Reconfigurable smart surface (RIS)-based sensing with interference mitigation

Abstract

Systems, apparatus, processes, and computer-readable media for wireless communication are disclosed. For example, according to aspects described herein, a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) may receive a configuration message including an indication to reduce a gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam. The RIS may generate reflection coefficients for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message. The RIS may configure the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient. For example, based on configuring the metadata element, the RIS may generate or generate the reflected beam (e.g., a sensing reflected beam or an interfering reflected beam) by reflecting a sensing signal received from a sensing transmitter device.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present disclosure generally relates to wireless communications. For example, aspects of the present disclosure relate to sensing (eg, sensing the location of a target object) using a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) with interference mitigation. Background Art

[0002] Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content, such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, and broadcasting. These systems may be able to support communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems (such as long term evolution (LTE) systems, advanced LTE (LTE-A) systems, or LTE-A Pro systems) and fifth generation (5G) systems (which may be referred to as new radio (NR) systems). These systems may employ techniques such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), or discrete Fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM). A wireless multiple access communication system may include one or more base stations or one or more network access nodes, each of which simultaneously supports communication for multiple communication devices, which may be referred to as user equipment (UE). Some wireless communication systems may support communication between UEs, which may involve direct transmission between two or more UEs.

[0003] As larger bandwidths are allocated for wireless cellular communication systems (e.g., including 5G and beyond 5G) and more use cases are introduced into cellular communication systems, multiplexing sensing signals and communication signals for joint communication and sensing may be an essential feature of existing or future wireless communication systems, such as to enhance the overall spectrum efficiency of the wireless communication network. Summary of the invention

[0004] The following presents a simplified summary of the invention related to one or more aspects disclosed herein. Therefore, the following summary of the invention should neither be considered as an exhaustive overview related to all conceived aspects, nor should it be considered to identify key or decisive elements related to all conceived aspects or to delineate the scope associated with any particular aspect. Therefore, the sole purpose of the following summary of the invention is to present certain concepts related to one or more aspects of the mechanisms disclosed herein in a brief form before the detailed embodiments presented below.

[0005] Systems and techniques for wireless communications are described. According to one example, a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) is provided, the reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) comprising at least one memory and at least one processor, the at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: receive a configuration message including an indication to reduce a gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generate a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message; and configure the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient.

[0006] In another example, a method of wireless communication performed at a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) is provided. The method may include: receiving, by the RIS, a configuration message including an indication to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generating, by the RIS, a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message; and configuring, by the RIS, the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient.

[0007] In another example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon is provided, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: receive a configuration message including an indication to reduce a gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generate a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of a RIS based on the configuration message; and configure the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient.

[0008] In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is provided. The apparatus may include: a means for receiving, by a RIS, a configuration message including an indication to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; a means for generating, by the RIS, a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message; and a means for configuring, by the RIS, the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient.

[0009] According to another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is provided. The apparatus may include: at least one memory; and at least one processor, the at least one processor being coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: send a configuration message including an instruction to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam to a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS); and send a sensing signal for sensing a target object to the RIS.

[0010] In another example, a method of wireless communication performed at a network device is provided. The method may include: sending, by the network device, a configuration message including an instruction to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam to a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS); and sending, by the network device, a sensing signal for sensing a target object to the RIS.

[0011] In another example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon is provided, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: send a configuration message including an indication to reduce a gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam to a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS); and send a sensing signal to the RIS for sensing a target object.

[0012] In another example, an apparatus for wireless communication is provided. The apparatus may include: a component for sending, by a network device, a configuration message including an instruction to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam to a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS); and a component for sending, by the network device, a sensing signal for sensing a target object to the RIS.

[0013] In some aspects, one or more of the network devices or apparatuses described herein are, are part of, and / or include a base station (e.g., a gNB, eNB, or other base station), a part of a base station (e.g., a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC of a base station), or other types of network devices. In other aspects, one or more of the network devices or apparatuses described herein are, are part of, and / or include a RIC. In other aspects, one or more of the network devices or apparatuses described herein are UEs, are part of UEs, and / or include UEs, such as wearable devices, extended reality (XR) devices (e.g., virtual reality (VR) devices, augmented reality (AR) devices, or mixed reality (MR) devices), head-mounted display (HMD) devices, wireless communication devices, mobile devices (e.g., mobile phones and / or mobile phones and / or so-called "smart phones" or other mobile devices), cameras, personal computers, laptop computers, server computers, vehicles or computing devices or components of vehicles, another device, or a combination thereof. In some aspects, the network device or apparatus may include a camera or multiple cameras for capturing one or more images. In some aspects, the network device or apparatus may include a display for displaying one or more images, notifications, and / or other displayable data. In some aspects, the network device or apparatus may include one or more sensors (e.g., one or more inertial measurement units (IMUs), such as one or more gyroscopes, one or more gyrometers, one or more accelerometers, any combination thereof, and / or other sensors).

[0014] This summary is not intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used in isolation to determine the scope of the claimed subject matter. The subject matter should be understood by reference to appropriate portions of the entire specification of this patent, any or all drawings, and each claim.

[0015] The foregoing and other features and aspects will become more apparent upon reference to the following description, claims and accompanying drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016] The accompanying drawings are presented to aid in describing various aspects of the present disclosure and are provided solely for illustration and not limitation of the various aspects.

[0017] Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating an example wireless communication system that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0018] Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a disaggregated base station architecture that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0019] Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a frame structure that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0020] Figure 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computing system of an electronic device that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0021] Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a wireless device utilizing radio frequency (RF) monostatic sensing techniques that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques described herein to determine one or more characteristics of a target object in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0022] Figure 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a receiver utilizing RF bistatic sensing techniques with a transmitter that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques described herein to determine one or more characteristics of a target object in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0023] Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a receiver utilizing RF bistatic sensing techniques with multiple transmitters that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques described herein to determine one or more characteristics of a target object in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0024] Figure 8 is a diagram illustrating example geometries for bistatic (or monostatic) sensing in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0025] Fig. 9is a diagram illustrating bistatic distances for bistatic sensing according to some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0026] Fig. 10A is a diagram illustrating an example of a system for performing RIS-assisted communications according to some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0027] Fig. 10B is a diagram illustrating an example of a system for performing RIS-assisted sensing according to some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0028] Fig.11A is a diagram illustrating an example of a RIS that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0029] Fig. 11B is an example of some aspects of the present disclosure. Fig.11A Table of example phase shift and amplitude responses for different configurations of the RIS.

[0030] Fig. 12A is a diagram illustrating an example of a system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation, in which non-target objects are generating interference to the system, according to some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0031] Fig. 12B is an example of some aspects of the present disclosure. Fig. 12A A graph of an example of an antenna radiation pattern generated by the RIS system.

[0032] Fig.13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation, in which an interfering node is generating interference to the system, in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0033] Fig.14 is a diagram illustrating example signaling that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0034] Fig.15 is a diagram illustrating reflection-limited directions for a system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation, according to some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0035] Fig.16 is a diagram illustrating directions of incidence limitation for a system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation according to some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0036] Fig.17Ais a flow chart illustrating an example of a process for wireless communications at a RIS utilizing a method for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0037] Fig. 17B is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process for wireless communications at a network device based on a method for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure.

[0038] Fig.18 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computing system that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation in accordance with some aspects of the present disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0039] For illustrative purposes, certain aspects of the present disclosure are provided below. Without departing from the scope of the present disclosure, alternative aspects may be designed. In addition, well-known elements of the present disclosure will not be described in detail or will be omitted to avoid making the relevant details of the present disclosure difficult to understand. Some aspects described herein may be applied independently, and some of them may be applied in combination, which is obvious to those skilled in the art. In the following description, specific details are set forth for explanation purposes to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of the application. However, it is apparent that various aspects may be implemented without these specific details. Each drawing and description is not intended to be restrictive.

[0040] The following description provides only example aspects and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the present disclosure. Instead, the following description of the example aspects will provide a description that can be used to implement the example aspects to those skilled in the art. It should be understood that various changes may be made to the function and arrangement of the elements without departing from the scope of the present application as set forth in the appended claims.

[0041] A radar sensing system uses a radio frequency (RF) waveform to perform RF sensing to determine or estimate one or more characteristics of a target object, such as the distance, angle, and / or speed of the target object. The target object may include a vehicle, an obstacle, a user, a building, or other objects. A typical radar system includes at least one transmitter, at least one receiver, and at least one processor. A radar sensing system may perform single-station sensing when a receiver co-located with a transmitter is employed. A radar system may perform dual-station sensing when a receiver located at a first device away from a transmitter of a second device is employed. Similarly, a radar system may perform multi-station sensing when multiple receivers of multiple devices are employed that are all located away from at least one transmitter of at least one device.

[0042] During operation of the radar sensing system, a transmitter transmits an electromagnetic (EM) signal in the RF domain toward a target object. The signal reflects from the target object to produce one or more reflected signals that provide information or properties about the target, such as the position and velocity of the target object. At least one receiver receives the one or more reflected signals, and at least one processor that may be associated with the at least one receiver utilizes information from the one or more reflected signals to determine information or properties of the target object. The target object may also be referred to herein as a target.

[0043] Generally speaking, RF sensing involves monitoring moving targets with different motions (e.g., moving cars or pedestrians, human body motions such as breathing, and / or other micro-motions associated with the target). Doppler (which measures phase changes in the signal and indicates motion) is an important characteristic for sensing of targets.

[0044] In some cases, a radar sensing signal, such as a sensing reference signal (S-RS), which may be referred to as a radar reference signal (RS), may be designed and used for sensing purposes. A radar RS does not contain any communication information. In contrast, a communication RS, such as a demodulation reference signal (DMRS), is typically designed and used only for communication purposes, such as estimating channel parameters for communication.

[0045] Cellular communication systems are designed to transmit communication signals on designated communication frequency bands (e.g., 23 gigahertz (GHz), 3.5 GHz, etc. for 5G / NR, 2.2 GHz, etc. for LTE). RF sensing systems are designed to transmit RF sensing signals on designated radar RF frequency bands (e.g., 77 GHz for autonomous driving). It is likely that the spectrum used for communication and sensing will be shared in future cellular communication systems, in which case communication and sensing should be considered jointly.

[0046] In some cases, as wireless communication systems (e.g., including cellular communication systems such as 4G / LTE, 5G / NR and beyond) are allocated larger bandwidths and more use cases are introduced into wireless communication systems, multiplexing sensing signals and communication signals (e.g., via time division multiplexing and / or frequency division multiplexing) for joint communication and sensing may be an essential feature of existing and future wireless communication systems. Performing wireless communication and radar sensing simultaneously may provide cost-effective deployment for both radar and communication systems.

[0047] Joint communication and radar sensing can provide mutual performance gains. For example, sensing information such as Doppler measurements can be used to improve communication link quality (e.g., sensing-assisted communication). In addition, cooperative sensing may be more feasible for wireless communication networks (e.g., communication-assisted sensing).

[0048] Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) using multiplexed sensing and communication signals can be considered a key 5G and sixth generation (6G) feature for the cellular industry. ISAC can provide cost effectiveness by using shared RF and possibly baseband hardware (HW) for both sensing and communication. ISAC can also provide spectrum effectiveness by providing always-on availability of spectrum for both sensing and communication use cases. ISAC can be used for a variety of different use cases including, but not limited to, macro sensing (e.g., weather monitoring; autonomous driving; dynamic mapping; low-altitude airspace, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, management; and intruder detection), micro sensing (e.g., gesture recognition, vital sign detection, and high-resolution imaging using terahertz signals), and sensing-assisted communication (e.g., beam management). Some contributions have been made in 3GPP for ISAC. For example, some companies have proposed some requirements and network architectures for ISAC in 3GPP Stand-Alone 1 (SA1). In addition, in China, International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)-2020 and IMT-2030 are promoting ISAC for 5G-A and 6G.

[0049] Reconfigurable smart surfaces (RIS) may be employed for sensing and / or communication. Traditionally, reconfigurable smart surfaces (RIS) have been used for communication. However, RIS may also be employed to assist in sensing one or more objects of an ISAC system (e.g., to determine the location, position, and / or other characteristics of one or more objects). RIS-assisted sensing may require a higher accuracy (e.g., higher precision) of the RIS location than RIS-assisted communication requires.

[0050] RIS can shape the wireless environment into a desired form at a low cost. In practice, RIS has three types of specific implementations, including reflection (e.g., where the signal can be reflected by the RIS), transmission (e.g., where the signal can penetrate the RIS), and hybrid (e.g., where the RIS can have dual functions of reflection and transmission).

[0051] RIS is a programmable array structure that can be used to control the propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves (e.g., steer an RF beam) by changing the electrical and magnetic properties of the surface of the RIS. The RIS includes an array of metamaterial RIS elements, which consists of an ultra-thin surface with multiple wavelength scatterers embedded. The electromagnetic properties of the RIS elements can be dynamically controlled by applying control signals to tunable elements (e.g., Pin diodes) on the RIS elements, which can enable active and intelligent modulation of electromagnetic waves in a programmable manner to form an electromagnetic field with controllable amplitude, phase, polarization and / or frequency. For example, the electromagnetic response of the RIS elements (e.g., the phase shift of the steered RF beam) can be controlled by a programmable Pin diode.

[0052] Conventional sensing without using RIS may bring many challenges, which may include but are not limited to limited coverage distance due to return transmission, coverage holes (e.g., holes in the coverage area) when there is no line-of-sight (LOS) link between a network device (e.g., a base station) and a target, and insufficient number of positioning reference points because one network device (e.g., a base station) can only provide a single reference point. Employing RIS to assist sensing (e.g., RIS-based sensing) may provide many benefits, including but not limited to: extending coverage distance by using RIS beamforming, eliminating coverage holes by operating RIS as a relay device (e.g., RIS can be flexibly deployed to have a LOS link to a coverage hole of a base station), and adding additional reference points for the location of the RIS.

[0053] As previously mentioned, the RIS may be used to sense one or more target objects (e.g., UEs or vehicles) to determine characteristics of these target objects. During sensing, the RIS may operate as a relay that reflects a sensing signal (e.g., initially radiated from a base station) to generate a reflected beam directed toward the target object for sensing of these target objects. Each of the reflected beams may include a main lobe (e.g., which is directed toward the target object) and a plurality of side lobes. The side lobes of the reflected beam may point to a direction different from the direction of the main lobe of the reflected beam (e.g., a boresight). Since the side lobes of the reflected beam are radiated in various different directions, one or more of the side lobes of the reflected beam may interfere with the sensing, which may degrade the sensing performance. When the target object is at an unknown location, the RIS may perform a beam scan of the reflected beam to locate the target object. During the beam scan performed by the RIS, the side lobes of the reflected beam may interfere with the sensing.

[0054] In some scenarios, during sensing using RIS, a device (e.g., an interfering node) may radiate a signal (e.g., an interfering signal) toward the RIS. The RIS may reflect the signal to generate a reflected signal, which may point to a target object or a sensing signal receiver. When the reflected signal points to the target object or the sensing signal receiver, the reflected signal may interfere with the sensing.

[0055] In some aspects of the present disclosure, systems, apparatus, methods (also referred to as processes), and computer-readable media (collectively referred to herein as "systems and techniques") that provide solutions for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation are described herein. When interference in sensing is mitigated, the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of the sensed signal can be improved, which can improve sensing performance.

[0056] In one or more aspects, a network device may configure the RIS to limit reflection of a sensing signal and / or an interference signal in a certain direction (e.g., of a non-target object or a sensing signal receiver) (e.g., limit the gain of a sidelobe of a portion of the reflection) to mitigate interference in sensing. For example, the network device may configure the RIS to reduce the signal strength of a reflection signal, which may be generated from a certain interference direction (e.g., from an interference node) in a target sensing direction or in a sensing signal receiver direction to mitigate interference in sensing. In some cases, in a RIS-based sensing system, when a network device (e.g., a base station such as a gNB) configures the RIS to reflect a sensing signal from an incident angle to a set of reflection angles, the network device may indicate to the RIS one or more restricted direction angles and a restriction type (e.g., reflection limited or incidence limited) associated with the one or more restricted direction angles. In some examples, the network device may be a base station (e.g., a gNB, eNB, or other base station), a portion of a base station (e.g., a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC of a base station), or other types of network devices.

[0057] Additional aspects of the disclosure are described in more detail below.

[0058] As used herein, the terms "user equipment" (UE) and "network entity" are not intended to be dedicated to or otherwise limited to any particular radio access technology (RAT), unless otherwise specified. In general, a UE can be any wireless communication device (e.g., a mobile phone, a router, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, and / or a tracking device, etc.), a wearable device (e.g., a smart watch, smart glasses, a wearable ring, and / or an extended reality (XR) device (such as a virtual reality (VR) headset, an augmented reality (AR) headset or glasses, or a mixed reality (MR) headset)), a vehicle (e.g., a car, a motorcycle, a bicycle, etc.), and / or an Internet of Things (IoT) device, etc., for a user to communicate on a wireless communication network. A UE can be mobile or can be stationary (e.g., at certain times) and can communicate with a radio access network (RAN). As used herein, the term "UE" may be interchangeably referred to as an "access terminal" or "AT," "client device," "wireless device," "subscriber equipment," "subscriber terminal," "subscriber station," "user terminal" or "UT," "mobile device," "mobile terminal," "mobile station," or variations thereof. In general, a UE may communicate with a core network via the RAN, and through the core network, the UE may connect to external networks such as the Internet and to other UEs. Of course, other mechanisms for connecting to the core network and / or the Internet are also possible for the UE, such as through a wired access network, a wireless local area network (WLAN) network (e.g., based on IEEE 802.11 communication standards, etc.), and the like.

[0059] The network entity may be implemented in a converged or monolithic base station architecture, or alternatively, in a disaggregated base station architecture, and may include one or more of a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC. A base station (e.g., with a converged / monolithic base station architecture or a disaggregated base station architecture) may operate according to one of several RATs communicating with a UE (depending on the network in which it is deployed), and may alternatively be referred to as an access point (AP), a network node, a NodeB (NB), an evolved NodeB (eNB), a next generation eNB (ng-eNB), a new radio (NR) NodeB (also referred to as a gNB or gNodeB), etc. A base station may be primarily used to support wireless access for UEs, including supporting data, voice, and / or signaling connections for the supported UEs. In some systems, a base station may provide edge node signaling functionality, while in other systems, a base station may provide additional control and / or network management functionality. The communication link by which a UE can transmit signals to a base station is called an uplink (UL) channel (e.g., a reverse traffic channel, a reverse control channel, an access channel, etc.). The communication link by which a base station can transmit signals to a UE is called a downlink (DL) or forward link channel (e.g., a paging channel, a control channel, a broadcast channel, a forward traffic channel, etc.). As used herein, the term traffic channel (TCH) may refer to an uplink, a reverse or downlink, and / or a forward traffic channel.

