Terminal device and network device

Abstract

The embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a method, an apparatus, and a computer-readable storage medium for communication. The method includes receiving at least one DCI message, determining at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, and performing a transmission with a network based on the at least one TCI state. The at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication, a second TCI indication, or a third TCI indication. In this manner, multiple TCI states can be indicated for a multi-TRP transmission.

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] TECHNICAL FIELD Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly to methods, apparatus and computer storage media for communications. [Background technology]

[0002] MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology is widely used in current wireless communication systems, in which a network device uses multiple antenna elements to communicate with a terminal device. Furthermore, in order to improve the reliability and robustness of communication between a network device and a terminal device, the technology of multiple transmission / reception points (multiple TRP / MTRP) (and multiple panel reception) has been proposed and discussed in Release 16 of the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for downlink data transmission (such as the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH)). In Release 17, based on the unified transmission configuration indicator (TCI) / spatial relationship framework of 3GPP Release 15 / 16, the multi-TRP transmission is extended for other physical channels (such as the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), the Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), the Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)). At the same time, in Release 17, a unified TCI framework is developed to replace / supplement the TCI / spatial relationship framework of Release 15 / 16 for beam direction.

[0003] Generally, a network device can use a Downlink Control Information (DCI) message to indicate scheduling information to a terminal device. Although several proposals on DCI messages for enabling multi-TRP and / or multi-panel have been discussed and some consensus has been reached, there is still a need to extend the structure of DCI to better support multi-TRP transmissions. Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0004] Generally, the exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method, apparatus, and computer storage medium for communications. [Means for solving the problem]

[0005] In a first aspect, a communication method is provided. The method includes receiving at least one DCI message in a terminal device, determining at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, and performing transmission with a network based on the at least one TCI state. The at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication associated with a first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with a second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool. The at least one TCI state includes at least one of a first TCI state applied to the first control resource set pool or a second TCI state applied to the second control resource set pool.

[0006] In a second aspect, a communication method is provided, the method including: receiving, in a terminal device, at least one DCI message indicating at least one TCI state to be applied by the terminal device; and performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) transmission transmitted in the at least one indicated TCI state, or applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the latest SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state.

[0007] In a third aspect, a communication method is provided, the method including: detecting, in a terminal device, a beam failure; and, if there is an available uplink TCI state, sending a beam failure recovery request to a network with the available uplink TCI state.

[0008] In a fourth aspect, a communication method is provided. The method includes, in a network device, transmitting at least one DCI message, determining at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, and performing transmission with a terminal device based on the at least one TCI state. The at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication associated with a first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with a second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool. The at least one TCI state includes at least one of a first TCI state applied to the first control resource set pool, or a second TCI state applied to the second control resource set pool.

[0009] In a fifth aspect, a communication method is provided, the method including: in a network device, transmitting at least one DCI message indicating at least one TCI state applied by a terminal device, and receiving a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one indicated TCI state, or applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the latest SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state.

[0010] In a sixth aspect, a communication method is provided, the method including: receiving, in a network device, a beam failure recovery request sent by a terminal device in an available uplink TCI state; and sending a response of the beam failure recovery request to the terminal device.

[0011] In a seventh aspect, there is provided a terminal device, the terminal device including a circuit configured to perform the method according to the first aspect of the present disclosure described above.

[0012] In an eighth aspect, there is provided a terminal device, the terminal device including a circuit configured to perform the method according to the second aspect of the present disclosure described above.

[0013] In a ninth aspect, there is provided a terminal device, the terminal device including a circuit configured to perform the method according to the third aspect of the present disclosure described above.

[0014] In a tenth aspect, there is provided a network device, the network device comprising circuitry configured to perform a method according to the fourth aspect of the present disclosure described above.

[0015] In an eleventh aspect, there is provided a network device, the network device comprising circuitry configured to perform the method according to the fifth aspect of the present disclosure described above.

[0016] In a twelfth aspect, there is provided a network device, the network device comprising circuitry configured to perform a method according to the sixth aspect of the present disclosure described above.

[0017] In a thirteenth aspect, there is provided a computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed on at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform a method according to any of the first to fourth aspects of the present disclosure set forth above.

[0018] It should be understood that this Summary of the Invention is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the embodiments of the present disclosure, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the present disclosure. Other features of the present disclosure will be readily apparent through the following description. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0019] The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent from the detailed description of several embodiments of the present disclosure in the accompanying drawings.

[0020] [Figure 1A] 1 illustrates an exemplary communications network in which embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented; [Figure 1B] 1 illustrates an exemplary communications network in which embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented; [Figure 1C] 1 illustrates an exemplary communications network in which embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented;

[0021] [Diagram 2] An example of multi-TRP transmission using the above four transmission methods is shown below.

[0022] [Figure 3A] 1 illustrates a signaling flow of a communication according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. [Figure 3B] 1 illustrates a signaling flow of a communication according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. [Figure 3C] 1 illustrates a signaling flow of a communication according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. [Figure 3D] 1 illustrates a signaling flow of a communication according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0023] [Figure 4] 1 illustrates an exemplary application timing of multi-DCI.

[0024] [Diagram 5] 1 illustrates an exemplary application timing of multi-DCI.

[0025] [Figure 6] 1 illustrates a flowchart of an example method performed by a terminal device according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0026] [Figure 7] 1 illustrates a flowchart of an example method performed by a terminal device according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0027] [Figure 8] 1 illustrates a flowchart of an example method performed by a terminal device according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0028] [Figure 9] 4 illustrates a flowchart of an example method performed by a network device according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0029] [Figure 10] 4 illustrates a flowchart of an example method performed by a network device according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0030] [Figure 11] 4 illustrates a flowchart of an example method performed by a network device according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0031] [Figure 12] FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus suitable for practicing embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0032] Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference numbers represent the same or similar elements. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0033] The principles of the present disclosure will be described with reference to some exemplary embodiments. It should be understood that these embodiments are described for illustrative purposes only to aid those skilled in the art in understanding and implementing the present disclosure, and do not imply any limitations on the scope of the present disclosure. The embodiments described herein can be implemented in a variety of ways other than those described below.

[0034] In the following description and claims, unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure belongs.

[0035] References in this disclosure to "one embodiment," "an embodiment," "an exemplary embodiment," and the like indicate that the embodiment being described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but not all embodiments need to include such a particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Furthermore, these phrases do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment. Furthermore, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is believed to be within the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments, whether or not explicitly described.

[0036] In this specification, terms such as "first", "second", etc. may be used to describe various elements, but it should be understood that such elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are used only to distinguish one element from another element. For example, a first element can be referred to as a second element, and similarly, a second element can be referred to as a first element, without departing from the scope of the exemplary embodiments. As used herein, the term "and / or" includes any and all combinations of one or more of the listed items.

[0037] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to limit the example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Furthermore, it should be understood that the terms "comprise," "comprising," "having," "having," "including," and / or "including," as used herein, specify the presence of stated features, elements, and / or components, etc., but do not exclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components, and / or combinations thereof.

[0038] In some instances, values, procedures, or devices are referred to as "optimum," "lowest," "highest," "minimum," "maximum," etc. It is understood that such descriptions are intended to indicate choices among multiple functional alternatives that may be used, and that such choices are not necessarily better, smaller, higher, or more preferred than other choices.

[0039] As used herein, the term "network equipment" refers to equipment capable of providing or hosting a cell or coverage through which terminal equipment can communicate. Examples of network equipment include, but are not limited to, Node B (NB or NB), Evolved Node B (eNodeB or eNB), Node B for new radio access (gNB), Remote Radio Head (RRU), Radio Head (RH), Remote Radio Head (RRH), low power nodes such as femto nodes, pico nodes, satellite network equipment, aircraft network equipment, etc. In the following, for the purpose of discussion, some exemplary embodiments are described with reference to an eNB as an example of a network equipment.

[0040] As used herein, the term "terminal" refers to any end device capable of wireless communication. By way of example and not limitation, a terminal may also be referred to as a communication device, a user equipment (UE), a subscriber equipment (SS), a portable subscriber equipment, a mobile station (MS), or an access terminal (AT). Examples of terminal devices include, but are not limited to, mobile phones, mobile phones, smartphones, Voice over IP (VoIP) phones, wireless local loop phones, tablets, wearable terminal devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable computers, desktop computers, imaging terminal devices such as digital cameras, gaming terminal devices, music storage and playback devices, in-vehicle wireless terminal devices, wireless endpoints, mobile stations, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), USB dongles, smart devices, wireless customer premises equipment (CPE), Internet of Things (loT) devices, wearables such as watches, head-mounted displays (HMDs), vehicles, drones, medical devices and applications (e.g., remote surgery), industrial devices and applications (e.g., robots and / or other wireless devices operating in industrial and / or automated processing chain environments), consumer electronics devices, devices operating in commercial and / or industrial wireless networks, etc. In the following description, the terms "terminal device", "communication device", "terminal", "user terminal", and "UE" may be used interchangeably.

[0041] As used herein, the term "communication network" refers to a network conforming to any suitable communication standard, such as New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), High-Speed ​​Packet Access (HSPA), Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), etc. Furthermore, communication between terminal devices and network devices in the communication network may be performed by any suitable generation of communication protocols, including, but not limited to, first generation (1G), second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, fifth generation (5G) communication protocols, and / or other protocols now known or developed in the future. Embodiments of the present disclosure may be applied to various communication systems. Considering the rapid development of communication, there will naturally be future communication technologies and communication systems in which the present disclosure can be embodied, and the scope of the present disclosure should not be deemed to be limited only to the aforementioned systems.

[0042] As used herein, the term "core device" refers to any device or entity that provides an Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF), a Session Management Function (SMF), a User Plane Function (UPF), etc. By way of example and not limitation, the core device may be an AMF, an SMF, a UPF, etc. In other embodiments, the core device may be any other suitable device or entity.

[0043] As used herein, the term "end marker" means one message between two ends / devices / elements of the user plane of an interface, such as Iu, Gn, Gp, S1-U, S11-U, S2a, S2b, S4, S5, S8, S12, X2, M1, Sn, Xn, N3, and N9. By way of example and not limitation, the end marker may be a GPRS Tunnel Protocol-user plane (GPT-U) end marker.

[0044] As used herein, the terms "UL Transmission," "SDT," and "UL Data" are equivalent to each other.

[0045] As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to hardware circuits and / or combinations of hardware circuits and software. For example, a circuit may be a combination of analog and / or digital hardware circuits and software / firmware. As a further example, a circuit may be any portion of a hardware processor with software, such as a digital signal processor, software, and memory that work together to perform various functions on a device, such as a terminal device or a network device. In yet another example, a circuit may be a hardware circuit and / or processor, such as a microprocessor or a portion of a microprocessor, that requires software / firmware for operation, but the software may not be present when not required for operation. As used herein, the term circuitry also encompasses merely a hardware circuit or processor, or a portion of a hardware circuit or processor, and its (or their) accompanying software and / or firmware implementations.

[0046] While the functions described herein may be performed in fixed and / or wireless network nodes in various exemplary embodiments, in other exemplary embodiments the functions may be implemented in a user terminal device (such as a mobile phone, tablet computer, laptop computer, desktop computer, mobile IoT device, or fixed IoT device). Such user terminal devices may include corresponding functions, as described in connection with fixed and / or wireless network nodes, as appropriate. The user terminal device may be a user terminal and / or a control device, such as a chipset or processor, configured to control the user terminal when attached to the user terminal. Examples of such functions include a bootstrap server function and / or a home subscriber server. Such functions may be implemented in the user terminal device by providing the user terminal device with software configured for the user terminal device to execute in terms of these functions / nodes.

[0047] The wireless communication network includes at least one network device and at least one terminal device. Furthermore, the network device and the terminal device may communicate with each other via uplink transmission (such as PUSCH or PUCCH) or downlink transmission (such as PDSCH or PDCCH). Furthermore, the network device may configure / indicate resources for performing uplink and downlink transmission.

[0048] To improve reliability and robustness, the network device and the terminal device communicate with each other via different beams that enable directional communication. In the related solution, for a target channel / signal, the terminal device must assume the same transmit / receive beam as the reference signal. Thus, the information including the reference signal index is the beam indication.

[0049] As mentioned above, in 3GPP Release 16, the technique of multi-TRP has been proposed and discussed, mainly for downlink data transmission (such as Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH)). Furthermore, it is agreed that different channels / signals are configured by different TCI indication schemes. Specifically, different signaling combinations may be used for configuration / activation of different channel transmissions. In other words, each channel transmission requires separate configuration / activation, which increases the signaling overhead.

