Paging method and device

Abstract

To provide a paging method and a device for reducing energy consumption of a terminal when the terminal is paged, which can be widely applied in fields such as communication technology, artificial intelligence, the Internet of vehicles, and the Internet of smart homes.SOLUTION: A method includes a terminal receiving a first paging indication transmitted by a network device prior to a paging occasion of the terminal. The first paging indication includes a first field, the first field is used to indicate whether a paging is transmitted on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions include the paging occasion of the terminal, and R is an integer equal to or greater than 1. In addition, the terminal determines whether to monitor a DCI on the paging occasion of the terminal on the basis of a first paging occasion.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 6

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] This application claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202010761727.7, entitled "METHOD FOR DESIGNING DCI OF PAGING INDICATION," filed with the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China on July 31, 2020, and to Chinese Patent Application No. 202010791001.8, entitled "PAGING METHOD AND APPARATUS," filed with the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China on August 7, 2020, each of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

[0002] TECHNICAL FIELD Embodiments of the present application relate to the field of communication technologies, and in particular to a paging method and apparatus. [Background technology]

[0003] When the terminal is in an idle state or an inactive state, the terminal periodically receives network-side paging initiated by. For example, the terminal obtains a paging frame and a paging occasion in the PF through calculation, and monitoring in the PO, downlink control information (DCI) used to schedule a paging message. When the DCI is monitored, the monitored DCI schedules a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) carrying the paging message, and the terminal receives the PDSCH carrying the paging message at a position indicated by the DCI, and determines whether the terminal is being paged based on the paging message carried on the PDSCH.

[0004] Before the terminal monitors the DCI in the PO, in order to correctly receive the DCI, the terminal needs to receive one or more synchronization signal blocks (SSBs) transmitted by the network side and perform time / frequency synchronization and automatic gain control (AGC) adjustment, etc., by using the SSBs. Specifically, before monitoring the DCI, the terminal needs to consume energy to receive one or more SSBs. During the period after receiving the SSB and the PO, or during the period between the two SSBs, the terminal does not need to receive a signal and prepare for communication, but the terminal needs to maintain an operating state, which causes energy consumption.

[0005] In the phase of researching terminal energy saving, how to reduce the terminal's energy consumption in the process of paging the terminal becomes an issue that needs to be urgently solved. Summary of the Invention

[0006] The embodiments of the present application provide a paging method and apparatus to solve the problem of high energy consumption of a terminal when the terminal is paged.

[0007] To achieve the above objectives, the following technical solutions are used in the embodiments of the present application.

[0008] According to a first aspect, the present application provides a paging method, the method including: a terminal receiving a first paging indication including a first field and transmitted by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, where the first field is used to indicate whether a paging has been transmitted on R paging occasions including the paging occasion of the terminal. The terminal determines whether to monitor a DCI used for scheduling a paging message on the paging occasion of the terminal based on the first paging occasion.

[0009] Based on the method according to the first aspect, a paging indication may be preset before a paging occasion, and whether a paging exists on a paging occasion is indicated to a terminal in advance by using the paging indication, so that when there is no paging on a paging occasion, the terminal is triggered to stop operation and enter a sleep state in advance to reduce the energy consumption of the terminal.Furthermore, in the method according to the first aspect, one paging indication may be used to indicate multiple paging occasions, so as to indicate whether there is paging on multiple paging occasions at once, in order to reduce signaling overhead.

[0010] In a possible design, the first field includes R pieces of indication information, where the i-th indication information of the R pieces of indication information indicates whether a paging is transmitted on the i-th paging occasion of the R paging occasions, where i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R. Based on the possible design, the indication information having a one-to-one correspondence with the paging occasions may be designed in the paging indication, so that the terminal can well distinguish the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal from multiple indication information, simplifying system design.

[0011] In a possible design, the terminal determining, based on the first paging occasion, whether to monitor the downlink control information DCI on the paging occasion of the terminal includes the terminal determining, based on a time domain location of the paging occasion of the terminal in the R paging occasions, indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal, and determining, based on the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal, whether to monitor the DCI on the paging occasion of the terminal. Based on the possible design, the terminal may find the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal based on the time domain locations of the multiple paging occasions corresponding to the paging indication, and determine, based on the paging indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal, whether to continue to monitor the DCI, thereby improving the accuracy of the terminal in advance acquiring whether a paging message exists on the paging occasion of the terminal and simplifying system design.

[0012] In a possible design, the terminal receiving a first paging indication sent by the network device before a paging occasion of the terminal includes the terminal determining K paging indications corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal based on a time domain location of the paging occasion of the terminal, where K is an integer equal to or greater than 1. The terminal receives the K paging indications before the paging occasion and determines the first paging indication from the K paging indications. Based on a possible design, one paging occasion may be configured to correspond to multiple paging indications. The multiple paging indications are designed to maximally ensure that the terminal can receive a paging indication belonging to the paging occasion of the terminal and know in advance whether a paging exists on the paging occasion, so as to reduce energy consumption.

[0013] In a possible design, K is configured by a network device for the terminal. Specifically, the network device uniformly manages the number of paging indications corresponding to paging occasions, so that the configuration of the terminal is unified, the management is facilitated, and the flexibility of configuration by the network device is improved.

[0014] In a possible design, the terminal receiving a first paging indication transmitted by the network device prior to a paging occasion for the terminal includes the terminal receiving the first paging indication transmitted by the network device in a monitoring time interval, the monitoring time interval being designed for receiving the paging indication to simplify system design.

[0015] In a possible design, the terminal receives monitoring time window configuration information sent by the network device and used to determine the monitoring time interval, and determines the monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information. Specifically, the network device configures the monitoring time interval, so that the configuration of the terminal is unified, management is facilitated, and the flexibility of configuration by the network device is improved.

[0016] In a possible design, the R paging occasions are the R paging occasions that are after and closest to the first paging indication. In this way, the time domain location of the paging indication may be close to the time domain location of the paging occasion, and the time interval between the paging occasion and the paging indication is shortened to avoid a problem that excessive energy consumption occurs when the terminal monitors DCI on the paging occasion only within a long period after receiving the paging indication when there is a paging on the paging occasion or the paging indication.

[0017] In a possible design, R is configured by a network device for the terminal. Specifically, the network device configures the value of R, so that the configuration of the terminal is unified, management is facilitated, and the flexibility of configuration by the network device is increased.

[0018] In a possible design, the first field includes indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions, where the indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions includes a number of M bits, where the number of M bits is used to indicate whether a paging exists on the paging occasion corresponding to the indication information, and M is an integer greater than or equal to 1. Based on the possible design, in order to reduce a false alarm probability of the terminal and increase a probability of successfully paging the terminal, the indication information indicating the paging occasion may include multiple bits, i.e., the paging occasions are grouped.

[0019] In a possible design, M may be configured by a network device for the terminal; or M may be any number according to the formula: M=

number

[0020] In a possible design, the first field includes indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions,

number

number

number

[0021] In a possible design, the paging indication further includes one or more of the following fields: a second field, a third field, and a fourth field. The second field is used to indicate whether the paging indication includes a SM, the third field is used to indicate the SM, and the fourth field is used to indicate availability of an auxiliary reference signal. The auxiliary reference signal is an auxiliary reference signal configured by the network device or an auxiliary reference signal associated with the R paging occasions. Based on a possible design, some fields used to indicate useful information may be set in the paging indication in advance, so that the terminal may know the useful information in advance to avoid energy consumption caused when the terminal needs to obtain useful information from DCI or other information after pre-synchronization.

[0022] In a possible design, the second field is common information of the R paging occasions. Based on the possible design, the second field may be set as common information of multiple paging occasions to reduce overhead.

[0023] In a possible design, the SM indicates one or more of the following information: system information change indication information, earthquake and tsunami warning information, commercial mobile alert information, and indication information indicating to stop monitoring paging messages. Based on this, in order to improve the utilization range of the information indicated by the SM, a large amount of useful information may be retained in the SM as much as possible.

[0024] In a possible design, the length of the third field is configurable by the network device. Based on a possible design, to increase configuration flexibility and management and control of the network device, the network device may configure the length of the third field.

[0025] In a possible design, the third field is common information of the R paging occasions. Based on the possible design, the third field may be set as common information of multiple paging occasions to reduce overhead.

[0026] In a possible design, the fourth field being used to indicate the availability of the auxiliary reference signal includes: a length of the fourth field is equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups configured by the network device, where the auxiliary reference signal group includes one or more auxiliary reference signals; or a length of the fourth field is equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups associated with R paging occasions; or the fourth field includes R subfields, where the subfields correspond to the R paging occasions, and one subfield is used to indicate the availability of the auxiliary reference signal associated with the paging occasion corresponding to the subfield. Based on the possible design, the fourth field may be used to indicate the availability of the auxiliary reference signal or auxiliary reference signal group. The indication scheme is flexible and diverse, and has wide applicability.

[0027] In a possible design, the first paging indication further includes a fifth field. The fifth field is used to indicate the number of paging occasions indicated by the first field. Alternatively, the fifth field is used to indicate the length of the first field. In this way, the number of paging indications indicated by the first field or the length of the first field can be adjusted more flexibly.

[0028] In a possible design, in order to avoid that the indication information received by the terminal and corresponding to the paging occasion may not match, the content indicated by the first field in different paging indications for the same paging occasion is identical, so that the terminal cannot achieve the purpose of saving energy by using the paging indication.

[0029] In a possible design, there is a QCL relationship between the first paging indication and a synchronization signal block SSB closest to the first paging indication, or there is a QCL relationship between the first paging indication and an SSB associated with the first paging indication, so that in order to improve the accuracy of receiving the paging indication by the terminal, the terminal receives the paging indication based on the receiving beam of the SSB.

[0030] According to a second aspect, the present application provides a communication device. The communication device may be a terminal or a chip or a system-on-chip in the terminal, or may be a functional module in the terminal and configured to implement the method according to the first aspect or any one of the possible designs of the first aspect. The communication device may implement the functions performed by the terminal in the aforementioned aspect or possible designs, and the functions may be implemented by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more modules corresponding to the aforementioned functions. For example, the communication device may include a receiving unit and a processing unit.

[0031] The receiving unit is configured to receive a first paging indication including a first field and transmitted by the network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, the first field being used to indicate whether a paging is transmitted on the R paging occasions including the paging occasion of the terminal.

[0032] The processing unit is configured to determine, based on the first paging occasion, whether to monitor a DCI used for scheduling a paging message on the paging occasion of the terminal.

[0033] Specifically, for the relevant execution operations of the receiving unit and the processing unit, please refer to the description in the first aspect or any one of the possible designs of the first aspect, and the details will not be described again.

[0034] According to a third aspect, a communication device is provided. The communication device may be a terminal or a chip or a system-on-chip in a terminal. The communication device may implement the functions performed by the terminal in the above aspects or possible designs, and the functions may be implemented by hardware. In a possible design, the communication device may include a processor and a communication interface. The processor may be configured to support the communication device to implement the functions in the above first aspect or any one of the possible designs of the first aspect. For example, the processor is configured to receive, via the communication interface, a first paging indication sent by a network device prior to a paging occasion of the terminal, the first field including a first paging indication, where the first field is used to indicate whether a paging has been sent on R paging occasions including the paging occasion of the terminal; and determine whether to monitor a DCI used to schedule a paging message on the paging occasion of the terminal based on the first paging occasion. In another possible design, the communication device may further include a memory. The memory is configured to store computer-executable instructions and data required for the communication device. When executed by the communications device, the processor executes the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory, such that the communications device performs a paging method according to any one of the first aspect or possible designs of the first aspect described above.

[0035] According to a fourth aspect, a computer readable storage medium is provided. The computer readable storage medium may be a readable non-volatile storage medium. The computer readable storage medium stores instructions. When the instructions are executed on a computer, the computer is enabled to perform a paging method according to the first aspect above or any one of the possible designs of the above aspect.

[0036] According to a fifth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising instructions, which when executed on a computer, enable the computer to perform a paging method according to the first aspect above or any one of the possible designs of the aforementioned aspects.

[0037] According to a sixth aspect, a communication device is provided. The communication device may be a terminal or a chip or a system-on-chip in a terminal. The communication device includes one or more processors and one or more memories. The one or more memories are coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more memories configured to store computer program code, the computer program code including computer instructions. When the one or more processors execute the computer instructions, the terminal is enabled to perform a paging method according to the first aspect or any one of the possible designs of the first aspect.

[0038] For the technical effects achieved by any one of the designs from the third aspect to the sixth aspect, please refer to the technical effects achieved by the first aspect or any one of the possible designs of the first aspect described above, and the details will not be described again.

[0039] According to a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication system, which may include a communication apparatus, a system on chip, or a network device according to any one of the second or sixth aspects. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0040] [Figure 1a] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between PF and PO.

[0041] [Figure 1b] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the time domain position relationship between one PO and an SSB.

[0042] [Figure 1c]1 is a schematic diagram of the time domain position relationship between multiple POs and SSBs.

[0043] [Figure 1d] 1 is a schematic diagram of monitoring of SSB and PO by different terminals.

[0044] [Figure 1e] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between whether or not pre-paged is indicated and energy consumption.