[0060] The term "network entity" or "base station" (e.g., having a converged / monolithic base station architecture or a disaggregated base station architecture) may refer to a single physical transmit-receive point (TRP) or multiple physical transmit-receive points (TRPs) that may or may not be co-located. For example, where the term "network entity" or "base station" refers to a single physical TRP, the physical TRP may be a base station antenna corresponding to a cell (or several cell sectors) of the base station. Where the term "network entity" or "base station" refers to multiple co-located physical TRPs, the physical TRPs may be an antenna array of the base station (e.g., as in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system or where the base station employs beamforming). Where the term "base station" refers to multiple non-co-located physical TRPs, the physical TRP may be a distributed antenna system (DAS) (a network of spatially separated antennas connected to a common source via a transmission medium) or a remote radio head (RRH) (a remote base station connected to a serving base station). Alternatively, the non-co-located physical TRPs may be the serving base station receiving the measurement report from the UE and the neighbor base station whose reference radio frequency (RF) signal (or "reference signal" for short) the UE is measuring. Because, as used herein, a TRP is the point through which a base station transmits and receives wireless signals, references to transmitting from a base station or receiving at a base station should be understood to refer to a specific TRP of a base station.

[0061] In some specific implementations of supporting UE positioning, a network entity or base station may not support wireless access of the UE (e.g., may not support data, voice and / or signaling connections with respect to the UE), but may instead send a reference signal to be measured by the UE to the UE, and / or may receive and measure a signal sent by the UE. Such a base station may be referred to as a positioning beacon (e.g., in the case of sending a signal to the UE) and / or as a position measurement unit (e.g., in the case of receiving and measuring a signal from the UE).

[0062] RF signals include electromagnetic waves of a given frequency that transmit information through the space between a transmitter and a receiver. As used herein, a transmitter may transmit a single "RF signal" or multiple "RF signals" to a receiver. However, due to the propagation characteristics of RF signals through multipath channels, a receiver may receive multiple "RF signals" corresponding to each transmitted RF signal. The same transmitted RF signal on different paths between a transmitter and a receiver may be referred to as a "multipath" RF signal. As used herein, an RF signal may also be referred to as a "wireless signal" or simply a "signal" where it is clear from the context that the term "signal" refers to a wireless signal or an RF signal.

[0063] According to various aspects, Figure 1An exemplary wireless communication system 100 that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation described herein is illustrated. The wireless communication system 100, which may also be referred to as a wireless wide area network (WWAN), may include various base stations 102 and various UEs 104. In some aspects, the base stations 102 may also be referred to as "network entities" or "network nodes." One or more of the base stations 102 may be implemented in an aggregated or monolithic base station architecture. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the base stations 102 may be implemented in a decomposed base station architecture and may include one or more of a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC. The base stations 102 may include macrocell base stations (high-power cellular base stations) and / or small cell base stations (low-power cellular base stations). On the one hand, the macro cell base station may include an eNB and / or an ng-eNB (where the wireless communication system 100 corresponds to a long term evolution (LTE) network), or a gNB (where the wireless communication system 100 corresponds to an NR network), or a combination of both, and the small cell base station may include a femto cell, a pico cell, a micro cell, etc.

[0064] The base stations 102 may collectively form a RAN and interface with a core network 170 (e.g., an evolved packet core (EPC) or a 5G core (5GC)) through a backhaul link 122, and interface to one or more location servers 172 (which may be part of the core network 170 or may be external to the core network 170) through the core network 170. The base stations 102 may perform functions related to one or more of the following, among other functions: delivering user data, radio channel encryption and decryption, integrity protection, header compression, mobility control functions (e.g., handover, dual connectivity), inter-cell interference coordination, connection establishment and release, load balancing, distribution of non-access stratum (NAS) messages, NAS node selection, synchronization, RAN sharing, multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS), subscriber and equipment tracking, RAN information management (RIM), paging, positioning, and delivery of warning messages. The base stations 102 may communicate with each other directly or indirectly (e.g., through the EPC or 5GC) through a backhaul link 134 (which may be wired and / or wireless).

[0065] Base station 102 may communicate wirelessly with UE 104. Each of base stations 102 may provide communication coverage for a corresponding geographic coverage area 110. In one aspect, base station 102 in each coverage area 110 may support one or more cells. A "cell" is a logical communication entity used to communicate with a base station (e.g., on a certain frequency resource, referred to as a carrier frequency, component carrier, carrier, frequency band, etc.), and may be associated with an identifier (e.g., a physical cell identifier (PCI), a virtual cell identifier (VCI), a cell global identifier (CGI)) to distinguish cells operating via the same or different carrier frequencies. In some cases, different cells may be configured according to different protocol types (e.g., machine type communication (MTC), narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), or other protocol types) that may provide access to different types of UEs. Because a cell is supported by a specific base station, the term "cell" may refer to either or both of the logical communication entity and the base station supporting it, depending on the context. In addition, because a TRP is typically a physical transmission point of a cell, the terms "cell" and "TRP" may be used interchangeably. In some cases, the term “cell” may also refer to a geographic coverage area (eg, a sector) of a base station, so long as a carrier frequency can be detected and used for communications within some portion of the geographic coverage area 110 .

[0066] Although the geographic coverage areas 110 of neighboring macrocell base stations 102 may partially overlap (e.g., in a handover area), some of the geographic coverage areas 110 may substantially overlap with the larger geographic coverage area 110. For example, a small cell base station 102' may have a coverage area 110' that substantially overlaps with the coverage areas 110 of one or more macrocell base stations 102. A network that includes both small cell base stations and macrocell base stations may be referred to as a heterogeneous network. A heterogeneous network may also include a home eNB (HeNB), which may provide services to a restricted group called a closed subscriber group (CSG).

[0067] The communication link 120 between the base station 102 and the UE 104 may include uplink (also known as reverse link) transmissions from the UE 104 to the base station 102 and / or downlink (also known as forward link) transmissions from the base station 102 to the UE 104. The communication link 120 may use MIMO antenna technology, including spatial multiplexing, beamforming, and / or transmit diversity. The communication link 120 may be over one or more carrier frequencies. The allocation of carriers may be asymmetric for the downlink and uplink (e.g., more or fewer carriers may be allocated to the downlink than to the uplink).

[0068] The wireless communication system 100 may further include a WLAN AP 150 in communication with a WLAN station (STA) 152 via a communication link 154 in an unlicensed spectrum (e.g., 5 gigahertz (GHz)). When communicating in the unlicensed spectrum, the WLAN STA 152 and / or the WLAN AP 150 may perform a clear channel assessment (CCA) or a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure before communicating to determine whether the channel is available. In some examples, the wireless communication system 100 may include a device (e.g., UE, etc.) that communicates with one or more UEs 104, base stations 102, APs 150, etc. using an ultra-wideband (UWB) spectrum. The UWB spectrum may range from 3.1 GHz to 10.5 GHz.

[0069] The small cell base station 102' can operate in licensed and / or unlicensed spectrum. When operating in the unlicensed spectrum, the small cell base station 102' can adopt LTE or NR technology and use the same 5GHz unlicensed spectrum used by the WLAN AP 150. The small cell base station 102' using LTE and / or 5G in the unlicensed spectrum can boost the coverage of the access network and / or increase the capacity of the access network. NR in the unlicensed spectrum can be referred to as NR-U. LTE in the unlicensed spectrum can be referred to as LTE-U, Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) or MulteFire.

[0070] The wireless communication system 100 may also include a millimeter wave (mmW) base station 180, which may operate at mmW frequencies and / or near mmW frequencies to communicate with the UE 182. The mmW base station 180 may be implemented in an aggregated or monolithic base station architecture, or alternatively, in a decomposed base station architecture (e.g., including one or more of a CU, DU, RU, near RT RIC, or non-RT RIC). Extremely high frequency (EHF) is part of the RF in the electromagnetic spectrum. EHF has a range of 30 GHz to 300 GHz, with a wavelength between 1 mm and 10 mm. Radio waves in this band may be referred to as millimeter waves. Near mmW may extend down to a frequency of 3 GHz with a wavelength of 100 mm. The super high frequency (SHF) band extends between 3 GHz and 30 GHz, and is also referred to as centimeter waves. Communications using mmW and / or near mmW radio frequency bands have high path loss and a relatively short range. The mmW base station 180 and the UE 182 may utilize beamforming (transmit and / or receive) on the mmW communication link 184 to compensate for the extremely high path loss and short range. In addition, it should be understood that in alternative configurations, one or more base stations 102 may also transmit using mmW or near-mmW and beamforming. Therefore, it should be understood that the foregoing illustrations are merely examples and should not be construed as limiting the various aspects disclosed herein.

[0071] Transmit beamforming is a technique for focusing an RF signal in a specific direction. Traditionally, when a network node or entity (e.g., a base station) broadcasts an RF signal, it broadcasts the signal in all directions (omnidirectionally). With transmit beamforming, the network node determines where a given target device (e.g., a UE) is located (relative to the transmitting network node) and projects a stronger downlink RF signal in that specific direction, thereby providing a faster (in terms of data rate) and stronger RF signal to the receiving device. In order to change the directionality of the RF signal when transmitting, the network node can control the phase and relative amplitude of the RF signal at each of the one or more transmitters that broadcast the RF signal. For example, a network node can use an array of antennas (called a "phased array" or "antenna array") that creates an RF beam that can be "steered" to point in different directions without actually moving the antenna. Specifically, the RF current from the transmitter is fed to the individual antennas in the correct phase relationship so that the radio waves from the separate antennas are added together in the desired direction to increase the radiation, and canceled in the undesired direction to suppress the radiation.

[0072] Transmit beams can be quasi-co-located, meaning that they appear to the receiver (e.g., UE) to have the same parameters, regardless of whether the transmit antennas of the network nodes themselves are physically co-located. In NR, there are four types of quasi-co-location (QCL) relationships. Specifically, a given type of QCL relationship means that certain parameters about the second reference RF signal on the second beam can be derived based on information about the source reference RF signal on the source beam. Therefore, if the source reference RF signal is QCL type A, the receiver can use the source reference RF signal to estimate the Doppler shift, Doppler spread, average delay, and delay spread of the second reference RF signal sent on the same channel. If the source reference RF signal is QCL type B, the receiver can use the source reference RF signal to estimate the Doppler shift and Doppler spread of the second reference RF signal sent on the same channel. If the source reference RF signal is QCL type C, the receiver can use the source reference RF signal to estimate the Doppler shift and average delay of the second reference RF signal sent on the same channel. If the source reference RF signal is QCL type D, the receiver may use the source reference RF signal to estimate spatial reception parameters of a second reference RF signal transmitted on the same channel.

[0073] In receive beamforming, a receiver uses a receive beam to amplify an RF signal detected on a given channel. For example, a receiver may increase the gain setting of an antenna array in a particular direction and / or adjust the phase setting of an antenna array in a particular direction to amplify (e.g., increase its gain level) the RF signal received from that direction. Thus, when a receiver is said to be beamforming in a certain direction, it means that the beam gain in that direction is high relative to the beam gain along other directions, or the beam gain in that direction is the highest compared to the beam gain of other receive beams available to the receiver. This results in a stronger received signal strength (e.g., reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), etc.) for the RF signal received from that direction.

[0074] The receive beams may be spatially correlated. The spatial relationship means that the parameters of the transmit beam for the second reference signal may be derived from information about the receive beam for the first reference signal. For example, the UE may receive one or more reference downlink reference signals (e.g., positioning reference signal (PRS), tracking reference signal (TRS), phase tracking reference signal (PTRS), cell-specific reference signal (CRS), channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), primary synchronization signal (PSS), secondary synchronization signal (SSS), synchronization signal block (SSB), etc.) from a network node or entity (e.g., a base station) using a specific receive beam. The UE may then form a transmit beam based on the parameters of the receive beam for transmitting one or more uplink reference signals (e.g., uplink positioning reference signal (UL-PRS), sounding reference signal (SRS), demodulation reference signal (DMRS), PTRS, etc.) to the network node or entity (e.g., a base station).

[0075] Note that, depending on the entity forming the "downlink" beam, the beam can be a transmit beam or a receive beam. For example, if a network node or entity (e.g., a base station) is forming a downlink beam to send a reference signal to a UE, the downlink beam is a transmit beam. However, if the UE is forming a downlink beam, the downlink beam is a receive beam that receives a downlink reference signal. Similarly, depending on the entity forming the "uplink" beam, the beam can be a transmit beam or a receive beam. For example, if a network node or entity (e.g., a base station) is forming an uplink beam, the uplink beam is an uplink receive beam, and if the UE is forming an uplink beam, the uplink beam is an uplink transmit beam.

[0076] In 5G, the spectrum in which a wireless network node or entity (e.g., base station 102 / 180, UE 104 / 182) operates is divided into multiple frequency ranges: FR1 (from 450 megahertz (MHz) to 6000 MHz), FR2 (from 24250 MHz to 52600 MHz), FR3 (above 52600 MHz), and FR4 (between FR1 and FR2). In a multi-carrier system (such as 5G), one of the carrier frequencies is referred to as a "primary carrier" or "anchor carrier" or "primary serving cell" or "PCell", and the remaining carrier frequencies are referred to as "secondary carriers" or "secondary serving cells" or "SCells". In carrier aggregation, the anchor carrier is a carrier operating on the primary frequency (e.g., FR1) used by the UE 104 / 182 and the cell in which the UE 104 / 182 performs an initial radio resource control (RRC) connection establishment procedure or initiates an RRC connection re-establishment procedure. The primary carrier carries all common and UE-specific control channels and can be a carrier in a licensed frequency (however, this is not always the case). A secondary carrier is a carrier operating on a second frequency (e.g., FR2), which can be configured and used to provide additional radio resources once an RRC connection is established between the UE 104 and the anchor carrier. In some cases, the secondary carrier may be a carrier in an unlicensed frequency. The secondary carrier may contain only necessary signaling information and signals, for example, since the primary uplink carrier and the primary downlink carrier are usually UE-specific, those signaling information and signals specific to the UE may not be present in the secondary carrier. This means that different UEs 104 / 182 in a cell may have different downlink primary carriers. The same is true for the uplink primary carrier. The network is able to change the primary carrier of any UE 104 / 182 at any time. This is done, for example, to balance the load on different carriers. Since a "serving cell" (whether PCell or SCell) corresponds to a carrier frequency or component carrier through which some base stations communicate, the terms "cell", "serving cell", "component carrier", "carrier frequency", etc. may be used interchangeably.

[0077] For example, still refer to Figure 1, one of the frequencies used by the macrocell base station 102 may be an anchor carrier (or "PCell"), and the other frequencies used by the macrocell base station 102 and / or the mmW base station 180 may be secondary carriers ("SCells"). In carrier aggregation, the base station 102 and / or the UE 104 may use spectrum of up to Y MHz (e.g., 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, 20 MHz, 100 MHz) bandwidth per carrier, with up to a total of Yx MHz (x component carriers) in each direction for transmission. The component carriers may or may not be adjacent to each other in the spectrum. The allocation of carriers may be asymmetric with respect to the downlink and uplink (e.g., more or fewer carriers may be allocated to the downlink than to the uplink). The simultaneous transmission and / or reception of multiple carriers enables the UE 104 / 182 to significantly increase its data transmission and / or reception rate. For example, two 20 MHz aggregated carriers in a multi-carrier system would theoretically result in a doubling of the data rate (i.e., 40 MHz) compared to the data rate obtained with a single 20 MHz carrier.

[0078] In order to operate on multiple carrier frequencies, the base station 102 and / or the UE 104 are equipped with multiple receivers and / or transmitters. For example, the UE 104 may have two receivers, namely "receiver 1" and "receiver 2", where "receiver 1" is a multi-band receiver that can be tuned to band (i.e., carrier frequency) "X" or band "Y", and "receiver 2" is a single-band receiver that can be tuned to only band "Z". In this example, if the UE 104 is being served in band "X", band "X" will be referred to as the PCell or active carrier frequency, and "receiver 1" will need to tune from band "X" to band "Y" (SCell) to measure band "Y" (and vice versa). In contrast, regardless of whether the UE 104 is being served in band "X" or band "Y", due to the separate "receiver 2", the UE 104 can measure band "Z" without interrupting the service on band "X" or band "Y".

[0079] The wireless communication system 100 may further include a UE 164, which may communicate with the macrocell base station 102 over the communication link 120 and / or communicate with the mmW base station 180 over the mmW communication link 184. For example, the macrocell base station 102 may support a PCell and one or more SCells for the UE 164, and the mmW base station 180 may support one or more SCells for the UE 164.

[0080] The wireless communication system 100 may also include one or more UEs, such as UE 190, which are indirectly connected to one or more communication networks via one or more device-to-device (D2D) peer-to-peer (P2P) links (referred to as “side links”). Figure 1 In the example of FIG. 1 , UE 190 has a D2D P2P link 192 with one of UEs 104 connected to one of base stations 102 (e.g., UE 190 can indirectly obtain cellular connectivity through the link), and has a D2D P2P link 194 with WLAN STA 152 connected to WLAN AP 150 (UE 190 can indirectly obtain WLAN-based Internet connectivity through the link). In an example, D2D P2P links 192 and 194 can use any well-known D2D RAT (such as LTE Direct (LTE-D), Wi-Fi Direct (Wi-Fi-D), Bluetooth ® As mentioned above, UE 104 and UE 190 can be configured to communicate using sidelink communications. In some cases, the sidelink transmission can include a request for feedback from the receiving UE (e.g., hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)).

[0081] Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a disaggregated base station architecture that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. The deployment of a communication system (such as a 5G NR system) may be arranged in a variety of ways with various components or constituent parts. In a 5G NR system or network, a network node, a network entity, a mobility element of a network, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, a network element, or a network equipment (such as a base station (BS), or one or more units (or one or more components) that perform base station functionality may be implemented in an aggregated or disaggregated architecture. For example, a BS (such as a Node B (NB), an evolved NB (eNB), an NR BS, a 5G NB, an AP, a transmit receive point (TRP), or a cell, etc.) may be implemented as an aggregated base station (also referred to as a standalone BS or a monolithic BS) or a disaggregated base station.

[0082] A converged base station may be configured to utilize a radio protocol stack that is physically or logically integrated within a single RAN node. A decomposed base station may be configured to utilize a protocol stack that is physically or logically distributed between two or more units, such as one or more central or centralized units (CUs), one or more distributed units (DUs), or one or more radio units (RUs). In some aspects, a CU may be implemented within a RAN node, and one or more DUs may be co-located with the CU, or alternatively, may be geographically or virtually distributed in one or more other RAN nodes. A DU may be implemented to communicate with one or more RUs. Each of the CU, DU, and RU may also be implemented as a virtual unit, namely a virtual central unit (VCU), a virtual distributed unit (VDU), or a virtual radio unit (VRU).

[0083] Base station type operations or network designs may take into account the aggregated nature of base station functionality. For example, a disaggregated base station may be used in an integrated access backhaul (IAB) network, an open radio access network (O-RAN (network configurations such as those initiated by the O-RAN Alliance)), or a virtualized radio access network (vRAN, also known as a cloud radio access network (C-RAN)). Disaggregation may include distributing functionality across two or more units at various physical locations, as well as virtually distributing functionality of at least one unit, which may enable flexibility in network design. Individual units of a disaggregated base station or disaggregated RAN architecture may be configured for wired or wireless communication with at least one other unit.

[0084] As mentioned earlier, Figure 2 A diagram illustrating an example decomposed base station 201 architecture is shown. The decomposed base station 201 architecture may include one or more central units (CUs) 211 that may communicate directly with a core network 223 via a backhaul link, or indirectly with the core network 223 through one or more decomposed base station units, such as a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC) 227 via an E2 link, or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC 217 associated with a service management and orchestration (SMO) framework 207, or both. The CU 211 may communicate with one or more distributed units (DUs) 231 via respective midhaul links, such as an F1 interface. The DU 231 may communicate with one or more radio units (RUs) 241 via respective fronthaul links. The RU 241 may communicate with respective UEs 221 via one or more RF access links. In some implementations, a UE 221 may be served simultaneously by multiple RUs 241.