[0050] In Release 17, enhanced support for multi-TRP deployment has been considered. For example, based on Release 15 / 16 of the 3GPP TCI / Spatial Relations Framework, it is proposed to identify and specify the functionality to improve the reliability and robustness of physical channels (PDCCH, PUSCH, PUCCH, etc.) other than the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) by using multi-TRP and / or multi-panel. Furthermore, the concept of unified TCI has been introduced. By using unified TCI, downlink / uplink channels / signals can share the same TCI state indicated. In this way, the signaling overhead has been reduced.

[0051] Although the concept of a unified TCI framework has been introduced, the details require further discussion since the actual communication environment for multi-TRP is relatively complex.

[0052] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, procedures for configuring / activating beam / TCI state / channel resources and procedures for beam failure recovery can be improved.

[0053] In some embodiments, some signals / channels may be grouped into different combinations such that different signals / channels within the same combination are processed by the same transmission parameters. Some example combinations are listed below: - Combination #1: Used for normal UE-specific downlink scheduling and includes the channels PDCCH, PDSCH, and PUCCH, where the PDCCH schedules the PDSCH and the PUCCH carries feedback information for the PDSCH (such as Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request-Acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK)). - Combination #2: Used for normal UE-specific uplink scheduling including PDCCH and PUSCH, where the PDCCH schedules the PUSCH. - Combination #3: Used for DCI-based beam indication ACK procedure, including PDCCH and PUCCH, where PDCCH indicates beam information without downlink / uplink assignment, and PUCCH carries HARQ-ACK for beam indication. - Combination #4: Used for RS configuration, includes PDCCH and RS. - Combination #5: Includes PDCCH and signaling of other functions such as transmit power control (TPC) for PUCCH / SRS.

[0054] It should be understood that the above combinations are for illustrative purposes only and do not imply any limitation. In some other exemplary embodiments, the signals / channels may be grouped into any suitable combination. This disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0055] In this disclosure, some terms may refer to the same or similar physical meaning and may be used interchangeably. Some examples are given below: The terms "controlled resource set pool", "controlled resource set", "CORESET", "CORESET pool", "TRP", "TCI state", and "TCI" can be used interchangeably. - The terms "controlled resource set pool identity / index", "controlled resource set identity / index", "CORESET identity / index", "CORESET pool identity / index", "TRP identity / index", "TCI state identity / index" and "TCI identity / index" may be used interchangeably. - The terms "RS" and "RS Resource" can be used interchangeably. - The terms "indicated TCI state", "new TCI state", and "applied TCI state" may be used interchangeably. - The terms "old TCI state", "previously indicated TCI state", "active TCI state", "activated TCI state", "applied TCI state", "currently applied TCI state", and "current TCI state" may be used interchangeably. The terms "beam failure", "link failure" and "radio link failure" may be used interchangeably. - The terms "precoder", "precoding", "precoding matrix", "beam", "spatial relationship information", "spatial relationship info", "TPMI", "precoding information", "precoding information and number of layers", "precoding matrix indicator (PMI)", "precoding matrix indicator", "transmit precoding matrix indication", "precoding matrix indication", "TCI state", "transmit configuration indicator", "quasi-collocation (QCL)", "quasi-collocation", "QCL parameters", "QCL assumptions", "QCL relations" and "spatial relations" can be used interchangeably. - The terms "single TRP", "single TCI state", "single TCI", "S-TCI", "single CORESET", "single control resource set pool", "S-TRP" and "S-TCI state" can be used interchangeably. The terms "multiple TRPs", "multiple TCI states", "multiple CORESETs" and "multiple control resource set pools", "multiple TRPs", "multiple TCI states", "multiple TCIs", "multiple CORESETs" and "multiple control resource set pools", "MTRPs" and "M-TCIs", "M-TPRs" may be used interchangeably.

[0056] As used herein, the term "TRP" refers to an antenna array (having one or more antenna elements) available to a network device in a particular geographic location. Although some embodiments of the present disclosure are described with reference to, for example, a multiple TRP scenario (or a single TRP scenario), these embodiments are merely for illustrative purposes to aid those skilled in the art in understanding and practicing the present disclosure and are not intended to imply any limitation on the scope of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the present disclosure described herein can be implemented in a variety of ways other than those described below.

[0057] As used herein, the term "SRS transmission" refers to a transmission of an SRS resource identified by an SRS signal resource indicator (SRI) in a DCI message for an uplink grant. Thus, the term "latest SRS transmission" refers to the most recent transmission of an SRS resource identified by an SRI in a DCI message for an uplink grant.

[0058] As used herein, the term "network" / "network device" refers to one or more network devices. Thus, the terms "network," "network device," and "one or more network devices" can be used interchangeably. Example Environment

[0059] 1A illustrates an exemplary communications network 100 (sometimes referred to as a "network" for brevity) in which embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented. Communications network 100 includes network device 110-1 and, optionally, network device 110-2 (collectively or individually referred to as network device 110). Network device 110 may provide services to end device 120. For purposes of discussion, network device 110-1 may be referred to as first network device 110-1 and network device 110-2 may be referred to as second network device 110-2. Additionally, first network device 101-1 and second network device 110-1 may communicate with each other.

[0060] In the environment 100, a link from a network device 110 (such as the first network device 110-1 or the second network device 110-2) to a terminal device 120 is referred to as a downlink, while a link from the terminal device 120 to a network device 110 (such as the first network device 110-1 or the second network device 110-2) is referred to as an uplink. In a downlink, the first network device 110-1 or the second network device 120-1 is a transmitting (TX) device (or transmitter) and the terminal device 120 is a receiving (RX) device (or receiver). In an uplink, the terminal device 120 is a transmitting (TX) device (or transmitter) and the first network device 110-1 or the second network device 110-2 is a RX device (or receiver).

[0061] In some embodiments, network device 110 and end device 120 may communicate over a direct link / channel.

[0062] Additionally, in the embodiment of Figure 1A, multi-TRP transmission is also supported. As shown in Figure 1A, the terminal device 120 may communicate with two TRPs, namely TRPs 130-1 and 130-2 (collectively or individually referred to as TRPs 130). For purposes of discussion, TRPs 130-1 and 130-2 are referred to as first and second TRPs 130-2, respectively.

[0063] Further, to support multiple TRPs and / or multiple panels, the network device 110 may include one or more TRPs. For example, the network device 110 may be coupled with multiple TRPs in different geographic locations to achieve better coverage. In one specific exemplary embodiment, the first network device 110-1 includes a first TRP 130-1 and a second TRP 130-2. Alternatively, in another specific exemplary embodiment, the first network device 110-1 and the second network device 110-2 include a first TRP 130-1 and a second TRP 130-2, respectively.

[0064] In some embodiments, the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2 are associated with different control resource set pools (CORESET pools), e.g., the first TRP 130-1 is associated with a first control resource set pool, while the second TRP 130-2 is associated with a second control resource set pool.

[0065] In addition, in the embodiment of Fig. 1A, both single-TRP mode transmission and multi-TRP transmission are supported. Specifically, in the case of single-TRP mode, the terminal device 120 communicates with the network via the first TRP 130-1 / second TRP 130-2, and transmission is performed according to the first / second control resource set pool.

[0066] Alternatively, in the case of multi-TRP mode, the terminal device 120 communicates with the network via both the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2, and accordingly, transmission is performed based on both the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool.

[0067] Furthermore, the network device 110 may provide one or more serving cells, and the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2 may be included in the same serving cell or in different serving cells. In other words, in the embodiment of FIG. 1A, both inter-cell and intra-cell transmissions are supported.

[0068] Figure 1B illustrates an example scenario of the communication network 100 shown in Figure 1A. In the example of Figure 1B, a first TRP 130-1 and a second TRP 130-2 are included in the same serving cell 140. In this case, the multi-TRP transmission is performed as an intra-cell transmission.

[0069] Figure 1C illustrates another exemplary scenario of the communication network 100 shown in Figure 1A. In the example of Figure 1C, the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2 are included in different serving cells 140-1, 140-2. In this case, the multi-TRP transmission is performed as an inter-cell transmission.

[0070] Furthermore, a unified TCI framework is supported in the communication network 100. In some embodiments, the network device 110 may preconfigure multiple TCI states for the terminal device 120, such as via RRC signaling. Then, multi-TRP / single-TRP transmissions may be scheduled by either a single DCI message or multiple DCI messages (i.e., multi-DCI / M-DCI). Specifically, one or more preconfigured TCI states may be indicated by single / multiple DCI messages.

[0071] As shown in Fig. 1A, when the single DCI mode is applied, the terminal device 120 receives a single DCI message from the first TRP 130-1. It should be understood that the single DCI message can also be received from the second TRP 130-2.

[0072] Alternatively, when the multi-DCI mode is applied, the terminal device 120 receives two DCI messages from the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2, respectively.

[0073] By applying the indicated TCI states, the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2 are selectably activated to achieve directional transmission.

[0074] In some embodiments, the indicated TCI condition is any of the following: - Joint downlink / uplink TCI state (i.e., joint DL / UL TCI state): refers to at least one common source reference RS used to determine both downlink QCL information and uplink TX spatial filters. - Split downlink / uplink TCI (i.e. split DL / UL TCI state): A distinction is made between downlink TCI and uplink TCI.

[0075] In this way, M downlink TCI states and N uplink TCI states may be configured in the terminal device 120, where M>=0 and N>=0.

[0076] In some embodiments, the source RS for the M downlink TCI states provides common QCL information for at least UE-dedicated reception on the PDSCH and all or a subset of the CORESET in a component carrier (CC), and further provides common QCL information for non-UE-dedicated reception on the PDSCH and all or a subset of the non-UE-dedicated CORESET in a CC.

[0077] In some embodiments, each of the M source reference signals (or 2M if qcl_Type2 is configured in addition to qcl_Type1) in the M downlink TCIs provides QCL information for at least UE-dedicated reception in the PDSCH and / or one of the M beam pair links for a subset of the CORESET in the CC. Furthermore, each of the M source reference signals (or 2M if qcl_Type2 is configured in addition to qcl_Type1) in the M downlink TCIs provides common QCL information for non-UE-dedicated reception in the PDSCH and / or all or a subset of the non-UE-dedicated CORESET in the CC.

[0078] In some embodiments, the source reference signals in the N uplink TCI states provide a reference for determining a common uplink TX spatial filter for at least all or a subset of the dedicated PUCCH resources in a CC, dynamic grant / configuration grant based PUSCH, Optionally, the uplink TX spatial filter can also be applied to all SRS resources in a resource set configured for antenna switching, codebook based (CB) uplink transmission, or non-CB (NCB) uplink transmission.

[0079] In some embodiments, each of the N source reference signals in the N uplink TCI states provides a reference for determining an uplink TX spatial filter for at least one of the N beam pair links associated with a subset of dynamic grant / configuration grant based PUSCH and / or dedicated PUCCH resources in a CC.

[0080] Furthermore, to improve the reliability of downlink transmission, different transmission schemes are supported and used, such as Frequency Division Multiplexing A (FDMSchemeA), FDM B (FDMSchemeB), Time Division Multiplexing A (TDMSchemeA, in-slot), and inter-slot based TDM. Figure 2 shows an example of a multi-TRP transmission 200 according to the above four transmission schemes. As can be seen from Figure 2, based on different transmission schemes, each transmission may be associated with the same or different redundancy versions (RVs).

[0081] Communications in the communications environment 100 may conform to any suitable standard, including, but not limited to, Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE Evolution (LTE-Evolution), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Furthermore, communications may be performed according to any currently known or future developed generation of communications protocols. Examples of communications protocols include, but are not limited to, first generation (1G), second generation (2G), 2.5G, 2.75G, third generation (3G), fourth generation (4G), 4.5G, fifth generation (5G), 5.5G, 5G-Advanced network, or sixth generation (6G) communications protocols.

[0082] It should be understood that the number, connections, and types of devices (i.e., terminal devices 120, network devices 110, TRPs 130, and cells 140) illustrated in Figures 1A-1C are for illustrative purposes only and do not imply any limitations. Communications network 100 may include any suitable number of devices suitable for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure. Example Process

[0083] The principles and implementations of the present disclosure are described in detail below with reference to Figures 3A-3D, which show signaling charts illustrating communication processes 300, 320, 340, 360 according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. For discussion purposes, the processes 300, 320, 340, 360 are described with reference to Figures 1A-1C.

[0084] The processes 300, 320, 340 and 360 may involve the terminal device 120, the network device 110 (either or both of the first network device 110-1 or the second network device 110-2), and may optionally involve the TRP 130 (including the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2). In other words, the implementation of some embodiments does not depend on the TRP 130.

[0085] Furthermore, the first TRP 130-1 is connected to the first network device 110-1, while the second TRP 130-2 is connected to the first network device 110-1 / second network device 110-2. In addition, the first TRP 130-1 and the second TRP may be in the same serving cell or in different serving cells.