[0045] [Figure 1f] 1 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between the location of paging indications and energy consumption;

[0046] [Figure 1g] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the relationship between SSB in the SSB cycle and MO in PO.

[0047] [Diagram 2] FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of fields included in a paging indication.

[0048] [Figure 3a] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a mapping relationship between paging occasions and paging indications according to one embodiment of the present application;

[0049] [Figure 3b] FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of another mapping relationship between paging occasions and paging indications according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0050] [Figure 3c] FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of yet another mapping relationship between paging occasions and paging indications according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0051] [Figure 4] FIG. 1 is an architecture diagram of a communication system according to the present application.

[0052] [Diagram 5] FIG. 1 is a structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0053] [Figure 6] 2 is a flowchart of a paging method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0054] [Figure 7] 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication device 70 according to an embodiment of the present application.

[0055] [Figure 8] 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0056] Before the embodiments of the present application are described, some terms (such as paging, PO and DCI) in the embodiments of the present application will be explained and explained. Please note that the following explanations and descriptions are intended to make the embodiments of the present application easier to understand, and should not be construed as limitations on the scope of protection claimed in the embodiments of the present application.

[0057] Paging is a process in which a network side device periodically transmits a paging message to a terminal in an idle or inactive state to wake up the terminal in the idle or inactive state to return to a connected state. One paging process may include, on the network side, a network side device (e.g., an access network device) obtains a paging occasion (PO) corresponding to the terminal through calculation, and transmits a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) carrying a DCI to the terminal's PO. The DCI may be used to indicate whether the DCI schedules a PDSCH carrying a paging message. If the DCI indicates that a PDSCH carrying a paging message is scheduled, the network side device transmits a PDSCH carrying a paging message at a resource location indicated by the DCI. At the terminal side, the terminal obtains a PO corresponding to the terminal through calculation, and monitors a DCI on the PO obtained through calculation by using a paging-radio network temporary identity (P-RNTI) of the terminal. When the DCI is monitored and the DCI indicates that a PDSCH carrying a paging message is scheduled, the terminal receives a PDSCH carrying a paging message at a resource location indicated by the DCI, and determines whether the terminal is paged based on the paging message carried by the PDSCH. For example, the paging message may carry an identification information of the paged device (e.g., a user equipment identifier (UE_ID) of the terminal). If the paging message received by the terminal carries the identification information of the terminal, the terminal determines that the terminal is paged.If the paging message received by the terminal does not carry the terminal's identification information, the terminal determines that the terminal is not being paged. If the terminal is not being paged, the terminal initiates a random access procedure and switches to a connected state.

[0058] A PO is a time domain location / time interval where a terminal monitors a DCI that schedules a PDSCH carrying a paging message. When the location of a PO is determined, the location of one paging frame (PF) needs to be determined first, and then the final location of the PO is determined based on the relative location of the PO in the PF. One PF may be associated with one or more POs, and the POs in one PF are arranged consecutively starting from the starting location of the PF. For example, the starting location of the first PO in the PF is the same as the starting location of the PF, and the starting location of the second PO overlaps with the ending location of the first PO. By analogy, multiple POs are configured. The length of one PO may be several time slots. Specifically, based on the user equipment identifier (UE_ID) of the terminal, the system frame number (SFN) of the PF may be calculated by using the following formula (1), and the sequence number i_s of the PO that needs to be monitored by the terminal may be calculated by using the following formula (2): (SFN+PF_offset)mod T=(T div N)*(UE_ID mod N) Equation (1) i_s=floor(UE_ID / N)mod Ns Equation (2).

[0059] The PF_offset in the above formula is used to determine the offset value of the PF. The PF_offset may be pre-specified in the protocol or may be determined by the access network device and configured for the terminal. T is a discontinuous reception (DRX) cycle, N is the number of PFs in the DRX cycle T, and Ns is the number of POs in one PF. "mod" represents the remainder obtained after division is performed on the two numbers before and after mod. floor() represents rounding down to the nearest integer. * represents multiplication. div represents division. (SFN+PF_offset)mod T=(T div N)*(UE_ID mod N) represents that all terminals are divided into N groups based on UE_ID. The value of UE_ID mod N can be used to determine the group in which the terminal is located and the PF to which the terminal corresponds. For example, N=4 is used as an example. If the UE_ID is a binary string, the value of the last two bits of the UE_ID determines the PF in which the terminal is finally located. floor(UE_ID / N) mod Ns corresponds to the terminal's PF being further divided into Ns groups. The value of floor(UE_ID / N) mod Ns can be used to determine the particular group, i.e., the particular PO, to which the terminal corresponds. The value of UE_ID is the terminal's 5G-S-temporary mobile subscriber identity (5G-S-TMSI) mod 1024.

[0060] Generally, there are N*Ns POs in one DRX cycle. The terminals are divided into N*Ns groups based on UE_IDs, and each group corresponds to a PO. For example, FIG. 1a is a schematic diagram where N=4 and Ns=5. As shown in FIG. 1a, there are four PFs, and one PF has five POs. The terminal may obtain that the terminal monitors DCI on a specific PO of a specific PF through calculation according to the above formula (1) and formula (2).

[0061] Furthermore, to match beam-based transmissions in NR system design, a PO may be further divided into multiple monitoring occasions (MOs), where different MOs are associated with different SSBs, i.e., different beam directions. The number of MOs included in one PO is determined based on the number of SSBs actually transmitted in one SSB cycle, and the number of SSBs actually transmitted in one SSB cycle is configured by a network device by using system information.

[0062] It should be noted that in this application, the DRX cycle T, the number N of PFs in a DRX cycle, and the number Ns of POs in one PF may be dynamically set based on requirements, or may be pre-specified in a protocol, but this is not limited thereto.

[0063] The DCI is used to indicate whether to transmit a paging message and may be used to schedule a PDSCH carrying the paging message. In this application, the DCI may alternatively be referred to as a paging DCI, scheduling information, or another name, etc., without limitation. The DCI may include multiple fields. The position of each field in the DCI, the number of bits occupied by each field, and the meaning indicated by the value of each field may be pre-specified in a protocol or determined based on the configuration of a network device. The fields included in the DCI are described below.

[0064] (1) Short Message Indicator (SMI) field

[0065] The SMI field occupies two bits: the first bit is used to indicate whether the current DCI carries a short message (SM), and the second bit is used to indicate whether the current DCI schedules a PDSCH carrying a paging message.

[0066] (2) Short message (SMI) field

[0067] The SMI field occupies 8 bits. The first bit indicates system information change (SI change), the second bit indicates earthquake and tsunami warning system (ETWS) and / or commercial mobile alert system (CMAS), the third bit indicates whether to stop reading paging messages in NR unlicensed (NRU), and the remaining last 5 bits are reserved. The reserved bits may be used to indicate other information, such as information that will be subsequently expanded with the development of communication technology.

[0068] Please note that if the first bit in the SMI field indicates that the current DCI carries SM, the SMI field corresponds to 8 bits. The first three bits are filled with SI change information, ETWS information, and indication information used to indicate whether to stop reading paging messages in the NRU, respectively. If the first bit in the SIM field indicates that the current DCI does not carry SM, the 8 bits corresponding to the SM field are meaningless bits and do not indicate any content.

[0069] (3) Frequency domain resource assignment (FDRA) field

[0070] The FDRA field may be used to indicate frequency domain resources used for PDSCH transmission, including physical resource blocks (PRBs) used for data transmission. The number of bits occupied by the FDRA field is determined based on the bandwidth size of control resource set (CORESET) 0.

[0071] (4) Time domain resource assignment (TDRA) field

[0072] The TDRA field occupies 4 bits and may be used to indicate the time domain resources used for PDSCH transmission, including the time slots used for data transmission and the symbols used in the time slots.

[0073] (5) Virtual resource block (VRB) to physical resource block (PRB) mapping relationship (VRB-to-PRB mapping) field

[0074] The VRB to PRB mapping field occupies 1 bit. The VRB to PRB mapping field may be used to indicate a mapping scheme used when a VRB is mapped to a PRB, and may be, for example, interleaved mapping or non-interleaved mapping.

[0075] (6) Modulation and coding scheme (MCS) field

[0076] The MCS field may occupy 5 bits and may be used to specify the modulation and coding scheme used during the PDSCH transmission.

[0077] (7) Transport block scaling (TB scaling) field

[0078] The TB Scaling field may occupy 2 bits and is used to indicate whether the size of the transport block (TB) carried on the PDSCH carrying the paging message is scaled and the scale factor.

[0079] (8) Reserved Fields

[0080] The reserved field may occupy 6 bits.

[0081] If there are N PFs in one DRX cycle and one PF is divided into Ns POs, there are only N*Ns groups of POs in one DRX cycle in total. In this case, multiple terminals need to monitor DCI on the same PO in one DRX cycle. If multiple terminals monitor DCI on the same PO, when one terminal receives DCI on the PO corresponding to the terminal, the terminal only knows that the terminal is paged on the current PO, but does not know whether the terminal is paged. Only after receiving DCI, based on the indication of DCI, the terminal further receives PDSCH carrying a paging message, and checks whether the paged terminal includes the terminal by viewing the paging message carried on the PDSCH. If the paged terminal includes the terminal, the terminal is paged. If the paged terminal does not include the terminal, the terminal is not paged. However, the probability that one terminal is paged is low. Since there are many terminals monitoring DCI in the same PO, the probability that the network side device will send a paging DCI is high, and the terminal is also likely to be in a paged false alarm state. The paged false alarm state indicates that the terminal receives a paging DCI and a PDSCH carrying a paging message, but the terminal is not paged.

[0082] In order to correctly receive the DCI and the PDSCH scheduled by the DCI and carrying the paging message, and to determine whether the terminal is in a "false paged alarm" or is being paged by the terminal based on the received DCI and PDSCH, the following process needs to be performed: the access network device periodically transmits one or more synchronization signals and physical broadcast channel (PBCH) blocks (SSBs) before the PO of the terminal. After calculating the PO of the terminal, before monitoring the DCI at the PO, the terminal selects one or more SSBs close to the PO from the SSBs before the PO, receives the SSBs at the resource positions of the selected SSBs, and performs steps such as time / frequency synchronization and automatic gain control (AGC) adjustment with the access network device based on the received SSBs.

[0083] In this application, the step of a terminal performing time / frequency synchronization and AGC adjustment by using SSBs may be collectively referred to as pre-synchronization. Furthermore, in one SSB cycle, an access network device transmits multiple SSBs, and the SSBs in one SSB cycle usually correspond to different beam transmission directions. For the same terminal, the SSBs used when the terminal performs pre-synchronization should correspond to the same beam transmission direction. Therefore, one or more SSBs used by a terminal to perform pre-synchronization are usually located in different SSB cycles.

[0084] It should be noted that in this application, the cycle for transmitting SSBs, the time interval between adjacent SSBs, and the resource location of the SSBs may be pre-specified in a protocol or may be configured by a network side device for the terminal by using system information. The SSB before the PO may refer to an SSB whose time domain location is before the time domain location of the PO and whose time domain location does not overlap with the time domain location of the PO. All SSBs before the PO of the terminal are SSBs that may / can be used by the terminal to pre-synchronize. These SSBs may be referred to as available SSBs. This is uniformly described in this specification and will not be described in detail again below.

[0085] For example, FIG. 1b is a schematic diagram of the relationship between a PO and an SSB. There are two SSBs before the time domain position of the PO. The two SSBs may be referred to as available SSBs. To perform pre-synchronization, the terminal may select and receive one SSB from the two SSBs that is closest to the PO, or may select and receive two SSBs to perform pre-synchronization. In FIG. 1b, the two SSBs may be located in different SSB cycles.

[0086] For another example, Fig. 1c is a schematic diagram of the time domain positional relationship between multiple POs and SSBs. As shown in Fig. 1c, there are SSB1 to SSB5 before PO5, there are SSB1 to SSB4 before PO4, there are SSB1 to SSB3 before PO3, there are SSB1 to SSB3 before PO2, and there are SSB1 and SSB2 before PO1. If the PO of the terminal is PO5 in Fig. 1c, the terminal may select and receive one, two, three or four SSBs from SSB1 to SSB5 that are closest to PO5 and before PO5 to perform pre-synchronization, or may select and receive five SSBs to perform pre-synchronization. Similarly, if the PO of the terminal is PO4 in Fig. 1c, the terminal may select and receive one, two or three SSBs from SSB1 to SSB4 that are closest to PO4 to perform pre-synchronization, or may select and receive four SSBs to perform pre-synchronization. Please note that the vertical relationship between SSB and PO in Fig. 1c is mainly used to prevent the time domain position relationship from being difficult to distinguish when SSB and PO overlap each other, and does not represent a specific frequency domain position relationship between PO and SSB. In other words, Fig. 1c mainly represents the time domain position status of SSB and PO. Similarly, in Fig. 1c, SSB1 to SSB5 may be located in different SSB cycles.

[0087] Specifically, the terminal may determine an SSB from among the available SSBs from which the terminal will start receiving SSBs transmitted by the access network device, i.e., which available SSBs may be used for pre-synchronization, based on the channel quality (e.g., reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), or signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR)) between the terminal and the access network device and / or the hardware processing status of the terminal. For example, the terminal determines which SSBs are used for pre-synchronization based on the channel quality between the terminal and the access network device. When the terminal is close to the access network device, the SINR is high, the terminal's coverage is better, the SSB signal is strong, and the terminal uses a small number of SSBs for pre-synchronization. However, when the terminal is far away from the access network device, the SINR is low, the terminal's coverage is poorer, the SSB signal is weak, and the terminal uses a large number of SSBs for pre-synchronization.