[0085] Each of the units (i.e., CU 211, DU 231, RU 241, and near-RT RIC 227, non-RT RIC 217, and SMO framework 207) may include or be coupled to one or more interfaces configured to receive or send signals, data, or information (collectively referred to as signals) via a wired or wireless transmission medium. Each of the units or an associated processor or controller that provides instructions to the communication interfaces of these units may be configured to communicate with one or more of the other units via a transmission medium. For example, the unit may include a wired interface configured to receive or send signals to one or more of the other units on a wired transmission medium. Additionally, the unit may include a wireless interface that may include a receiver, transmitter, or transceiver (such as an RF transceiver) configured to receive or send signals or both to one or more of the other units on a wireless transmission medium.

[0086] In some aspects, CU 211 may host one or more higher layer control functions. Such control functions may include radio resource control (RRC), packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), or service data adaptation protocol (SDAP), etc. Each control function may be implemented using an interface configured to communicate signals with other control functions hosted by CU 211. CU211 may be configured to handle user plane functionality (i.e., central unit-user plane (CU-UP)), control plane functionality (i.e., central unit-control plane (CU-CP)), or a combination thereof. In some specific implementations, CU 211 may be logically split into one or more CU-UP units and one or more CU-CP units. When implemented in an O-RAN configuration, the CU-UP unit may communicate bidirectionally with the CU-CP unit via an interface (such as an E1 interface). As needed, CU 211 may be implemented to communicate with DU 231 for network control and signal transmission.

[0087] DU 231 may correspond to a logical unit that includes one or more base station functions for controlling the operation of one or more RUs 241. In some aspects, DU 231 may host one or more of a radio link control (RLC) layer, a medium access control (MAC) layer, and one or more high physical (PHY) layers (such as modules for forward error correction (FEC) encoding and decoding, scrambling, modulation and demodulation, etc.) at least in part according to a functional split such as that defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). In some aspects, DU 231 may further host one or more low PHY layers. Each layer (or module) may be implemented using an interface that is configured to communicate signals with other layers (and modules) hosted by DU 231 or with control functions hosted by CU 211.

[0088] The lower layer functionality may be implemented by one or more RUs 241. In some deployments, the RU 241 controlled by the DU 231 may correspond to a logical node that hosts RF processing functions or low PHY layer functions (such as performing Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Inverse FFT (iFFT), digital beamforming, physical random access channel (PRACH) extraction and filtering, etc.), or both, based at least in part on functional splitting (such as lower layer functional splitting). In such an architecture, the RU 241 may be implemented to handle over-the-air (OTA) communications with one or more UEs 221. In some specific implementations, the real-time and non-real-time aspects of communicating with the control plane and user plane of the RU 241 may be controlled by the corresponding DU 231. In some scenarios, this configuration may enable the implementation of the DU 231 and the CU 211 in a cloud-based RAN architecture (such as a vRAN architecture).

[0089] The SMO framework 207 may be configured to support RAN deployment and provisioning of non-virtualized network elements and virtualized network elements. For non-virtualized network elements, the SMO framework 207 may be configured to support the deployment of dedicated physical resources for RAN coverage requirements, which may be managed via an operation and maintenance interface (such as an O1 interface). For virtualized network elements, the SMO framework 207 may be configured to interact with a cloud computing platform (such as an open cloud (O-Cloud) 291) to perform network element lifecycle management (such as instantiating virtualized network elements) via a cloud computing platform interface (such as an O2 interface). Such virtualized network elements may include, but are not limited to, CU 211, DU 231, RU 241, and near-RT RIC 227. In some specific implementations, the SMO framework 207 may communicate with hardware aspects of the 4G RAN (such as an open eNB (O-eNB) 213) via the O1 interface. Additionally, in some specific implementations, the SMO framework 207 may communicate directly with one or more RUs 241 via the O1 interface. The SMO framework 207 may also include a non-RT RIC 217 configured to support the functionality of the SMO framework 207 .

[0090] The non-RT RIC 217 may be configured to include logic functions that enable non-real-time control and optimization of RAN elements and resources, artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI / ML) workflows including model training and updating, or policy-based guidance of applications / features in the near-RT RIC 227. The non-RT RIC 217 may be coupled to or communicate with the near-RT RIC 227 (such as via an A1 interface). The near-RT RIC 227 may be configured to include logic functions that enable near-real-time control and optimization of RAN elements and resources via data collection and actions through an interface (such as via an E2 interface) that connects one or more CUs 211, one or more DUs 231, or both, and the O-eNB 213 with the near-RT RIC 227.

[0091] In some implementations, in order to generate an AI / ML model to be deployed in the near-RT RIC 227, the non-RT RIC 217 may receive parameters or external enrichment information from an external server. Such information may be utilized by the near-RT RIC 227 and may be received from a non-network data source or from a network function at the SMO framework 207 or the non-RT RIC 217. In some examples, the non-RT RIC 217 or the near-RT RIC 227 may be configured to tune RAN behavior or performance. For example, the non-RT RIC 217 may monitor long-term trends and patterns of performance and employ AI / ML models to perform corrective actions through the SMO framework 207 (such as via reconfiguration of O1) or via creation of RAN management policies (such as A1 policies).

[0092] Various radio frame structures may be used to support downlink transmissions, uplink transmissions, and sidelink transmissions between network nodes (eg, base stations and UEs). Figure 3 is a diagram 300 illustrating an example of a frame structure that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. Other wireless communication technologies may have different frame structures and / or different channels.

[0093] NR (and LTE) utilizes OFDM on the downlink and single carrier frequency division multiplexing (SC-FDM) on the uplink. However, unlike LTE, NR also has the option of using OFDM on the uplink. OFDM and SC-FDM divide the system bandwidth into multiple (K) orthogonal subcarriers, which are also often called frequency tones, frequency bins, etc. Each subcarrier can be modulated with data. In general, modulation symbols are transmitted in the frequency domain using OFDM and in the time domain using SC-FDM. The spacing between adjacent subcarriers can be fixed, and the total number of subcarriers (K) can depend on the system bandwidth. For example, the spacing of the subcarriers can be 15kHz, and the minimum resource allocation (resource block) can be 12 subcarriers (or 180kHz). Therefore, for system bandwidths of 1.25 megahertz (MHz), 2.5MHz, 5MHz, 10MHz, or 20MHz, the nominal fast Fourier transform (FFT) size can be equal to 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048, respectively. The system bandwidth may also be divided into multiple subbands. For example, a subband may cover 1.08 MHz (ie, 6 resource blocks), and there may be 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 subbands for system bandwidths of 1.25 MHz, 2.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, or 20 MHz, respectively.

[0094] LTE supports a single parameter set (subcarrier spacing, symbol length, etc.). In contrast, NR can support multiple parameter sets (µ). For example, 15kHz, 30kHz, 60kHz, 120kHz, and 240kHz or larger subcarrier spacing (SCS) may be available. Table 1 provided below lists some different parameters for different NR parameter sets.

[0095]

[0096] Table 1

[0097] In one example, a 15 kHz parameter set is used. Thus, in the time domain, a 10 millisecond (ms) frame is divided into 10 equally sized subframes, each subframe is 1 ms, and each subframe includes one time slot. Figure 3 , time is represented horizontally (eg, on the X-axis), where time increases from left to right, and frequency is represented vertically (eg, on the Y-axis), where frequency increases (or decreases) from bottom to top.

[0098] A resource grid may be used to represent time slots, each of which includes one or more time-concurrent resource blocks (RBs) (also referred to as physical RBs (PRBs)) in the frequency domain. Figure 3An example of a resource block (RB) 302 is illustrated. Data or information for joint communication and sensing may be included in one or more RBs 302. RBs 302 are arranged by placing the time domain on the horizontal (or x) axis and the frequency domain on the vertical (or y) axis. As shown, RBs 302 may be 180 kilohertz (kHz) wide in frequency and one slot long in time (where a slot is 1 millisecond (ms) in time). In some cases, a slot may include fourteen symbols (e.g., in slot configuration 0). RBs 302 include twelve subcarriers (along the y-axis) and fourteen symbols (along the x-axis).

[0099] The intersection of a symbol and a subcarrier may be referred to as a resource element (RE) 304 or a tone. Figure 3 An RB 302 includes a plurality of REs, which include resource elements (REs) 304. For example, RE 304 is 1 subcarrier x 1 symbol (e.g., OFDM symbol) and is the smallest discrete part of a subframe. RE 304 includes a single complex value representing data from a physical channel or signal. The number of bits carried by each RE 304 depends on the modulation scheme.

[0100] In some aspects, some REs 304 may be used to transmit downlink reference (pilot) signals (DL-RS). DL-RS may include positioning reference signals (PRS), tracking reference signals (TRS), phase tracking reference signals (PTRS), channel state information reference signals (CSI-RS), demodulation reference signals (DMRS), primary synchronization signals (PSS), secondary synchronization signals (SSS), etc. Figure 3 The resource grid of illustrates exemplary locations of REs 304 (labeled as “R”) for transmitting DL-RS.

[0101] Figure 44 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computing system 470 of an electronic device 407 that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. The electronic device 407 is an example of a device that may include hardware and software for connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems using a communication network (e.g., a third generation partner network such as a fifth generation (5G) / new radio (NR) network, a fourth generation (4G) / long term evolution (LTE) network, a WiFi network, or other communication network). For example, the electronic device 407 may include or be part of a mobile device (e.g., a mobile phone), a wearable device (e.g., a web-connected or smartwatch), an extended reality device (e.g., a virtual reality (VR) device, an augmented reality (AR) device, or a mixed reality (MR) device), a personal computer, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, an Internet of Things (IoT) device, a wireless access point, a router, a vehicle or a component of a vehicle, a server computer, a robotic device, and / or other devices used by a user to communicate over a wireless communication network. In some cases, device 407 may be referred to as user equipment (UE), such as when referring to a device configured to communicate using 5G / NR, 4G / LTE, or other telecommunication standards. In some cases, the device may be referred to as a station (STA), such as when referring to a device configured to communicate using the Wi-Fi standard.

[0102] The computing system 470 includes software and hardware components that may be electrically or communicatively coupled via a bus 489 (or may communicate in other ways, as appropriate). For example, the computing system 470 includes one or more processors 484. The one or more processors 484 may include one or more CPUs, ASICs, FPGAs, APs, GPUs, VPUs, NSPs, microcontrollers, dedicated hardware, any combination thereof, and / or other processing devices and / or systems. The bus 489 may be used by the one or more processors 484 to communicate between cores and / or with one or more memory devices 486.

[0103] The computing system 470 may also include one or more memory devices 486, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs) 482, one or more subscriber identity modules (SIMs) 474, one or more modems 476, one or more wireless transceivers 478, one or more antennas 487, one or more input devices 472 (e.g., a camera, a mouse, a keyboard, a touch-sensitive screen, a touchpad, a keypad, a microphone or microphone array, etc.), and one or more output devices 480 (e.g., a display, a speaker, a printer, etc.).

[0104] One or more wireless transceivers 478 can receive wireless signals (e.g., signal 488) via antenna 487 from one or more other devices such as other user devices, network devices (e.g., base stations such as evolved Node B (eNB) and / or gNodeB (gNB)), WiFi access points (APs) such as routers, range extenders, etc.), cloud networks, etc. In some examples, computing system 470 may include multiple antennas or antenna arrays that can facilitate simultaneous transmission and reception functionality. Antenna 487 can be an omnidirectional antenna so that RF signals can be received from all directions and RF signals can be transmitted in all directions. Wireless signal 488 can be sent via a wireless network. The wireless network can be any wireless network, such as a cellular or telecommunications network (e.g., 3G, 4G, 5G, etc.), a wireless local area network (e.g., a WiFi network), a Bluetooth ™ network and / or other networks. In some examples, one or more wireless transceivers 478 may include an RF front end that includes one or more components such as an amplifier, a mixer for down-converting a signal (also known as a signal multiplier), a frequency synthesizer (also known as an oscillator) that provides a signal to the mixer, a baseband filter, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), one or more power amplifiers, and other components. The RF front end generally can handle the selection of the wireless signal 488 and the conversion of the wireless signal to baseband or intermediate frequency, and can convert the RF signal to the digital domain.

[0105] In some cases, computing system 470 may include a coding-decoding device (or CODEC) configured to encode and / or decode data transmitted and / or received using one or more wireless transceivers 478. In some cases, computing system 470 may include an encryption-decryption device or component configured to encrypt and / or decrypt data transmitted and / or received by one or more wireless transceivers 478 (e.g., in accordance with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and / or Data Encryption Standard (DES) standards).

[0106] One or more SIMs 474 can each securely store an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number and associated keys assigned to a user of the electronic device 407. The IMSI and keys can be used to identify and authenticate the subscriber when accessing a network provided by a network service provider or operator associated with the one or more SIMs 474. One or more modems 476 can modulate one or more signals to encode information for transmission using one or more wireless transceivers 478. One or more modems 476 can also demodulate signals received by one or more wireless transceivers 478 to decode the transmitted information. In some examples, one or more modems 476 can include a WiFi modem, a 4G (or LTE) modem, a 5G (or NR) modem, and / or other types of modems. One or more modems 476 and one or more wireless transceivers 478 can be used to communicate data of one or more SIMs 474.

[0107] The computing system 470 may also include (and / or be in communication with) one or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media or storage devices (e.g., one or more memory devices 486), which may include, but are not limited to, local and / or network accessible storage, disk drives, drive arrays, optical storage devices, solid-state storage devices (such as RAM and / or ROM), which may be programmable, flash-updatable, and / or the like. Such storage devices may be configured to implement any suitable data storage, including, but not limited to, various file systems, database structures, etc.

[0108] In various aspects, the functionality may be stored as one or more computer program products (e.g., instructions or code) in the memory device 486 and executed by the one or more processors 484 and / or the one or more DSPs 482. The computing system 470 may also include software elements (e.g., located within the one or more memory devices 486) including, for example, an operating system, device drivers, executable libraries, and / or other code, such as one or more applications, which may include a computer program that implements the functionality provided by various aspects, and / or may be designed to implement methods and / or configure systems, as described herein.

[0109] In some aspects, the electronic device 407 may include components for performing the operations described herein. The components may include one or more of the components of the computing system 470. For example, the components for performing the operations described herein may include one or more of the input device 472, the SIM 474, the modem 476, the wireless transceiver 478, the output device 480, the DSP 482, the processor 484, the memory device 486, and / or the antenna 487.

[0110] In some aspects, the electronic device 407 may include components for providing joint communication and sensing and components for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. In some examples, any or all of these components may include one or more wireless transceivers 478, one or more modems 476, one or more processors 484, one or more DSPs 482, one or more memory devices 486, any combination thereof, or other components of the electronic device 407.

[0111] Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a wireless device 500 utilizing RF single-station sensing techniques for determining one or more characteristics (eg, position, velocity or speed, heading, etc.) of a target 502 object. Specifically, Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a wireless device 500 (e.g., a transmit / receive sensing node) that utilizes RF sensing technology (e.g., single-station sensing) to perform one or more functions, such as detecting the presence and location of a target 502 (e.g., an object, user, or vehicle), which is illustrated in the figure in the form of a vehicle.

[0112] In some examples, wireless device 500 may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wearable device, a vehicle, an extended reality (XR) device, a computing device or a component of a vehicle, or other device that includes at least one RF interface (e.g., Figure 4 In some examples, the wireless device 500 may be a user device (e.g., Figure 4 An electronic device 407) provides connectivity, such as a base station (e.g., gNB, eNB, etc.), a wireless access point (AP), or other device including at least one RF interface.

[0113] In some aspects, the wireless device 500 may include one or more components for transmitting RF signals. The wireless device 500 may include at least one processor 522 for generating a digital signal or waveform. The wireless device 500 may also include a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 504 capable of receiving a digital signal or waveform from the processor 522 (e.g., a microprocessor) and converting the digital signal or waveform into an analog waveform. The analog signal as an output of the DAC 504 may be provided to the RF transmitter 506 for transmission. The RF transmitter 506 may be a Wi-Fi transmitter, a 5G / NR transmitter, a Bluetooth transmitter, or a wireless transmitter. ™ transmitter or any other transmitter capable of transmitting RF signals.

[0114] The RF transmitter 506 can be coupled to one or more transmit antennas, such as a Tx antenna 512. In some examples, the transmit (Tx) antenna 512 can be an omnidirectional antenna capable of transmitting RF signals in all directions. For example, the Tx antenna 512 can be an omnidirectional Wi-Fi antenna capable of radiating Wi-Fi signals (e.g., 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz, etc.) in a 360-degree radiation pattern. In another example, the Tx antenna 512 can be a directional antenna that transmits RF signals in a specific direction.

[0115] In some examples, the wireless device 500 may also include one or more components for receiving RF signals. For example, the receiver array in the wireless device 500 may include one or more receiving antennas, such as a receiving (Rx) antenna 514. In some examples, the Rx antenna 514 may be an omnidirectional antenna capable of receiving RF signals from multiple directions. In other examples, the Rx antenna 514 may be a directional antenna configured to receive signals from a specific direction. In another example, the Tx antenna 512 and / or the Rx antenna 514 may include multiple antennas (e.g., elements) configured as an antenna array (e.g., a phased antenna array).

[0116] The wireless device 500 may also include an RF receiver 510 coupled to an Rx antenna 514. The RF receiver 510 may include a signal for receiving RF waveforms (such as Wi-Fi signals, Bluetooth signals, etc.). ™ The RF receiver 510 may be configured to receive an analog RF waveform, a 5G / NR signal, or any other RF signal. The output of the RF receiver 510 may be coupled to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 508. The ADC 508 may be configured to convert the received analog RF waveform into a digital waveform. The digital waveform as an output of the ADC 508 may be provided to a processor 522 for processing. The processor 522 (e.g., a digital signal processor (DSP)) may be configured to process the digital waveform.

[0117] In one example, the wireless device 500 can implement an RF sensing technique, such as a single-station sensing technique, by having a Tx waveform 516 transmitted from the Tx antenna 512. Although the Tx waveform 516 is illustrated as a single line, in some cases, the Tx waveform 516 can be transmitted in all directions by the omnidirectional Tx antenna 512. In one example, the Tx waveform 516 can be a Wi-Fi waveform transmitted by a Wi-Fi transmitter in the wireless device 500. In some cases, the Tx waveform 516 can correspond to a Wi-Fi waveform transmitted at the same time or nearly at the same time as a Wi-Fi data communication signal or a Wi-Fi control function signal (e.g., a beacon transmission). In some examples, the Tx waveform 516 can be transmitted using the same or similar frequency resources as the Wi-Fi data communication signal or the Wi-Fi control function signal (e.g., a beacon transmission). In some aspects, the Tx waveform 516 can correspond to a Wi-Fi waveform transmitted separately from the Wi-Fi data communication signal and / or the Wi-Fi control signal (e.g., the Tx waveform 516 can be transmitted at a different time and / or using different frequency resources).