[0086] In the following, several embodiments of the present disclosure are described with reference to two TRPs. These embodiments are merely for illustrative purposes and are intended to assist those skilled in the art in understanding and practicing the present disclosure, and are not intended to imply any limitations on the scope of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the present disclosure described herein can be embodied in various ways other than those described below.

[0087] Further, it should be understood that the operations at the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 should be consistent. In other words, the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 should have a common understanding of settings, states, parameters, etc. Such a common understanding may be implemented by any suitable interaction between the network device 110 and the terminal device 120, or by both the network device 110 and the terminal device 120 applying the same rules / policies. In the following, some operations are described from the perspective of the terminal device 120, but it should be understood that the corresponding operations should be performed by the network device 110. Similarly, some operations are described from the perspective of the network device 110, but it should be understood that the corresponding operations should be performed by the terminal device 120. For the sake of brevity, some identical or similar content is omitted here.

[0088] Furthermore, in the following description, several interactions are performed between the terminal device 120 and the network device 110 (e.g., exchange of capability related information, configuration / scheduling / activation of resources, recovery of failed beams, etc.). It should be understood that the interactions may be implemented in either one single signaling / message or multiple signaling / messages, including system information, RRC messages, DCI messages, uplink control information (UCI) messages, media access control (MAC) control elements (CEs), etc. The present disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0089] Furthermore, although features / operations are discussed individually in specific exemplary embodiments, it will be understood that, unless expressly stated to the contrary, these features / operations described in different exemplary embodiments can be used in any suitable combination. Exemplary Process for Exchange of Capability-Related Information

[0090] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, terminal device 120 and network device 110 may communicate capability-related information and associated configurations to enable the embodiments of the present disclosure described below. During this interaction procedure, specific rules associated with the embodiments of the present disclosure may be defined and associated redefined / newly introduced parameters may be exchanged between terminal device 120 and network device 110.

[0091] Furthermore, the capability related information and associated configuration may be conveyed in any suitable signaling / message, including but not limited to an RRC message, a DCI message, a MAC CE, and the like.

[0092] Please refer to Figure 3A. Figure 3 illustrates a signaling flow 300 of a communication according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in Figure 3A, the terminal device 120 transmits capability-related information to the network device 110 (302).

[0093] Some examples of competency-related information are listed below. - whether the S-DCI mode is supported by the terminal equipment 120 - whether multiple DCI modes are supported by the terminal device 120 - whether the S-TCI mode is supported by the terminal 120 - whether the multi-TCI mode is supported by the terminal 120 - the maximum number of TCI states that the terminal 120 supports; - the maximum number of combined TCI states that the terminal 120 supports; - the maximum number of uplink TCI states that the terminal 120 supports; - the maximum number of downlink TCI states that the terminal 120 supports; - the maximum number of TRPs supported by the terminal device 120; Whether the terminal device 120 supports unified TCI state, combined DL / UL TCI state, and / or separated DL / UL TCI state to be set for multi-TRP Whether the terminal device 120 supports additional downlink TCI states and / or additional uplink TCI states being set in addition to the combined TCI state Whether the terminal device 120 supports more uplink TCI states being set compared to downlink TCI states Whether the terminal device 120 supports more downlink TCI states being set compared to uplink TCI states - Capability of transmission schemes for multiple TCI state modes including coherent joint transmission (CJT), non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT), repetition, time division multiplexing (TDM) (inter-slot or intra-slot), frequency division multiplexing (FDM), spatial domain multiplexing (SDM), high speed train (HST), etc. - whether the terminal 120 supports dynamic switching between single TCI transmission and multi-TCI state transmission; - whether the terminal 120 supports pre-configured resources for multi-TCI state transmission Whether the terminal device 120 supports reporting of beam failure recovery requests via available uplink TCI status (also sometimes referred to as “extra UL TCI status”) Whether the terminal device 120 supports reporting of available uplink TCI status and beam failure recovery requests via new beams identified during the candidate beam detection procedure

[0094] It should be appreciated that the above-mentioned capability-related information is provided for illustrative purposes only, and that any suitable capability-related information associated with the embodiments discussed herein may be communicated at this stage, and the disclosure is not limited in this respect.

[0095] 3A , network device 110 may transmit (304) the associated configuration to terminal device 120. In one exemplary embodiment, the associated configuration may be generated based on the capabilities-related information received from terminal device 120. In another exemplary embodiment, the associated configuration is generated independently of the capabilities-related information.

[0096] In some embodiments, the associated configuration is a higher layer configuration (such as via an RRC message) from network device 110. In one specific exemplary embodiment, the RRC message configures multiple TCI states. Below is an example of two pieces of RRC signaling for configuring the TCI states: TIFF2025502823000002.tif2790TIFF2025502823000003.tif62168

[0097] Alternatively or additionally, the related settings may also be used to allocate resources, enable one or more features / functionality, etc. In the following, some related settings are discussed in specific embodiments.

[0098] It should be appreciated that any suitable relevant settings associated with the embodiments discussed herein may be communicated at this stage, as the disclosure is not limited in this respect. Example process showing TCI conditions

[0099] In a multi-TRP transmission scenario, the DCI message needs to indicate the TCI status of each of the different TRPs. According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, multiple TCI statuses may be indicated for multiple TRPs.

[0100] Please refer to Figure 3B. Figure 3B illustrates a signaling flow 320 of a communication according to some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0101] As shown in FIG. 3B, the terminal device 120 may receive at least one DCI message (324). The terminal device 120 may then determine a first TCI state based on the at least one DCI message (326), where the first TCI state applies to the first control resource set pool (i.e., the first TRP 130-1). Alternatively, or in addition, the terminal device 120 may determine a second TCI state based on the at least one DCI message. The second TCI state applies to the second control resource set pool (i.e., the second TRP 130-2). Based on the determined first TCI state and / or second TCI state, the terminal device 120 may perform transmission with the network (via either or both of the first TRP and the second TRP 130-2) (328).

[0102] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission based on the indicated first TCI state and / or the second TCI state. Specifically, in one specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by the latest SRS transmission transmitted in at least one TCI state. Alternatively, in another specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 performs a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by the latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state. Alternatively, in a further specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 performs a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by the latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0103] Additionally, the latest SRS transmission refers to the latest transmission of the SRS resource identified by the SRI in the DCI message for the uplink grant.

[0104] In this manner, multiple TCI states may be indicated to terminal device 120.

[0105] In the following, several exemplary embodiments of methods for indicating multiple TCI states are discussed. More specifically, the signaling configuration and signaling interaction are improved so that multiple TCI states can be indicated. In single DCI mode

[0106] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message, the single DCI message including a first TCI field indicating a first TCI state and a second TCI field indicating a second TCI state.

[0107] In some embodiments, the first TCI field is a bit string of length K1. Thus, the first TCI field is a 2-bit TPR applied to the first TPR 130-1. K1 Two TCI states that can indicate one of two different TCI states (or pairs of TCI states, groups of TCI states, or combinations of TCI states) K1 It may have values.

[0108] In some embodiments, the second TCI field is a bit string of length K2. Thus, the second TCI field is a 2-bit TPR applied to the second TPR 130-2. K2 Two TCI states that can indicate one of two different TCI states (or pairs of TCI states, groups of TCI states, or combinations of TCI states) K2 It may have values.

[0109] Furthermore, prior to transmitting the single DCI message, the terminal device 120 may receive (e.g., via RRC signaling) more than one message (e.g., MAC CE messages) that establish mappings between all or a subset of configured TCI states and TCI codepoints in the single DCI message (322). Specifically, the terminal device 120 receives a first MAC CE message indicating at least one first mapping and a second message indicating at least one second mapping. In particular, each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI codepoint and a first TCI state (or a pair of TCI states, a group of TCI states, a combination of TCI states), while each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI codepoint and a second TCI state (or a pair of TCI states, a group of TCI states, a combination of TCI states).

[0110] Optionally, in some embodiments, the TCI state indicated in the first MAC CE message is associated / configured with a first CORESET pool and the TCI state indicated in the second MAC CE message is associated / configured with a second CORESET. Furthermore, the TCI state indicated in the first MAC CE message may be different from the TCI state indicated in the second MAC CE message.

[0111] Further, the one or more messages activate all or a subset of the configured TCI states mapped to the TCI codepoint. In some embodiments, the first TCI state is associated with the first TRP 130-1 and the second TCI state is associated with the second TRP 130-2. In some embodiments, the first TCI state is associated with the first CORESET pool and the second TCI state is associated with the second CORESET pool. Table 1 below shows an example of the first mapping. TIFF2025502823000004.tif60168

[0112] Table 2 below shows an example of the second mapping. TIFF2025502823000005.tif60168

[0113] In this way, multiple TCI states can be indicated by a single DCI message by reusing the current MAC CE message configuration to establish the first and second mappings.

[0114] In some embodiments, the indication used to indicate the presence of the second TCI field may be indicated by the network. In one specific exemplary embodiment, the network device 110 sends an RRC signaling / MAC CE message including an indication of "secondTCIPresentInDCI". The "secondTCIPresentInDCI" indication is configured to indicate whether this second TCI field is present. In another specific exemplary embodiment, the indication (such as "secondTCIPresentInDCI") is included in a single DCI message. In this way, the operation of the resolution means at the terminal device 120 is simplified.

[0115] Alternatively, in the case of a single DCI mode, multiple TCI states may be indicated by a combined TCI indication (referred to as a third TCI indication), where the third TCI indication is associated with either or both of the first and second controlled resource set pools. Specifically, the single DCI includes a third TCI status field indicating the third TCI indication. In this way, multiple TCI states may be indicated by one TCI status field, which means that the current DCI configuration may be reused.

[0116] Further, in some embodiments, the third TCI field is a bit string of length K. Thus, the third TCI field is a 2-bit TCI field that applies to either or both of the first TPR 130-1 and the second TRP 130-2. KTwo TCI states that can indicate one of two different TCI states (or pairs of TCI states, groups of TCI states, or combinations of TCI states) K It may have values.

[0117] Furthermore, to enable the terminal device 120 to interpret the third TCI indication, the terminal device 120 needs to receive a third MAC CE message indicating at least one third mapping, each third mapping indicating a third correspondence between a third TCI codepoint and at least one third TCI state (or a pair of TCI states, a group of TCI states, a combination of TCI states), each of which is configured for either the first control resource set pool or the second control resource set pool. Table 3 below shows an example of the third mapping. TIFF2025502823000006.tif86168

[0118] In some embodiments, the third code point is mapped to a pair of combined TCI states, which means M=N. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the third code point is mapped to a group of M downlink TCI states and N uplink states. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the third code point is mapped to a group of L combined TCI states, (ML) downlink TCI states, and / or (NL) uplink states, where the parameters M / N / L are positive integers.

[0119] Additionally, some code points may be reserved to indicate reserved TCI states. In one specific exemplary embodiment, one code point may be reserved to indicate "no TCI update".

[0120] Furthermore, in some embodiments, the bit size of the third TCI status field may be redefined. In particular, the bit size of the third TCI status field may be defined to be greater than 3, such as 4 or 5. In this way, the third TCI status field may indicate more combined TCI states.

[0121] According to the above procedure, the first TCI state applied to the first control resource set pool and the second TCI state applied to the second control resource set pool may be determined by the terminal device 120.

[0122] Furthermore, the scope of application of a single DCI message may also be defined. In a specific exemplary embodiment, the indicated TCI states (i.e., the first TCI state and the second TCI state) are applied to all channels (including the PDCCH, the PDSCH, the PUCCH, and the PUSCH).

[0123] Alternatively, the scope of application can be limited to a specific combination of some physical channels. Specifically, the terminal device 120 applies a first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a first control resource set pool, and further applies a second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a second control resource set pool. Furthermore, the combination of physical channels may be any of combinations #1 to #5 described above in this disclosure.

[0124] In summary, the signaling configuration and signaling interaction procedures are improved so that multiple TCI states can be indicated in a single DCI message. In multi-DCI mode

[0125] As previously mentioned, multiple DCI modes are also supported by some embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0126] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages. Specifically, the terminal device 120 receives a first DCI message and a second DCI message, where the first DCI message includes a first TCI field indicating a first TCI indication and the second DCI message includes a second TCI field indicating a second TCI indication. In some embodiments, each of the plurality of DCI messages corresponds to a TRP identity (e.g., CORESETPoolIndex).

[0127] Based on the multiple DCI messages, a first TCI state to be applied to the first control resource set pool and a second TCI state to be applied to the second control resource set pool may be determined by the terminal device 120.

[0128] Unlike the legacy solution where the indicated first and second TCI states are applied to all physical channels, the scope of application of the indicated first and second TCI states may be limited. Specifically, the terminal device 120 applies the first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a first control resource set pool, and further applies the second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a second control resource set pool. Furthermore, the combination of physical channels may be any of the combinations #1 to #5 described above in this disclosure. In other words, the indicated TCI state of each DCI message applies to a subset of channels, for example those channels associated with the same TRP ID.