[0088] For example, as shown in Fig. 1d, the PO of UE1 and UE2 is PO1, and two SSBs located in front of PO1 may be used as available SSBs for pre-synchronization. Specifically, when the coverage of UE1 is poor, SSB1 and SSB2 are used to perform pre-synchronization. When the coverage of UE2 is good, UE2 may use one SSB (e.g., SSB2, which is closest to PO1) to perform pre-synchronization.

[0089] A terminal needs to consume energy when receiving an SSB. During the period after receiving an SSB and a PO, or during the period between two adjacent SSBs when receiving multiple SSBs, the terminal does not need to receive any signal to "prepare for communication (e.g., monitor the DCI in the PO or prepare to receive the next SSB correctly)", but the terminal needs to remain in an active state all the time. However, a terminal in an active state consumes some energy.

[0090] FIG. 1d is used as an example. After UE1 receives SSB1, UE1 continues to maintain the working state, receives SSB2, and performs pre-synchronization based on SSB1 and SSB2. After the pre-synchronization is successful, UE1 continues to maintain the working state and monitors DCI on PO1 of UE1. In other words, UE1 needs to maintain the working state in the period from starting to receive SSB1 to monitoring DCI on PO1, which consumes UE1's energy. Similarly, UE2 also needs to enable the working state to prepare for receiving SSB2. After receiving SSB2, UE2 performs pre-synchronization based on SSB2. After the pre-synchronization is successful, UE2 continues to maintain the working state and monitors DCI on PO1 of UE2. UE2 needs to maintain the working state in the period from starting to receive SSB2 to monitoring DCI on PO1, which consumes UE2's energy.

[0091] It can be seen from the above that in the process of a terminal receiving a paging message, most of the energy consumed by the terminal is consumed in the process of the terminal receiving SSB and performing pre-synchronization, and some energy is additionally consumed, especially in the period when the terminal does not receive a signal but needs to continue to maintain an operating state. Furthermore, since multiple terminals need to monitor DCI in the same PO in one DRX cycle, in order to determine whether each terminal is paged, each terminal needs to perform processes such as pre-synchronization and DCI and PDSCH reception. In other words, the above-mentioned additional energy consumption is unavoidable.

[0092] However, most terminals have high requirements for energy saving. If the terminal consumes too much energy, the performance of the terminal will be affected and the user experience will be reduced. In view of this, the embodiment of the present application provides the following solution: before PO (e.g., during terminal pre-synchronization), the terminal is notified whether paging is sent to the PO, so that the terminal knows earlier whether the terminal may be paged, and when the terminal is not paged, it can stop working as soon as possible and not continuously maintain the working state, avoiding unnecessary energy consumption. For example, as shown in FIG. 1e, when UE1 knows that UE1 is not paged near SSB1, UE1 does not continue to maintain the working state, and when UE2 knows that UE2 is not paged near SSB2, UE2 does not maintain the working state. Compared with FIG. 1d, the energy consumption of UE11 and the energy consumption of UE12 are greatly reduced.

[0093] In this application, the information indicating whether a paging is being transmitted to a PO may be referred to as a paging indication. It should be noted that the name of the paging indication is not limited in this application. The paging indication may alternatively be referred to as a wake-up signal (WUS), an early paging indication (early paging indication or early transmitted paging indication), a pre-paging indication, or another name, etc. This is not limited.

[0094] However, if the location of the paging indication corresponding to the PO is not properly designed, some terminals still need to consume large energy. For example, as shown in Fig. 1f, UE1 is a UE with poor coverage, and UE2 is a UE with good coverage. The paging indication may be transmitted near SSB1 or near SSB2. When the paging indication is transmitted only near SSB1, the power consumption of UE1 and the power consumption of UE2 are shown in Fig. 1f when the paging indication is used to indicate to UE1 and UE2 that there is a paging in PO1 or there is no paging in PO1. Similarly, when the paging indication is transmitted only near SSB2, the power consumption of UE1 and the power consumption of UE2 are shown in Fig. 1f when the paging indication is used to indicate to UE1 and UE2 that there is a paging in PO1 or there is no paging in PO1. It can be seen that UE2 does not need to use SSB1 originally to perform pre-synchronization, but when paging indication is only transmitted near SSB1, UE2 still needs to receive SSB1 to receive paging indication, and after it is indicated that paging exists, UE2 still needs to maintain working state until PO1. In this respect, the circled part in the third line in FIG. 1f can be compared with the seventh line in FIG. 1f. Furthermore, when paging indication is only transmitted near SSB2, UE1 cannot know in advance whether paging exists, so UE1 needs to receive SSB1 and maintain working state until UE1 receives paging indication after SSB2, in order to ensure that paging can be correctly received when paging exists. When it is indicated that paging does not exist, it can be seen from the comparison between the circled part in the sixth line in FIG. 1f and the second line in FIG. 1f that more energy is wasted.

[0095] Furthermore, even if the paging indication used to indicate whether there is a paging in the PO is designed, some energy may be wasted in the process of some terminals receiving the paging message. For the terminal, the optimal solution is that "the terminal receives the paging indication near the first SSB that needs to be received by the terminal". However, multiple terminals need to monitor DCI in the same PO in one DRX cycle, the coverage and / or hardware processing status of the terminals may be different, the number of SSBs received by the terminals may be different, and different terminals perform pre-synchronization at different starting points. Specifically, the first SSB corresponding to different terminals may be different. The access network device cannot know which SSB is the first SSB received by most terminals, and therefore cannot transmit the paging indication on the first SSB used by most terminals to reduce the energy consumption of most terminals.

[0096] In order to maximize the certainty that each terminal can receive the paging indication near the first SSB corresponding to the terminal, the best solution is that the paging indication corresponding to the same PO is transmitted near the multiple SSBs before the PO. In other words, the paging indication corresponding to one PO is transmitted near the multiple SSBs. This has the following two advantages: in one aspect, the terminal corresponding to the PO can receive the paging indication near the first SSB of the terminal with high probability, and based on the indication of the paging indication, stop working as soon as possible and enter a sleep state, thereby reducing energy consumption. In another aspect, when the PO is divided into multiple MOs, and different MOs correspond to different SSBs in one SSB cycle, one PO corresponds to the paging indication near the multiple SSBs, and the multiple SSBs preferably have a one-to-one correspondence with the multiple MOs obtained by dividing the PO, the terminal corresponding to each MO can receive the paging indication near the SSB, and based on the indication of the paging indication, reduce energy consumption. For example, as shown in Figure 1f, a paging indication is transmitted near both SSB1 and SSB2. Specifically, for the same PO, multiple paging indications may be used to indicate whether a paging is present in the PO, ensuring that most terminals monitoring the DCI in the PO can receive the paging indication near the first SSB that needs to be received by the terminal.

[0097] It should be noted that when one PO corresponds to paging indications near multiple SSBs, the multiple SSBs may be located in the same SSB cycle or in different SSB cycles. For example, when multiple SSBs correspond to multiple MOs, the multiple SSBs are located in the same SSB cycle. When multiple SSBs correspond to the same MO, the multiple SSBs are located in different SSB cycles. For example, as shown in Figure 1g, there are five SSB cycles, four SSBs are transmitted in each SSB cycle, and the SSB indexes are SSB0 to SSB3 separately. In this case, four MOs exist in one PO, and the indexes are 0 to 3 separately. Each SSB has a one-to-one correspondence with each MO in the PO, i.e., SSB0 corresponds to MO0, SSB1 corresponds to MO1, SSB2 corresponds to MO2, and SSB3 corresponds to MO3. The relationship between SSBs and MOs is shown in Figure 1g. Parts of the same padding pattern represent corresponding SSBs and MOs.

[0098] Furthermore, SSBs in front of different POs may overlap, and different POs may be associated with the same SSB. Therefore, a paging indication near the same SSB may be associated with multiple POs and needs to indicate whether paging exists in multiple POs. For example, as shown in FIG. 1c, the SSBs in front of PO2 include SSB1 to SSB3, the SSBs in front of PO1 include SSB1 and SSB2, and there are two overlapping SSBs: SSB1 and SSB2 in front of two different POs. In this case, both SSB1 and / or SSB2 may be associated with PO1 and PO2, and are used by terminals corresponding to PO1 and PO2 to perform pre-synchronization. For example, SSB2 is associated with PO1 and PO2. A paging indication near SSB2 may be associated with PO1 and PO2 to indicate whether paging exists in PO1 and PO2.

[0099] It should be noted that in this application, the SSB may be one or more SSBs that are in front of the paging occasion and closest to the PO. The paging indication near the SSB may be a paging indication that uses the end of the SSB as a starting point, or a paging indication that is after the end of the SSB and has a time difference from the end of the SSB that is less than a preset time threshold, or a paging indication that is near the SSB and after the end of the SSB. The preset time threshold may be set based on requirements and is not limited. Furthermore, in this application, the SSB is not limited to the SSB that is closest to the PO and in front of the paging occasion. Alternatively, the corresponding SSB may be preconfigured for the paging occasion, i.e., the paging occasion is associated with the SSB. In this case, the paging indication corresponding to the paging occasion may be located near the SSB.

[0100] In the following, a design manner of a paging indication is described by using an example in which a paging indication is associated with R paging occasions and is used to indicate whether paging exists on the R paging occasions, where R is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

[0101] First, to enable the paging indication to have the function of indicating whether paging exists in multiple POs, the paging indication may include at least a first field, and the first field may be used to indicate whether paging exists in R POs.

[0102] It should be noted that in the present application, the R POs indicated by the first field may be different POs in the same DRX cycle, POs in different DRX cycles, or POs appearing in different DRX cycles. This is not limited. Specifically, the R POs may be POs appearing in the same DRX cycle. In this case, the R POs are different POs. For example, it is assumed that the first field indicates whether paging exists in PO1, PO2, and PO3, and PO1, PO2, and PO3 may be different POs appearing in the same DRX cycle 1. Alternatively, the R POs may be POs appearing in different DRX cycles. For example, it is assumed that the first field indicates whether paging exists in PO1, PO2, and PO3. PO1 may be a PO in DRX cycle 1, PO2 and PO3 may be POs in DRX cycle 2, and the three POs are different POs. Alternatively, the R POs may be R POs appearing periodically in multiple DRX cycles. Specifically, the first field is used to indicate whether there is paging in one or more POs in R consecutive DRX cycles, so that when there is no paging in a PO in some consecutive DRX cycles, the terminal is pre-indicated to remain in a sleep state in some consecutive DRX cycles to achieve the purpose of saving energy for a long time. For example, the first field may be used to indicate whether there is paging in PO1 in DRX cycle 1, PO in DRX cycle 2, and PO3 in DRX cycle 3, that is, the first field may be used to indicate whether there is paging in the same PO that is periodically transmitted, or the first field may indicate whether there is paging in PO1 in DRX cycle 1, PO in DRX cycle 2, PO1 in DRX cycle 1, and PO2 in DRX cycle 2.

[0103] For example, the first field may include R pieces of indication information, the R pieces of indication information having a one-to-one correspondence with the R pieces of paging occasions, and the i-th piece of indication information of the R pieces of indication information indicates whether a paging is transmitted on the i-th paging occasion of the R pieces of paging occasions, where i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R.

[0104] The order of the R indication information in the first field is not limited in the present application. The R indication information may be arranged in the first field based on the time domain positions of the R paging occasions. For example, based on the order of the time domain positions, the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion with an earlier time domain position is arranged forward, and the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion with a later time domain position is arranged backward. Alternatively, the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion with an earlier time domain position is arranged backward, and the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion with a later time domain position is arranged forward. Alternatively, the indication information may be arranged in the first field based on a preset order. This is not limited. For example, the paging indication near SSB2 needs to indicate information about PO1, PO2, and PO3. Since the order of the three POs is from PO1 to PO3, the order of the three indication information in the DCI is the indication information of PO1, the indication information of PO2, and the indication information of PO3.

[0105] In one example, when terminals on the same paging occasion are not grouped, each indication information may include one bit, and the bit is used to indicate whether a paging is present on a paging occasion, for example, a binary bit "1" indicates that a paging is present on the paging occasion, and a binary bit "0" indicates that a paging is not present on the paging occasion.

[0106] In another example, when terminals on the same paging occasion are grouped into multiple groups, for example, M groups, the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion may include M bits, and one bit is used to indicate whether paging exists in one group. The M bits in the indication information may be arranged in the indication information based on the order of group numbers of the M groups. Specifically, the group to which the terminal belongs may be obtained through calculation based on the UE_ID, for example, floor(floor(UE_ID / N) / Ns) mod M or floor(UE_ID / N / Ns) mod M. In this way, the number of terminals in a group may be further reduced. For example, N*Ns groups may be changed to N*Ns*M groups, which may reduce the false alarm probability of terminals in each of the N*Ns*M groups and increase the probability of successfully paging the terminal.