[0118] In some examples, Tx waveform 516 may correspond to a 5G NR waveform transmitted simultaneously or nearly simultaneously with a 5G NR data communication signal or a 5G NR control function signal. In some examples, Tx waveform 516 may be transmitted using the same or similar frequency resources as the 5G NR data communication signal or the 5G NR control function signal. In some aspects, Tx waveform 516 may correspond to a 5G NR waveform transmitted separately from the 5G NR data communication signal and / or the 5G NR control signal (e.g., Tx waveform 516 may be transmitted at a different time and / or using different frequency resources).

[0119] In some aspects, one or more parameters associated with the Tx waveform 516 may be modified, which may be used to increase or decrease RF sensing resolution. These parameters may include frequency, bandwidth, number of spatial streams, number of antennas configured to transmit the Tx waveform 516, number of antennas configured to receive reflected RF signals (e.g., Rx waveform 518) corresponding to the Tx waveform 516, number of spatial links (e.g., number of spatial streams multiplied by number of antennas configured to receive RF signals), sampling rate, or any combination thereof. The transmitted waveform (e.g., Tx waveform 516) and the received waveform (e.g., Rx waveform 518) may include one or more RF sensing signals, which are also referred to as radar reference signals (RS).

[0120] In another example, the Tx waveform 516 may be implemented as a sequence with perfect or nearly perfect autocorrelation properties. For example, the Tx waveform 516 may include a single carrier Zadoff sequence or may include symbols similar to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) long training field (LTF) symbols. In some cases, the Tx waveform 516 may include a chirp signal as used, for example, in a frequency modulated continuous wave (FM-CW) radar system. In some configurations, the chirp signal may include a signal in which the signal frequency increases and / or decreases periodically in a linear and / or exponential manner.

[0121] In some aspects, the wireless device 500 can implement RF sensing technology by performing alternating transmit and receive functions (e.g., performing half-duplex operation). For example, the wireless device 500 can alternatively enable its RF transmitter 506 to transmit Tx waveform 516 when the RF receiver 510 is not enabled to receive (i.e., not receiving), and enable its RF receiver 510 to receive Rx waveform 518 when the RF transmitter 506 is not enabled to transmit (i.e., not transmitting). When the wireless device 500 performs half-duplex operation, the wireless device 500 can transmit Tx waveform 516, which can be a radar RS (e.g., a sensing signal).

[0122] In other aspects, the wireless device 500 can implement RF sensing techniques by performing concurrent transmit and receive functions (e.g., performing sub-band or full-band full-duplex operation). For example, the wireless device 500 can enable its RF receiver 510 to receive at or nearly the same time as it enables its RF transmitter 506 to transmit the Tx waveform 516. When the wireless device 500 performs full-duplex operation (e.g., sub-band full-duplex or full-band full-duplex), the wireless device 500 can transmit the Tx waveform 516, which can be a radar RS (e.g., a sensing signal).

[0123] In some examples, the transmission of a sequence or pattern included in the Tx waveform 516 may be continuously repeated such that the sequence is transmitted a specific number of times or for a specific duration. In some examples, if the RF receiver 510 is enabled after the RF transmitter 506, the repetition of the pattern in the transmission of the Tx waveform 516 may be used to avoid missing the reception of any reflected signals. In one example implementation, the Tx waveform 516 may include a sequence having a sequence length L that is transmitted two or more times, which may allow the RF receiver 510 to be enabled at a time less than or equal to L in order to receive reflections corresponding to the entire sequence without losing any information.

[0124] By implementing alternating or simultaneous transmit and receive functionality (e.g., half-duplex or full-duplex operation), the wireless device 500 can receive a signal corresponding to the Tx waveform 516. For example, the wireless device 500 can receive a signal reflected from an object or person within the range of the Tx waveform 516, such as the Rx waveform 518 reflected from the target 502. The wireless device 500 can also receive a leakage signal (e.g., Tx leakage signal 520) that is directly coupled from the Tx antenna 512 to the Rx antenna 514 without reflecting from any object. For example, the leakage signal may include a signal that is passed from a transmitter antenna (e.g., Tx antenna 512) on the wireless device to a receive antenna (e.g., Rx antenna 514) on the wireless device without reflecting from any object. In some cases, the Rx waveform 518 may include multiple sequences corresponding to multiple copies of the sequence included in the Tx waveform 516. In some examples, the wireless device 500 can combine multiple sequences received by the RF receiver 510 to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

[0125] The wireless device 500 may also implement RF sensing techniques by obtaining RF sensing data associated with each of the received signals corresponding to the Tx waveform 516. In some examples, the RF sensing data may include channel state information (CSI) data related to a direct path of the Tx waveform 516 (e.g., the leakage signal 520) and data related to a reflected path corresponding to the Tx waveform 516 (e.g., the Rx waveform 518).

[0126] In some aspects, the RF sensing data (e.g., CSI data) may include information that can be used to determine the manner in which an RF signal (e.g., Tx waveform 516) propagates from the RF transmitter 506 to the RF receiver 510. The RF sensing data may include data corresponding to the effects on the transmitted RF signal due to scattering, fading, and / or power attenuation with distance, or any combination thereof. In some examples, the RF sensing data may include imaginary data and real data (e.g., I / Q components) corresponding to each tone in the frequency domain over a particular bandwidth.

[0127] In some examples, the RF sensing data can be used by the processor 522 to calculate the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the reflected waveform (such as Rx waveform 518). In other examples, the RF sensing data can also be used to detect motion, determine position, detect changes in position or motion patterns, or any combination thereof. In some cases, the distance and arrival angle of the reflected signal can be used to identify the size, position, movement, and / or orientation of an object (e.g., object 502) in the surrounding environment in order to detect target presence / proximity.

[0128] The processor 522 of the wireless device 500 can calculate the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the reflected waveform (e.g., the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the Rx waveform 518) by utilizing signal processing, machine learning algorithms, any other suitable technology, or any combination thereof. In other examples, the wireless device 500 can send or transmit the RF sensing data to at least one processor of another computing device (such as a server or a base station), and the other computing device can perform calculations to obtain the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the Rx waveform 518 or other reflected waveforms.

[0129] In one example, the distance of the Rx waveform 518 may be calculated by measuring the time difference from when the leakage signal is received to when the reflected signal is received. For example, the wireless device 500 may determine a baseline distance zero based on the difference (e.g., propagation delay) from when the wireless device 500 transmits the Tx waveform 516 to when it receives the leakage signal 520. The processor 522 of the wireless device 500 may then determine the distance associated with the Rx waveform 518 based on the difference (e.g., time of flight, also referred to as round trip time (RTT)) from when the wireless device 500 transmits the Tx waveform 516 to when it receives the Rx waveform 518, which may then be adjusted based on the propagation delay associated with the leakage signal 520. In doing so, the processor 522 of the wireless device 500 may determine the distance traveled by the Rx waveform 518, which may be used to determine the presence and movement of an object (e.g., object 502) that caused the reflection.

[0130] In another example, the angle of arrival of the Rx waveform 518 may be calculated by the processor 522 by measuring the time difference of arrival of the Rx waveform 518 between individual elements of the receive antenna array, such as the antenna 514. In some examples, the time difference of arrival may be calculated by measuring the receive phase difference at each element in the receive antenna array.

[0131] In some cases, the distance and angle of arrival of the Rx waveform 518 may be used by the processor 522 to determine the distance between the wireless device 500 and the target 502 and the position of the target 502 relative to the wireless device 500. The distance and angle of arrival of the Rx waveform 518 may also be used to determine the presence, movement, proximity, identity, or any combination thereof of the target 502. For example, the processor 522 of the wireless device 500 may utilize the calculated distance and angle of arrival corresponding to the Rx waveform 518 to determine that the target 502 is moving toward the wireless device 500.

[0132] As mentioned above, the wireless device 500 may include a mobile device (e.g., an IoT device, a smart phone, a laptop, a tablet, etc.) or other type of device. In some examples, the wireless device 500 may be configured to obtain device location data and device orientation data as well as RF sensing data. In some instances, the device location data and device orientation data may be used to determine or adjust the distance and angle of arrival of a reflected signal (such as Rx waveform 518). For example, when a target 502 (e.g., a vehicle) moves toward the wireless device 500 during the RF sensing process, the wireless device may be set on the ground facing the sky. In this instance, the wireless device 500 may use its location data and orientation data as well as the RF sensing data to determine the direction in which the target 502 is moving.

[0133] In some examples, the wireless device 500 can collect device location data using techniques including RTT measurements, time of arrival (TOA) measurements, time difference of arrival (TDOA) measurements, passive positioning measurements, angle of arrival (AOA) measurements, angle of departure (AoD) measurements, received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurements, CSI data, using any other suitable techniques, or any combination thereof. In further examples, device orientation data can be obtained from electronic sensors on the wireless device 500, such as a gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, magnetometer, barometer, any other suitable sensor, or any combination thereof.

[0134] Figure 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a receiver 604 utilizing RF monostatic sensing techniques with a transmitter 600 for determining one or more characteristics (e.g., position, velocity or speed, heading, etc.) of a target 602 object. For example, the receiver 604 may use RF bistatic sensing to detect the presence and position of a target 602 (e.g., an object, user, or vehicle) that is located at a certain location. Figure 6 In one example, the receiver 604 may be in the form of a base station such as a gNB.

[0135] Figure 6 The bistatic radar system of FIG. 6 comprises a transmitter 600 (eg, a transmitting sensing node), which is depicted in the figure as being in the form of a base station (eg, a gNB), and a receiver 604 (eg, a receiving sensing node), which are separated by a distance comparable to the expected target distance. Figure 5 Compared with the single-station system, Figure 6 The transmitter 600 and the receiver 604 of the bistatic radar system are located far away from each other. In contrast, a monostatic radar is a radar system that includes co-located transmitters (e.g., Figure 5 The RF transmitter 506 of the wireless device 500) and the receiver (e.g., Figure 5The RF receiver 510 of the wireless device 500) is a radar system (e.g., Figure 5 system).

[0136] An advantage of a bistatic radar (or more generally, a multistatic radar with more than one receiver) over a monostatic radar is the ability to collect radar echoes reflected from a scene at angles different than the angle at which the pulse was transmitted. This may be of interest in some applications (e.g., vehicle applications, scenes with multiple objects, military applications, etc.) where targets may reflect transmitted energy in many directions (e.g., where targets are specifically designed to reflect in many directions), which may minimize the energy reflected back to the transmitter. It should be noted that in one or more examples, a monostatic system may coexist with a multistatic radar system, such as when the transmitter also has a co-located receiver.

[0137] In some examples, Figure 6 The transmitter 600 and / or the receiver 604 may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wearable device, a vehicle, or other device including at least one RF interface (e.g., Figure 4 In some examples, the transmitter 600 and / or the receiver 604 may be a user device (eg, Figure 4 IoT device 407) provides connectivity to the device, such as a base station (e.g., gNB, eNB, etc.), a wireless access point (AP), or other device including at least one RF interface.

[0138] In some aspects, the transmitter 600 may include one or more components for transmitting RF signals. The transmitter 600 may include at least one processor (e.g., Figure 5 The transmitter 600 may also include an RF transmitter (eg, Figure 5 The RF transmitter 506 may be a transmitter configured to transmit a cellular signal or a telecommunication signal (e.g., a transmitter configured to transmit a 5G / NR signal, a 4G / LTE signal, or other cellular / telecommunication signal, etc.), a Wi-Fi transmitter, a Bluetooth transmitter, or a wireless transmitter. ™ transmitter, any combination thereof, or any other transmitter capable of transmitting RF signals.

[0139] The RF transmitter may be coupled to one or more transmit antennas, such as a Tx antenna (e.g., Figure 5TX antenna 512). In some examples, the Tx antenna may be an omnidirectional antenna capable of transmitting RF signals in all directions, or a directional antenna that transmits RF signals in a specific direction. In some examples, the Tx antenna may include multiple antennas (e.g., elements) configured as an antenna array.

[0140] The receiver 604 may also include one or more components for receiving RF signals. For example, the receiver 604 may include one or more receiving antennas, such as Rx antennas (e.g., Figure 5 In some examples, the Rx antenna may be an omnidirectional antenna capable of receiving RF signals from multiple directions, or a directional antenna configured to receive signals from a specific direction. In another example, the Rx antenna may include multiple antennas (e.g., elements) configured as an antenna array.

[0141] The receiver 604 may also include an RF receiver (eg, Figure 5 The RF receiver may include a RF receiver 510 for receiving RF waveforms (such as Wi-Fi signals, Bluetooth ™ The output of the RF receiver may be coupled to at least one processor (e.g., Figure 5 The processor may be configured to process the received waveform (eg, Rx waveform 618).

[0142] In one or more examples, the transmitter 600 can implement an RF sensing technique (e.g., a bistatic sensing technique) by transmitting a Tx waveform 616 from a Tx antenna. It should be noted that although the Tx waveform 616 is illustrated as a single line, in some cases, the Tx waveform 616 can be transmitted in all directions by an omnidirectional Tx antenna.

[0143] In one or more aspects, one or more parameters associated with the Tx waveform 616 can be used to increase or decrease the RF sensing resolution. These parameters can include frequency, bandwidth, number of spatial streams, number of antennas configured to transmit the Tx waveform 616, number of antennas configured to receive reflected RF signals (e.g., Rx waveform 618) corresponding to the Tx waveform 616, number of spatial links (e.g., number of spatial streams multiplied by number of antennas configured to receive RF signals), sampling rate, or any combination thereof. The transmitted waveform (e.g., Tx waveform 616) and the received waveform (e.g., Rx waveform 618) can include one or more radar RF sensing signals (also referred to as RF sensing RS).

[0144] During operation, the receiver 604 (e.g., operating as a receive sensing node) can receive a signal corresponding to the Tx waveform 616, which is transmitted by the transmitter 600 (e.g., operating as a transmit sensing node). For example, the receiver 604 can receive a signal reflected from an object or person within the range of the Tx waveform 616, such as the Rx waveform 618 reflected from the target 602. In some cases, the Rx waveform 618 can include multiple sequences corresponding to multiple copies of the sequence included in the Tx waveform 616. In some examples, the receiver 604 can combine the received multiple sequences to improve the SNR.

[0145] In some examples, at least one processor within receiver 604 can use the RF sensing data to calculate a distance, angle of arrival, or other characteristics corresponding to a reflected waveform, such as Rx waveform 618. In other examples, the RF sensing data can also be used to detect motion, determine position, detect a change in position or motion pattern, or any combination thereof. In some cases, the distance and angle of arrival of the reflected signal can be used to identify the size, position, movement, and / or orientation of an object (e.g., object 602) in the surrounding environment in order to detect object presence / proximity.

[0146] The processor of the receiver 604 may calculate the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the reflected waveform (e.g., the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the Rx waveform 618) by using signal processing, machine learning algorithms, any other suitable techniques, or any combination thereof. In other examples, the receiver 604 may send or transmit the RF sensing data to at least one processor of another computing device (such as a server), which may perform calculations to obtain the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the Rx waveform 618 or other reflected waveforms.

[0147] In one or more examples, the angle of arrival of the Rx waveform 618 can be calculated by the processor of the receiver 604 by measuring the time difference of arrival of the Rx waveform 618 between individual elements of the receive antenna array of the receiver 604. In some examples, the time difference of arrival can be calculated by measuring the receive phase difference at each element in the receive antenna array.

[0148] In some cases, the distance and angle of arrival of the Rx waveform 618 may be used by the processor of the receiver 604 to determine the distance between the receiver 604 and the target 602 and the position of the target 602 relative to the receiver 604. The distance and angle of arrival of the Rx waveform 618 may also be used to determine the presence, movement, proximity, identity, or any combination thereof of the target 602. For example, the processor of the receiver 604 may use the calculated distance and angle of arrival corresponding to the Rx waveform 618 to determine that the target 602 is moving toward the receiver 604.

[0149] Figure 7 700a, 700b, and 700c, which can be used to determine one or more characteristics (e.g., position, speed or velocity, heading, etc.) of a target 702 object. For example, receiver 704 can use RF bistatic sensing to detect the presence and location of target 702 (e.g., an object, user, or vehicle). Target 702 is located at a location on a mobile phone. Figure 7 The objects are depicted in the form of objects without communication capabilities (which may be referred to as device-less objects), such as people, vehicles (e.g., vehicles without the ability to send and receive messages, such as using C-V2X or DSRC protocols), or other device-less objects. Figure 7 The bistatic radar system is similar to Figure 6 The dual-station radar system is just Figure 7 The bistatic radar system has multiple transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c, and Figure 6 The bistatic radar system has only one transmitter 600 .

[0150] Figure 7 The bistatic radar system of includes a plurality of transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c (eg, transmitting sensing nodes), which are illustrated as being in the form of base stations. Figure 7 The bistatic radar system of also includes a receiver 704 (eg, a receiving sensing node) depicted in the form of a smartphone. Each of the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c is separated from the receiver 704 by a distance comparable to the expected distance to the target 702. Similar to Figure 6 The dual station system Figure 7 The transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c and the receiver 704 of the bistatic radar system are located far away from each other.

[0151] In one or more examples, the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c, and / or the receiver 704 can each be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wearable device, a vehicle (e.g., a vehicle configured to send and receive communications according to C-V2X, DSRC, or other communication protocols), or other devices including at least one RF interface (e.g., Figure 4 In some examples, transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c and / or receiver 704 may each be a user device (eg, Figure 4 IoT device 407) provides connectivity to the device, such as a base station (e.g., gNB, eNB, etc.), a wireless access point (AP), or other device including at least one RF interface.

[0152] The transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c may include one or more components for transmitting RF signals. Each of the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c may include at least one processor (e.g., Figure 5 Each of the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c may also include an RF transmitter (e.g., Figure 5 RF transmitter 506). In one or more examples, Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c are RF sensing signals, and Tx waveforms 720a, 720b, 720c are communication signals. In one or more examples, Tx waveforms 720a, 720b, 720c are communication signals that can be used to schedule a transmitter (e.g., transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c) and a receiver (e.g., receiver 704) to perform RF sensing of a target (e.g., target 702) to obtain location information about the target. The RF transmitter can be a transmitter configured to transmit a cellular signal or a telecommunication signal (e.g., a transmitter configured to transmit a 5G / NR signal, a 4G / LTE signal, or other cellular / telecom signal, etc.), a Wi-Fi transmitter, a Bluetooth transmitter, or a wireless transmitter. ™ transmitter, any combination thereof, or any other transmitter capable of transmitting RF signals.

[0153] The RF transmitter may be coupled to one or more transmit antennas, such as a Tx antenna (e.g., Figure 5 TX antenna 512). In one or more examples, the Tx antenna may be an omnidirectional antenna capable of transmitting RF signals in all directions, or a directional antenna that transmits RF signals in a specific direction. The Tx antenna may include multiple antennas (e.g., elements) configured as an antenna array.

[0154] Figure 7 The receiver 704 may include one or more components for receiving RF signals. For example, the receiver 704 may include one or more receiving antennas, such as Rx antennas (e.g., Figure 5 In one or more examples, the Rx antenna may be an omnidirectional antenna capable of receiving RF signals from multiple directions, or a directional antenna configured to receive signals from a specific direction. In some examples, the Rx antenna may include multiple antennas (e.g., elements) configured as an antenna array (e.g., a phased antenna array).

[0155] The receiver 704 may also include an RF receiver (eg, Figure 5The RF receiver may include a RF receiver 510 for receiving RF waveforms (such as Wi-Fi signals, Bluetooth ™ The output of the RF receiver may be coupled to at least one processor (e.g., Figure 5 The processor may be configured to process the received waveform (eg, Rx waveform 718, which is the reflected (echo) RF sensing signal).