[0129] In this way, a more flexible solution for indicating the TCI status is realized: in particular, the scope of application of multiple TCI statuses may be restricted to a subset of all physical channels.

[0130] According to the above procedure, multiple TCI states can be indicated to different TRPs, regardless of single DCI mode or multiple DCI mode.

[0131] In some embodiments, the total bit size for indicating the TCI information (in either a single DCI or multiple DCIs) is determined based on multiple factors. One exemplary factor is whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages. Another exemplary factor is the number of TCI fields included in the at least one DCI message. A further exemplary factor is the number of TCI states indicated by the at least one DCI message. Another exemplary factor may be the bit size of each of the TCI fields.

[0132] It should be understood that the above-mentioned factors are for illustration purposes and are not limiting in any way. In other examples, other factors may be considered when determining the total bit size for indicating the TCI information. It should also be understood that the above-mentioned factors may be applied separately or in any suitable subcombination. Example Process of Applying Timing

[0133] In a related solution, after receiving at least one DCI message, the terminal device 120 responds with an ACK to the at least one DCI message, and may apply the TCI state indicated by the at least one DCI message after an offset of X time units from sending the ACK (i.e., immediately after the beam application timing BAT).

[0134] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, several factors may be taken into consideration when applying the indicated TCI state so as to limit the delay in switching the TCI state.

[0135] In some embodiments, the timing of application of the indicated TCI states is performed based on the number of indicated TCI states. Alternatively or additionally, in some embodiments, the timing of application of the indicated TCI states is performed based on whether there is an overlapping TCI state between the indicated TCI states and the currently applied TCI state. Alternatively or additionally, in some embodiments, the timing of application of the indicated TCI states is performed based on whether at least one DCI triggers a switch between multiple TCI mode and single TCI mode (or a switch between single TRP transmission and multi-TRP transmission). Alternatively or additionally, in some embodiments, the timing of application of the indicated TCI states is performed based on whether single DCI mode or multi-DCI mode is triggered.

[0136] In the following text, some example processes for single DCI mode and multi-DCI mode are described separately. In single DCI mode

[0137] In some embodiments, if there is an overlapping TCI state between the indicated TCI state and the currently applied TCI state, the terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state before applying the other TCI state of the at least one TCI state.

[0138] Furthermore, in some embodiments, terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state without waiting for an offset of X time units when sending an ACK for at least one DCI message to the network. Correspondingly, terminal device 120 applies the other TCI state after a certain period of time (i.e., an offset of X time units) after sending an acknowledgment for at least one DCI message to the network.

[0139] Alternatively or additionally, the beam / TCI state mapping may also be determined based on whether there is an overlapping TCI state between the indicated TCI state and the currently applied TCI state. Specifically, first apply the overlapping beam and then apply the new indicated TCI state. An example of a TCI state mapping pattern for a two-TRP scenario is {overlapping TCI state, overlapping TCI state, new indicated TCI state, new indicated TCI state, ...}, assuming a continuous TCI state mapping. Another example of a TCI state mapping pattern for a two-TRP scenario is {overlapping TCI state, new indicated TCI state, overlapping TCI state, new indicated TCI state, ...}, assuming a periodic TCI state mapping.

[0140] In this way, by applying the overlapping TCI state first, transmission can start sooner during TCI state / beam switching.

[0141] First, a specific and exemplary embodiment in which a single DCI triggers switching from a single TRP transmission / single TCI mode to a multi-TRP transmission / multi-TCI mode will be described. Specifically, the terminal device 120 operates under a single TCI state / TRP transmission mode, for example, the terminal device 120 applies TCI state #1. Next, the terminal device 120 receives a single DCI indicating two TCI states including the currently applied TCI state #1 and the newly indicated TCI state #2. In this specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state #1 first. For example, the terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state #1 at the time of ACK transmission, while applying the newly indicated TCI state #2 after an offset of X time units from the transmission of the ACK.

[0142] The procedure for the scenario of switching from multi-TRP transmission / multi-TCI mode to single-TRP transmission / single-TCI mode is similar. Specifically, the terminal device 120 operates under multi-TCI state / TRP transmission mode, for example, the terminal device 120 applies TCI state #1, #2. Next, the terminal device 120 receives a single DCI indicating TCI state #1. In this specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 first applies overlapping TCI state #1. For example, the terminal device 120 applies overlapping TCI state #1 to ACK transmission.

[0143] In a further specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 is operated under a multi-TCI state / TRP transmission mode, for example, the terminal device 120 applies TCI states #1 and #2. Next, the terminal device 120 receives a single DCI indicating two TCI states including the currently applied TCI state #1 and the newly indicated TCI state #3. In this specific and exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state #1 first. For example, the terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state #1 at the time of ACK transmission, while applying the newly indicated TCI state #3 after an offset of X time units from the transmission of the ACK.

[0144] Further, for this specific exemplary embodiment, one example of a TCI state mapping pattern is {overlapping TCI state #1, overlapping TCI state #1, newly indicated TCI state #3, newly indicated TCI state #3, ...}. Another example of a TCI state mapping pattern is {overlapping TCI state #1, newly indicated TCI state #3, overlapping TCI state #1, newly indicated TCI state #3, ...}.

[0145] In some embodiments, when the terminal device 120 transmits the last symbol of a PUCCH accompanied by HARQ-ACK information corresponding to a DCI carrying a TCI state indication, and the indicated TCI state overlaps with one previously indicated (i.e., the currently applied TCI-State), the indicated TCI state (e.g., the indicated [TCI-State] with [tci-StateId_r17]) should be applied from the first slot that is at least BeamAppTime_r17 symbols from the last symbol of the PUCCH. In multi-DCI mode

[0146] In some embodiments according to the present disclosure, the application timings of the different indicated TCI states may be determined separately, in other words, the beam application timings are determined for each TRP.

[0147] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages, such as a first DCI message indicating a first TCI state and a second DCI message indicating a second TCI state, and the terminal device 120 applies the first TCI state and the second TCI state at a first starting point associated with a first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with a second control resource set pool, respectively.

[0148] In some embodiments, the starting point for applying the indicated TCI state of one TRP is X time units after the ACK carried by the PUCCH associated with this TRP. Specifically, the terminal device 120 applies the first TCI state after an offset of X time units after sending an ACK for a first DCI message, and the terminal device 120 applies the second TCI state after an offset of X time units after sending an ACK for a second DCI message.

[0149] Next, reference is made to FIG. 4. FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary application timing 400 of multi-DCI. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the terminal device 120 applies TCI state #1 to TRP #1 and applies TCI state #2 to TRP #2. At time T1, the terminal device 120 receives a first DCI message indicating TCI state #3 from TRP #1, while receiving a second DCI message indicating TCI state #4 from TRP #2. Then, the terminal device 120 transmits an ACK for the first DCI message at time T2, while the terminal device 120 transmits an ACK for the second DCI message at time T3. After time T4 (X time units after T2), the newly indicated TCI state #3 may be applied. After time T4 (X time units after T3), the newly indicated TCI state #4 may be applied.

[0150] In some other embodiments, the starting point for applying the indicated TCI state of the multi-TRP is X time units after the ACKs transmitted later in time. Specifically, if the ACK for the second DCI message is transmitted later in time than the ACK for the first DCI message, the terminal device 120 applies the first TCI state after an offset of X time units from transmitting the ACK for the second DCI message, and the terminal device 120 applies the second TCI state after an offset of X time units from transmitting the ACK for the second DCI message (i.e., both the first TCI state and the second TCI state are applied after an offset of X time units from transmitting the ACK for the second DCI message). Example Process for Resource Allocation

[0151] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, resource allocation for multi-TRP transmission can also be improved. Specifically, multiple transmission opportunity sets may be preconfigured in the terminal device 120, and each transmission opportunity set may correspond to each TCI state (or each controlled resource set pool / TRP). The multiple transmission opportunity sets may be activated / deactivated according to the activation / deactivation of the corresponding TCI state.

[0152] In this way, no additional resource allocation procedures are required in response to switching to the multi-TRP transmission / multi-TCI state mode.

[0153] In some embodiments, terminal device 120 receives a configuration message from network device 110. The configuration message indicates at least one first transmission opportunity associated with a first TCI state and at least one second transmission opportunity associated with a second TCI state.

[0154] In some embodiments, at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity are associated with a particular physical channel or a particular combination of physical channels, such as one of the combinations #1-#5 described above, including the PDSCH, PDCCH, PUSCH, and PUCCH.

[0155] In some embodiments, the at least one second transmit opportunity is linked to the at least one first transmit opportunity by at least one pre-configured parameter.

[0156] Specifically with respect to the PDCCH, at least one first transmission opportunity may be configured / indicated via a search space (SS) set configuration, while at least one second transmission opportunity may be an SS set linked to the PDCCH associated with at least the first transmission opportunity.

[0157] With respect to the PDSCH, at least one first transmission opportunity may be configured / indicated via a Start and Length Indicator Value (SLIV) in the DCI message, while at least one second transmission opportunity may be configured by an offset from the first transmission opportunity.

[0158] With respect to the PUCCH, at least one first transmission opportunity may be configured / indicated via RRC signaling, while at least one second transmission opportunity may be configured by an offset from the first transmission opportunity (e.g., a number of slots configured in RRC).

[0159] For the PUSCH, at least one first transmission opportunity may be configured / indicated via a SLIV in a DCI message for an uplink grant, while at least one second transmission opportunity may be configured by an offset from the first transmission opportunity.

[0160] In some embodiments, the at least one second transmission opportunity may be configured in a higher layer configuration / parameters and may be activated when two TCI states are indicated and deactivated when only one TCI state is indicated.

[0161] In some embodiments, terminal device 120 activates at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity based on the newly indicated TCI state. Alternatively or additionally, in some embodiments, terminal device 120 activates at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity upon switching between multiple-TCI mode and single-TCI mode.

[0162] In some embodiments, at least one transmission parameter associated with the at least one first transmission opportunity is by default the same as at least a second transmission parameter associated with the at least one second transmission opportunity. In particular, when there are two TRPs and two combined TCI states are indicated, at least one transmission parameter associated with the at least one first transmission opportunity is the same as at least a second transmission parameter associated with the at least one second transmission opportunity.

[0163] One example of at least one transmission parameter is a transmission scheme, which as used herein may refer to a repetition scheme (including at least inter-slot TDM and intra-slot TDM), CJT, NCJT, inter-cell mobility, etc.

[0164] Another example of at least one transmission parameter is the number of repetitions (eg, the number of TCI states indicated).

[0165] A further example of at least one transmission parameter is a beam / TCI mapping pattern, the beam mapping pattern being one of cyclic mapping, sequential mapping, and half-half mapping. In a specific exemplary embodiment, the same beam / TCI mapping pattern is assumed if a repetition number greater than the number of indicated TCI states is configured.

[0166] In some embodiments, if the repetition number is greater than the number of TCI states, the terminal device 120 may be further configured to enable cyclic or sequential mapping in the TCI mapping. Furthermore, in some embodiments, if cyclic mapping is enabled, the first and second TCI states are applied to the first and second transmission resources, respectively, and the same TCI mapping pattern is continued for the remaining transmission resources.

[0167] Further, in some embodiments, when sequential mapping is enabled, a first TCI state is applied to the first and second transmission resources, a second TCI state is applied to the third and fourth transmission resources, and the same TCI mapping pattern is continued for the remaining transmission resources.

[0168] Furthermore, in some embodiments, the same beam / TCI state mapping pattern is conditionally applied to one or more particular channels. In one specific exemplary embodiment, the same beam / TCI state mapping pattern is conditionally applied to the PDSCH and the PUSCH. In another specific exemplary embodiment, the same beam mapping pattern is conditionally applied to the PDSCH, the PUSCH, and the PUCCH.

[0169] In some embodiments, at least one transmission parameter (transmission scheme, number of repetitions, beam mapping, etc.) may be set individually for each channel / signal. Example Process for Timing Adaptation of PUSCH

[0170] In the related solution, precoding information is required for PUSCH transmission. However, according to the legacy procedure, at least the DCI message indicates the TCI state and precoding information (SRI, or SRI and TPMI). However, the precoding information transmitted with the TCI state may not be the latest precoding information and may not be suitable for PUSCH transmission. In other words, the precoding information of the PUSCH may be unknown after the beam switching timing (or beam application timing, BAT).

[0171] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, some additional time for obtaining and indicating precoding information for the PUSCH is allowed for.

[0172] Please refer to Figure 3C. Figure 3C illustrates a signaling flow 340 of a communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in Figure 3C, terminal device 120 receives at least one DCI message from network device 110 (342). The at least one DCI message indicates at least one TCI state to be applied by terminal device 120.