[0107] In yet another example, when the R POs indicated by the first field are POs located in several consecutive DRX cycles, i.e., the first field is used to indicate whether paging exists in one or more POs in Q consecutive DRX cycles, the specific indication method of the first field may include several cases as follows: Case 1: When the terminals in a paging occasion are not grouped and the first field is used to indicate whether paging exists in the same PO in R consecutive DRX cycles, i.e., Q=R in this case, the first field includes one indication information. The indication information may include one number of bits, and the number of bits is used to indicate whether paging exists in the PO in R consecutive DRX cycles, or the indication information may include R number of bits, and the number of the jth bit is used to indicate whether paging exists in the PO in the jth DRX cycle. Alternatively, the first field includes R indication information, where one indication information may include a number of bits, and the i-th indication information is used to indicate whether there is paging in the PO in the j-th DRX cycle, where j is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R.

[0108] Case 2: When terminals in a paging occasion are not grouped, the first field is used to indicate whether paging exists in multiple different POs (e.g., P POs) in Q consecutive DRX cycles, where P and Q are positive integers, and P*Q=R, and the first field includes P pieces of indication information. One piece of indication information may include a number of bits, and the i-th indication information is used to indicate whether paging exists in the i-th PO in Q consecutive DRX cycles. Alternatively, the first field includes P pieces of indication information, and one piece of indication information may include a number of Q bits, and the j-th bit number in the i-th indication information is used to indicate whether paging exists in the i-th PO in the j-th DRX cycle. Alternatively, the first field includes R indication information, where one indication information may include one bit number, and the i-th indication information is used to indicate whether paging exists in the i-th PO in the j-th DRX cycle, where j is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R.

[0109] Case 3: When terminals in a paging occasion are grouped into M groups, the first field is used to indicate whether paging exists in multiple different POs (e.g., P POs) in Q consecutive DRX cycles, where P and Q are positive integers, and P*Q=R, and the first field includes P indication information. One indication information may include M bits, and the s-th bit number in the i-th indication information may be used to indicate whether paging exists for the s-th group in the i-th PO in Q consecutive DRX cycles, where s is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than M. Alternatively, the first field includes P indication information, and one indication information may include Q*M bits, and the s-th bit number in the i-th indication information is used to indicate whether paging exists for the s-th group in the i-th PO in the j-th DRX cycle.

[0110] In the present application, the number of paging occasions corresponding to different paging indications may be the same or different. In other words, the number of paging occasions corresponding to a paging indication may be fixed or may be dynamically adjusted. The number of indication information included in the first field in different paging indications may be the same or different. In other words, the number of indication information included in the first field changes with the paging occasion corresponding to the paging indication, and may be a fixed amount or may be dynamically adjusted. The number of bits included in different indication information may be the same or different, and may be a fixed amount or may be dynamically adjusted.

[0111] Furthermore, the information included in the SM is also important to the terminal. If the SM in the SMI and DCI is not included in the paging indication, the terminal needs to continue to receive the DCI at the PO and obtain the SM from the DCI in order to determine whether the SM is present and whether the SM further includes one or more of the following information: system information change indication information, earthquake and tsunami warning information, commercial mobile alert information, and indication information indicating to stop monitoring the paging message, even if the terminal knows that the paging message is not being sent. Thus, the terminal needs to maintain an operating state at the location of the PO in any case and consume a large amount of energy.

[0112] In order to avoid energy consumption caused by the terminal monitoring the SMI carried in the DCI and acquiring the SM, the paging indication may further carry a second field and a third field. The second field and the third field may be used by the terminal to acquire some information included in the previous SM of the terminal's PO. Since the information included in the SM, such as SI change information and ETWS information, does not change frequently, the SM normally transmitted to multiple neighboring POs will be the same. Therefore, when one paging indication is used to indicate whether paging exists in R neighboring POs, if the paging indication includes the second field and the third field, the information included in the second field and the information included in the third field may be common information of the R POs and are referred to as PO common information. The second field and the third field may be for all terminals corresponding to the R POs. For all terminals corresponding to the R POs, the content indicated by the second field and the content indicated by the third field are the same.

[0113] The second field may be used to indicate whether the paging indication includes an SM, and the second field may occupy one bit, and the one bit may be used to indicate whether the paging indication includes an SM. The second field may be referred to as an SMI. However, the SMI in the paging indication and the SMI in the DCI differ in terms of the number of occupied bits (or referred to as length) and indicate different contents.

[0114] The third field may be used to indicate an SM, which may include one or more of system information change indication information, earthquake and tsunami warning information, commercial mobile alert information, and indication information indicating to stop monitoring paging messages. The length (or number of occupied bits) of the third field may be specified in the protocol or configured by a network device (e.g., an access network device). For example, the access network device may configure the length of the third field based on the information that needs to be indicated to the terminal.

[0115] For example, the third field may be specified or configured to occupy 2 bits, 3 bits, 8 bits, etc., without being limited thereto. When the third field occupies 2 bits, and when the second field indicates that SM exists, the third field may hold SI modification information and ETWS information. When the third field occupies 3 bits, and when the second field indicates that SM exists, the third field may hold SI modification information, ETWS information, and information on whether to stop paging in the NRU. When the third field occupies 8 bits, and when the second field indicates that SM exists, the third field may hold SI modification information, ETWS information, and information on whether to stop paging in the NRU, and the remaining 5 bits are reserved.

[0116] Furthermore, an assistance RS is a reference signal configured by an access network device for one or more terminals in idle mode or inactive mode, and used to assist the terminal to perform time-frequency synchronization and AGC adjustment. To ensure that the terminal uses these RSs normally, the access network device may indicate to the terminal in advance whether these RSs are still available, i.e., the availability of the RSs. Thus, in addition to the first field, the second field, and the third field, the paging indication may further carry a fourth field, which may be used to indicate the availability of the assistance RSs.

[0117] In one example, the length of the fourth field may be equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups configured by the network device. The auxiliary reference signal group may include one or more auxiliary reference signals, and is an auxiliary reference signal group obtained by dividing the auxiliary reference signal configured by the network device based on a preset division granularity. The preset division granularity may be set based on requirements. For example, one auxiliary reference signal group may include four auxiliary reference signals, or one auxiliary reference signal group may include three auxiliary reference signals. This is not limited.

[0118] Please note that in this example, the fourth field is common information of the R POs and is referred to as PO common information. The fourth field is intended for all terminals corresponding to the R POs. Each terminal corresponding to the R POs may analyze the fourth field and determine whether an auxiliary reference signal or an auxiliary reference signal group configured by the network device is available based on the information held in the fourth field.

[0119] For example, if the access network device configures a total of nine RSs, the length of the fourth field may be nine bits, with the nine bits in one-to-one correspondence with the nine RSs to respectively indicate whether the nine RSs are available. Alternatively, if one auxiliary reference signal group includes three auxiliary reference signals and there are three auxiliary reference signal groups, the length of the fourth field is three bits, with the three bits in one-to-one correspondence with the three auxiliary reference signal groups to respectively indicate whether the three auxiliary reference signal groups are available.

[0120] In another example, the length of the fourth field may be equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups associated with the R paging occasions. For a related description of the auxiliary reference signal groups, please refer to the above description. The details will not be described again.

[0121] In this example, the fourth field is common information of the R POs and is referred to as PO common information. The fourth field may be intended for all terminals corresponding to the R POs. Each of all terminals corresponding to the R POs may analyze the fourth field and determine the auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups associated with the R paging occasions based on the information held in the fourth field.

[0122] For example, it is assumed that the access network device configures a total of 10 RSs: RS1 to RS10, R=3, and R paging occasions are PO1 to PO3, respectively, where RS1 to RS6 are associated with PO1 to PO3. In this case, the length of the fourth field may be equal to 6 bits, and the 6 bits are in one-to-one correspondence with the 6 RSs associated with PO1 to PO3 to indicate whether the 6 RSs associated with the three POs, i.e., PO1 to PO3, are available. Alternatively, when one auxiliary reference signal group includes two auxiliary reference signals and there are three auxiliary reference signal groups, the length of the fourth field is 3 bits, and the 3 bits are in one-to-one correspondence with the three auxiliary reference signal groups to indicate whether the three auxiliary reference signal groups associated with the three POs, i.e., PO1 to PO3, are available, respectively.

[0123] In yet another example, the fourth field includes R subfields, where the R subfields correspond to R paging occasions, and one subfield may be used to indicate the availability of an auxiliary reference signal associated with the paging occasion corresponding to the subfield, and the length of one subfield may be equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups associated with the paging occasion corresponding to the subfield. Specifically, the fourth field is divided into subfields corresponding to a single specific paging occasion, and one subfield indicates the availability of an auxiliary reference signal associated with one paging occasion. Thus, in this example, one subfield holds information about one specific PO, is single PO-oriented, and is PO-specific information.

[0124] For example, it is assumed that the access network device configures a total of 10 RSs: RS1 to RS10, R=3, and R paging occasions are PO1 to PO3, respectively, where RS1 and RS2 are associated with PO1, RS3 and RS4 are associated with PO2, and RS5 and RS6 are associated with PO3. In this case, the fourth field may be divided into three subfields, the length of each subfield is equal to 2 bits, and each bit indicates one RS. Alternatively, when one RS group includes two RSs, the length of each subfield is equal to 1 bit, and each bit indicates one RS group. The three subfields have a one-to-one correspondence with PO1 to PO3. For example, the first subfield indicates whether two RSs associated with PO1 are available, the second subfield indicates whether two RSs associated with PO2 are available, and the third subfield indicates whether two RSs associated with PO3 are available.

[0125] It should be noted that in this example, the subfields may be arranged based on the time domain position of the PO associated with the subfield. For example, a subfield corresponding to a PO whose time domain position is forward is arranged forward, or a subfield corresponding to a PO whose time domain position is backward is arranged forward. Alternatively, the subfields may be arranged in a pre-set order. This is not a limitation.

[0126] Furthermore, in order to more flexibly adjust the number of POs indicated by the first field or the length of the first field, the paging indication may further include a fifth field. In one example, the fifth field may be used to directly or indirectly indicate the number of paging occasions indicated by the first field. For example, the value of the fifth field may be the number R of paging occasions indicated by the first field, and the number R may be directly determined based on the value of the fifth field. Alternatively, there may be a mapping relationship between the value of the fifth field and the number R, and the number R of paging occasions indicated by the first field may be determined based on the mapping relationship.

[0127] For example, Table 1 shows the mapping relationship between the bits held in the first field and the number R. As shown in Table 1, bit 00 corresponds to the number 2, bit 01 corresponds to the number 3, bit 10 corresponds to the number 4, and bit 11 corresponds to the number 5. It is assumed that the fifth field holds bit 10, and it can be seen from Table 1 that the number R of paging occasions indicated by the fifth field is 4. Table 1 [Table 1]

[0128] In another example, the fifth field may be used to indicate the length of the first field. As described above, when the first field includes R pieces of indication information and one piece of indication information includes one bit, the length of the first field may be 5 bits, and the value of the fifth field may indicate 5. For example, the fifth field may directly hold the value R, or may hold the number of binary bits having a mapping relationship with R. As described above, when the first field includes R pieces of indication information, one piece of indication information includes M bits, the length of the first field is R*M, and the value of the fifth field may indicate R*M. For example, the fifth field may directly hold the value R*M, or may hold the number of binary bits having a mapping relationship with R*M.

[0129] Please note that the fifth field is common information of the PO and is referred to as PO common information. The fifth field may be for all terminals corresponding to the R POs. All terminals corresponding to the R POs may analyze the fifth field and determine the number R of paging occasions or the length of the indication information corresponding to the R paging occasions based on the information held in the fifth field.

[0130] Other fields in the DCI, such as the FDRA field, the TDRA field, the VRB to PRB mapping field, the MCS field, and the TB scaling field, are mainly used to indicate the time-frequency resources and transmission parameters, etc., used to schedule the PDSCH carrying the paging message. Because the paging indication is transmitted earlier than the PO and the time interval between the paging indication and the PDSCH may be relatively long, the access network device cannot predict / determine in advance the time-frequency resources and transmission parameters to be used when the PDSCH is actually transmitted. Therefore, the FDRA field, the TDRA field, the VRB to PRB mapping field, the MCS field, and the TB scaling field are not suitable for being included in the paging indication.

[0131] It can be seen from the above that the paging indication may include at least a first field, and may further include a second field, a third field, a fourth field, and a fifth field, as shown in Fig. 2. In this case, if the length of the paging indication is long enough and there are remaining bits, these remaining bits may be used as blank padding in the paging indication. As shown in Fig. 2, the first field is a PO specific field, and the indication information in the first field is for a specific PO, and the second field, the third field, and the fifth field are PO common fields, and may be for all terminals corresponding to the R POs. These fields are shared by the R POs. The fourth field may be a PO common field or a PO specific field.

[0132] It should be noted that Fig. 2 is only an exemplary diagram. In addition to the fields shown in Fig. 2, with the development of communication technology, Fig. 2 may further include other fields that can be included in the paging indication, which is not limited thereto.

[0133] Based on the design shown in FIG. 2, the energy consumption of the terminal may be reduced by indicating in advance to the terminal whether paging is present in the PO; one paging indication may be used to indicate multiple POs to indicate whether paging is present in multiple POs at once, and the PO common fields are distinguished from the PO-specific fields, and the PO common fields are used as much as possible if sufficient indication information is provided to reduce signaling overhead.