[0156] In some examples, the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c can implement RF sensing techniques (e.g., bistatic sensing techniques) by having Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c (e.g., radar sensing signals) transmitted from a Tx antenna associated with each of the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c. Although the Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c are illustrated as a single line, in some cases, the Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c can be transmitted in all directions (e.g., through an omnidirectional Tx antenna associated with each of the transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c).

[0157] In one or more aspects, one or more parameters associated with the Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c can be used to increase or decrease RF sensing resolution. These parameters can include, but are not limited to, frequency, bandwidth, number of spatial streams, number of antennas configured to transmit the Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c, number of antennas configured to receive reflected (echo) RF signals (e.g., Rx waveform 718) corresponding to each of the Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c, number of spatial links (e.g., number of spatial streams multiplied by number of antennas configured to receive RF signals), sampling rate, or any combination thereof. The transmitted waveforms (e.g., Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c) and the received waveforms (e.g., Rx waveform 718) can include one or more radar RF sensing signals (also referred to as RF sensing RS). It should be noted that although in Figure 7 Only one reflected sensing signal (eg, Rx waveform 718 ) is shown in , but it should be understood that a separate reflected (echo) sensing signal will be generated by each sensing signal reflected from the target 702 (eg, Tx waveforms 716 a , 716 b , 716 c ).

[0158] exist Figure 7During operation of the system, the receiver 704 (e.g., which operates as a receive sensing node) can receive signals corresponding to Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c transmitted by transmitters 700a, 700b, 700c (e.g., which each operate as a transmit sensing node). The receiver 704 can receive signals reflected from objects or people within the range of the Tx waveforms 716a, 716b, 716c, such as the Rx waveform 718 reflected from the target 702. In one or more examples, the Rx waveform 718 can include multiple sequences corresponding to multiple copies of the sequence included in its corresponding Tx waveform 716a, 716b, 716c. In some examples, the receiver 704 can combine the received multiple sequences to improve the SNR.

[0159] In some examples, the RF sensing data can be used by at least one processor within the receiver 704 to calculate the distance, angle of arrival (AOA), TDOA, angle of departure (AoD), or other characteristics corresponding to the reflected waveform (e.g., Rx waveform 718). In other examples, the RF sensing data can also be used to detect motion, determine position, detect changes in position or motion patterns, or any combination thereof. In one or more examples, the distance and angle of arrival of the reflected signal can be used to identify the size, position, movement, and / or orientation of the target (e.g., target 702) in order to detect target presence / proximity.

[0160] The processor of the receiver 704 can calculate the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the reflected waveform (e.g., the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the Rx waveform 718) by using signal processing, machine learning algorithms, any other suitable technology, or any combination thereof. In one or more examples, the receiver 704 can send or transmit the RF sensing data to at least one processor of another computing device (such as a server), which can perform calculations to obtain the distance and arrival angle corresponding to the Rx waveform 718 or other reflected waveforms (not shown).

[0161] In one or more examples, the processor of the receiver 704 can calculate the angle of arrival (AOA) of the Rx waveform 718 by measuring the TDOA of the Rx waveform 718 between the various elements of the receive antenna array of the receiver 704. In some examples, the TDOA can be calculated by measuring the receive phase difference at each element in the receive antenna array. In an illustrative example, to determine the TDOA, the processor can determine the arrival time difference of the Rx waveform 718 to the receive antenna array element using one of the receive antenna array elements as a reference. The time difference is proportional to the distance difference.

[0162] In some cases, the processor of the receiver 704 may use the distance, AOA, TDOA, other measurement information (e.g., AoD, etc.), any combination thereof of the Rx waveform 718 to determine the distance between the receiver 704 and the target 702, and determine the position of the target 702 relative to the receiver 704. In one example, the processor may use the distance, AOA, and / or TDOA information as input to apply multilateration or other location-based algorithms to determine the position (e.g., 3D position) of the target 702. In other examples, the processor may use the distance, AOA, and / or TDOA of the Rx waveform 718 to determine the presence, movement (e.g., speed or velocity, heading or direction or movement, etc.), proximity, identity, any combination thereof, or other characteristics of the target 702. For example, the processor of the receiver 704 may use the distance, AOA, and / or TDOA corresponding to the Rx waveform 718 to determine that the target is moving toward the receiver 704.

[0163] Figure 8 is a diagram illustrating the geometry for bistatic (or monostatic) sensing. Figure 8 The bistatic radar north reference coordinate system in two dimensions is shown. Specifically, Figure 8 804 and 804. The coordinate system and parameters for bistatic radar operation are shown defined in a plane (referred to as the bistatic plane) containing transmitter 800, receiver 804 and target 802. The bistatic triangle is located in the bistatic plane. Transmitter 800, target 802 and receiver 804 are shown relative to each other. Transmitter 800 and receiver 804 are separated by a baseline distance L. An extended baseline is defined so that the baseline distance L extends beyond transmitter 800 or receiver 804. Target 802 and transmitter 800 are separated by a distance R T , and the target 802 and the receiver 804 are separated by a distance R R .

[0164] Angle θ T and θ R are the transmitter 800 observation angle and the receiver 804 observation angle, respectively, which are considered positive when measured clockwise from North (N). Angle θ T and θ R Also known as angle of arrival (AOA) or line of sight (LOS). The bistatic angle (β) is the angle between the transmitter 800, the target 802, and the receiver 804 in the radar. Specifically, the bistatic angle is the angle between the transmitter 800 and the receiver 804, with the vertex at the target 802. The bistatic angle is equal to the observation angle of the transmitter 800 minus the observation angle of the receiver 804 θ R (For example, β = θ T -θ R ).

[0165] When the bistatic angle is exactly zero (0°), the radar is considered to be monostatic; when the bistatic angle is close to zero, the radar is considered to be pseudo-monostatic; and when the bistatic angle is close to 180 degrees, the radar is considered to be a forward scatter radar. Otherwise, the radar is simply considered and is called a bistatic radar. The bistatic angle (β) can be used to determine the radar cross section of a target.

[0166] Fig. 9 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a bistatic range 910 for bistatic sensing. In the diagram, a transmitter (Tx) 900, a target 902, and a receiver (Rx) 904 of a radar are shown relative to each other. The transmitter 900 is separated from the receiver 904 by a baseline distance L, the target 902 is separated from the transmitter 900 by a distance Rtx, and the target 902 is separated from the receiver 904 by a distance Rrx.

[0167] Bistatic range 910 (shown as an ellipse) refers to a measured range made by a radar having a separated transmitter 900 and receiver 904 (e.g., the transmitter 900 and receiver 904 are positioned far from each other). Receiver 904 measures the arrival time from when transmitter 900 transmits a signal to when receiver 904 receives the signal from transmitter 900 via target 902. Bistatic range 910 defines an ellipse of constant bistatic distance, referred to as an equidistant profile, on which target 902 is located, with the focus centered on transmitter 900 and receiver 904. If target 902 is at a distance Rrx from receiver 904 and a distance Rtx from transmitter 900, and receiver 904 and transmitter 900 are at a distance L from each other, then the bistatic range is equal to Rrx + Rtx - L. It should be noted that the motion of target 902 causes a rate of change in the bistatic range, which results in a bistatic Doppler shift.

[0168] Typically, the constant bistatic distance points draw ellipses with the transmitter 900 and receiver 904 positioned as foci. The bistatic isostatic contours are where the ground slices through the ellipse. When the ground is flat, the intercepts form ellipses (e.g., bistatic distance 910). Note that these ellipses are not centered on the mirror point except when the two platforms have equal heights.

[0169] As mentioned previously, RIS (e.g. Fig. 10A RIS 1030) can be employed for sensing and / or communication. RIS has traditionally been used for communication, however RIS can also be employed to assist in sensing of the ISAC system. RIS-assisted sensing requires a higher accuracy (e.g., higher precision) of RIS location than RIS-assisted communication requires.

[0170] Fig. 10A is a diagram illustrating an example of a system 1000 for performing RIS-assisted communications. Fig. 10A, system 1000 is shown to include a network device 1020 in the form of a UE that can operate as a communication receiver. Also shown is a network device 1010 in the form of a base station (e.g., a gNB or a portion of a gNB such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc.) that can operate as a communication transmitter. System 1000 also includes a RIS 1030. In some cases, an obstacle 1040 (e.g., in the form of a building) may be blocking the line of sight (LOS) from the network device 1010 (e.g., gNB) to the network device 1020 (e.g., UE).

[0171] System 1000 may include, for example Fig. 10A In addition, the system 1000 may include more or fewer network devices as shown. Fig. 10A Different types of network devices (e.g., vehicles) are shown. In one or more examples, network devices 1020 (e.g., UE) and 1010 (e.g., gNB) can be equipped with heterogeneous capabilities, which can include, but are not limited to, 4G / 5G cellular connectivity, GPS capabilities, camera capabilities, radar capabilities, and / or LIDAR capabilities. Network devices 1020, 1010 can be capable of performing wireless communications with each other via communication signals (e.g., signals 1050a, 1050b).

[0172] RIS 1030 may passively operate as a relay device by reflecting a signal (e.g., a communication signal) radiated from another network device (e.g., a network device 1010 in the form of a gNB) in a direction toward one network device (e.g., a network device 1020 in the form of a UE). For example, during operation of system 1000 for RIS-assisted communication, due to the presence of an obstacle 1040 (e.g., a building) located within the LOS between network device 1010 (e.g., a gNB) and network device 1020 (e.g., a UE), network device 1010 (e.g., a gNB) may send a communication signal (e.g., signal 1050a) toward RIS 1030. The communication signal (e.g., signal 1050a) may be reflected from RIS 1030 to generate a reflected communication signal (e.g., signal 1050b). Elements of RIS 1030 may cause the reflected communication signal (eg, signal 1050b) to be radiated in a direction toward network device 1020 (eg, UE), which may then receive the reflected communication signal (eg, signal 1050b).

[0173] Fig. 10B is a diagram illustrating an example of a system 1005 for performing RIS-assisted sensing. Fig. 10B, system 1005 is shown to include a network device 1015 in the form of a base station (e.g., a gNB or a portion of a gNB such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc.). Network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) may operate as a radar transmitter (Tx) and / or a radar receiver (Rx) for sensing purposes (e.g., for monostatic or bistatic sensing of a target such as target 1080). System 1005 also includes RIS 1035. There may also be an obstacle 1045 (e.g., in the form of a building) that is obstructing the LOS from network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) to target 1080, which is shown in the form of a vehicle.

[0174] System 1005 may include, for example Fig. 10B In addition, the system 1005 may include more or fewer network devices as shown. Fig. 10B Different types of network devices (e.g., mobile phones and / or vehicles) are shown. In one or more examples, network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) can be equipped with heterogeneous capabilities, which can include, but are not limited to, 4G / 5G cellular connectivity, GPS capabilities, camera capabilities, radar capabilities, and / or LIDAR capabilities. Network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) can be capable of performing wireless communications with other network devices via communication signals.

[0175] In one or more examples, the network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) may be capable of sending and receiving some type of sensing signal (e.g., camera, RF sensing signal, optical sensing signal, etc.). In some cases, the network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) may send and receive sensing signals (e.g., RF sensing signals 1060a, 1070b) for detecting nearby targets (e.g., target 1080 in the form of a vehicle) using one or more sensors. In some cases, the network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) may detect nearby targets based on one or more images or frames captured using one or more cameras.

[0176] The network device 1015 (e.g., a gNB) that can operate as a radar Tx and / or a radar Rx can perform RF sensing (e.g., bistatic sensing or monostatic sensing) of at least one target (e.g., target 1080) to obtain RF sensing measurements (e.g., Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) of the target (e.g., target 1080). The RF sensing measurements of the target (e.g., target 1080) can be used (e.g., by at least one processor of the network device 1015) to determine one or more characteristics (e.g., velocity, location, distance, movement, heading, size, and / or other characteristics) of the target (e.g., target 1080).

[0177] RIS 1035 may passively operate as a relay device by reflecting a signal (e.g., a sensing signal) radiated from a network device (e.g., a network device 1015 in the form of a gNB) in a direction toward a target (e.g., a target 1080 in the form of a vehicle). RIS 1035 may also passively operate as a relay device by reflecting a signal (e.g., a reflected sensing signal) from a target (e.g., a target 1080) in a direction toward a network device (e.g., a network device 1015).

[0178] For example, during operation of the system 1005 for RIS-assisted sensing, such as when performing single-station sensing of a target (e.g., target 1080), due to the presence of an obstacle 1045 (e.g., a building) located within the LOS between the network device 1015 (e.g., a gNB) and the target 1080 (e.g., a vehicle), the network device 1015 (e.g., a gNB) operating as a radar Tx may transmit an RF sensing signal 1060a toward the RIS 1035. The RF sensing signal 1060a may be included in a communication signal and a sensing signal that are multiplexed together (e.g., via time division multiplexing and / or frequency division multiplexing) for joint communication and sensing purposes. The sensing signal 1060a may be reflected from the RIS 1035 to produce a reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1060b). Elements of the RIS 1035 may cause the reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1060b) to be radiated in a direction toward the target 1080.

[0179] The sensing signal 1060b may be reflected from the target 1080 to generate an RF reflected sensing signal 1070a, which may be reflected back toward the RIS 1035. The sensing signal 1070a may be reflected from the RIS 1035 to generate a reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1070b). Elements of the RIS 1035 may cause the reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1070b) to be radiated in a direction toward the network device 1015 (e.g., gNB).

[0180] The network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) operating as a radar Rx may receive the reflection sensing signal 1070b. After the network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) receives the reflection sensing signal 1070b, the network device 1015 (e.g., gNB) may obtain a measurement (e.g., Doppler measurement, RTT measurement, TOA measurement, and / or TDOA measurement) of the reflection sensing signal 1070b.

[0181] At least one processor (e.g., Fig.18The processor 1810 can then determine or calculate characteristics (e.g., speed, position, distance, movement, heading, size, etc.) of the target 1080 by using sensing measurements (e.g., Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) from the received reflected sensing signal 1070b.

[0182] Fig.11A is a diagram illustrating an example of a RIS 1100 that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. As previously mentioned, the RIS can shape the wireless environment into a desired form at a low cost. In practice, the RIS has three types of specific implementations, including reflection (e.g., where a signal can be reflected by the RIS), transmission (e.g., where a signal can penetrate the RIS), and hybrid (e.g., where the RIS can have dual functions of reflection and transmission).

[0183] A RIS (e.g., RIS 1100) is a programmable array structure that can be used to control the propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves (e.g., steer an RF beam) by changing the electrical and magnetic properties of the surface of the RIS (e.g., RIS 1100). Fig.11A In the RIS 1100, an array of metamaterial RIS elements 1110 is composed of an ultra-thin surface with multiple wavelength scatterers embedded therein. The electromagnetic properties of the RIS elements 1110 can be dynamically controlled by applying control signals to tunable elements (e.g., Pin diodes, varactor diodes, and / or other tunable elements) on the RIS elements 1110, which can enable active and intelligent modulation of electromagnetic waves in a programmable manner to form an electromagnetic field with controllable amplitude, phase, polarization, and / or frequency. For example, the electromagnetic response of the RIS elements 1110 (e.g., steering the phase shift of an RF beam) can be controlled by a programmable Pin diode.

[0184] RIS 1100 can passively operate as a relay device by reflecting a signal (e.g., signal 1120a). A signal (e.g., signal 1120a) can be sent from a network device (e.g., a gNB or a UE) toward RIS 1100 at a certain angle of incidence. A signal (eg, signal 1120a) may be reflected from RIS 1110 to generate a reflected signal (eg, signal 1120b), which may be reflected at a certain reflection angle. The RIS element 1110 may cause a reflected signal (eg, signal 1120 b ) to be radiated in a specific direction (eg, in a direction toward a target object).

[0185] for Fig.11A, it can be assumed that both the network device (e.g., gNB) and the target object are located in the far field of the surface of RIS 1100. When a signal (e.g., signal 1120a) is incident at an angle When transmitting toward RIS 1100, the nth element of RIS 1100 is at an incident angle and reflection angle The equivalent channel response value is:

[0186] ,

[0187] in is the reflection coefficient of the element, It is The distance from the first element to the first element, and is the wavelength.

[0188] The entire RIS element 1110 is at an incident angle and reflection angle The overall equivalent channel response value under is:

[0189]

[0190] Theoretically, if the reflection coefficient satisfies:

[0191] , ,

[0192] The reflected beam can then be pointed in the direction

[0193] In practice, the coefficient amplitudes and phase values ​​for each parent element (eg, RIS element 1110) can come from only a limited set of values ​​for different configurations. Therefore, the actual beam shape may have a certain deviation from the ideal beam shape. The greater the number of RIS elements 1110, the closer the actual beam shape will be to the ideal beam shape, and the more accurate the beam direction will be.

[0194] Fig. 11B This is an example for Fig.11A Table 1105 of example phase shifts 1140 and amplitude responses 1150 for different configurations 1130 of the RIS 1100. Specifically, Fig. 11B , the corresponding phase shift 1140 and amplitude response 1150 (e.g., amplitude or channel response) for each of four different example configurations 1130 (e.g., configurations 1, 2, 3, and 4) of the RIS 1100 are shown in Table 1105. In some aspects, the channel response having the closest determination (or in some cases, ) of the configuration whose amplitude response is determined for the RIS 1100.

[0195] As previously mentioned, RIS has traditionally been used for communications, however RIS may also be employed to assist in sensing (e.g., of an ISAC system). RIS-assisted sensing may require the RIS location to be determined with higher accuracy than that used for RIS-assisted communications. Traditional sensing (e.g., without the use of RIS) may present many challenges, which may include: limited coverage distance due to return transmissions, coverage holes when there is no LOS link between a network device (e.g., a gNB or UE) and a target, and / or an insufficient number of positioning reference points because one network device (e.g., a gNB or UE) can only provide one reference point. RIS-based sensing (e.g., using RIS for sensing) may provide many benefits, which may include: extending coverage distance by using RIS beamforming, eliminating coverage holes by operating the RIS as a relay device, and / or using the location of the RIS as an additional reference point.

[0196] The RIS may be used to sense one or more target objects (e.g., UEs or vehicles) to determine characteristics of the target objects. During sensing, the RIS may operate as a relay that reflects a sensing signal (e.g., initially radiated from a base station such as a gNB) to produce a reflected beam directed toward the target objects (e.g., UEs or vehicles) for sensing of these target objects. Each of the reflected beams may include a main lobe (e.g., which is directed toward the target object) and a plurality of side lobes. The side lobes may be directed in a direction different from the direction of the main lobe (e.g., a boresight). Since the side lobes of the reflected beam are radiated in various different directions, one or more of the side lobes may interfere with the sensing, which may degrade the sensing performance. When the target object (e.g., UE or vehicle) is at an unknown position (positioning), the RIS may perform beam scanning of the reflected beam to locate the target object. During the beam scanning performed by the RIS, the side lobes of the reflected beam may interfere with the sensing.