[0173] Terminal device 120 then performs a PUSCH transmission (344). In one specific and exemplary embodiment, terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in at least one indicated TCI state. In another specific and exemplary embodiment, terminal device 120 applies at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the latest SRS transmission is transmitted based on at least one indicated TCI state. Also, the latest SRS transmission refers to the latest transmission of the SRS resource identified by the SRI in the DCI message for the uplink grant.

[0174] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 performs PUSCH transmission by continuing to apply the currently applied TCI state until it acquires precoding information corresponding to the indicated TCI state. In some other embodiments, the terminal device 120 does not expect to be scheduled to perform PUSCH transmission until it acquires precoding information corresponding to the indicated TCI state. In some other embodiments, the terminal device 120 does not expect to be scheduled to perform PUSCH transmission for more than one layer until it acquires precoding information corresponding to the indicated TCI state. In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 applies a specific precoding information / matrix (e.g., an identity matrix, a random precoding matrix, precoder cycling, a latest precoding matrix, a precoding matrix with the lowest / highest identity, etc.) to perform PUSCH transmission.

[0175] Thus, in some embodiments, after transmitting an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message, the terminal device 120 delays applying the at least one TCI state to a PUSCH transmission with the network until it acquires precoding information corresponding to the at least one TCI state.

[0176] In some embodiments, an SRS resource or an SRS resource set is configured for PUSCH transmission of CB and NCB, respectively, and the latest precoding information may be obtained by SRS transmission between the terminal device 120 and the network device 110. For example, the beam of the PUSCH (corresponding to the indicated TCI state) is updated only after the corresponding SRS transmission.

[0177] In some embodiments, if the most recent SRS transmission was based on the newly indicated TCI state, terminal device 120 performs the PUSCH transmission using the newly indicated TCI state, otherwise terminal device 120 performs the PUSCH transmission by continuing to use the currently used TCI state.

[0178] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 performs SRS transmission with the network by applying at least one TCI state (i.e., the uplink beam for SRS resource transmission is updated with the newly indicated TCI state), and then receives information from the network for determining precoding information corresponding to the at least one TCI state, which allows the terminal device 120 to apply the newly indicated TCI state to PUSCH transmission.

[0179] In addition, an additional associated RS (such as a CSI-RS) may be configured for NCB PUSCH transmission, and the associated RS is transmitted and received in the newly indicated TCI state. Furthermore, the terminal device 120 determines candidate precoding information (i.e., performs a precoder calculation) based on new measurements of the associated RS.

[0180] In some embodiments, terminal device 120 applies the newly indicated TCI state to the SRS transmission after an offset of X time units (ie, immediately after the beam application timing) after transmitting an ACK for the DCI message.

[0181] In some embodiments, if the PUSCH transmission is an NCB PUSCH transmission, the terminal device 120 receives an RS and determines candidate precoding information based on the RS. Then, the terminal device 120 performs an SRS transmission based on the candidate precoding information. The network device 110 may determine target precoding information according to the candidate precoding information, and transmit the target precoding information to the terminal device 120 via an SRI or the like.

[0182] Now, reference is made to FIG. 5. FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary application timing 500. As shown in FIG. 5, at time T1, the terminal device 120 receives a DCI message indicating a newly indicated TCI state. Then, the terminal device 120 transmits an ACK for the DCI message at time T2. The newly indicated TCI state is applied to other channels / signals (especially SRS transmission) except for PUSCH from T3 (i.e., immediately after the beam switching timing, an offset of X time units after the ACK transmission). As shown in FIG. 5, the terminal device 120 transmits a PUSCH transmission at time T4 via the currently used TCI state, and transmits an SRS transmission at time T5 via the newly indicated TCI state.

[0183] Based on the SRS transmission, the network device 110 may determine the precoding information. As can be seen from Figure 5, the network device 110 transmits the precoding information to the terminal device 120 at time T6.

[0184] Based on the precoding information, terminal device 120 may apply the newly indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission. As can be seen from Fig. 5, terminal device 120 transmits a PUSCH transmission at time T7 via the newly indicated TCI state.

[0185] In some embodiments, for CB PUSCH transmission, the transmit precoder is selected from an uplink codebook with a number of antenna ports equal to the higher layer parameter nrofSRS-Port of SRS-Config. When the terminal device 120 is configured with the higher layer parameter txConfig set to "codebook", the terminal device 120 is configured with at least one SRS resource. The SRI indicated in slot n is associated with the most recent transmission of the SRS resource identified by the SRI. The SRS resource is before the PDCCH carrying the SRI and after the beam application timing (e.g., BeamAppTime) after the last symbol of the PUCCH with HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the DCI carrying the TCI status indication.

[0186] In some embodiments, for NCB PUSCH transmission, only one SRS resource set can be configured in SRS-ResourceSetToAddModList with SRS-ResourceSet's higher layer parameter usage set to "nonCodebook". Also, only one SRS resource set can be configured in srs-ResourceSetToAddModListDCI-0-2 with SRS-ResourceSet's higher layer parameter usage set to "nonCodebook". The maximum number of SRS resources configurable for non-codebook based uplink transmission is 4. The SRI indicated by slot n is associated with the most recent transmission of the SRS resource identified by the SRI, and the SRS transmission is before the PDCCH carrying the SRI and after the beam application timing (e.g., BeamAppTime) after the last symbol of the PUCCH with HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the DCI carrying the TCI status indication.

[0187] In some embodiments, when the terminal device 120 transmits the last symbol of the PUCCH with HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the DCI carrying a TCI-State indication, and the indicated TCI state is different from the one previously indicated, the indicated [TCI-State] with [tci-StateId_r17] should be applied from the first slot that is at least BeamAppTime symbols after the last symbol of the PUCCH excluding the PUSCH. Both the first slot and the BeamAppTime symbol are determined in the carrier with the smallest subcarrier spacing (SCS) among the carriers to which the beam indication applies. The UE may assume that one BeamAppTime for a given SCS is configured for all CCs in the same CC list configured by simultaneousTCI-UpdateList1 or simultaneousTCI-UpdateList2. The UE may assume one indicated [TCI-State] with [tci-StateId_r17] for the downlink and uplink at a time, or one indicated [TCI-State] with [tci-StateId_r17] for the UL separately. Also, for PUSCH, the indicated [TCI-State] with [tci-StateId_r17] should be applied after the most recent SRS transmission that applies the indicated [TCI-State] with [tci-StateId_r17].

[0188] Furthermore, in case of multi-TRP transmission / multi-TCI state mode, the above should be applied for each TRP / TCI state.

[0189] Specifically, in some embodiments, the processes of the at least one TCI state are performed independently when the number of the at least one TCI state is greater than 1. In a specific exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 performs a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state, while performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0190] In one specific exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 applies the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state, while applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state.

[0191] In a further specific exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 delays application of a first TCI state to a PUSCH transmission until it acquires first precoding information corresponding to the first TCI state, and delays application of a second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until it acquires second precoding information corresponding to the second TCI state.

[0192] In some embodiments, there are N newly indicated TCI states, and each newly indicated TCI state corresponds to a corresponding SRS resource / SRS resource set. Thus, N SRS resources or N SRS resource sets are required. In some embodiments, the N SRS resources or N SRS resource sets are configured for transmission of codebook-based PUSCH and non-codebook-based PUSCH, respectively.

[0193] Therefore, SRS transmissions corresponding to the newly indicated N TCI states are required before the PUSCH transmission, because the precoding information needs to be determined by the network via measurements of these SRS.

[0194] In some embodiments, each of the N SRS resources / resource sets may be linked to each of the N newly indicated states (i.e., one-to-one mapping), or in some other embodiments, one SRS resource / resource set is configured with N uplink beams (i.e., one-to-many mapping).

[0195] In addition, in some embodiments, in the case of NCB, N associated CSI-RS also need to be configured. Furthermore, in some embodiments, in the case of NCB, precoder information calculation is performed based on the N configured associated CSI-RS.

[0196] In some embodiments, based on the newly indicated TCI state, the uplink beam for transmitting the SRS resource may be updated immediately after the beam application timing. Example Process of Beam Damage Recovery

[0197] In the related solution, the beam expected to be used ("q new In the case where the UE is configured to report a Beam Failure Recovery Request (BFRQ) via the UE, the UE is unable to report the BFRQ to the network in time.

[0198] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, if an available uplink TCI state exists, the BFRQ may be reported with the available uplink TCI state, so that the BFRQ can be reported to the network in time.

[0199] Please refer to FIG. 3D. FIG. 3D illustrates a signaling flow 360 of communication according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. During operation, terminal 120 receives a downlink RS (362). By measuring the RS, terminal 120 may detect beam failure (364). Then, if there is an available uplink TCI state, terminal 120 may transmit a BFRQ with the available uplink TCI state (366). The network may transmit a BFRQ response to respond to the BFRQ (368).

[0200] In some embodiments, the BFRQ is a beam failure report (BFR) MAC CE transmitted on the PUSCH. Additionally, in some embodiments, the terminal device 120 also transmits a PUCCH scheduling request (SR) (PUCCH-SR) with an available uplink TCI state.

[0201] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 may determine the available uplink TCI conditions and the beams it expects to use (i.e., “q new Alternatively, in some other embodiments, terminal device 120 transmits a BFRQ in the available uplink TCI state if a new beam is not found, e.g., if the new beam cannot meet the RSRP threshold of the configured candidate beam.

[0202] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 is configured with at least one TCI state used for uplink transmissions and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmissions, such that the number of TCI states used for uplink transmissions is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmissions, thus ensuring that there is always an available uplink TCI state.

[0203] In a specific exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 is configured with a combined TCI state associated with the first TRP 130-1, while an uplink TCI state / further combined TCI state associated with the second TRP 130-2 is configured. Thus, when a beam failure of the first TRP 130-1 is detected, a beam failure report may be sent in the uplink TCI state / further combined TCI state associated with the second TRP 130-2.

[0204] In another specific exemplary embodiment, the terminal device 120 is configured with a downlink TCI state associated with the first TRP 130-1, while an uplink TCI state / further combined TCI state associated with the second TRP 130-2 is configured. Thus, when a beam failure of the first TRP 130-1 is detected, a beam failure report may be sent with an uplink TCI state / further combined TCI state associated with the second TRP 130-2.

[0205] In some embodiments, if a beam failure is associated with the combined TCI state, terminal device 120 disables uplink transmissions (such as PUCCH and PUSCH transmissions) associated with the combined TCI state. Alternatively, if a beam failure is associated with the combined TCI state, terminal device 120 transmits (370) uplink transmissions associated with the combined TCI state in an available uplink TCI state.

[0206] Furthermore, in some embodiments, terminal device 120 initiates uplink transmissions associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state in response to receiving the BFRQ response.

[0207] Further, in some embodiments, after receiving a BFRQ response, the uplink transmission associated with the bonded TCI state is transmitted along the reported beam ("q new ") has been confirmed by the network, the available uplink TCI state and the beam expected to be used (i.e., "qnew ") may be performed.

[0208] In some embodiments, if a beam failure is associated with a combined TCI state, the terminal device 120 switches to single-TCI mode and maintains the single-TCI mode until a multi-TCI mode switching condition is met (e.g., until a message is received that triggers a switch to multi-TCI mode).

[0209] TIFF2025502823000007.tif69168

[0210] In some embodiments, if terminal device 120 is provided with an extra uplink TCI state (i.e., an available uplink TCI state), terminal device 120 transmits a PUCCH in the same cell with the extra TCI state using: - The same spatial filters as those shown in the TCI state - power determined by the power control parameters in the TCI state

[0211] TIFF2025502823000008.tif49168

[0212] In some embodiments, if terminal device 120 is provided with an extra uplink TCI state (i.e., an available uplink TCI state), terminal device 120 transmits a PUCCH in the same cell with the extra TCI state using: - The same spatial filters as those shown in the TCI state - power determined by the power control parameters in the TCI state

[0213] TIFF2025502823000009.tif166168 Example method

[0214] 6 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 600 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the method 600 may be implemented in a terminal device 120 such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C.

[0215] In block 610, the terminal device 120 receives at least one DCI message indicating at least one of a first TCI indication associated with the first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with the second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first and second control resource set pools.

[0216] In block 620, the terminal device 120 determines at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, the at least one TCI state including at least one of a first TCI state applied to the first control resource set pool or a second TCI state applied to the second control resource set pool.

[0217] In block 630, terminal device 120 performs transmission with the network based on the at least one TCI state.

[0218] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission based on at least one TCI state by at least one of: performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in at least one TCI state; performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in an indicated first TCI state; or performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in an indicated second TCI state.

[0219] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message, the single DCI message including a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication and a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication. The terminal device receives a first MAC CE message indicating at least one first mapping and a second MAC CE message indicating at least one second mapping. Each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI codepoint and a first TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool, and each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI codepoint and a second TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool.