[0134] The following describes how a terminal determines which POs are the R POs indicated by the first field when the first field indicates whether paging exists in the R POs.

[0135] Scheme 1: One paging occasion corresponds to K paging indications, ie, one paging occasion may be indicated by K paging indications.

[0136] K is an integer equal to or greater than 1, and K may be pre-configured by an access network device for the terminal or pre-specified in a protocol, without any limitation thereon. The K paging indications corresponding to a paging occasion may be K consecutive paging indications that are closest to the paging occasion and that precede the paging occasion. The K paging indications correspond to K consecutive SSBs that are closest to the paging occasion and that precede the paging occasion. The paging indications are located near the SSB corresponding to the paging indication. Optionally, the K consecutive SSBs are K SSBs in K consecutive SSB cycles, or SSBs with the same index in K consecutive SSB cycles.

[0137] According to the method 1, after obtaining the PO of the terminal through calculation, the terminal may determine K consecutive SSBs that are in front of the PO of the terminal and closest to the PO based on the time domain location of the PO and the time domain location of the SSBs, and determine K paging indications near the K SSBs corresponding to the PO of the terminal. Furthermore, according to the same method, the terminal may obtain several other POs near the PO of the terminal through calculation, and determine K paging indications corresponding to each of the several POs. The K paging indications corresponding to each of the several POs may be the same paging indications as the K paging indications corresponding to the PO of the terminal. In this way, the terminal may determine a PO associated with each of the K paging indications corresponding to the PO of the terminal.

[0138] Furthermore, after determining the PO associated with the paging indication corresponding to the PO of the terminal, the terminal may determine the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal based on the time domain location of the PO and an ordering rule of the indication information in the first field, determine whether paging exists in the PO of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal, and stop operation as soon as possible if paging does not exist, to reduce energy consumption.

[0139] It can be seen from the above process that in Scheme 1, the numbers of POs corresponding to different paging indications may be the same or different.

[0140] For example, as shown in Fig. 3a, it is assumed that one PO corresponds to two paging indications. There are SSB1 to SSB5 before PO5, there are SSB1 to SSB4 before PO4, there are SSB1 to SSB3 before PO3, there are SSB1 to SSB3 before PO2, and there are SSB1 and SSB2 before PO1. The paging indication corresponding to PO5 may be two corresponding paging indications near SSB4 and SSB5. The paging indication corresponding to PO4 may be two corresponding paging indications near SSB4 and SSB3. The paging indication corresponding to PO3 may be two corresponding paging indications near SSB3 and SSB2. The paging indication corresponding to PO2 may be two corresponding paging indications near SSB3 and SSB2. The paging indication corresponding to PO1 may be two corresponding paging indications near SSB2 and SSB1. It can be seen that the paging indication near SSB4 may correspond to PO4 and PO5, the paging indication near SSB3 may correspond to PO3 and PO2, the paging indication near SSB2 may correspond to PO3, PO2, and PO1, and the paging indication near SSB1 only corresponds to PO1. It is assumed that the PO of the terminal is PO2, and PO2 corresponds to the paging indication near SSB2. According to the above method, the terminal may determine that the paging indication corresponding to PO2 also corresponds to PO1 and PO3, and determine that the indication information corresponding to PO2 is the second indication information in the first field based on the time domain position relationship between PO3, PO2, and PO1 and the ordering rule corresponding to the indication information.

[0141] Method 2: One monitoring time interval is configured before a paging occasion, so that after obtaining the paging occasion of the terminal through calculation, the terminal receives a paging indication corresponding to the paging occasion in the monitoring time interval corresponding to the paging occasion, obtains indication information corresponding to the paging occasion from the received paging occasion, and determines whether there is paging on the paging occasion based on the indication information.

[0142] The monitoring time interval may be configured by the access network device for the terminal, for example, the access network device sends monitoring time window configuration information to the terminal, and the terminal receives the monitoring time window configuration information and determines the monitoring time interval corresponding to the paging occasion based on the received monitoring time window configuration information.

[0143] Specifically, the monitoring time window configuration information may directly include a monitoring time interval. Alternatively, the monitoring time window configuration information may include a start point of the monitoring time interval. In this case, the end point of the monitoring time interval may be set to the start point of a paging occasion or a time point before the start point of a paging occasion. Alternatively, the monitoring time configuration information may include a start point and an end point of the monitoring time interval. This is not limited.

[0144] According to the method 2, after obtaining the PO of the terminal through calculation, the terminal may obtain several other POs near the PO of the terminal through calculation, and determine a paging indication corresponding to each of the several POs. In this case, it is assumed that the paging indication corresponding to the PO is near the SSB in front of the PO. Furthermore, the terminal may determine which paging indication corresponding to several other POs near the PO of the terminal is also included in the monitoring time interval corresponding to the PO of the terminal, and determine a PO associated with the paging indication in the monitoring time interval. Furthermore, after determining the PO associated with the paging indication in the monitoring time interval, the terminal may determine the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal based on the time domain location of the PO and the ordering rule of the indication information in the first field, and determine whether there is a paging in the PO of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal, and if there is no paging, stop operation as soon as possible to reduce energy consumption.

[0145] It can be seen from the above process that in Scheme 2, the numbers of paging occasions corresponding to different paging indications may be the same or different.

[0146] Figure 3b is used as an example. SSB1 to SSB5 exist before PO5, SSB1 to SSB4 exist before PO4, SSB1 to SSB3 exist before PO3, SSB1 to SSB3 exist before PO2, and SSB1 and SSB2 exist before PO1. The PO of the terminal is PO2, and the monitoring time interval corresponding to the terminal's PO2 is one time interval from the start of SSB1 to the end of the nearby paging indication of SSB2, and the nearby paging indications of SSB2 and SSB1 are within the monitoring time interval. Further, based on the setting principle that the paging indication corresponding to a PO is located near the SSB in front of the PO, it can be seen that the paging indication corresponding to PO3 may be the paging indication near SSB3, SSB2, and SSB1, the paging indication corresponding to PO2 may be the paging indication near SSB3, SSB2, and SSB1, and the paging indication corresponding to PO1 may be the paging indication near SSB2 and SSB1. In the monitoring time interval, the paging indication near SSB2 may correspond to PO1, PO2, and PO3, and the paging indication near SSB1 may correspond to PO1, PO2, and PO3. Therefore, based on the time domain position relationship between PO3, PO2, and PO1 and the ordering rule corresponding to the indication information, it can be determined that the indication information corresponding to PO2 is the second indication information in the first field.

[0147] Scheme 3: The number of paging occasions correspondingly indicated by one paging indication is configured as R, and the numbers of paging occasions indicated by different paging indications are the same, ie, R paging occasions.

[0148] For example, the R paging occasions correspondingly indicated by the paging indication may be R consecutive paging occasions after the paging indication, and the first paging occasion in the R paging occasions may be the paging occasion that is after the paging indication and closest to the paging indication. The value of R may be configured by the access network device for the terminal or may be pre-specified in a protocol, but is not limited thereto.

[0149] According to method 3, after a paging indication is set near the SSB, the terminal can know which R POs the paging indication corresponds to and which R POs corresponding to the paging indication include the terminal's PO, and based on the R POs corresponding to the paging indication and the ordering rule of the indication information in the first field, determine the indication information corresponding to the terminal's PO based on the indication information corresponding to the terminal's PO, and stop operating as soon as possible if there is no paging, thereby reducing energy consumption.

[0150] FIG. 3c is used as an example. It is assumed that R=3 and paging indications are set in the vicinity of SSB1 to SSB5 separately. The three POs corresponding to the paging indication in the vicinity of SSB1 are PO1 to PO3, the three POs corresponding to the paging indication in the vicinity of SSB2 are PO2 to PO4, and the three POs corresponding to the paging indication in the vicinity of SSB3 are PO3 to PO5. If the PO of the terminal is PO2, the terminal may determine that the paging indication corresponding to PO2 and located in SSB1 further indicates PO1 and PO3, and then determine that the indication information corresponding to PO2 is the second indication information in the first field based on the time domain position relationship between PO3, PO2, and PO1 and the ordering rule corresponding to the indication information.

[0151] It can be seen from the above that when a paging occasion is grouped, for example, divided into M MOs, the M bits included in the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion may be fixed or may be dynamically adjusted. In order to avoid wasting signaling overhead when it is certain that the false alarm probability of the terminal is low, all bits in the paging indication having a fixed length are occupied as much as possible, i.e., all bits are filled with available information. Specifically, the scheme is shown in the following Example 1 or Example 2.

[0152] Example 1: If there is another field in the paging indication other than the first field that indicates valid information, M=

number

number

[0153] A is the length of the paging indication, and B is the length of the fields in the paging indication that indicate useful information other than the first field, which may be, for example, the total length of the second field, the third field, the fourth field, and the fifth field.

[0154] According to the scheme shown in Example 1, in order to reduce the false alarm probability of paging the terminal and increase the probability of successfully paging the terminal, the number of padding bits in the paging indication may be as small as possible, the number of useful information bits may be as large as possible, and the number M of grouped paging occasions may be as large as possible.

[0155] Example 2: R paging occasions

number

number

number

[0156] A is the length of the paging indication, and B is the length of the fields in the paging indication that indicate useful information other than the first field, which may be, for example, the total length of the second field, the third field, the fourth field, and the fifth field. It should be noted that if the only field in the paging indication that indicates useful information is the first field, the value of B in the formula shown in Example 2 is 0.

[0157] In Example 2,

number

[0158] According to the scheme shown in Scheme Example 2, the presence of padding bits can be completely avoided, and the number of bits of useful information is as large as possible, and further the number M of grouped paging opportunities is as large as possible, in order to reduce the false alarm probability of paging the terminal and increase the probability of successfully paging the terminal.

[0159] Furthermore, in order to help the terminal accurately receive the paging indication near the SSB, there is a quasi-co-located (QCL) relationship between the paging indication and the synchronization signal block SSB closest to the paging indication, or a QCL relationship between the paging indication and the SSB associated with the paging indication. In other words, the terminal device may assume that there is a quasi-co-located relationship between the paging indication and the synchronization signal block SSB closest to the paging indication. When the paging indication is a DCI, the QCL relationship between the paging indication and the SSB may be equivalently described as there being a QCL relationship between the CORESET associated with the search space in which the paging indication is located and the associated (or closest) SSB.

[0160] The QCL relationship actually represents the beam reception parameters used by the terminal to receive the signal. When two downlink signals are QCL signals, the terminal may receive the two signals by using the same reception beam. For example, when there is a QCL relationship between a paging indication and a synchronization signal block SSB closest to the paging indication, the terminal may receive the paging indication by using the same reception beam as the reception beam used to receive the SSB. When there is a QCL relationship between a paging indication and an SSB associated with the paging indication, the terminal may receive the paging indication by using the same reception beam as the reception beam used to receive the SSB associated with the paging indication.

[0161] Furthermore, when one paging occasion can be indicated by multiple paging indications, the indication information received by the terminal and corresponding to the paging occasion may not be consistent. As a result, the terminal cannot achieve the purpose of saving energy by using paging indications. For example, the terminal is a terminal with poor coverage and needs to receive SSB1 and SSB2 for pre-synchronization. If the contents indicated by the paging indications near SSB1 and SSB2 are consistent, the terminal may enter a sleep state to save energy after the terminal is indicated that it cannot be paged by receiving the paging indication near SSB1. If the contents indicated by the paging indications near SSB1 and SSB2 are not consistent, the terminal needs to further receive the paging indication near SSB2 to ensure security. In this case, no energy saving gain can be obtained.

[0162] In order to avoid the aforementioned problem, in the embodiment of the present application, it should be further specified that the indication content of the first field in different paging indications for the same paging occasion is identical, so that the content of the indication information in all paging indications for the same paging occasion is identical.

[0163] In the following, by using an example in which the paging indication has the above design, a process in which a network device pages a terminal is described.

[0164] The paging method provided in the embodiment of the present application may be applied to any one of a 4th generation (4G) system, a long term evolution (LTE) system, a 5th generation (5G) system, a new radio (NR) system, an NR vehicle-to-everything (V2X) system, an Internet of Things system, or another next-generation communication system, without being limited thereto. In the following, the paging method provided in the embodiment of the present application will be described by using the communication system shown in FIG. 4 as an example.

[0165] FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 4, the communication system may include a network device and a number of terminals, such as terminal 1, terminal 2, and terminal 3. In the system shown in FIG. 4, data may be transmitted between the terminals and the network device through a Uu interface. For example, the network device may transmit downlink data to the terminal through the Uu interface, and the terminal may transmit uplink data to the network device through the Uu interface. Data may be transmitted between the terminals through a SL. As described above, both the network device and the terminal in FIG. 4 may be referred to as a communication device. It should be noted that FIG. 4 is an example of a configuration diagram. The number of nodes included in FIG. 4 is not limited. In addition to the functional nodes shown in FIG. 4, another node may be further included, for example, a core network device, a gateway device, or an application server. This is not limited.

[0166] The network device is mainly configured to implement functions such as resource scheduling, radio resource management, and terminal radio access control. Specifically, the network device may be any of the following nodes: a small base station, a radio access point, a transmission reception point (TRP), a transmission point (TP), and another access node. In this embodiment of the present application, the device configured to implement the function of the network device may be a network device, or may be a device that can support the network device to implement the function, such as a chip system (e.g., a processing system including one chip or multiple chips) or a modem. The following describes the paging method provided in this embodiment of the present application by using an example in which the device configured to implement the function of the network device is a network device.