[0197] These systems and techniques provide solutions for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. When interference in sensing is mitigated, the sensing signal SINR can be improved, and thus the sensing performance can be improved. In one or more aspects, these solutions can cause a base station (e.g., gNB) of the system to configure the RIS to reduce the sidelobe strength (e.g., suppress the sidelobe) of a reflected beam in a certain direction (e.g., of a non-target object or a sensing signal receiver) to mitigate interference in sensing. FIG. 12 shows an example of a system for RIS-based sensing, in which the RIS is configured to reduce the strength of the sidelobe of a reflected beam pointing in the direction of a non-target object and a sensing signal receiver to mitigate interference in sensing.

[0198] Fig. 12A 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system 1200 for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation, where a non-target object 1250 is generating interference to the system 1200. Fig. 12A , system 1200 is shown to include a network device 1210 in the form of a base station (e.g., a gNB or a portion of a gNB, such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc.). The network device 1210 (e.g., a gNB) can operate as a radar Tx for sensing purposes (e.g., for bistatic sensing), also referred to as a sensing transmitter device. The system 1200 may also include a network device 1220 in the form of a UE (e.g., a mobile phone (e.g., a smart phone)). The network device 1220 (e.g., a UE) can operate as a radar Rx for sensing purposes (e.g., for bistatic sensing). The system 1200 additionally includes a RIS 1230.

[0199] System 1200 may include, for example Fig. 12A In addition, the system 1200 may include more or fewer network devices as shown. Fig. 12A Different types of network devices (e.g., vehicles) are shown. In one or more examples, network devices 1210, 1220 may be equipped with heterogeneous capabilities, which may include, but are not limited to, 4G / 5G cellular connectivity, GPS capabilities, camera capabilities, radar capabilities, and / or LIDAR capabilities. Network devices 1210, 1220 may be capable of performing wireless communications with other network devices via communication signals.

[0200] In one or more examples, the network devices 1210, 1220 may be capable of sending and receiving some type of sensing signal (e.g., camera, RF sensing signal, optical sensing signal, etc.). In some cases, the network devices 1210, 1220 may send and receive sensing signals (e.g., RF sensing signals 1215, 1235) for detecting target objects 1240 using one or more sensors. In some cases, the network devices 1210, 1220 may detect target objects 1240 by using one or more images or frames captured using one or more cameras.

[0201] The network devices 1210, 1220 may respectively operate as a radar Tx and a radar Rx to perform RF sensing (e.g., bistatic sensing) of the target object 1240, thereby obtaining RF sensing measurements (e.g., Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) of the target object 1240. The RF sensing measurements of the target object 1240 may be used (e.g., by at least one processor of the network devices 1210, 1220) to determine one or more characteristics (e.g., location) of the target object 1240.

[0202] RIS 1230 may passively operate as a repeater by reflecting a signal radiated from network device 1210 (e.g., sensing signal 1215) to produce a reflected signal (e.g., a reflected sensing beam including main lobe 1260) that propagates in a direction (e.g., direction 1225) toward target object 1240. The reflected signal may be reflected from target object 1240 to produce an additional reflected signal (e.g., signal 1235) that may be received by network device 1220 (e.g., sensing signal receiver).

[0203] For example, during operation of system 1200, such as when performing bistatic sensing of a target object (e.g., target object 1240), a network device (e.g., network device 1210) operating as a radar Tx may transmit an RF sensing signal (e.g., signal 1215) toward RIS 1230. RF sensing signal 1215 may be included within communication signals and sensing signals that are multiplexed together (e.g., via time division multiplexing and / or frequency division multiplexing) for joint communication and sensing purposes.

[0204] The sensing signal 1215 may be reflected from the RIS 1230 to generate a reflected sensing signal. The reflected sensing signal may include a reflected sensing beam having a main lobe 1260 and side lobes 1270a, 1270b. Elements of the RIS 1230 may cause the main lobe 1260 of the reflected sensing beam to scan in multiple directions (e.g., including a direction 1225 toward the target object 1240) to locate the target object 1240. After the reflected sensing signal reaches the target object 1240, the reflected sensing signal may be reflected from the target object 1240 to generate another reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1235).

[0205] A network device (e.g., network device 1220) operating as a radar Rx (e.g., a sensing signal receiver) may receive the reflection sensing signal 1235. After the network device (e.g., network device 1220) receives the reflection sensing signal 1235, the network device (e.g., network device 1220) may obtain a measurement (e.g., a Doppler measurement, an RTT measurement, a TOA measurement, and / or a TDOA measurement) of the reflection sensing signal 1235. At least one processor (e.g., Fig.18 The processor 1810 may then determine or calculate a characteristic (eg, position) of the target object 1240 by using sensing measurements (eg, Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) from the received reflected sensing signal 1235 .

[0206] In some cases, the side lobes 1270a and 1270b of the reflected sensing beam generated by the RIS 1230 may be directed in directions 1245a, 1245b to interfere with sensing. For example, the side lobe 1270a may be an interference signal because it may radiate in direction 1245a toward the network device 1220 that may operate as a radar receiver (e.g., a sensing signal receiver, also referred to as a sensing receiver device). In another example, the side lobe 1270b may radiate in direction 1245b toward the non-target object 1250. The side lobe 1270b may reflect from the non-target object 1250 to generate an interference signal 1255 that may be received by the network device 1220. The interference signals of the side lobe 1270a and / or the side lobe 1270b may each have a signal strength large enough to interfere with the sensing of the reflected sensing signal 1235 received by the network device 1220 (e.g., a sensing signal receiver).

[0207] For a scenario in which a sidelobe (e.g., sidelobe 1270a or sidelobe 1270b) of a reflected beam generated from a RIS (e.g., RIS 1230) causes interference in sensing, a network device (e.g., network device 1210, such as a gNB) may request (e.g., configure) RIS 1230 to reduce the signal strength of the sidelobe (e.g., sidelobe 1270a or sidelobe 1270b) in a specific direction of a non-target object (e.g., non-target object 1240) or a sensing signal receiver (e.g., network device 1220).

[0208] An example of one of these scenarios is when a non-target object (e.g., non-target object 1250) is known to be located in a direction (e.g., direction 1245b) of a side lobe (e.g., side lobe 1270b). In this scenario, a reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1255) from the non-target object to a sensing signal receiver (e.g., network device 1220) may interfere with a sensing signal (e.g., signal 1235) reflected from a target object (e.g., target object 1240) to the sensing signal receiver. Even if the signal strength of the side lobe (e.g., side lobe 1270b) is weaker than the signal strength of the main lobe (e.g., main lobe 1260), such interference is not negligible if the radar cross section (RCS) of the target object is smaller than the RCS of the non-target object.

[0209] Another example of one of these scenarios is when the sensing signal receiver (e.g., network device 1220) is located in the direction (e.g., direction 1245a) of the side lobe (e.g., 1270a). For this scenario, the signal propagating directly from RIS 1230 to the sensing signal receiver (e.g., network device 1220) may increase the automatic gain control (AGC) level in the sensing signal receiver and thus reduce the number of effective bits in sampling the received sensing signal (e.g., signal 1235) reflected by the target object (e.g., target object 1240).

[0210] Fig. 12B is exemplified by Fig. 12A Graph 1205 of an example of an antenna radiation pattern generated by the RIS of a system. Fig. 12B , the angle (eg, in degrees) is represented by the x-axis, and the reflection beamforming gain (eg, in decibels) is represented by the y-axis. Fig. 12B The antenna radiation pattern is shown to include a main lobe 1211 flanked by a plurality of side lobes (e.g., including side lobes 1221a, 1221b). The peak of main lobe 1211 is shown to be located at zero (0) degrees, the peak of side lobe 1221a is shown to be located at negative twenty (-20) degrees, and the peak of side lobe 1221b is shown to be located at positive twenty (+20) degrees.

[0211] As previously mentioned, in some scenarios, during sensing using RIS, a device (e.g., an interfering node) may radiate a signal (e.g., an interfering signal) toward the RIS. The RIS may reflect the signal to generate a reflected signal, which may be directed toward a target object or a sensing signal receiver. When the reflected signal is directed toward the target object or the sensing signal receiver, the reflected signal may interfere with the sensing. In one or more aspects, the system and technology provide a solution that may enable a base station (e.g., a gNB) of the system to configure the RIS to reduce the signal strength of the reflected signal, which may be generated from a certain interfering direction (e.g., from an interfering node) in a target sensing direction or in a sensing signal receiver direction to mitigate interference in sensing.

[0212] Fig.13 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system 1300 for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation, where an interfering node 1350 is generating interference to the system 1300. Fig.13In the embodiment of the present invention, system 1300 may include a network device 1310 in the form of a base station (e.g., a gNB or a part of a gNB, such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc.). Network device 1310 (e.g., a gNB) may operate as a radar Tx for sensing purposes (e.g., for bistatic sensing). System 1300 may also include a network device 1320 in the form of a UE (e.g., a mobile phone (e.g., a smart phone)). Network device 1320 (e.g., a UE) may operate as a radar Rx for sensing purposes (e.g., for bistatic sensing). System 1300 also includes a RIS 1330.

[0213] System 1300 may include, for example Fig.13 In addition, the system 1300 may include more or fewer network devices as shown. Fig.13 Different types of network devices (e.g., vehicles) are shown. In one or more examples, network devices 1310, 1320 may be equipped with heterogeneous capabilities, which may include, but are not limited to, 4G / 5G cellular connectivity, GPS capabilities, camera capabilities, radar capabilities, and / or LIDAR capabilities. Network devices 1310, 1320 may be capable of performing wireless communications with other network devices via communication signals.

[0214] In one or more examples, network devices 1310, 1320 may be capable of sending and receiving some type of sensing signal (e.g., camera, RF sensing signal, optical sensing signal, etc.). In some examples, network devices 1310, 1320 may send and receive sensing signals (e.g., RF sensing signals 1315, 1335) for detecting target object 1340 using one or more sensors. In some examples, network devices 1310, 1320 may detect target object 1340 by using one or more images or frames captured using one or more cameras.

[0215] The network devices 1310, 1320 may respectively operate as a radar Tx and a radar Rx to perform RF sensing (e.g., bistatic sensing) of the target object 1340, thereby obtaining RF sensing measurements (e.g., Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) of the target object 1340. The RF sensing measurements of the target object 1340 may be used (e.g., by at least one processor of the network devices 1310, 1320) to determine one or more characteristics (e.g., location) of the target object 1340.

[0216] RIS 1330 may passively operate as a repeater by reflecting a signal radiated from network device 1310 (e.g., sensing signal 1315) to produce a reflected signal (e.g., signal 1325) that propagates in a direction toward target object 1340. The reflected signal (e.g., signal 1325) may reflect from target object 1340 to produce another reflected signal (e.g., signal 1335) that may be received by network device 1320 (e.g., sensing signal receiver).

[0217] For example, during operation of system 1300, such as when performing bistatic sensing of a target object (e.g., target object 1340), a network device (e.g., network device 1310) operating as a radar Tx may transmit an RF sensing signal (e.g., signal 1315) toward RIS 1330. RF sensing signal 1315 may be included within communication signals and sensing signals that are multiplexed together (e.g., via time division multiplexing and / or frequency division multiplexing) for joint communication and sensing purposes.

[0218] The sensing signal 1315 may be reflected from the RIS 1330 to generate a reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1325). Elements of the RIS 1330 may cause the reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1325) to be radiated in a direction toward the target 1340. After the reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1325) reaches the target object 1340, the reflected sensing signal may be reflected from the target object 1340 to generate another reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1335).

[0219] Then, the network device (e.g., network device 1320) operating as a radar Rx (e.g., a sensing signal receiver) may receive the reflection sensing signal 1335. After the network device (e.g., network device 1320) receives the reflection sensing signal 1335, the network device (e.g., network device 1320) may obtain a measurement (e.g., a Doppler measurement, an RTT measurement, a TOA measurement, and / or a TDOA measurement) of the reflection sensing signal 1335. At least one processor (e.g., Fig.18 The processor 1810 may then determine or calculate a characteristic (eg, position) of the target object 1340 by using sensing measurements (eg, Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) from the received reflected sensing signal 1335 .

[0220] In some cases, an interfering node (e.g., interfering node 1350), which may be in the form of a roadside unit (RSU), may generate a signal (e.g., interfering signal 1345) that may propagate toward RIS 1330 and may interfere with sensing. In one example, the signal (e.g., interfering signal 1345) may be reflected by RIS 1330 to generate a reflected signal (e.g., reflected signal 1365) that may radiate in a direction toward network device 1320, which may operate as a radar receiver (e.g., a sensing signal receiver). In another example, the signal (e.g., interfering signal 1345) may be reflected by RIS 1330 to generate a reflected signal (e.g., reflected signal 1355) that may radiate in a direction toward target object 1340. The reflected signal (e.g., reflected signal 1355) may be reflected from target object 1340, which may interfere with the reflected sensing signal (e.g., signal 1325). The signals (eg, interference signals 1355 , 1365 ) may each have a signal strength large enough to interfere with the sensing of the reflected sensing signal 1335 received by the network device 1320 (eg, a sensing signal receiver).

[0221] For some scenarios where a signal (e.g., interference signals 1355, 1365) generated by reflecting a signal (e.g., signal 1345) from an interfering node (e.g., interfering node 1350) by a RIS (e.g., RIS 1330) causes interference in sensing, a network device (e.g., network device 1310, such as a gNB) may require (e.g., configure) RIS 1330 to reduce the signal strength of the reflected signal (e.g., interference signals 1355, 1365) generated from a certain interfering direction (e.g., from interfering node 1350) to a target sensing direction (e.g., toward target object 1340) or to a sensing signal receiver direction (e.g., toward network device 1320).

[0222] An example of one of these scenarios is that a RIS (e.g., RIS 1330) reflects a sensing signal (e.g., signal 1315) to a certain sensing direction (e.g., toward target object 1340), and a main lobe or side lobe of a signal (e.g., interference signal 1345) from an interfering node (e.g., interfering node 1350) (which may have a known direction relative to the RIS) may reach the RIS and be reflected to the same direction as the sensing (e.g., toward target object 1340), and thus may cause interference to the received sensing signal (e.g., signal 1325). In one or more examples, the interfering node (e.g., interfering node 1350) may be a neighboring cell base station (e.g., gNB) or a UE without any coordination with a network device (e.g., network device 1310, such as a gNB).

[0223] Another example of one of these scenarios is that a signal (e.g., interfering signal 1345) from an interfering node (e.g., interfering node 1350) may reach a RIS (e.g., RIS 1330) and be reflected in the direction of a sensing signal receiver (e.g., toward network device 1320), and thus may cause interference to the received sensing signal (e.g., signal 1325).

[0224] In one or more aspects, in RIS-based sensing of an ISAC system, when a network device (e.g., a gNB) configures the RIS to transmit a sensing signal from an incident angle θ to a 入射 Reflected to a set of target sensing directions θ 反射 When the network device (e.g., gNB) indicates one or more restricted direction angles and the associated restriction type (e.g., "reflection limited" type or "incidence limited" type) to the RIS, the network device (e.g., gNB) may indicate one or more restricted direction angles and the associated restriction type (e.g., "reflection limited" type or "incidence limited" type) to the RIS. For example, for a direction or angle to which the sensing signal should not be reflected (e.g., referred to as a "reflection limited" direction, which may be represented as θ rr ), from θ 入射 to θ rr The reflected beamforming gain (e.g., the gain of the peak of the side lobe) should be below a threshold (e.g., a predefined threshold, such as 3 dB below the gain of the peak of the main lobe). For example, the threshold may indicate that the gain of the peak of the side lobe should be 3 dB below the gain of the peak of the main lobe.

[0225] For another example, for a direction or angle from which the interfering signal should not be reflected (eg, referred to as an “incidence-limited” direction), it may be represented as θ ir ), from θ ir to θ 反射 The reflected beamforming gain (e.g., the gain at the peak of the side lobe) should be below a threshold (e.g., a predefined threshold, such as 5 dB below the gain at the peak of the main lobe). For example, the threshold may indicate that the gain at the peak of the side lobe should be 5 dB below the gain at the peak of the main lobe. In one or more examples, θ 反射 This can be the current target sensing direction, the receiver direction, or any other protected direction.

[0226] In some aspects, during the RIS scanning of the reflection beam, the RIS may generate reflection coefficients for its metadata elements based on instructions (e.g., from a network device such as a gNB) to achieve a desired reflection limited effect or an incidence limited effect. In one or more examples, for each of the configured target sensing directions in a set of target sensing directions, the RIS may generate reflection coefficients for its metadata elements based on θ rr or θ ir , based on the radiation pattern to determine whether there is interference. If the RIS determines that there is interference, the RIS may rr or θ ir Generate reflection limit coefficient wrr Or the incidence restriction factor w ir Otherwise, RIS can be obtained by simply ignoring θ rr or θ ir By mitigating interference, the sensing signal SINR can be increased, and thus the sensing performance can be improved.

[0227] Fig.14 is a diagram illustrating example signaling 1400 that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. Fig.14 , a gNB 1410 (e.g., which can operate as a sensing Tx for sensing a target object 1430), a RIS 1420 (e.g., which can operate as a repeater for sensing a signal), a target object 1430, and a UE 1440 (e.g., which can operate as a sensing Rx for sensing) are shown.

[0228] During operation of the system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation for the first procedure, at step 1450, gNB 1410 may determine the incident direction θ 入射 , a set of target direction angles θ 反射 (For example, it may also be referred to as θ 目标 ), a set of limiting direction angles (θ rr or θ ir ) and their corresponding associated restriction types. In one or more examples, each restriction direction can be associated with a reflection restriction direction or an incident restriction direction.

[0229] gNB 1410 may then transmit a message (e.g., signal 1460) to RIS 1420 to indicate the determined direction angle. gNB 1410 may also transmit a message (e.g., signals 1465, 1470) to RIS 1420 and to UE 1440 regarding configuring a set of radio resources for sensing signals, each of which may be associated with a target direction angle θ. 目标 The message (eg, signal 1465, 1470) may be transmitted via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control (MAC) control element (CE), downlink control information (DCI), or a combination thereof.

[0230] The indication of limiting the direction angle may be implemented in an explicit manner or an implicit manner. For the explicit manner of limiting the indication of the direction angle, the gNB 1410 knows the location (positioning) of the RIS 1420, the UE 1440 (or the interfering node), and / or the non-target object. The gNB 1410 may then indicate to the RIS 1420 θ rr or θ ir The value of .

[0231] For an implicit approach that limits the indication of the direction angle, the gNB may previously indicate to the UE 1440 (or the interfering node) that a preconfigured reference signal is transmitted toward the RIS 1420. After the RIS 1420 reflects the reference signal to the gNB 1410 using the appropriate incident beam and reflected beam, the gNB 1410 may identify the reference signal. During operation for sensing, the gNB 1410 may indicate to the RIS 1420, such as through quasi co-location (QCL), that the UE 1440 direction (or the interfering node direction) is associated with the reference signal. The RIS may know θ based on the stored beam information about the reference signal. rr or θ ir The value of .

[0232] Furthermore, during operation of the system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation for the first procedure, after RIS 1420 has received the message (e.g., signals 1460, 1465), RIS 1420 may generate a reflection coefficient based on the received angle at step 1475. After RIS 1420 has generated the reflection coefficient based on the received angle, gNB 1410 may transmit (send) a sensing signal (e.g., sensing signal 1480) toward RIS 1420 (e.g., for monostatic sensing or bistatic sensing of target object 1430).