[0220] In some embodiments, terminal 120 receives an indication from the network indicating the presence of the second TCI field.

[0221] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI including a third TCI state field indicating a third TCI indication. The terminal device 120 receives a third MAC CE message from the network indicating at least one third mapping, each of which indicates a third correspondence between a third TCI codepoint and at least one third TCI state, each of which is configured for one of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool.

[0222] In some embodiments, the total bit size for indicating the TCI information depends on at least one of: whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages, the number of TCI fields included in the at least one DCI message, the bit size of each of the TCI fields, or the number of TCI states indicated by the at least one DCI message.

[0223] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 performing a transmission with the network includes performing at least one of applying a first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a first control resource set pool or applying a second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a second control resource set pool.

[0224] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages including a first DCI message including a first TCI field indicating a first TCI indication and a second DCI message including a second TCI field indicating a second TCI indication.

[0225] In some embodiments, if at least one TCI state overlaps with at least one currently applied TCI state, the terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state before applying other TCI states of the at least one TCI state.

[0226] In some embodiments, terminal device 120 applies the overlapping TCI state when sending an acknowledgment to the network for at least one DCI message.

[0227] In some embodiments, terminal device 120 applies the other TCI state a certain period of time after sending an acknowledgment to the network for at least one DCI message.

[0228] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message and is used to trigger switching between the multiple TCI mode and the single TCI mode.

[0229] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages, and the terminal device 120 applies a first TCI state and a second TCI state at a first starting point associated with a first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with a second control resource set pool, respectively.

[0230] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 receives a configuration message from the network indicating at least one first transmission opportunity associated with a first TCI state and at least one second transmission opportunity associated with a second TCI state.

[0231] In some embodiments, the at least one second transmit opportunity is linked to the at least one first transmit opportunity by at least one pre-configured parameter.

[0232] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 activates at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity based on at least one of at least one TCI state or a switch between multiple TCI mode and single TCI mode.

[0233] In some embodiments, at least one transmit parameter associated with the at least one first transmit opportunity is the same as at least a second transmit parameter associated with the at least one second transmit opportunity.

[0234] In some embodiments, the at least transmission parameters include at least one of a transmission scheme, a repetition number, a beam mapping pattern, or a TCI mapping pattern.

[0235] In some embodiments, the at least one first transmission opportunity and the at least one second transmission opportunity are associated with at least one of a PDCCH, a PDSCH, a PUCCH, or a PUSCH.

[0236] 7 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 700 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the method 700 may be implemented in a terminal device 120 such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C.

[0237] In block 710 , terminal device 120 receives at least one DCI message indicating at least one TCI state applied by terminal device 120 .

[0238] In block 720, the terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission by at least one of performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one indicated TCI state, or, if the most recent SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state, applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission.

[0239] In some embodiments, after transmitting an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message, the terminal device 120 delays applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until it obtains precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state.

[0240] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 delays application of the at least one indicated TCI state by performing an SRS transmission with the network by applying the at least one indicated TCI state, receiving information from the network for determining precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state, and applying the at least one indicated TCI state to a PUSCH transmission.

[0241] In some embodiments, when the PUSCH transmission is an NCB PUSCH transmission, the terminal device 120 performs an SRS transmission by receiving an RS from the network, determining candidate precoding information based on the RS, and performing an SRS transmission based on the candidate precoding information.

[0242] In some embodiments, when at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, the terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission by performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state, and performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0243] In some embodiments, when at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, the terminal device 120 performs a PUSCH transmission by applying the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the latest first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state, and by applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the latest second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state.

[0244] 8 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 800 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the method 800 may be implemented in a terminal device 120 such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C.

[0245] In block 810, the terminal device 120 detects a beam failure.

[0246] In block 820, terminal device 120 determines whether there are any uplink TCI states available.

[0247] In block 830, in response to determining that there is an available uplink TCI condition, the terminal device 120 transmits a beam failure recovery request with the available uplink TCI condition to the network.

[0248] In some embodiments, when a beam failure is associated with a combined TCI state, the terminal device 120 disables uplink transmissions associated with the combined TCI state or transmits uplink transmissions associated with the combined TCI state in an available uplink TCI state.

[0249] In some embodiments, in response to receiving a response to a beam failure recovery request from the network, the terminal device 120 transmits an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state by initiating an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state.

[0250] In some embodiments, if a beam failure is associated with a combined TCI condition, terminal device 120 switches to single-TCI mode and remains in single-TCI mode until a multiple-TCI mode switching condition is met.

[0251] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 is configured with at least one TCI state used for uplink transmission and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmission, and the number of TCI states used for uplink transmission is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmission.

[0252] 9 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 900 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the method 900 may be implemented in a network device 110 such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C.

[0253] At block 910, the network device 110 transmits at least one DCI message indicating at least one of a first TCI indication associated with the first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with the second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first and second control resource set pools.

[0254] At block 920, the network device 110 determines at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, the at least one TCI state including at least one of a first TCI state applied to the first controlled resource set pool or a second TCI state applied to the second controlled resource set pool.

[0255] At block 930, the network device 110 performs transmission with the terminal device 120 based on the at least one TCI state.

[0256] In some embodiments, the network device 110 performs a PUSCH transmission based on the at least one TCI state by at least one of: performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one TCI state; performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; or performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0257] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message, the single DCI message including a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication and a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication. The network device 110 transmits a first MAC CE message indicating the at least one first mapping and a second MAC CE message indicating the at least one second mapping. Each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI code point and a first TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool, and each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI code point and a second TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool.

[0258] In some embodiments, network device 110 transmits an indication to terminal device 120 indicating the presence of the second TCI field.

[0259] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message including a third TCI state field indicating a third TCI indication. The network device 110 transmits a third MAC CE message indicating at least one third mapping, each third mapping indicating a third correspondence between a third TCI codepoint and at least one third TCI state, and the at least one third TCI state is configured for either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool.

[0260] In some embodiments, the total bit size for indicating the TCI information depends on at least one of: whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages, the number of TCI fields included in the at least one DCI message, the bit size of each of the TCI fields, or the number of TCI states indicated by the at least one DCI message.

[0261] In some embodiments, the network device 110 performing a transmission with the terminal device 120 includes performing at least one of applying a first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a first control resource set pool, or applying a second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a second control resource set pool.

[0262] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages including a first DCI message including a first TCI field indicating a first TCI indication and a second DCI message including a second TCI field indicating a second TCI indication.

[0263] In some embodiments, if at least one TCI state overlaps with at least one currently applied TCI state, the network device 110 performs transmission with the terminal device 120 by applying the overlapping TCI state before applying other TCI states of the at least one TCI state.

[0264] In some embodiments, the network device 110 applies the overlapping TCI state before applying the other TCI state of the at least one TCI state by applying the overlapping TCI state upon receiving an acknowledgment from the terminal device 120 for the at least one DCI message, or by applying the other TCI state a period of time after receiving an acknowledgment from the terminal device 120 for the at least one DCI message.

[0265] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message and is used to trigger switching between the multiple TCI mode and the single TCI mode.

[0266] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages, and the network device 110 applies the overlapping TCI states by applying a first TCI state and a second TCI state at a first starting point associated with a first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with a second control resource set pool, respectively.

[0267] In some embodiments, network device 110 transmits a configuration message to terminal device 120. The configuration message indicates at least one first transmission opportunity associated with a first TCI state and at least one second transmission opportunity associated with a second TCI state.

[0268] In some embodiments, the at least one second transmit opportunity is linked to the at least one first transmit opportunity by at least one pre-configured parameter.

[0269] In some embodiments, the network device 110 activates at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity based on at least one of the TCI state or a switch between multiple TCI mode and single TCI mode.

[0270] In some embodiments, at least one transmit parameter associated with the at least one first transmit opportunity is the same as at least a second transmit parameter associated with the at least one second transmit opportunity.

[0271] In some embodiments, the at least transmission parameters include at least one of a transmission scheme, a repetition number, a beam mapping pattern, or a TCI mapping pattern.

[0272] In some embodiments, the at least one first transmission opportunity and the at least one second transmission opportunity are associated with at least one of a PDCCH, a PDSCH, a PUCCH, or a PUSCH.

[0273] 10 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 1000 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the method 1000 may be implemented in a network device 110 such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C.

[0274] In block 1010 , the network device 110 transmits at least one DCI message indicating at least one TCI state applied by the terminal device 120 .

[0275] In block 1020, the network device 110 receives a PUSCH transmission by at least one of receiving a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one indicated TCI state, or applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state.

[0276] In some embodiments, the network device 110 performs the PUSCH transmission by delaying applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state is obtained after an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message has been transmitted.

[0277] In some embodiments, the network device 110 delays application of the at least one indicated TCI state by receiving an SRS transmission with the network by applying the at least one indicated TCI state, determining precoding information corresponding to the at least one TCI state based on the SRS transmission, and applying the at least one indicated TCI state to a PUSCH transmission.

[0278] In some embodiments, if the PUSCH transmission is an NCB PUSCH transmission, network device 110 receives the SRS transmission by transmitting an RS to terminal device 120 and receiving an SRS transmission transmitted by terminal device 120 based on the candidate precoding information. The candidate precoding information is determined by terminal device 120 based on the RS.

[0279] In some embodiments, when the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, the network device 110 performs the PUSCH transmission by performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state, and performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0280] In some embodiments, when the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, the network device 110 performs the PUSCH transmission by applying the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state, and applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state.

[0281] 11 illustrates a flowchart of an example method 1100 according to some embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the method 1100 may be implemented in a network device 110 such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C.

[0282] In block 1110, the network device 110 receives a beam failure recovery request sent by the terminal device 120 with an available uplink TCI state.

[0283] In block 1120 , the network device 110 transmits a response to the beam failure recovery request to the terminal device 120 .

[0284] In some embodiments, when a beam failure is associated with the combined TCI state, the network device 110 disables the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state or receives the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in an available uplink TCI state.

[0285] In some embodiments, the network device 110 receives an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state by initiating reception of the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state in response to transmitting a response to the beam failure recovery request from the network device 110.

[0286] In some embodiments, if a beam failure is associated with a combined TCI condition, the network device 110 switches to the single TCI mode and remains in the single TCI mode until a multiple TCI mode switching condition is met.

[0287] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 is configured with at least one TCI state used for uplink transmission and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmission, and the number of TCI states used for uplink transmission is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmission. Exemplary Apparatus

[0288] In some exemplary embodiments, terminal device 120 includes circuitry configured to receive at least one DCI message, determine at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, and perform transmission with the network based on the at least one TCI state. The at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication associated with a first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with a second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool. The at least one TCI state includes at least one of a first TCI state applied to the first control resource set pool or a second TCI state applied to the second control resource set pool.

[0289] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to perform a PUSCH transmission based on the at least one TCI state by at least one of: performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one TCI state; performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; or performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0290] In some exemplary embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message, the single DCI message including a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication and a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication. The circuitry is further configured to transmit a first MAC CE message indicating the at least one first mapping and a second MAC CE message indicating the at least one second mapping. Each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI code point and a first TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool, and each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI code point and a second TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool.

[0291] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to receive an indication from the network indicating the presence of the second TCI field.

[0292] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI including a third TCI state field indicating a third TCI indication. The circuitry is further configured to receive a third MAC CE message from the network indicating at least one third mapping, each third mapping indicating a third correspondence between a third TCI codepoint and at least one third TCI state, each of the at least one third TCI state being configured for one of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool.

[0293] In some embodiments, the total bit size for indicating the TCI information depends on at least one of: whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages, the number of TCI fields included in the at least one DCI message, the bit size of each of the TCI fields, or the number of TCI states indicated by the at least one DCI message.

[0294] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to: perform at least one of: applying a first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with the first control resource set pool; or applying a second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with the second control resource set pool.

[0295] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages including a first DCI message including a first TCI field indicating a first TCI indication and a second DCI message including a second TCI field indicating a second TCI indication.

[0296] In some embodiments, if the at least one TCI state overlaps with at least one currently applied TCI state, the circuitry is further configured to apply the overlapping TCI state before applying other TCI states of the at least one TCI state.

[0297] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to apply the overlapping TCI state when transmitting an acknowledgment to the at least one DCI message to the network.

[0298] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to apply the other TCI state a period of time after transmitting an acknowledgment to the at least one DCI message to the network.

[0299] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message and is used to trigger switching between the multiple TCI mode and the single TCI mode.

[0300] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages, and the circuitry is further configured to apply the first TCI state and the second TCI state at a first starting point associated with the first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with the second control resource set pool, respectively.

[0301] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to receive a configuration message from the network device, the configuration message indicating at least one first transmission opportunity associated with the first TCI state and at least one second transmission opportunity associated with the second TCI state.