[0167] The terminal may be a terminal equipment, a user equipment (UE), a mobile station (MS), a mobile terminal (MT), or the like. Specifically, the terminal may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, or a computer having a wireless transceiver function, or may be a virtual reality (VR) terminal, an augmented reality (AR) terminal, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in autonomous driving, a wireless terminal in remote medical care, a wireless terminal in a smart grid, a wireless terminal in a smart city, a smart home, or an in-vehicle terminal, or the like. In this embodiment of the present application, the device configured to implement the function of the terminal may be a terminal, or may be a device capable of supporting the terminal to implement the function, such as a chip system (e.g., a processing system including one chip or multiple chips) or a modem. In the following, the paging method provided in this embodiment of the present application will be described by using an example in which the device configured to implement the function of the terminal is a terminal.

[0168] During a particular implementation, the network elements, e.g., terminals and network devices, shown in FIG. 4 may use the organizational structure shown in FIG. 5 or may include the components shown in FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram of a communication device 500 according to an embodiment of the present application. When the communication device 500 has the function of a terminal in this embodiment of the present application, the communication device 500 may be a terminal, or a chip in a terminal, or a system-on-chip.

[0169] 5, the communication device 500 may include a processor 501, a communication line 502, and a communication interface 503. Furthermore, the communication device 500 may further include a memory 504. The processor 501, the memory 504, and the communication interface 503 may be connected to each other through the communication line 502.

[0170] The processor 501 may be a central processing unit (CPU), a general purpose processor, a network processor (NP), a digital signal processor (DSP), a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a programmable logic device (PLD), or any combination thereof. The processor 501 may alternatively be another device having processing capabilities, such as a circuit, component, or software module.

[0171] The communication lines 502 are configured to transmit information between components included in the communication device 500 .

[0172] The communication interface 503 is configured to communicate with another device or another communication network. The other communication network may be an Ethernet, a radio access network (RAN), or a wireless local area network (WLAN), etc. The communication interface 503 may be a radio frequency module, a transceiver, or any device capable of implementing communication. In this embodiment of the present application, an example in which the communication interface 503 is a radio frequency module is used for illustration. The radio frequency module may include an antenna and a radio frequency circuit, etc. The radio frequency circuit may include an integrated radio frequency chip and a power amplifier, etc.

[0173] The memory 504 is configured to store instructions, which may be computer programs.

[0174] The memory 504 may be a read-only memory (ROM) or another type of static storage device capable of storing static information and / or instructions, or a random access memory (RAM) or another type of dynamic storage device capable of storing information and / or instructions, or may be an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), another compact disc storage, an optical disc storage, or a magnetic disc storage medium or another magnetic storage device. Optical disc storage includes compact discs, laser discs, optical discs, digital versatile discs, Blu-ray discs, and the like.

[0175] It should be noted that the memory 504 may be separate from the processor 501 or may be integrated with the processor 501. The memory 504 may be configured to store instructions, program codes, or some data, etc. The memory 504 may be located inside the communication device 500 or outside the communication device 500, without any limitation in this respect. The processor 501 is configured to execute instructions stored in the memory 504 to implement the paging method provided in the following embodiments of the present application.

[0176] In one example, the processor 501 may include one or more CPUs in FIG. 5, such as CPU0 and CPU1.

[0177] In an optional implementation example, the communication device 500 includes multiple processors. For example, in addition to the processor 501 in FIG.

[0178] In an optional implementation example, the communication apparatus 500 further includes an output device 505 and an input device 506. The input device 506 is a keyboard, a mouse, a microphone, a joystick, or the like, and the output device 505 is a device, for example, a display or a speaker.

[0179] It should be noted that the communications device 500 may be a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a network server, a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wireless terminal, an embedded device, a chip system, or a device having a structure similar to that shown in Figure 5. Furthermore, the organizational structure shown in Figure 5 does not constitute a limitation on the communications device. In addition to the components shown in Figure 5, the communications device may include more or fewer components than those shown in the figure, some components may be combined, or different component layouts may exist.

[0180] In this embodiment of the present application, a chip system may include a chip, or may include a chip and other discrete components.

[0181] With reference to the communication system shown in FIG. 4, the following describes a process in which a network device pages a first terminal by using an example in which the paging indication is PO. In the following embodiments, each device may have the components shown in FIG. 5, and the operations and terms involved in the embodiments may be mutually referenced. The names of messages exchanged between devices and the names of parameters in the messages in the embodiments are merely examples. Other names may also be used during specific implementation. This is not limited thereto. For example, "include" in this application may be replaced with "contain" or "carry". The paging indication described in this application may be replaced with WUS or early paging indication, etc.

[0182] Figure 6 shows a paging method according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 6, the method may include the following steps:

[0183] Step 601: A network device determines to page a terminal.

[0184] The network device may be the network device in Fig. 4. The terminal may include one or more terminals in an idle state or an inactive state in Fig. 4, for example, a first terminal, a second terminal, a third terminal, etc. These terminals may correspond to the same PO or different POs, but are not limited thereto. This embodiment is described by using an example in which these terminals correspond to the same PO.

[0185] For example, if the terminal has a downlink service requirement, the network device decides to page the terminal and triggers the terminal to switch from an idle or inactive state to a connected state, and the terminal receives the downlink service in the connected state.

[0186] Step 602: The network device periodically transmits one or more SSBs before the PO of the terminal, and transmits one or more paging indications near the one or more SSBs.

[0187] The PO of the terminal may be a time interval in which the terminal monitors the DCI that schedules the PDSCH carrying the paging message. For example, the network device may determine the PF of the terminal and the PO of the terminal according to the above formula (1) and the above formula (2). Details will not be described again.

[0188] The SSB may be used by the terminal to perform pre-synchronization. The relevant description of the SSB has been described above, and the details will not be described again.

[0189] The paging indication may be used to indicate whether paging exists in one or more POs including the PO of the terminal. For example, the paging indication may indicate whether paging exists in R POs, where R is an integer equal to or greater than 1. For the number of indication information included in the paging indication and the number of bits included in each indication information, please refer to the above description. For example, one indication information may include one bit or may include M bits, and the number of bits included in all indication information may be the same or different. Details will not be described again.

[0190] The SSB near which the paging indication is transmitted may be located in the same SSB cycle or in a different SSB cycle. This is not limited. Furthermore, in this application, for ease of explanation, the SSB near which the paging indication is transmitted may be referred to as the SSB associated / corresponding to the paging indication, or the SSB closest to the paging indication, etc. This is not limited. For example, the paging indication corresponds to an SSB. One SSB may correspond to one paging indication, that is, one paging indication may be transmitted near one SSB. For the positional relationship between the SSB and the paging indication near the SSB, please refer to the above description. Details will not be described again.

[0191] Specifically, for the design format of each paging indication, please refer to the description in Fig. 2. For the manner of determining the mapping relationship between the paging indication and the PO, such as the number of POs specifically indicated by one paging indication or the number of POs specifically corresponding to one PO, please refer to the manner 1, the manner 2, or the manner 3. For example, one paging indication may indicate R POs, one PO may correspond to K paging indications, or one PO corresponds to a paging indication in one monitoring time interval. Details will not be described.

[0192] Furthermore, in order to avoid the terminal from being unable to achieve the purpose of saving energy due to inconsistent indication information corresponding to the same PO, when the PO of the terminal corresponds to multiple paging indications, in order to resolve the inconsistency of indication information corresponding to the same PO and ensure that the terminal is ready to obtain indication information, the indication information used to indicate the PO of the terminal and in the multiple paging indications are identical, and when it is indicated that the terminal is not being paged, the terminal enters a sleep state in advance to save energy.

[0193] Furthermore, in order to improve the accuracy of the network device sending the paging indication and to help the terminal receive the paging indication accurately, there is a QCL relationship between the PO and the SSB corresponding to the PO, or there is a QCL relationship between the PO and the SSB associated with the PO. The network device may transmit the paging indication to the terminal based on the transmission beam of the SSB. Correspondingly, in order to improve the accuracy of the terminal receiving the paging indication, the terminal receives the paging indication based on the reception beam of the SSB.

[0194] Step 603: The network device sends DCI to the PO of the terminal, where the DCI is used to schedule a PDSCH carrying a paging message.

[0195] For related descriptions of DCI and PDSCH, please refer to the above description, and the details will not be described again.

[0196] The paging message may include identification information of multiple terminals (such as a first terminal and a second terminal) that need to be paged, and the POs of the terminals that need to be paged are the same. In this way, multiple terminals can be paged in one paging process to reduce signaling overhead and energy consumption caused by interactions between network devices and terminals.

[0197] Step 604: The terminal receives one or more SSBs and receives one or more paging indications.

[0198] For example, the terminal may determine an SSB that needs to be received based on the associated configuration of the SSB, the coverage status of the terminal, and / or the hardware processing capability of the terminal, further determine an SSB near which a paging indication corresponding to the terminal's PO is located and which is in the SSB that needs to be received based on Scheme 1, Scheme 2, or Scheme 3, and receive one or more SSBs and one or more paging indications based on the determination result.

[0199] It should be noted that the execution order of step 603 and step 604 is not limited in the present application. Step 603 and step 604 may be executed simultaneously, or as shown in FIG. 6, step 603 is executed before step 604, or step 604 is executed before step 603. This is not limited. Furthermore, it should be noted that in the present application, for the network device and the terminal, "the design format of the paging indication (e.g., the fields included in the paging indication and the number of bits included in each indication information in the paging indication)" and "the method of determining the number of POs specifically indicated by one paging indication and the number of POs specifically corresponding to one PO" are consistent. The design format and the determination method used may be predetermined by the network device and the terminal in advance. Alternatively, the network device determines the design format and the determination method to be selected, and indicates the selection result to the terminal. This is not limited.

[0200] Step 605: The terminal determines, based on the first paging indication, whether to monitor (or continue to monitor) the DCI in the PO of the terminal.

[0201] The first paging indication may be a first paging indication in one or more paging indications corresponding to the PO of the terminal, or may be any one of one or more paging indications corresponding to the PO of the terminal, etc. This is not limited.

[0202] For example, determining whether the terminal monitors (or continues to monitor) a DCI on the PO of the terminal based on the first paging indication may include the terminal determining indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal based on a time domain location of the PO of the terminal in the R POs, and determining whether to monitor a DCI on the PO of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal. For example, if the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal is used to indicate that paging exists on the PO of the terminal, it is determined to monitor a DCI on the PO of the terminal. If the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal is used to indicate that paging does not exist on the PO of the terminal, it is not determined to monitor a DCI on the PO of the terminal, and the terminal stops operating and enters a sleep state to reduce energy consumption.

[0203] As described above, the R indication information corresponding to the R POs may be arranged in the paging indication based on the order of the time domain locations of the R POs. For example, the indication information corresponding to a PO whose time domain location is earlier is arranged in front of the paging indication, and the indication information corresponding to a PO whose time domain location is later than the paging indication is arranged in rear. Alternatively, the indication information corresponding to a PO whose time domain location is earlier is arranged in rear of the paging indication, and the indication information corresponding to a PO whose time domain location is later is arranged in front of the paging indication. The terminal determining the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal based on the time domain locations of the PO of the terminal in the R POs may include the terminal determining the indication information corresponding to the PO of the terminal based on an ordering rule of the R indication information.

[0204] Furthermore, if the terminal decides to monitor a DCI on the PO of the terminal based on the first paging indication, the terminal continues to be in an operating state after receiving the first paging indication, completes pre-synchronization, monitors a DCI on the PO of the terminal after pre-synchronization, receives a PDSCH carrying a paging message at a resource location indicated by the DCI, determines whether the terminal is paged based on the identification information of the terminal carried in the paging message, and if the terminal is paged, initiates a random access process, and transmits service data with the network device after the random access is successful.

[0205] Based on the method shown in Fig. 6, the network device may pre-configure a paging indication before a PO, and use the paging indication to pre-indicate to the terminal whether there is paging in the PO, so that when there is no paging in the PO, the terminal is pre-triggered to stop working and enter a sleep state, in order to reduce the energy consumption of the terminal. Further, in the method shown in Fig. 6, one paging indication may be configured to indicate whether there is paging in multiple POs, in order to indicate whether there is paging in multiple POs at one time, in order to reduce signaling overhead.

[0206] The foregoing mainly describes the solutions provided in the embodiments of the present application from the perspective of interactions between nodes. It can be understood that to implement the above functions, a node such as a terminal includes corresponding hardware structures and / or software modules for performing the functions. In combination with the algorithm steps of the exemplary descriptions in the embodiments disclosed herein, those skilled in the art will easily recognize that the present application can be implemented by hardware or a combination of hardware and computer software. Whether the functions are implemented by hardware or executed by hardware driven by computer software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art may use different methods to implement the functions described for each specific application, but this implementation should not be considered as going beyond the scope of the present application.

[0207] In the embodiment of the present application, the terminal or the like may be divided into functional modules based on the above-mentioned method example. For example, each functional module may be obtained through division based on each corresponding function, or two or more functions may be integrated into one processing module. The above-mentioned integrated module may be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of a software function module. It should be noted that in the embodiment of the present application, the module division is an example and is merely a logical function division. In actual implementation, another division method may be used.