[0233] The sensing signal (e.g., sensing signal 1480) may be reflected from the RIS 1420 (e.g., based on a reflection coefficient) to generate a reflected sensing signal (e.g., reflected sensing signal 1485), which may propagate in a direction toward the target object 1430. In one or more examples, for bistatic sensing, the reflected sensing signal (e.g., reflected sensing signal 1485) may then be reflected from the target object 1430 to generate another reflected sensing signal (e.g., reflected sensing signal 1490), which may propagate in a direction toward the UE 1440. The UE 1440 may then receive the reflected sensing signal (e.g., reflected sensing signal 1490) and determine a characteristic of the target object 1430 using the reflected sensing signal (e.g., reflected sensing signal 1490).

[0234] In some examples, for single-station sensing, the reflection sensing signal (e.g., reflection sensing signal 1485) may be reflected from the target object 1430 to generate another reflection sensing signal (e.g., reflection sensing signal 1495), which may propagate in a direction toward the gNB 1410. The gNB 1410 may then receive the reflection sensing signal (e.g., reflection sensing signal 1495) and determine a characteristic of the target object 1430 using the reflection sensing signal (e.g., reflection sensing signal 1495).

[0235] During operation of the system for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation for the second procedure, for each radio resource, gNB 1410 may send a sensing signal (e.g., signal 1460) to RIS 1420. After RIS 1420 receives the sensing signal, RIS 1420 may determine the optimal radio resource for the RIS based on θ 入射 ,θ 目标 ,θ rr or θ ir and the associated restriction type to determine whether interference exists. RIS 1420 may pre-compute a mapping table to show for each angle triple {θ 入射 ,θ 目标 ,θ rr or θ ir}Whether interference actually exists.

[0236] If RIS 1420 determines that interference exists, then at step 1475 RIS 1420 may determine that interference exists based on θ 入射 ,θ 目标 ,θ rr or θ ir and the associated restriction type to generate reflection coefficients for all its metadata elements. However, if RIS 1420 determines that there is no interference, then at step 1475 RIS 1420 may generate reflection coefficients for all its metadata elements based on θ 入射 and θ 目标 To generate reflection coefficients for all metadata elements thereof. After the RIS 1420 has generated the reflection coefficients, the RIS 1420 may reflect the sensing signal based on the generated reflection coefficients.

[0237] In one or more aspects, an example algorithm for generating reflection limiting coefficients and incidence limiting coefficients is as follows.

[0238] An example algorithm for calculating the unrestricted coefficients includes a formula for calculating the unrestricted coefficient vector, which is:

[0239]

[0240] An example algorithm for calculating the constraint limiting coefficients includes formulas for calculating the constraint steering vector, the orthogonal projection matrix, and the reflection constraint coefficient weights.

[0241] The limiting steering vector is:

[0242]

[0243] The orthographic projection matrix is:

[0244] :

[0245] The reflection limit coefficient weight is:

[0246]

[0247] An example algorithm for calculating the incidence limitation coefficients includes formulas for calculating the limitation steering vectors, the orthogonal projection matrix, and the incidence limitation coefficient weights.

[0248] The limiting steering vector is:

[0249]

[0250] The orthographic projection matrix is:

[0251] :

[0252] The incidence restriction coefficient weight is:

[0253]

[0254] In one or more examples, the system can employ various different algorithms other than these example algorithms to generate reflection limiting coefficients and incidence limiting coefficients.

[0255] Fig.15 1 is a diagram illustrating a reflection limiting direction 1580 for a system 1500 for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. Fig.15 15, system 1500 is shown to include a network device 1510 in the form of a base station (e.g., a gNB or a portion of a gNB such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc.). Network device 1510 (e.g., gNB) can operate as a radar Tx for sensing purposes (e.g., for dual-station sensing). System 1500 can also include RIS 1530.

[0256] System 1500 may include, for example Fig.15 More or fewer network devices as shown. In addition, system 1500 may include Fig.15 Different types of network devices (e.g., UEs and vehicles) are shown. In one or more examples, network device 1510 may be equipped with heterogeneous capabilities, which may include, but are not limited to, 4G / 5G cellular connectivity, GPS capabilities, camera capabilities, radar capabilities, and / or LIDAR capabilities. Network device 1510 may be capable of performing wireless communications with other network devices via communication signals.

[0257] In one or more examples, the network device 1510 may be capable of sending some type of sensing signal (e.g., a camera, an RF sensing signal, an optical sensing signal, etc.). In some cases, the network device 1510 may send a sensing signal (e.g., an RF sensing signal 1560) for detecting the target object 1540. The network device 1510 may operate as a radar Tx to perform RF sensing (e.g., bistatic sensing) of the target object 1540, thereby obtaining RF sensing measurements (e.g., Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) of the target object 1540. The network device 1510 may use the RF sensing measurements to determine one or more characteristics (e.g., location) of the target object 1540.

[0258] The RIS 1530 may passively operate as a repeater by reflecting a signal (e.g., a sensing signal 1560) radiated from the network device 1510 (e.g., in an incident direction) to generate a reflected signal (e.g., a reflected sensing beam including a main lobe) propagating in a direction (e.g., direction 1570) toward the target object 1540. The reflected sensing beam may also include a side lobe radiated in a direction (e.g., a reflection-limited direction 1580) toward the non-target object 1550. The side lobe radiated in a direction (e.g., a reflection-limited direction 1580) toward the non-target object 1540 may interfere with the sensing of the target object 1550.

[0259] Fig.16 1 is a diagram illustrating an incident limiting direction 1680 for a system 1600 for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. Fig.16 In the embodiment of the present invention, system 1600 may include a network device 1610 in the form of a base station (e.g., a gNB or a portion of a gNB such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc.). Network device 1610 (e.g., a gNB) may operate as a radar Tx for sensing purposes (e.g., for dual-station sensing). System 1600 may also include RIS 1630 and an interfering node 1650 (e.g., an RSU). Interfering node 1650 may be capable of transmitting RF signals.

[0260] System 1600 may include, for example Fig.16 In addition, the system 1600 may include more or fewer network devices as shown. Fig.16 Different types of network devices (e.g., UE or vehicle) are shown. In some examples, network device 1610 may be equipped with heterogeneous capabilities, which may include but are not limited to 4G / 5G cellular connectivity, GPS capabilities, camera capabilities, radar capabilities, and / or LIDAR capabilities. Network device 1610 may be capable of performing wireless communications with other network devices in system 1600 via communication signals.

[0261] In some examples, network device 1610 may be capable of sending some type of sensing signal (e.g., camera, RF sensing signal, optical sensing signal, etc.). In some cases, network device 1610 may send a sensing signal (e.g., RF sensing signal 1660) for detecting target object 1640. Network device 1610 may operate as a radar Tx to perform RF sensing (e.g., bistatic sensing) of target object 1640, thereby obtaining RF sensing measurements (e.g., Doppler measurements, RTT measurements, TOA measurements, and / or TDOA measurements) of target object 1640. Network device 1610 may use the RF sensing measurements to determine one or more characteristics (e.g., location) of target object 1640.

[0262] In one or more examples, RIS 1630 can passively operate as a repeater by reflecting a signal (e.g., sensed signal 1660 ) ​​radiated from network device 1610 (e.g., in an incident direction) to produce a reflected signal (e.g., signal 1670 ) that propagates in a direction toward target object 1640 .

[0263] In some examples, interfering node 1650 may transmit signal 1680 radiated in a direction (e.g., an incidence-limited direction) toward RIS 1630. RIS 1630 may reflect signal 1680 to generate a reflected signal 1690 propagating in a direction toward target object 1640. Reflected signal 1690 radiated in a direction toward target object 1640 may interfere with the sensing of target object 1640.

[0264] Fig.17A 1 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process 1700 for wireless communication using a method for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. The process 1700 may be performed by a RIS or by a component or system (e.g., a chipset) of a RIS. The operations of the process 1700 may be implemented as a processor on one or more processors (e.g., Fig.18 The RIS may be a software component executed and run on the processor 1810 or other processor of the RIS. In addition, the RIS may be enabled to send and receive signals in the process 1700, for example, through one or more antennas and / or one or more transceivers (eg, wireless transceivers).

[0265] At block 1710, the RIS (or a component thereof) may receive a configuration message including an indication to reduce the gain of at least a portion of the reflected beam. In some aspects, the configuration message may include one or more restricted directional angles indicating the direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is limited or the direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is limited. Additionally or alternatively, in some cases, the configuration message may include one or more restriction types. In one example, as described herein, one or more restriction types may include a reflection restricted type indicating the direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is limited. In another example, as further described herein, one or more restriction types may additionally or alternatively include an incidence restricted type indicating the direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is limited. In some examples, the configuration message may additionally or alternatively include a threshold gain value for the gain of at least a portion of the reflected beam.

[0266] In some aspects, at least a portion of the reflected beam includes one or more side lobes (e.g., Fig. 12A side lobes 1270a or 1270b, Fig. 12B In some cases, at least one of the one or more side lobes may radiate toward a sensing receiver device (e.g., such as side lobes 1221a and 1221b in FIG. 1 ). Fig. 12A The sensing receiver device may be a UE, such as a vehicle, a mobile device, or other device. In some cases, at least one of the one or more side lobes may radiate toward a non-target object (e.g., Fig. 12A 1270b in the image).

[0267] At block 1720, the RIS (or a component thereof) may generate reflection coefficients for metadata elements of the RIS based on the configuration message.

[0268] At block 1730, the RIS (or a component thereof) may configure a metadata element based on the reflection coefficient. In some cases, the RIS (or a component thereof) may receive a sensing signal (e.g., received from a sensing transmitter device, such as a base station, such as a gNB, or a portion of a base station, such as a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, non-RT RIC, etc. of a base station), and may generate or produce (e.g., using a metadata element of the RIS) a reflection beam based on reflections of the sensing signal. For example, the metadata element may generate or produce the reflection beam by reflecting the sensing signal according to the configured reflection coefficient.

[0269] The reflected beam may be a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam. In one example, the RIS (or a component thereof) may generate (using metadata elements) a sensing reflected beam by reflecting a sensing signal received from a sensing transmitter device. For example, the sensing reflected beam may radiate toward a target object. In another example, the RIS (or a component thereof) may generate (using metadata elements) an interference reflected beam by reflecting an interference signal from an interference node. For example, the interference reflected beam may radiate toward a target object and / or a sensing receiver device (e.g., a UE, such as a vehicle, a mobile device, etc.).

[0270] Fig. 17B is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process 1750 for wireless communication utilizing a method for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. The process 1750 may be performed by a network device or by a component or system (e.g., a chipset) of a network device. The network device may be, may be a part of, and / or may include a base station (e.g., a gNB, eNB, or other base station), a part of a base station (e.g., a CU, DU, RU, near-RT RIC, or non-RT RIC of a base station), or other type of network device. The operations of the process 1750 may be implemented as a processor (e.g., Fig.18 The software components executed and run on the processor 1810 or other processors of the processor 1810 of the processor 1810 or other processors of the processor 1810. In addition, the network device can be enabled to send and receive signals in the process 1750, for example, through one or more antennas and / or one or more transceivers (e.g., wireless transceivers).

[0271] At box 1760, the network device (or its component) may send a configuration message to the reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) including an indication to reduce the gain of at least a portion of the reflected beam. In some aspects, the configuration message may include one or more restricted directional angles, which indicate the direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is limited or the direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is limited. Additionally or alternatively, in some cases, the configuration message may include one or more restriction types. In one example, as described herein, one or more restriction types may include a reflection restricted type indicating the direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is limited. In another example, as further described herein, one or more restriction types may additionally or alternatively include an incidence restricted type indicating the direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is limited. In some examples, the configuration message may additionally or alternatively include a threshold gain value for the gain of at least a portion of the reflected beam.

[0272] In some aspects, as described herein, at least a portion of the reflected beam includes one or more side lobes (e.g., Fig. 12A side lobes 1270a or 1270b, Fig. 12BIn some cases, at least one of the one or more side lobes may radiate toward a sensing receiver device (e.g., such as side lobes 1221a and 1221b in FIG. 1 ). Fig. 12A The sensing receiver device may be a UE, such as a vehicle, a mobile device, or other device. In some cases, at least one of the one or more side lobes may radiate toward a non-target object (e.g., Fig. 12A 1270b in the image).

[0273] At block 1770, the network device (or a component thereof) may transmit a sensing signal (e.g., a sensing signal to which the configuration message is associated) for sensing a target object (e.g., for generating a sensing reflection beam or an interference reflection beam). As previously described, the RIS (or a component thereof) may generate or produce (using metadata elements of the RIS) a reflection beam by reflecting a sensing signal received from a sensing transmitter device.

[0274] The reflected beam may be a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam. In one example, the RIS (or a component thereof) may generate (using metadata elements) a sensing reflected beam by reflecting a sensing signal received from a sensing transmitter device. For example, the sensing reflected beam may radiate toward a target object. In another example, the RIS (or a component thereof) may generate (using metadata elements) an interference reflected beam by reflecting an interference signal from an interference node. For example, the interference reflected beam may radiate toward a target object and / or a sensing receiver device (e.g., a UE, such as a vehicle, a mobile device, etc.).

[0275] Fig.18 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computing system 1800 that may be employed by the disclosed systems and techniques for RIS-based sensing with interference mitigation. Specifically, Fig.18 An example of a computing system 1800 is illustrated, which may be any computing device, for example, constituting an internal computing system, a remote computing system, a camera, or any components thereof, wherein the components of the system communicate with each other using connection 1805. Connection 1805 may be a physical connection using a bus, or a direct connection into processor 1810, such as in a chipset architecture. Connection 1805 may also be a virtual connection, a networked connection, or a logical connection.

[0276] In some aspects, computing system 1800 is a distributed system, where the functionality described in the present disclosure can be distributed within a data center, multiple data centers, a peer-to-peer network, etc. In some aspects, one or more of the described system components represent a number of such components that each perform a portion or all of the functionality for which the component is described. In some aspects, each component can be a physical or virtual device.

[0277] The example system 1800 includes at least one processing unit (CPU or processor) 1810 and connections 1805 that communicatively couple various system components including system memory 1815, such as read only memory (ROM) 1820 and random access memory (RAM) 1825, to the processor 1810. The computing system 1800 may include a cache 1812 of high-speed memory directly connected to the processor 1810, in close proximity to the processor, or integrated as part of the processor.

[0278] Processor 1810 may include any general purpose processor and hardware or software services, such as services 1832, 1834, and 1836 stored in storage device 1830, that are configured to control processor 1810 as well as a dedicated processor where software instructions are incorporated into the actual processor design. Processor 1810 may essentially be a completely independent computing system containing multiple cores or processors, buses, memory controllers, caches, etc. Multi-core processors may be symmetric or asymmetric.

[0279] To enable user interaction, the computing system 1800 includes an input device 1845 that can represent any number of input mechanisms, such as a microphone for voice, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphical input, a keyboard, a mouse, motion input, voice, etc. The computing system 1800 may also include an output device 1835, which may be one or more of a plurality of output mechanisms. In some cases, a multimodal system may enable a user to provide multiple types of input / output to communicate with the computing system 1800.

[0280] The computing system 1800 may include a communication interface 1840, which may generally govern and manage user input and system output. The communication interface may perform or facilitate receiving and / or sending wired or wireless communications using wired and / or wireless transceivers, including utilizing an audio jack / plug, a microphone jack / plug, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port / plug, an AppleTM Lightning ™ Ports / plugs, Ethernet ports / plugs, Fiber optic ports / plugs, Dedicated wired ports / plugs, 3G, 4G, 5G and / or other cellular data network wireless signal delivery, Bluetooth ™ Wireless signal transmission, Bluetooth ™Low energy (BLE) wireless signal transmission, IBEACONTM wireless signal transmission, radio frequency identification (RFID) wireless signal transmission, near field communication (NFC) wireless signal transmission, dedicated short range communication (DSRC) wireless signal transmission, 802.11 Wi-Fi wireless signal transmission, wireless local area network (WLAN) signal transmission, visible light communication (VLC), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), infrared (IR) communication wireless signal transmission, public switched telephone network (PSTN) signal transmission, integrated services digital network (ISDN) signal transmission, ad hoc network signal transmission, radio wave signal transmission, microwave signal transmission, infrared signal transmission, visible light signal transmission, ultraviolet light signal transmission, wireless signal transmission along the electromagnetic spectrum, or some combination thereof.

[0281] The communication interface 1840 may also include one or more range finding sensors (e.g., LIDAR sensors, laser range finders, RF radars, ultrasonic sensors, and infrared (IR) sensors) configured to collect data and provide measurements to the processor 1810, whereby the processor 1810 may be configured to perform determinations and calculations required to obtain various measurements of the one or more range finding sensors. In some examples, the measurements may include flight time, wavelength, azimuth, elevation, distance, linear velocity, and / or angular velocity, or any combination thereof. The communication interface 1840 may also include one or more global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers or transceivers for determining the location of the computing system 1800 based on receiving one or more signals from one or more satellites associated with one or more GNSS systems. GNSS systems include, but are not limited to, the United States' GPS, Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), and Europe's Galileo GNSS. There is no restriction to operating on any particular hardware arrangement, and thus the underlying features herein may be easily substituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they are developed.

[0282] The storage device 1830 may be a non-volatile and / or non-transitory and / or computer-readable memory device and may be a hard disk or other type of computer-readable medium that can store data accessible by a computer, such as a magnetic cassette, a flash memory card, a solid-state memory device, a digital versatile disk, a cassette, a floppy disk, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a magnetic tape, a magnetic stripe / magnetic stripe, any other magnetic storage medium, flash memory, a memristor memory, any other solid-state memory, a compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM) optical disk, a rewritable compact disk (CD) optical disk, a digital video disk (DVD) optical disk, a Blu-ray disc (BDD) optical disk, a holographic optical disk, another optical medium, a secure digital (SD) card, a micro secure digital (microSD) card, a memory stick ® card, a smart card chip, an EMV chip, a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, a mini / micro / nano / pico SIM card, another integrated circuit (IC) chip / card, a random access memory (RAM), a static RAM (SRAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a flash EPROM (FLASHEPROM), a cache memory (e.g., a layer 1 (L1) cache, a layer 2 (L2) cache, a layer 3 (L3) cache, a layer 4 (L4) cache, a layer 5 (L5) cache, other (L#) cache), a resistive random access memory (RRAM / ReRAM), a phase change memory (PCM), a spin transfer torque RAM (STT-RAM), another memory chip or box, and / or a combination thereof.

[0283] Storage device 1830 may include software services, servers, services, etc., which, when the code defining such software is executed by processor 1810, causes the system to perform functions. In some aspects, hardware services that perform specific functions may include software components for performing functions stored in a computer-readable medium connected to necessary hardware components (such as processor 1810, connection 1805, output device 1835, etc.). The term "computer-readable medium" includes, but is not limited to, portable or non-portable storage devices, optical storage devices, and various other media capable of storing, containing or carrying instructions and / or data. Computer-readable media may include non-transitory media in which data may be stored and does not include carrier waves and / or transient electronic signals propagated wirelessly or over a wired connection. Examples of non-transitory media may include, but are not limited to, disks or tapes, optical storage media (such as compact disks (CDs) or digital versatile disks (DVDs)), flash memory, memory, or memory devices. Computer readable media may store thereon code and / or machine executable instructions, which may represent a procedure, function, subprogram, program, routine, subroutine, module, software package, category, or any combination of instructions, data structures, or program statements. A code segment may be coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passing and / or receiving information, data, independent variables, parameters, or memory contents. Information, independent variables, parameters, data, etc. may be passed, forwarded, or sent via any suitable means, including memory sharing, message passing, token passing, network sending, etc.