[0302] In some embodiments, the at least one second transmit opportunity is linked to the at least one first transmit opportunity by at least one pre-configured parameter.

[0303] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to activate at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity based on at least one of the at least one TCI state or a switch between the multiple TCI mode and the single TCI mode.

[0304] In some embodiments, at least one transmit parameter associated with the at least one first transmit opportunity is the same as at least a second transmit parameter associated with the at least one second transmit opportunity.

[0305] In some embodiments, the at least transmission parameters include at least one of a transmission scheme, a repetition number, a beam mapping pattern, or a TCI mapping pattern.

[0306] In some embodiments, the at least one first transmission opportunity and the at least one second transmission opportunity are associated with at least one of a PDCCH, a PDSCH, a PUCCH, or a PUSCH.

[0307] In some example embodiments, terminal device 120 includes circuitry configured to perform a PUSCH transmission by at least one of receiving at least one DCI message indicating at least one TCI state to be applied by terminal device 120 and performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one indicated TCI state, or applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state.

[0308] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to delay applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until after transmitting an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message and obtaining precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state.

[0309] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to delay application of the at least one indicated TCI state by performing an SRS transmission with the network by applying the at least one indicated TCI state, receiving information from the network for determining precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state, and applying the at least one indicated TCI state to a PUSCH transmission.

[0310] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to perform an SRS transmission if the PUSCH transmission is an NCB PUSCH transmission by receiving an RS from a network, determining candidate precoding information based on the RS, and performing an SRS transmission based on the candidate precoding information.

[0311] In some embodiments, when the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, the circuitry is further configured to perform a PUSCH transmission by: performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a most recent first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; and performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0312] In some embodiments, when the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, the circuitry is further configured to perform a PUSCH transmission by applying the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state, and applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state.

[0313] In some exemplary embodiments, the terminal device 120 includes circuitry configured to detect a beam failure, determine whether an available uplink TCI state is available, and, in response to a determination that an available uplink TCI state is available, transmit a beam failure recovery request to the network with the available uplink TCI state.

[0314] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to, when a beam obstruction is associated with the combined TCI state, disable an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state or transmit an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in an available uplink TCI state.

[0315] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to transmit an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state in response to receiving a response to the beam failure recovery request from the network, by initiating an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state.

[0316] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to switch to the single TCI mode if a beam fault is associated with a combined TCI condition, and to maintain the single TCI mode until a multiple TCI mode switching condition is met.

[0317] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 is configured with at least one TCI state used for uplink transmission and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmission, and the number of TCI states used for uplink transmission is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmission.

[0318] In some exemplary embodiments, the network device 110 includes circuitry configured to transmit at least one DCI message, determine at least one TCI state based on the at least one DCI message, and perform transmission with the terminal device 120 based on the at least one TCI state. The at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication associated with a first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with a second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool. The at least one TCI state includes at least one of a first TCI state applied to the first control resource set pool or a second TCI state applied to the second control resource set pool.

[0319] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to perform a PUSCH transmission based on the at least one TCI state by at least one of: performing a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one TCI state; performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a latest first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; or performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a latest SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0320] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message, the single DCI message including a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication and a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication. The circuitry is further configured to transmit a first MAC CE message indicating the at least one first mapping and a second MAC CE message indicating the at least one second mapping. Each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI code point and a first TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool, and each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI code point and a second TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool.

[0321] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to transmit an indication to terminal device 120 indicating the presence of the second TCI field.

[0322] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message including a third TCI state field indicating a third TCI indication. The circuitry is further configured to transmit a third MAC CE message indicating at least one third mapping, each third mapping indicating a third correspondence between a third TCI codepoint and at least one third TCI state, the at least one third TCI state being configured for either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool.

[0323] In some embodiments, the total bit size for indicating the TCI information depends on at least one of: whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages, the number of TCI fields included in the at least one DCI message, the bit size of each of the TCI fields, or the number of TCI states indicated by the at least one DCI message.

[0324] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to: perform transmission with terminal device 120 includes performing at least one of: applying a first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a first pool of control resource sets; or applying a second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with a second pool of control resource sets.

[0325] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages including a first DCI message including a first TCI field indicating a first TCI indication and a second DCI message including a second TCI field indicating a second TCI indication.

[0326] In some embodiments, if at least one TCI state overlaps with at least one currently applied TCI state, the circuitry is further configured to perform transmission with the terminal device 120 by applying the overlapping TCI state before applying other TCI states of the at least one TCI state.

[0327] In some embodiments, the circuitry further applies the overlapping TCI state before applying the other TCI state of the at least one TCI state by applying the overlapping TCI state upon receiving an acknowledgment from the terminal device 120 for the at least one DCI message, or by applying the other TCI state a period of time after receiving an acknowledgment from the terminal device 120 for the at least one DCI message.

[0328] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message and is used to trigger switching between the multiple TCI mode and the single TCI mode.

[0329] In some embodiments, the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages, and the circuitry is further configured to apply overlapping TCI states by applying a first TCI state and a second TCI state at a first starting point associated with a first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with a second control resource set pool, respectively.

[0330] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to transmit a configuration message to terminal device 120. The configuration message indicates at least one first transmission opportunity associated with the first TCI state and at least one second transmission opportunity associated with the second TCI state.

[0331] In some embodiments, the at least one second transmit opportunity is linked to the at least one first transmit opportunity by at least one pre-configured parameter.

[0332] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to activate at least one first transmission opportunity and at least one second transmission opportunity based on at least one of the at least one TCI state or a switch between the multiple TCI mode and the single TCI mode.

[0333] In some embodiments, at least one transmit parameter associated with the at least one first transmit opportunity is the same as at least a second transmit parameter associated with the at least one second transmit opportunity.

[0334] In some embodiments, the at least transmission parameters include at least one of a transmission scheme, a repetition number, a beam mapping pattern, or a TCI mapping pattern.

[0335] In some embodiments, the at least one first transmission opportunity and the at least one second transmission opportunity are associated with at least one of a PDCCH, a PDSCH, a PUCCH, or a PUSCH.

[0336] In some example embodiments, the network device 110 includes circuitry configured to receive a PUSCH transmission by at least one of: transmitting at least one DCI message indicating at least one TCI state to be applied by the terminal device 120; receiving a PUSCH transmission based on precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the at least one indicated TCI state; or, if the most recent SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state, applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission.

[0337] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to perform the PUSCH transmission by delaying applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state is obtained after an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message has been transmitted.

[0338] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to delay application of the at least one indicated TCI state by receiving an SRS transmission with the network by applying the at least one indicated TCI state, determining precoding information corresponding to the at least one TCI state based on the SRS transmission, and applying the at least one indicated TCI state to a PUSCH transmission.

[0339] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to receive an SRS transmission by transmitting an RS to terminal device 120 if the PUSCH transmission is an NCB PUSCH transmission, and receiving an SRS transmission transmitted by terminal device 120 based on the candidate precoding information, the candidate precoding information being determined by terminal device 120 based on the RS.

[0340] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to, when the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, perform a PUSCH transmission by: performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a most recent first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; and performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state.

[0341] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to, when the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, perform a PUSCH transmission by: applying the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state; and applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state.

[0342] In some exemplary embodiments, the network device 110 includes circuitry configured to receive a beam failure recovery request transmitted by the terminal device 120 in an available uplink TCI state and to transmit a beam failure recovery request response to the terminal device 120.

[0343] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to, when a beam failure is associated with the combined TCI state, disable an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state or receive an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in an available uplink TCI state.

[0344] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to receive an uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state by initiating reception of the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state in response to transmitting a response to the beam failure recovery request from the network device 110.

[0345] In some embodiments, the circuitry is further configured to switch to the single TCI mode if a beam fault is associated with a combined TCI condition, and to maintain the single TCI mode until a multiple TCI mode switching condition is met.

[0346] In some embodiments, the terminal device 120 is configured with at least one TCI state used for uplink transmission and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmission, and the number of TCI states used for uplink transmission is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmission.

[0347] 12 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus 1200 suitable for implementing an embodiment of the present disclosure. The apparatus 1200 can be considered as a further exemplary implementation of the terminal device 120 and the network devices 110-1 and 110-2 shown in FIGS. 1A-1C. Thus, the apparatus 1200 can be implemented in, or at least as part of, the terminal device 120 and the network devices 110-1 and 110-2.

[0348] As shown, the apparatus 1200 includes a processor 1210, a memory 1220 coupled to the processor 1210, a suitable transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) 1240 coupled to the processor 1210, and a communication interface coupled to the TX / RX 1240. The memory 1210 stores at least a portion of a program 1230. The TX / RX 1240 is for bidirectional communication. The TX / RX 1240 has at least one antenna to facilitate communication, although in practice the access nodes discussed herein may have multiple antennas. The communication interface may represent any interface required for communication with other network elements, such as an X2 interface for bidirectional communication between eNBs, an S1 interface for communication between a Mobility Management Entity (MME) / Serving Gateway (S-GW) and an eNB, an Un interface for communication between an eNB and a Relay Node (RN), or an Uu interface for communication between an eNB and a terminal device.

[0349] The program 1230 may be considered to include program instructions that, when executed by an associated processor 1210, enable the device 1200 to operate in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, as discussed herein with reference to Figures 3-11. The embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by computer software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware executable by the processor 1210 of the device 1200. The processor 1210 may be configured to implement various embodiments of the present disclosure. The combination of the processor 1210 and the memory 1220 may also constitute a processing means 1250 suitable for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0350] The memory 1220 may be of any type suitable for the local technology network and may be implemented by any suitable data storage technology, including, but not limited to, computer-readable non-transitory storage media, semiconductor-based storage devices, magnetic storage devices and systems, optical storage devices and systems, fixed and removable memories, etc. Although only one memory 1220 is shown in the device 1200, multiple physically distinct memory modules may be installed in the device 1200. The processor 1210 may be of any type suitable for the local technology network and may include, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: general purpose computers, special purpose computers, microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs), and processors based on multi-core processor configurations. The device 1200 may have multiple processors, for example application specific integrated circuit chips time-slaved to a clock synchronous with a master processor.

[0351] In general, various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented by hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic, or any combination thereof. Some aspects may be implemented by hardware, and other aspects may be implemented by firmware or software that may be executed by a controller, microprocessor, or other computing device. Various aspects of the embodiments of the present disclosure have been shown and described as block diagrams, flow charts, or illustrated by some other pictorial representation, and it will be understood that the blocks, apparatus, systems, techniques, or methods described herein may be implemented by, for example, but not limited to, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing device, or combinations thereof.

[0352] The present disclosure further provides at least one computer program product tangibly stored in a computer readable non-transitory storage medium. The computer program product includes computer executable instructions, such as instructions included in program modules. The instructions execute on a target real or virtual processor device to perform, for example, the processes or methods described above with reference to Figures 3-11. Typically, program modules include routines, programs, libraries, objects, classes, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. In various embodiments, the functionality of the program modules may be combined or split among program modules as desired. The machine readable instructions of the program modules may be executed in local or distributed devices. In distributed devices, the program modules may be located in both local and remote storage media.

[0353] The program codes for carrying out the methods of the present disclosure may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. These program codes may be provided to a processor or controller of a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, and when the program codes are executed by the processor or controller, the functions / operations specified in the flowcharts and / or block diagrams are performed. The program codes may run entirely on the machine, partially on the machine, as a separate software package, partially on the machine and partially on a remote machine, or entirely on a remote machine or server.

[0354] The above program code may be embodied on a machine-readable medium, which may be any tangible medium that contains or stores a program for use by or in conjunction with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The machine-readable medium may be a machine-readable signal medium or a machine-readable storage medium. The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Even more specific examples of machine-readable storage media include one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable-programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

[0355] It should be understood that although operations have been described in a particular order, it is not required that such operations be performed in the particular order or sequence shown, or that all of the operations shown be performed, in order to achieve desired results. In some situations, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Similarly, although the above discussion includes some specific implementation details, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the disclosure, but rather as descriptions of features that may be specific to certain embodiments. Some features that are described in the context of individual embodiments may be implemented in combination in an embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of an embodiment may be implemented in multiple embodiments separately or in any suitable subcombination.

[0356] Although the present disclosure has been described in language specific to structural features and / or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the present disclosure, as defined by the appended claims, is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Claims

1. Receiving at least one Downlink Control Information (DCI) message at a terminal device; determining at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state based on the at least one DCI message; performing a transmission to and from a network based on the at least one TCI state; Including, the at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication associated with a first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with a second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool; The at least one TCI condition is: a first TCI state applied to the first controlled resource set pool; or A second TCI state to be applied to the second controlled resource set pool. At least one of: Communication methods.