[0208] 7 is a structural diagram of a communication device 70. The communication device 70 may be a first communication device, or a chip or a system-on-chip in the first communication device. The communication device 70 may be configured to implement the functions of the first communication device in the above-mentioned embodiments. In implementation, the communication device 70 shown in FIG. 7 includes: a receiving unit 701 and a processing unit 702.

[0209] The receiving unit 701 is configured to receive a first paging indication including a first field sent by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal. The first field is used to indicate whether a paging is sent on the R paging occasions including the paging occasion of the terminal. For example, the receiving unit 701 may support the communication device 70 to perform step 604.

[0210] The processing unit 702 may be configured to determine, based on the first paging occasion, whether to monitor a DCI used for scheduling a paging message on the paging occasion of the terminal. For example, the processing unit 702 may support the communication device 70 to perform step 605.

[0211] Specifically, all the relevant contents of the steps in the above-mentioned method embodiment shown in Fig. 6 may be referred to the functional description of the corresponding functional module, and the details will not be described again in this specification. The communication device 70 is configured to implement the functions of the terminal in the paging method shown in the method shown in Fig. 6, and thus can achieve the same effects as the above-mentioned paging method.

[0212] In another implementation, the communication device 70 shown in FIG. 7 includes a processing module and a communication module. The processing module is configured to control and manage the operation of the communication device 70. For example, the processing module may integrate the functions of the processing unit 702 and may be configured to support the communication device 70 to perform step 605 and other processes of the techniques described herein. The communication module may integrate the functions of the receiving unit 701 and may be configured to support the communication device 70 to perform step 604 and communicate with other network entities, such as the functional modules or network entities shown in FIG. 4. The communication device 70 may further include a storage module for storing program codes and data of the communication device 70.

[0213] The processing module may be a processor or a controller. The processing module may implement or execute various exemplary logic blocks, modules and circuits described with reference to the contents disclosed herein. Alternatively, the processor may be a combination of multiple processors implementing computing functions, such as a combination of one or more microprocessors, or a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor. The communication module may be a transceiver circuit or a communication interface, etc. The storage module may be a memory. When the processing module is a processor, the communication module is a communication interface, the storage module is a memory, and the communication device 70 in this embodiment of the present application may be the communication device 500 shown in FIG. 5.

[0214] 8 is a structural diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 8, the communication system may include a terminal 80 and a network device. The function of the terminal 80 is the same as that of the communication device 70.

[0215] For example, the terminal 80 is configured to receive a first paging indication transmitted by a network device prior to a paging occasion 80 of the terminal, the first field including a first field, where the first field is used to indicate whether a paging has been transmitted on R paging occasions including the paging occasion 80 of the terminal; and to determine, based on the first paging occasion, whether to monitor a DCI used to schedule a paging message on the paging occasion 80 of the terminal.

[0216] For the design manner of the paging occasion, the mapping relationship between the paging indication and the paging occasion, and the specific implementation operation of the terminal, please refer to the relevant description and design manner in the method shown in Figure 6. Details will not be described again.

[0217] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium. All or some of the processes in the above method embodiments may be implemented by a computer program instructing relevant hardware. The program may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. When the program is executed, the processes in the above method embodiments may be implemented. The computer-readable storage medium may be an internal storage unit of the terminal (including the data transmission end and / or the data receiving end) in any one of the above embodiments, such as a hard disk or a memory of the terminal. The computer-readable storage medium may alternatively be an external storage device of the terminal, such as a plug-in hard disk, a smart media card (SMC), a secure digital (SD) card, or a flash card provided in the terminal. Furthermore, the computer-readable storage medium may alternatively include both the internal storage unit and the external storage device of the terminal. The computer-readable storage medium is configured to store the computer program and other programs and data required by the terminal. The computer-readable storage medium may further be configured to temporarily store output or output data.

[0218] With reference to the above description, the present application further provides the following embodiments.

[0219] Embodiment 1: A terminal receives a first paging indication sent by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, where the first paging indication includes a first field, the first field is used to indicate whether a paging is sent on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions include paging occasions of the terminal, and R is an integer equal to or greater than 1; The terminal determines, based on a first paging occasion, whether to monitor downlink control information (DCI) on the paging occasion of the terminal, where the DCI is used to schedule a paging message; The paging method comprises:

[0220] Embodiment 2: The first field includes R pieces of indication information, and the i-th indication information of the R pieces of indication information indicates whether a paging is transmitted on the i-th paging occasion of the R paging occasions, where i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R. 2. The method of embodiment 1.

[0221] Embodiment 3: The terminal determines whether to monitor the downlink control information DCI at the paging occasion of the terminal according to a first paging occasion, The terminal determines indication information corresponding to a paging occasion of the terminal based on a time domain location of the paging occasion of the terminal among the R paging occasions; and The terminal determines whether to monitor DCI at the paging occasion of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal. 3. The method of embodiment 2, comprising:

[0222] Embodiment 4: The terminal receiving a first paging indication sent by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, The terminal determines K paging indications corresponding to the paging occasions of the terminal based on the time domain locations of the paging occasions of the terminal, where K is an integer greater than or equal to 1; and A terminal receives K paging indications prior to a paging occasion and determines a first paging indication from the K paging indications. 4. The method of any one of embodiments 1 to 3, comprising:

[0223] Embodiment 5: K is configured by a network device for the terminal; 5. The method of embodiment 4.

[0224] Embodiment 6: A method according to any one of embodiments 1 to 3, wherein the terminal receiving a first paging indication transmitted by the network device prior to a paging opportunity for the terminal includes the terminal receiving a first paging indication transmitted by the network device in a monitoring time interval.

[0225] Embodiment 7: A terminal receives monitoring time window configuration information sent by a network device, where the monitoring time window configuration information is used to determine a monitoring time interval; and The terminal determines a monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information. 7. The method of embodiment 6.

[0226]

[0023] Embodiment 8: The method according to any one of embodiments 1 to 3, wherein the R paging occasions are the R paging occasions that are after the first paging indication and are closest to the first paging indication.

[0227] Embodiment 9: R is configured by a network device for the terminal; 9. The method of embodiment 8.

[0228] Embodiment 10: A method according to any one of embodiments 1 to 9, wherein the first field includes indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions, the indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions includes a number of M bits, the number of M bits is used to indicate whether paging exists on the paging occasion corresponding to the indication information, and M is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

[0229] Embodiment 11: M is configured by a network device for the terminal; or M is represented by the formula: M=

number

[0230] Embodiment 12: The first field includes indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions; and R paging opportunities

number

number

number

[0231] Embodiment 13: The paging indication further includes one or more of the following fields: a second field embodiment, a third field embodiment, and a fourth field embodiment; The second field is used to indicate whether the paging indication includes a short message SM; The third field is used to indicate the SM; and 13. The method of any one of embodiments 1 to 12, wherein a fourth field is used to indicate availability of an auxiliary reference signal, the auxiliary reference signal being an auxiliary reference signal configured by the network device or an auxiliary reference signal associated with R paging occasions.

[0232]

[0046] Embodiment 14: The method of embodiment 13, wherein the second field is common information for the R paging occasions.

[0233] Embodiment 15: The method of embodiment 13, in which the SM indicates one or more of the following information: a system information change indication information embodiment, an earthquake and tsunami warning information embodiment, a commercial mobile alert information embodiment, and an indication information indicating to stop monitoring paging messages.

[0234]

[0036] Embodiment 16: The method of any one of embodiments 13 to 15, wherein the length of the third field is configured by the network device.

[0235]

[0046] Embodiment 17: The method according to any one of embodiments 13 to 16, wherein the third field is common information for the R paging occasions.

[0236] Embodiment 18: The fourth field is used to indicate the availability of an auxiliary reference signal, the length of the fourth field is equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups configured by the network device, and the auxiliary reference signal group includes one or more auxiliary reference signals; or the length of the fourth field is equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups associated with R paging occasions; or the fourth field includes R subfields, the subfields corresponding to R paging occasions, and one subfield is used to indicate the availability of an auxiliary reference signal associated with the paging occasion corresponding to the subfield. 18. The method of any one of embodiments 13 to 17, comprising:

[0237] Embodiment 19: The first paging indication further includes a fifth field; and the fifth field is used to indicate the number of paging occasions indicated by the first field; or 8. The method of any one of embodiments 1 to 7, wherein the fifth field is used to indicate the length of the first field.

[0238] Embodiment 20: The contents indicated by the first field in different paging indications for the same paging occasion are identical; 20. The method according to any one of embodiments 1 to 19.

[0239] Embodiment 21: There is a quasi-co-location QCL relationship between the first paging indication and the synchronization signal block SSB closest to the first paging indication; or A QCL relationship exists between the first paging indication and an SSB associated with the first paging indication. 21. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 20.

[0240] Embodiment 22: A terminal receives a first paging indication sent by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, the first paging indication includes a first field, the first field is used to indicate whether a paging is sent on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions include paging occasions of the terminal, and R is an integer equal to or greater than 1; The terminal determines whether to monitor a downlink control information DCI on the paging occasion of the terminal based on the first paging occasion, and the DCI is used for scheduling a paging message. A communication device comprising:

[0241] Embodiment 23: The first field includes R indication information, and the i-th indication information of the R indication information indicates whether a paging is sent on the i-th paging occasion of the R paging occasions, where i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R; A communication device as described in embodiment 22.

[0242] Embodiment 24: The terminal determines whether to monitor the downlink control information DCI at the paging occasion of the terminal according to a first paging occasion, The terminal determines indication information corresponding to a paging occasion of the terminal based on a time domain location of the paging occasion of the terminal among the R paging occasions; and The terminal determines whether to monitor DCI at the paging occasion of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal. 24. The communication device of embodiment 23, comprising:

[0243] Embodiment 25: The terminal receiving a first paging indication sent by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, The terminal determines K paging indications corresponding to the paging occasions of the terminal based on the time domain locations of the paging occasions of the terminal, where K is an integer greater than or equal to 1; and A terminal receives K paging indications prior to a paging occasion and determines a first paging indication from the K paging indications. A communication device as described in any one of embodiments 22 to 24, comprising:

[0244] Embodiment 26: K is configured by a network device for a terminal; A communication device as described in embodiment 25.

[0245] Embodiment 27: A communication device described in any one of embodiments 22 to 24, wherein the terminal receiving a first paging indication transmitted by a network device prior to a paging opportunity for the terminal includes the terminal receiving a first paging indication transmitted by the network device in a monitoring time interval.

[0246] Embodiment 28: A terminal receives monitoring time window configuration information sent by a network device, and the monitoring time window configuration information is used to determine a monitoring time interval; and The terminal determines a monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information. A communication device as described in embodiment 27.

[0247]

[0081] Embodiment 29: The communication device according to any one of embodiments 22 to 24, wherein the R paging occasions are the R paging occasions that are subsequent to the first paging indication and are closest to the first paging indication.

[0248] Embodiment 30: R is configured by a network device for the terminal; A communication device as described in embodiment 29.

[0249] Embodiment 31: A communication device described in any one of embodiments 22 to 30, wherein the first field includes indication information corresponding to each of R paging occasions, the indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions includes a number of M bits, the number of M bits is used to indicate whether paging exists on the paging occasion corresponding to the indication information, and M is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

[0250] Embodiment 32: M is configured by a network device for the terminal; or M is represented by the formula: M=

number

[0251] Embodiment 33: The first field includes indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions; and R paging opportunities

number

number

number

[0252] Embodiment 34: The paging indication further includes one or more of the following fields: a second field embodiment, a third field embodiment, and a fourth field embodiment; The second field is used to indicate whether the paging indication includes a short message SM; The third field is used to indicate the SM; and A communications device as described in any one of embodiments 22 to 33, wherein the fourth field is used to indicate the availability of an auxiliary reference signal, the auxiliary reference signal being an auxiliary reference signal configured by a network device or an auxiliary reference signal associated with R paging occasions.

[0253] Embodiment 35: A communications device as described in embodiment 34, wherein the second field is common information for R paging occasions.

[0254] Embodiment 36: The communication device of embodiment 34, wherein the SM indicates one or more of the following information: a system information change indication information embodiment, an earthquake and tsunami warning information embodiment, a commercial mobile alert information embodiment, and an indication information indicating to stop monitoring paging messages.

[0255] Embodiment 37: A communication device described in any one of embodiments 24 to 36, wherein the length of the third field is configured by the network device.

[0256] Embodiment 38: A communication device described in any one of embodiments 34 to 37, wherein the third field is common information for R paging occasions.

[0257] Embodiment 39: The fourth field is used to indicate the availability of an auxiliary reference signal; the length of the fourth field is equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups configured by the network device, the auxiliary reference signal group including one or more auxiliary reference signals; or the length of the fourth field is equal to the number of auxiliary reference signals or auxiliary reference signal groups associated with the R paging occasions; or The fourth field includes R subfields, the subfields corresponding to the R paging occasions, and one subfield is used to indicate the availability of an auxiliary reference signal associated with the paging occasion corresponding to the subfield. A communication device as described in any one of embodiments 24 to 38, comprising:

[0258] Embodiment 40: The first paging indication further includes a fifth field; and the fifth field is used to indicate the number of paging occasions indicated by the first field; or A communication device described in any one of embodiments 22 to 28, wherein the fifth field is used to indicate the length of the first field.