[0284] Specific details are provided in the above description to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects and examples provided herein, but those skilled in the art will recognize that the application is not limited thereto. Thus, although the exemplary aspects of the present application have been described in detail herein, it is to be understood that each inventive concept can be implemented and adopted in various other ways, and the appended claims are not intended to be interpreted as including these variations, unless limited by the prior art. The various features and aspects of the above-mentioned applications can be used individually or in combination. In addition, without departing from the broader scope of this specification, each aspect can be used in any number of environments and applications beyond the environment and application described herein. Therefore, the description and the accompanying drawings should be considered as illustrative rather than restrictive. For the purpose of illustration, each method is described in a specific order. It should be appreciated that, in alternative aspects, each method can be performed in a different order than described.

[0285] For clarity of explanation, in some instances, the present technology may be presented as including separate functional blocks, which include devices, device components, steps or routines in the method embodied in software or a combination of hardware and software. Additional components other than those components shown in the drawings and / or described herein may be used. For example, circuits, systems, networks, processes and other components may be shown as components in block diagram form to avoid confusing these aspects in unnecessary details. In other instances, well-known circuits, processes, algorithms, structures and techniques may be shown without unnecessary details to avoid confusing various aspects.

[0286] In addition, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the various exemplary logic blocks, modules, circuits and algorithmic steps described in conjunction with the various aspects disclosed herein can be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software or a combination of the two. In order to clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various exemplary components, frames, modules, circuits and steps have been generally described in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends on the specific application and the design constraints proposed to the entire system. Those skilled in the art can implement the described functionality in different ways for each specific application, but such specific implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present disclosure.

[0287] Various aspects may be described above as a process or method, which is depicted as a flow chart, a flow diagram, a data flow diagram, a structure diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flow chart may describe an operation as a sequential process, many operations in the operation may be performed in parallel or concurrently. In addition, the order of the operations may be rearranged. The process is terminated when the operation of the process is completed, but the process may have additional steps not included in the accompanying drawings. A process may correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. When a process corresponds to a function, the termination of the process may correspond to the function returning to the calling function or the main function.

[0288] The processes and methods according to the above examples can be implemented using stored computer executable instructions or otherwise obtained from computer readable media. Such instructions may include, for example, instructions and data that configure a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, or a processing device to perform a certain function or function group. Parts of the computer resources used can be accessed through a network. Computer executable instructions can be, for example, binary, intermediate format instructions such as assembly language, firmware, source code. Examples of computer readable media that can be used to store instructions, information used, and / or information created during the method according to the described examples include disks or optical disks, flash memories, USB devices with non-volatile memory, networked storage devices, etc.

[0289] In some aspects, computer readable storage devices, media, and memories may include wired or wireless signals containing bit streams, etc. However, when referred to, non-transitory computer readable storage media specifically excludes media such as power consumption, carrier signals, electromagnetic waves, and signals themselves.

[0290] Those skilled in the art will appreciate that information and signals may be represented using any of a variety of different techniques and methods. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be mentioned throughout the above description may be represented by voltage, current, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination thereof in some cases, depending in part on the specific application, in part on the desired design, in part on the corresponding technology, etc.

[0291] The various illustrative logic blocks, modules, and circuits described in conjunction with the various aspects disclosed herein may be implemented or executed using hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or any combination thereof, and may be implemented in any of a variety of form factors. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware, or microcode, program code or code segments (e.g., computer program products) for performing necessary tasks may be stored in a computer-readable or machine-readable medium. The processor may perform the necessary tasks. Examples of form factors include: laptops, smart phones, mobile phones, tablet devices, or other small form factor personal computers, personal digital assistants, rack-mounted devices, stand-alone devices, etc. The functionality described herein may also be embodied in peripheral devices or add-in cards. By way of additional examples, such functionality may also be implemented on circuit boards in different chips or different processes executed on a single device.

[0292] The instructions, the media for conveying such instructions, the computing resources for executing them, and other structures for supporting such computing resources are example means for providing the functionality described in this disclosure.

[0293] The techniques described herein may also be implemented in electronic hardware, computer software, firmware, or any combination thereof. Such techniques may be implemented in any of a variety of devices, such as general-purpose computers, wireless communication devices, or integrated circuit devices with multiple uses, including applications in wireless communication devices, mobile phones, and other devices. Any features described as modules or components may be implemented together in an integrated logic device or separately as discrete but interoperable logic devices. If implemented in software, the technology may be implemented at least in part by a computer-readable data storage medium including a program code, which includes instructions for executing one or more of the above methods, algorithms, and / or operations when executed. The computer-readable data storage medium may form part of a computer program product, which may include packaging materials. The computer-readable medium may include a memory or data storage medium, such as a random access memory (RAM) (such as a synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM)), a read-only memory (ROM), a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a flash memory, a magnetic or optical data storage medium, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the technology may be implemented at least in part by a computer-readable communication medium that carries or communicates program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed, read, and / or executed by a computer, such as a propagated signal or wave.

[0294] The program code may be executed by a processor, which may include one or more processors, such as one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), general-purpose microprocessors, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable logic arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalent integrated or discrete logic circuits. Such processors may be configured to perform any of the techniques described in this disclosure. A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor; however, in an alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. The processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, such as a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, multiple microprocessors, one or more microprocessors combined with a DSP core, or any other such configuration. Therefore, the term "processor" as used herein may refer to any of the foregoing structures, any combination of the foregoing structures, or any other structure or device suitable for implementing the techniques described herein.

[0295] It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the less than ("<") and greater than (">") symbols or terms used herein may be replaced by less than or equal to (" ”) and greater than or equal to (“ ”) symbol instead.

[0296] Where a component is described as being “configured to” perform certain operations, such configuration may be achieved, for example, by designing electronic circuits or other hardware to perform the operations, by programming programmable electronic circuits (e.g., a microprocessor or other suitable electronic circuits) to perform the operations, or any combination thereof.

[0297] The phrases “coupled to” or “communicatively coupled to” refer to any component being physically connected directly or indirectly to another component, and / or any component being in communication with another component directly or indirectly (e.g., connected to the other component via a wired or wireless connection and / or other suitable communication interface).

[0298] Claim language or other language stating "at least one of" a set and / or "one or more of" a set indicates that one member of the set or multiple members of the set (in any combination) satisfies the claim. For example, claim language stating "at least one of A and B" or "at least one of A or B" means A, B, or A and B. In another example, claim language stating "at least one of A, B, and C" or "at least one of A, B, or C" means A, B, C, or A and B, or A and C, or B and C, or A and B and C. The language "at least one of" a set and / or "one or more of" a set does not limit the set to the items listed in the set. For example, claim language stating "at least one of A and B" or "at least one of A or B" may mean A, B, or A and B, and may additionally include items not listed in the set of A and B.

[0299] Illustrative aspects of the present disclosure include:

[0300] Aspect 1. A reconfigurable smart surface (RIS), comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor, the at least one processor being coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: receive a configuration message comprising an indication to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generate a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message; and configure the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient.

[0301] Aspect 2. The RIS according to aspect 1, wherein the configuration message further comprises one or more restricted direction angles, the one or more restricted direction angles indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is restricted or a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is restricted.

[0302] Aspect 3. The RIS according to any one of aspects 1 or 2, wherein the configuration message further includes one or more restriction types.

[0303] Aspect 4. The RIS according to aspect 3, wherein the one or more limitation types include at least one of a reflection limitation type indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is limited or an incidence limitation type indicating a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is limited.

[0304] Aspect 5. The RIS according to any one of aspects 1 to 4, wherein at least the portion of the reflected beam includes one or more side lobes.

[0305] Aspect 6. The RIS according to aspect 5, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a sensing receiver device.

[0306] Aspect 7. The RIS according to aspect 6, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

[0307] Aspect 8. The RIS according to any one of aspects 5 to 7, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates toward a non-target object.

[0308] Aspect 9. The RIS according to any one of aspects 1 to 8, wherein the reflected beam is one of a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam.

[0309] Aspect 10. The RIS according to aspect 9, wherein the sensing reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

[0310] Aspect 11. The RIS according to any one of aspects 9 or 10, wherein the metadata element of the RIS is configured to generate the sensing reflection beam by reflecting a sensing signal from a sensing transmitter device.

[0311] Aspect 12. The RIS according to aspect 11, wherein the sensing transmitter device is a base station.

[0312] Aspect 13. The RIS according to any one of aspects 9 to 12, wherein the metadata element of the RIS is configured to generate the interference reflection beam by reflecting an interference signal from an interfering node.

[0313] Aspect 14. The RIS according to any one of aspects 9 to 13, wherein the interfering reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

[0314] Aspect 15. The RIS according to any one of aspects 9 to 13, wherein the interfering reflected beam radiates towards a sensing receiver device.

[0315] Aspect 16. The RIS according to aspect 15, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

[0316] Aspect 17. The RIS according to any one of aspects 1 to 16, wherein the configuration message further comprises a threshold gain value for the gain of at least the portion of the reflected beam.

[0317] Aspect 18. The RIS according to any one of aspects 1 to 17, wherein the metadata element of the RIS is configured to: receive a sensing signal; and generate the reflection beam based on a reflection of the sensing signal.

[0318] Aspect 19. A method of wireless communication performed at a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS), the method comprising: receiving, by the RIS, a configuration message including an indication to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generating, by the RIS, a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message; and configuring, by the RIS, the metadata element based on the reflection coefficient.

[0319] Aspect 20. The method according to aspect 19, wherein the configuration message further includes one or more restricted direction angles, the one or more restricted direction angles indicating a direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is restricted or a direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is restricted.

[0320] Aspect 21. A method according to any one of Aspects 19 or 20, wherein the configuration message further includes one or more restriction types.

[0321] Aspect 22. A method according to Aspect 21, wherein the one or more limitation types include at least one of a reflection limitation type indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is limited or an incident limitation type indicating a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is limited.

[0322] Aspect 23. A method according to any one of Aspects 19 to 22, wherein at least the portion of the reflected beam includes one or more side lobes.

[0323] Aspect 24. The method of aspect 23, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates toward a sensing receiver device.

[0324] Aspect 25. The method of aspect 24, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

[0325] Aspect 26. The method according to any one of Aspects 23 to 25, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a non-target object.

[0326] Aspect 27. The method according to any one of aspects 19 to 26, wherein the reflected beam is one of a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam.

[0327] Aspect 28. The method according to aspect 27, wherein the sensing reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

[0328] Aspect 29. The method according to any one of aspects 27 or 28, the method further comprising generating, by the RIS, the sensing reflection beam by reflecting a sensing signal from a sensing transmitter device.

[0329] Aspect 30. The method according to aspect 29, wherein the sensing transmitter device is a base station.

[0330] Aspect 31. The method according to any one of aspects 27 to 30, further comprising generating, by the RIS, the interference reflection beam by reflecting an interference signal from an interference node.

[0331] Aspect 32. A method according to any one of Aspects 27 to 31, wherein the interfering reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

[0332] Aspect 33. A method according to any one of aspects 27 to 31, wherein the interfering reflection beam radiates towards a sensing receiver device.

[0333] Aspect 34. The method of aspect 33, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

[0334] Aspect 35. A method according to any one of Aspects 19 to 34, wherein the configuration message further comprises a threshold gain value for the gain of at least the portion of the reflected beam.

[0335] Aspect 36. The method according to any one of aspects 19 to 35, the method further comprising: receiving a sensing signal by the RIS; and generating the reflection beam by the RIS based on reflection of the sensing signal.

[0336] Aspect 37. An apparatus for wireless communication, the apparatus comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor, the at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: send a configuration message including an instruction to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam to a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS); and send a sensing signal for sensing a target object to the RIS.

[0337] Aspect 38. An apparatus according to Aspect 37, wherein the configuration message further includes one or more restricted direction angles, the one or more restricted direction angles indicating a direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is restricted or a direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is restricted.

[0338] Aspect 39. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 37 or 38, wherein the configuration message further includes one or more restriction types.

[0339] Aspect 40. An apparatus according to Aspect 39, wherein the one or more limitation types include at least one of a reflection limitation type indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is limited or an incidence limitation type indicating a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is limited.

[0340] Aspect 41. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 37 to 40, wherein at least the portion of the reflected beam comprises one or more side lobes.

[0341] Aspect 42. The apparatus according to aspect 41, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a sensing receiver device.

[0342] Aspect 43. The apparatus of aspect 42, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

[0343] Aspect 44. The apparatus according to aspect 41, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a non-target object.

[0344] Aspect 45. The device according to any one of aspects 37 to 44, wherein the reflected beam is one of a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam.

[0345] Aspect 46. The apparatus according to aspect 45, wherein the sensing reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

[0346] Aspect 47. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 37 to 46, wherein the apparatus is a base station or a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a radio unit (RU), a near real-time (near-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC), or a non-real-time (non-RT) RIC of the base station.

[0347] Aspect 48. An apparatus according to any one of Aspects 37 to 47, wherein the configuration message further comprises a threshold gain value for the gain of at least the portion of the reflected beam.

[0348] Aspect 49. A method of wireless communication performed at a network device, the method comprising: sending, by the network device, a configuration message including an instruction to reduce the gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam to a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS); and sending, by the network device, a sensing signal for sensing a target object to the RIS.

[0349] Aspect 50. The method according to aspect 51, wherein the configuration message further comprises one or more restricted direction angles, the one or more restricted direction angles indicating a direction or angle to which the reflection of the sensing signal is restricted or a direction or angle from which the reflection of the interference signal is restricted.

[0350] Aspect 51. A method according to any one of Aspects 51 or 53, wherein the configuration message further includes one or more restriction types.

[0351] Aspect 52. A method according to Aspect 51, wherein the one or more limitation types include at least one of a reflection limitation type indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is limited or an incident limitation type indicating a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is limited.

[0352] Aspect 53. A method according to any one of Aspects 49 to 52, wherein at least the portion of the reflected beam includes one or more side lobes.

[0353] Aspect 545. A method according to aspect 53, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a sensing receiver device.

[0354] Aspect 55. The method of aspect 54, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

[0355] Aspect 56. The method according to aspect 53, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a non-target object.

[0356] Aspect 57. The method according to any one of aspects 50 to 56, wherein the reflected beam is one of a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam.

[0357] Aspect 58. The method according to aspect 57, wherein the sensing reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

[0358] Aspect 59. The method according to any one of aspects 49 to 58, further comprising sending a sensing signal to the RIS to generate a sensing reflection beam.

[0359] Aspect 60. A method according to any one of aspects 49 to 59, wherein the network device is a base station.

[0360] Aspect 61. A method according to any one of Aspects 49 to 61, wherein the configuration message further comprises a threshold gain value for the gain of at least the portion of the reflected beam.

[0361] Aspect 63. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors, causing the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of aspects 19 to 36.

[0362] Aspect 64. An apparatus for wireless communications, the apparatus comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of aspects 19 to 36.

[0363] Aspect 65. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors, causing the one or more processors to perform operations according to any one of aspects 49 to 61.

[0364] Aspect 66. An apparatus for wireless communications, the apparatus comprising one or more components for performing the operations of any one of Aspects 49 to 61.

[0365] The foregoing description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described herein. Various modifications to these aspects will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other aspects. Therefore, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but to conform to the full scope consistent with the language claims, wherein, unless specifically stated otherwise, elements mentioned in the singular are not intended to mean "one and only one", but "one or more".

Claims

1. A reconfigurable smart surface (RIS), the reconfigurable smart surface (RIS) comprising: at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled to at least one memory and configured to: receiving a configuration message including an indication to reduce a gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generating a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS based on the configuration message; as well as The metadata element is configured based on the reflection coefficient.

2. The RIS according to claim 1, wherein the configuration message further comprises one or more restricted direction angles, the one or more restricted direction angles indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is restricted or a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is restricted.

3. The RIS according to any one of claims 1 or 2, wherein the configuration message further comprises one or more restriction types.

4. The RIS according to claim 3, wherein the one or more limitation types include at least one of a reflection limitation type indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is limited or an incidence limitation type indicating a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is limited.

5. The RIS of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein at least the portion of the reflected beam comprises one or more side lobes.

6. The RIS of claim 5, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates toward a sensing receiver device.

7. The RIS of claim 6, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

8. The RIS according to any one of claims 5 to 7, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a non-target object.

9. The RIS according to any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein the reflected beam is one of a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam.

10. The RIS of claim 9, wherein the sensing reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

11. The RIS according to any one of claims 9 or 10, wherein the metadata element of the RIS is configured to generate the sensing reflection beam by reflecting a sensing signal from a sensing transmitter device.

12. The RIS of claim 11, wherein the sensing transmitter device is a base station.

13. The RIS according to any one of claims 9 to 12, wherein the metadata element of the RIS is configured to generate the interference reflection beam by reflecting an interference signal from an interfering node.

14. The RIS according to any one of claims 9 to 13, wherein the interfering reflected beam is radiated toward a target object.

15. The RIS of any one of claims 9 to 13, wherein the interfering reflected beam radiates towards a sensing receiver device.

16. The RIS of claim 15, wherein the sensing receiver device is one of a user equipment (UE) or a vehicle.

17. The RIS of any one of claims 1 to 16, wherein the configuration message further comprises a threshold gain value for the gain of at least the portion of the reflected beam.

18. The RIS according to any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein the metadata element of the RIS is configured to: receiving a sensing signal; and The reflected beam is generated based on reflection of the sensing signal.

19. A method of wireless communication performed at a reconfigurable smart surface (RIS), the method comprising: receiving, by the RIS, a configuration message including an instruction to reduce a gain of at least a portion of a reflected beam; generating, by the RIS based on the configuration message, a reflection coefficient for a metadata element of the RIS; as well as The metadata element is configured by the RIS based on the reflection coefficient.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the configuration message further comprises one or more restricted direction angles indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is restricted or a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is restricted.

21. The method according to any one of claims 19 or 20, wherein the configuration message further comprises one or more restriction types.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the one or more limitation types include at least one of a reflection limitation type indicating a direction or angle to which reflection of a sensing signal is limited or an incidence limitation type indicating a direction or angle from which reflection of an interference signal is limited.

23. The method of any one of claims 19 to 22, wherein at least the portion of the reflected beam comprises one or more side lobes.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates toward a sensing receiver device.

25. The method of any one of claims 23 to 24, wherein at least one of the one or more side lobes radiates towards a non-target object.

26. The method of any one of claims 19 to 26, wherein the reflected beam is one of a sensing reflected beam or an interference reflected beam.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising generating, by the RIS, the sensing reflection beam by reflecting a sensing signal from a sensing transmitter device, wherein the sensing reflection beam is radiated toward a target object.

28. The method of claim 26, further comprising generating, by the RIS, the interference reflection beam by reflecting an interference signal from an interference node, wherein the interference reflection beam radiates toward at least one of a target object or a sensing receiver device.

29. The method of any one of claims 19 to 28, wherein the configuration message further comprises a threshold gain value for the gain of at least the portion of the reflected beam.

30. The method according to any one of claims 19 to 29, further comprising: Receiving a sensing signal by the RIS; as well as The reflected beam is generated by the RIS based on reflections of the sensing signal.

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