2. Performing the transmission with the network based on the at least one TCI state includes: performing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission transmitted in the at least one TCI state; performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a most recent first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; or performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state; performing the PUSCH transmission by at least one of The method of claim 1.

3. the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message; The single DCI message comprises: a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication; a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication; and Including, The method further includes receiving a first media access control (MAC) control element (CE) message from the network indicating at least one first mapping and a second MAC CE message indicating at least one second mapping; Each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI code point and a first TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool; each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI code point and a second TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool; The method of claim 1.

4. receiving an indication from the network indicating the presence of the second TCI field. The method according to claim 3.

5. the at least one DCI message is a single DCI including a third TCI status field indicating the third TCI indication; The method further includes receiving a third MAC CE message from the network indicating at least one third mapping; each third mapping indicates a third correspondence between a third TCI code point and at least one third TCI state; each of the at least one third TCI state is configured for either the first control resource set pool or the second control resource set pool; The method of claim 1.

6. The total bit size for indicating the TCI information is whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages; the number of TCI fields included in at least one DCI message; the bit size of each of said TCI fields; or the number of TCI states indicated by said at least one DCI message; Depends on at least one of The method of claim 1.

7. Performing transmission to and from the network includes: applying the first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with the first control resource set pool; or applying the second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with the second pool of control resource sets. performing at least one of the following: The method of claim 1.

8. The at least one DCI message comprises: a first DCI message including a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication; and a second DCI message including a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication; and A plurality of DCI messages including The method of claim 7.

9. performing a transmission with the network if the at least one TCI state overlaps with at least one currently applied TCI state; applying an overlapping TCI state before applying another TCI state of the at least one TCI state. The method of claim 1.

10. applying the overlapping TCI state before applying the other TCI state of the at least one TCI state applying the overlapping TCI state when sending an acknowledgment to the network for the at least one DCI message; or applying the other TCI state a period of time after transmitting the acknowledgement to the network for the at least one DCI message. At least one of:

10. The method of claim 9.

11. the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message and is used to trigger switching between a multiple TCI mode and a single TCI mode.

10. The method of claim 9.

12. the at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages; Applying the overlapping TCI state comprises: applying the first TCI state and the second TCI state at a first starting point associated with the first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with the second control resource set pool, respectively.

10. The method of claim 9.

13. at least one first transmission opportunity associated with the first TCI state; at least one second transmission opportunity associated with the second TCI state; and receiving a configuration message from the network indicating The method of claim 1.

14. the at least one second transmission opportunity being linked to the at least one first transmission opportunity by at least one preconfigured parameter. The method of claim 13.

15. the at least one TCI condition; or Switching Between Multiple TCI Mode and Single TCI Mode activating the at least one first transmit opportunity and the at least one second transmit opportunity based on at least one of: The method of claim 13.

16. at least one transmission parameter associated with the at least one first transmission opportunity is the same as at least a second transmission parameter associated with the at least one second transmission opportunity. The method of claim 13.

17. The at least transmission parameters include: Transmission method, Number of repetitions, Beam mapping pattern, or TCI Mapping Pattern At least one of:

17. The method of claim 16.

18. The at least one first transmit opportunity and the at least one second transmit opportunity include: A Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH); Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH); A physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), or Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) is associated with at least one of The method of claim 13.

19. receiving, at a terminal device, at least one Downlink Control Information (DCI) message indicating at least one Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state to be applied by the terminal device; performing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission transmitted in at least one indicated TCI state; or applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state. performing the PUSCH transmission by at least one of Including, Communication methods.

20. The performing of the PUSCH transmission includes: delaying applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until obtaining the precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state after transmitting an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message.

20. The method of claim 19.

21. Delaying application of the at least one indicated TCI condition may include: performing an SRS transmission with a network by applying the at least one indicated TCI state; and receiving information from the network for determining the precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state; applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission; and Including, 21. The method of claim 20.

22. When the PUSCH transmission is a non-codebook based (NCB) PUSCH transmission, performing the SRS transmission includes: receiving a reference signal (RS) from the network; determining candidate precoding information based on the RS; performing the SRS transmission based on the candidate precoding information; and Including, 22. The method of claim 21.

23. When the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, performing the PUSCH transmission includes: performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a most recent first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state; Including, 20. The method of claim 19.

24. When the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, performing the PUSCH transmission includes: applying the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if a most recent first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state; applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if a latest second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state; Including, 20. The method of claim 19.

25. Detecting a beam obstruction in a terminal device; if there is an available uplink transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state, sending a beam failure recovery request to the network with the available uplink TCI state; Including, Communication methods.

26. If the beam disturbance is associated with a combined TCI condition, Disabling uplink transmissions associated with said combined TCI state; or transmitting the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state; Further comprising:

26. The method of claim 25.

27. Transmitting the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state comprises: in response to receiving a response to the beam failure recovery request from the network, commencing transmission of the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state.

27. The method of claim 26.

28. If the beam disturbance is associated with a combined TCI condition, switching to a single TCI mode; maintaining the single TCI mode until a multiple TCI mode switching condition is met; Further comprising:

26. The method of claim 25.

29. At least one TCI state used for uplink transmission and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmission are configured in the terminal device; the number of TCI states used for uplink transmission is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmission; 26. The method of claim 25.

30. Transmitting at least one Downlink Control Information (DCI) message in a network device; determining at least one transmission configuration indicator (TCI) state based on the at least one DCI message; performing a transmission to or from a terminal device based on the at least one TCI state; Including, the at least one DCI message indicates at least one of a first TCI indication associated with a first control resource set pool, a second TCI indication associated with a second control resource set pool, or a third TCI indication associated with either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool; The at least one TCI condition is: a first TCI state applied to the first controlled resource set pool; or A second TCI state to be applied to the second controlled resource set pool. At least one of: Communication methods.

31. Performing the transmission with the terminal device based on the at least one TCI state includes: performing a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission based on precoding information determined by a latest sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission transmitted in the at least one TCI state; performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a most recent first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; or performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state; performing the PUSCH transmission by at least one of The method of claim 30.

32. The at least one DCI message is a single DCI message, the single DCI message comprising: a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication; a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication; and Including, The method further includes transmitting a first media access control (MAC) control element (CE) message indicating at least one first mapping and a second MAC CE message indicating at least one second mapping to the terminal device; Each first mapping indicates a first correspondence between a first TCI code point and a first TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool; each second mapping indicates a second correspondence between a second TCI code point and a second TCI state configured for the first control resource set pool; The method of claim 30.

33. and transmitting an indication to the terminal device indicating the presence of the second TCI field.

33. The method of claim 32.

34. the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message including a third TCI status field indicating the third TCI indication; The method further includes transmitting a third MAC CE message to the terminal device indicating at least one third mapping; each third mapping indicates a third correspondence between a third TCI code point and at least one third TCI state; the at least one third TCI state is configured for either or both of the first control resource set pool and the second control resource set pool. The method of claim 30.

35. The total bit size for indicating the TCI information is whether the at least one DCI message is a single DCI or multiple DCI messages; the number of TCI fields included in at least one DCI message; the bit size of each of said TCI fields; or the number of TCI states indicated by said at least one DCI message; Depends on at least one of The method of claim 30.

36. Performing transmission with the terminal device includes: applying the first TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with the first control resource set pool; or applying the second TCI state to a combination of physical channels associated with the second pool of control resource sets. performing at least one of the following: The method of claim 30.

37. The at least one DCI message comprises: a first DCI message including a first TCI field indicating the first TCI indication; and a second DCI message including a second TCI field indicating the second TCI indication; and A plurality of DCI messages including The method of claim 30.

38. performing a transmission with the terminal device if the at least one TCI state overlaps with at least one currently applied TCI state; applying an overlapping TCI state before applying another TCI state of the at least one TCI state. The method of claim 30.

39. applying the overlapping TCI state before applying the other TCI state of the at least one TCI state applying the overlapping TCI state upon receiving an acknowledgment from the terminal device for the at least one DCI message; or applying the other TCI state a certain period of time after receiving the acknowledgement from the terminal device for the at least one DCI message. At least one of:

39. The method of claim 38.

40. the at least one DCI message is a single DCI message and is used to trigger switching between a multiple TCI mode and a single TCI mode.

39. The method of claim 38.

41. The at least one DCI message is a plurality of DCI messages, and applying the overlapping TCI state includes: applying the first TCI state and the second TCI state at a first starting point associated with the first control resource set pool and a second starting point associated with the second control resource set pool, respectively.

39. The method of claim 38.

42. at least one first transmission opportunity associated with the first TCI state; at least one second transmission opportunity associated with the second TCI state; and sending a configuration message to the terminal device indicating The method of claim 30.

43. the at least one second transmission opportunity being linked to the at least one first transmission opportunity by at least one preconfigured parameter.

43. The method of claim 42.

44. the at least one TCI condition; or Switching Between Multiple TCI Mode and Single TCI Mode activating the at least one first transmit opportunity and the at least one second transmit opportunity based on at least one of:

43. The method of claim 42.

45. at least one transmission parameter associated with the at least one first transmission opportunity is the same as at least a second transmission parameter associated with the at least one second transmission opportunity.

43. The method of claim 42.

46. The at least transmission parameters include: Transmission method, Number of repetitions, Beam mapping pattern, or TCI Mapping Pattern At least one of:

46. ​​The method of claim 45.

47. The at least one first transmit opportunity and the at least one second transmit opportunity include: A Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH); Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH); A physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), or Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) is associated with at least one of 43. The method of claim 42.

48. transmitting, in the network device, at least one Downlink Control Information (DCI) message indicating at least one Transmission Configuration Indicator (TCI) state applied by the terminal device; receiving a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission based on precoding information determined by a most recent sounding reference signal (SRS) transmission transmitted in at least one indicated TCI state; or applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if the most recent SRS transmission was transmitted based on the at least one indicated TCI state. receiving the PUSCH transmission by at least one of Communication methods.

49. The performing of the PUSCH transmission includes: delaying applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission until obtaining the precoding information corresponding to the at least one indicated TCI state after transmitting an acknowledgment for the at least one DCI message.

49. The method of claim 48.

50. Delaying application of the at least one indicated TCI condition may include: receiving an SRS transmission with a network by applying the at least one indicated TCI state; and determining the precoding information corresponding to the at least one TCI state based on the SRS transmission; applying the at least one indicated TCI state to the PUSCH transmission; and Including, 50. The method of claim 49.

51. When the PUSCH transmission is a non-codebook based (NCB) PUSCH transmission, receiving the SRS transmission comprises: Transmitting a reference signal (RS) to the terminal device; receiving an SRS transmission transmitted by the terminal device based on candidate precoding information; Including, The candidate precoding information is determined by the terminal device based on the RS.

51. The method of claim 50.

52. When the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, performing the PUSCH transmission includes: performing a first PUSCH transmission based on first precoding information determined by a most recent first SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated first TCI state; performing a second PUSCH transmission based on second precoding information determined by a most recent SRS transmission transmitted in the indicated second TCI state; Including, 49. The method of claim 48.

53. When the at least one indicated TCI state includes a first TCI state and a second TCI state, performing the PUSCH transmission includes: applying the indicated first TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if a most recent first SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated first TCI state; applying the indicated second TCI state to the PUSCH transmission if a latest second SRS transmission was transmitted based on the indicated second TCI state; Including, 49. The method of claim 48.

54. receiving, in a network device, a beam failure recovery request transmitted by a terminal device with an available uplink transmission configuration indicator (TCI); Transmitting a response to the beam failure recovery request to the terminal device; Including, Communication methods.

55. If the beam disturbance is associated with a combined TCI condition, Disabling uplink transmissions associated with said combined TCI state; or receiving the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state; Further comprising:

55. The method of claim 54.

56. Receiving the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in the available uplink TCI state comprises: initiating, in the available uplink TCI state, reception of the uplink transmission associated with the combined TCI state in response to transmitting a response to the beam failure recovery request from the network device.

56. The method of claim 55.

57. If the beam disturbance is associated with a combined TCI condition, switching to a single TCI mode; maintaining the single TCI mode until a multiple TCI mode switching condition is met; Further comprising:

55. The method of claim 54.

58. At least one TCI state used for uplink transmission and at least one TCI state used for downlink transmission are configured in the terminal device; the number of TCI states used for uplink transmission is not less than the number of TCI states used for downlink transmission; 55. The method of claim 54.

59. A processor; a memory coupled to the processor and having instructions stored therein; Equipped with The instructions, when executed by the processor, perform a method according to any one of claims 1 to 29. Terminal device.

60. A processor; a memory coupled to the processor and having instructions stored therein; Equipped with The instructions, when executed by the processor, perform a method according to any one of claims 30 to 58. Network device.

61. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, comprising: The instructions, when executed on at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform a method according to any one of claims 1 to 58. Computer-readable medium.

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