[0259] Embodiment 41: The contents indicated by the first field in different paging indications for the same paging occasion are identical; A communication device described in any one of embodiments 22 to 40.

[0260] Embodiment 42: There is a quasi-co-location QCL relationship between the first paging indication and the synchronization signal block SSB closest to the first paging indication; or A QCL relationship exists between the first paging indication and an SSB associated with the first paging indication. A communication device described in any one of embodiments 22 to 41.

[0261] Embodiment 43: A terminal is configured to receive a first paging indication sent by a network device before a paging occasion of the terminal, the first paging indication including a first field, the first field being used to indicate whether a paging is sent on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions including the paging occasions of the terminal, and R being an integer equal to or greater than 1; The terminal determines whether to monitor a downlink control information DCI on the paging occasion of the terminal based on the first paging occasion, and the DCI is used for scheduling a paging message. A communication system comprising:

[0262] Embodiment 44: A communication device comprising one or more processors and a communication interface, the one or more processors and the communication interfaces configured to support the communication device in executing a paging method described in any one of embodiments 1 to 21.

[0263] Embodiment 45: A computer-readable storage medium comprising computer instructions, which, when executed on a computer, enable the computer to perform the paging method according to any one of embodiments 1 to 21.

[0264] It should be noted that in the specification, claims, and accompanying drawings of this application, terms such as "first" and "second" are intended to distinguish different objects and do not indicate a particular order. Furthermore, terms such as "including" and "having" and any other derivatives thereof are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, system, product, or device that includes a series of steps or units is not limited to the recited steps or units, but optionally further includes unrecited steps or units, or optionally further includes other inherent steps or units of the process, method, product, or device.

[0265] In this application, "at least one" means one or more, "multiple" means two or more, "at least two" means two, three or more, and "and / or" is used to describe a correspondence between related objects, and should be understood to indicate that a three-way relationship may exist. For example, "A and / or B" may indicate three of the following cases: only A is present, only B is present, and both A and B are present, where A and B may be singular or plural. The " / " symbol generally indicates an "or" relationship between related objects. "At least one of the following items" or similar expressions refers to any combination of these items, including a singular item or any combination of multiple items. For example, at least one of a, b, or c may refer to a, b, c, a and b, a and c, b and c, or a, b and c, where a, b, and c may indicate singular or plural.

[0266] In the embodiment of the present application, it should be understood that "B corresponding to A" indicates that B is associated with A. For example, B may be determined based on A. It should be further understood that determining B based on A does not mean that B is determined only based on A. B may alternatively be determined based on A and / or other information. Furthermore, in the embodiment of the present application, "connection" refers to various connection methods such as direct connection or indirect connection for implementing communication between devices. This is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

[0267] In the embodiments of the present application, unless otherwise specified, "transmit" refers to bidirectional transmission, including a sending operation and / or a receiving operation. Specifically, "transmission" in the embodiments of the present application includes data transmission, data reception, or data transmission and data reception. In other words, data transmission in this specification includes uplink data transmission and / or downlink data transmission. Data may include channels and / or signals. Uplink data transmission is uplink channel transmission and / or uplink signal transmission, and downlink data transmission is downlink channel transmission and / or downlink signal transmission. In the embodiments of the present application, "network" and "system" represent the same concept, and a communication system is a communication network.

[0268] Based on the above implementation description, it can be clearly understood by those skilled in the art that for ease of explanation and simplicity, the above functional module division is only used as an example for explanation. In practical application, the above functions can be allocated to different functional modules for implementation according to requirements, that is, the internal structure of the device can be divided into different functional modules to implement all or part of the above-described functions.

[0269] In some embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the described apparatus embodiment is only an example. For example, the division into modules or units is only a logical functional division, and there may be other divisions during actual implementation. For example, multiple units or components may be combined or integrated into another apparatus, or some features may be ignored or not implemented. Furthermore, the shown or discussed mutual couplings or direct couplings or communication connections may be implemented through some interfaces. Indirect couplings or communication connections between apparatuses or units may be implemented in electrical, mechanical, or other forms.

[0270] The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and the parts shown as units may be one or more physical units, located in one place or distributed in multiple different places. Some or all of the units may be selected based on the actual requirements for achieving the objectives of the solutions of the embodiments.

[0271] Furthermore, the functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each of these units may exist physically alone, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit. The aforementioned integrated units may be implemented in the form of hardware or software functional units.

[0272] When the integrated unit is implemented in the form of a software functional unit and sold or used as an individual product, the integrated unit may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application may be essentially implemented in the form of a software product, or the part that contributes to the prior art, or all or a part of the technical solutions. The software product is stored in a storage medium and includes a plurality of instructions for instructing a device or a processor (which may be a single-chip microcomputer or chip, etc.) to execute all or a part of the steps of the method in the embodiments of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes any medium that can store program code, such as a USB flash drive, a removable hard disk, a ROM, a RAM, a magnetic disk, or an optical disk. [Other possible items] [Item 1] receiving, by a terminal, a first paging indication transmitted by a network device prior to a paging occasion of the terminal, where the first paging indication includes a first field, the first field is used to indicate whether a paging is being transmitted on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions including the paging occasion of the terminal, where R is an integer equal to or greater than 1; and determining whether the terminal monitors downlink control information (DCI) for the paging occasion of the terminal based on a first paging occasion, where the DCI is used for scheduling a paging message; A paging method comprising: [Item 2] 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first field includes R pieces of indication information, and an i-th indication information of the R pieces of indication information indicates whether a paging is transmitted on an i-th paging occasion of the R paging occasions, where i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to R. [Item 3] The step of the terminal determining whether to monitor downlink control information DCI on the paging occasion of the terminal based on a first paging occasion includes: determining, by the terminal, indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal based on a time domain location of the paging occasion of the terminal among the R paging occasions; and determining whether to monitor the DCI at the paging occasion of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal; 3. The method according to item 2, comprising the steps of: [Item 4] The step of receiving, by the terminal, a first paging indication transmitted by a network device prior to a paging occasion for the terminal, comprises: determining, by the terminal, K paging indications corresponding to the paging occasions of the terminal based on the time domain locations of the paging occasions of the terminal, where K is an integer greater than or equal to 1; and receiving the K paging indications prior to the paging occasion, and determining the first paging indication from the K paging indications by the terminal; 4. The method according to any one of items 1 to 3, comprising the steps of: [Item 5] 5. The method of claim 4, wherein K is configured by the network device for the terminal. [Item 6] The step of receiving, by the terminal, a first paging indication transmitted by a network device prior to a paging occasion for the terminal, comprises: receiving, by the terminal, the first paging indication transmitted by the network device during a monitoring time interval; 4. The method according to any one of items 1 to 3, comprising the steps of: [Item 7] receiving, by the terminal, monitoring time window configuration information sent by the network device, where the monitoring time window configuration information is used to determine the monitoring time interval; and The terminal determines the monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information. The method according to item 6. [Item 8] 4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the R paging occasions are the R paging occasions following the first paging indication and closest to the first paging indication. [Item 9] 9. The method of claim 8, wherein R is configured by the network device for the terminal. [Item 10] 10. The method according to any one of items 1 to 9, wherein the first field includes indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions, the indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions includes a number of M bits, the number of M bits is used to indicate whether paging is present on the paging occasion corresponding to the indication information, and M is an integer greater than or equal to 1. [Item 11] M is configured by the network device for the terminal; or M is represented by the formula: M=

number

number

number

number

Claims

1. receiving a first paging indication, where the first paging indication includes a first field, the first field is used for indicating whether paging is monitored on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions including paging occasions of a terminal, R being an integer equal to or greater than 1, the first field includes R pieces of indication information, an i-th indication information of the R indication information indicating whether paging is monitored on an i-th paging occasion of the R paging occasions, i being an integer equal to or greater than 1 and equal to or less than R; and determining whether to monitor a downlink control information (DCI) for the paging occasion of the terminal based on the first paging indication, where the DCI is used for scheduling a paging message; A paging method comprising:

2. The step of determining whether to monitor downlink control information (DCI) at the paging occasion of the terminal based on the first paging indication comprises: determining indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal based on a time domain location of the paging occasion of the terminal among the R paging occasions; and determining whether to monitor the DCI at the paging occasion of the terminal based on the indication information corresponding to the paging occasion of the terminal; 2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

3. The paging method of claim 2 , wherein the R paging occasions are different paging occasions in a same DRX cycle.

4. The step of receiving a first paging indication prior to a paging occasion for the terminal includes: receiving the first paging indication at a monitoring time interval; A paging method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, comprising:

5. receiving monitoring time window configuration information, where the monitoring time window configuration information is used to determine the monitoring time interval; and determining the monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information; The paging method of claim 4 further comprising:

6. The step of determining the monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information includes: determining a start of the monitoring time interval based on the monitoring time window configuration information; determining the monitoring time interval based on the starting point of the monitoring time window configuration information; 6. The paging method of claim 5, comprising:

7. 7. The paging method according to claim 1, wherein each of the R indication information includes M bits, the M bits are used to indicate whether paging is monitored on a paging occasion corresponding to the indication information, and M is an integer greater than 1.

8. 8. The paging method of claim 7, wherein the indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions includes indication information of a plurality of terminals grouped into M groups, and each of the M bits is used to indicate whether a terminal in a group corresponding to the M groups is being paged on a corresponding paging occasion.

9. The paging method according to claim 8 , wherein an order of the M bits in the indication information is based on the order of group numbers of the M groups.

10. The order of the M bits in the indication information is based on the order of group numbers of the M groups, the s-th bit number in the M-bit number is used to indicate whether paging exists for the s-th group, s being an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than M; 10. The paging method of claim 9, comprising:

11. M is configured by a network device for said terminal; The paging method according to claim 7.

12. 12. The paging method according to claim 1, wherein the first paging indication further includes a fourth field, the fourth field being used to indicate availability of an assistance reference signal, and the assistance reference signal being an assistance reference signal configured by a network device for one or more terminals in an idle mode or an inactive mode.

13. A computer readable storage medium comprising computer instructions, which when executed on a computer enable the computer to perform the paging method of any one of claims 1 to 12.

14. A communication device comprising a module or unit adapted to carry out the paging method according to any one of claims 1 to 12.

15. A computer program product for causing a computer to carry out the paging method according to any one of claims 1 to 12.

16. transmitting a first paging indication, wherein the first paging indication includes a first field, the first field is used to indicate whether paging is being transmitted on R paging occasions, the R paging occasions including paging occasions of a terminal, R being an integer equal to or greater than 1, the first field includes R pieces of indication information, an i-th indication information of the R indication information indicates whether paging is monitored on an i-th paging occasion of the R paging occasions, i being an integer equal to or greater than 1 and equal to or less than R; A paging method comprising:

17. The paging method of claim 16 , wherein the R paging occasions are different paging occasions in a same DRX cycle.

18. The step of transmitting a first paging indication prior to a paging occasion of the terminal comprises: transmitting the first paging indication at a monitoring time interval.

18. A paging method according to claim 16 or 17, comprising:

19. transmitting monitoring time window configuration information, wherein the monitoring time window configuration information is used to determine the monitoring time interval.

20. The paging method of claim 18, further comprising:

20. The paging method of claim 19, wherein the monitoring time window configuration information includes a starting point of the monitoring time interval.

21. 21. The paging method according to claim 16, wherein each of the R indication information includes M bits, the M bits are used to indicate whether paging is monitored on a paging occasion corresponding to the indication information, and M is an integer greater than 1.

22. 22. The paging method of claim 21, wherein the indication information corresponding to each of the R paging occasions includes indication information of a plurality of terminals grouped into M groups, and each of the M bits is used to indicate whether a terminal in a group corresponding to the M groups monitors paging on a corresponding paging occasion.

23. The paging method of claim 22, wherein an order of the M bits in the indication information is based on the order of group numbers of the M groups.

24. The order of the M bits in the indication information is based on the order of group numbers of the M groups, the s-th bit number in the M-bit number is used to indicate whether paging exists for the s-th group, s being an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than M; 24. The paging method of claim 23, comprising:

25. Configuring the M for the terminal.

25. The paging method of claim 24, further comprising:

26. 26. The paging method according to claim 16, wherein the first paging indication further includes a fourth field, the fourth field being used to indicate availability of an aiding reference signal, the aiding reference signal being an aiding reference signal configured by a network device for one or more terminals in an idle mode or an inactive mode.

27. 26. A communications device comprising one or more processors and a communications interface, the one or more processors and the communications interface configured to support the communications device performing a paging method according to any one of claims 16 to 25.

28. A computer readable storage medium comprising computer instructions, which when executed on a computer enable the computer to perform the paging method of any one of claims 16 to 25.

29. A communications device comprising a module or unit adapted to carry out the paging method according to any one of claims 16 to 25.

30. A computer program product for causing a computer to carry out the paging method according to any one of claims 16 to 25.

31. A communication system comprising a terminal and a network device, the terminal being configured to perform the paging method according to any one of claims 1 to 12 and the network device being configured to perform the paging method according to any one of claims 16 to 25.

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