles of the invention. It should be noted that there are many alternative ways to implement both the processes and the apparatus described herein. Therefore, the embodiments of the present invention should be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive, and the specification is not limited to the details given herein, but may be modified within the scope and equivalents of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method for a user equipment (UE) to communicate in a wireless network, the method comprising: receiving a command to activate a plurality of cells simultaneously from the wireless network; In response to the command, initiating a cell activation procedure for the plurality of cells, wherein the cell activation procedure includes waiting for an active transmission configuration indicator (TCI) indication; monitoring the active TCI indication on any cell of the plurality of cells; In response to receiving the active TCI indication on a first cell among the plurality of cells: determining one or more second cells among the plurality of cells, the one or more second cells sharing the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to one or more predetermined rules; as well as autonomously continuing the cell activation procedure for the first cell and the one or more second cells; as well as Downlink communications on the first cell and the one or more second cells are received at the UE from the wireless network.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: The first cell and the one or more second cells are defined as being in a TCI cell group having the same TCI state based on the one or more predetermined rules.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and the one or more second cells are in the same frequency band in a first frequency range (FR1), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells include frequency-contiguous serving cells that share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and the one or more second cells are in the same frequency band, wherein the same frequency band is in a second frequency range (FR2), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more predetermined rules comprise predefined criteria set between the wireless network and the UE.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the predefined criteria includes assuming that consecutively numbered cell identifiers (IDs) in a frequency band are spatially co-located.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein autonomously continuing the cell activation procedure comprises selectively determining, for each of the one or more second cells, whether one or more additional conditions trigger continuation of the cell activation procedure.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more additional conditions are based on synchronization signal measurements for determining quasi co-location (QCL) of the first cell with the one or more second cells.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the synchronization signal measurement comprises one or more of a synchronization signal block (SSB) measurement and a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) measurement.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more additional conditions are based on a radio resource configuration (RRC) configuration of a synchronization signal setting between the first cell and the one or more second cells.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the synchronization signal settings comprise one or more of a synchronization signal block (SSB) setting and a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) setting.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: A UE capability message is reported from the UE to the wireless network, the UE capability message indicating the UE's support for autonomous continuation of multi-cell activation based on a single TCI indication.

13. A method for a base station to communicate with a user equipment (UE) in a wireless network, the method comprising: receiving a UE capability message from the UE, the UE capability message indicating the UE's support for autonomous continuation of multi-cell activation based on a single transmission configuration indicator (TCI) indication; sending, from the base station to the UE, a command to initiate a cell activation procedure for a plurality of cells, wherein the cell activation procedure includes waiting for an active TCI indication; as well as Based on the UE capability message, the active TCI indication is sent to the UE on a first cell among the multiple cells to continue the cell activation process for the first cell and one or more second cells among the multiple cells, and the one or more second cells share the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to one or more predetermined rules.

14. The method according to claim 13, further comprising: The first cell and the one or more second cells are defined as being in a TCI cell group having the same TCI state based on the one or more predetermined rules.

15. A method according to claim 13, wherein the one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and the one or more second cells are in the same frequency band in a first frequency range (FR1), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells include frequency-contiguous serving cells that share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

16. A method according to claim 13, wherein the one or more predetermined rules include that the first cell and the one or more second cells are in the same frequency band, wherein the same frequency band is in a second frequency range (FR2), and wherein the first cell and the one or more second cells share the same downlink spatial filter at the UE.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the one or more predetermined rules comprise predefined criteria set between the wireless network and the UE.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the predefined criteria includes assuming that consecutively numbered cell identifiers (IDs) in a frequency band are spatially co-located.

19. The method according to claim 13, further comprising: determining one or more third cells among the plurality of cells, the one or more third cells not sharing the same spatial relationship with the first cell according to the one or more predetermined rules; as well as An additional active TCI indication for each of the one or more third cells is sent from the base station to the UE.

20. An apparatus comprising means for performing the method according to any one of claims 1 to 19.

21. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions, the instructions causing the electronic device to perform the method according to any one of claims 1 to 19 when the instructions are executed by one or more processors of the electronic device.

22. An apparatus comprising logic components, modules or circuits for performing the method according to any one of claims 1 to 19.

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