Radiation and panel recognition beam selection

Abstract

To provide a system, a method, and a computer program product for performing beam selection.SOLUTION: A method includes receiving, from a base station, a request for a report for at least one uplink beam and generating the report for the at least one uplink beam. The report for the at least one uplink beam can include an indication that a resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam is available for uplink beam indication. The resource can be a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) resource or a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) resource. The method also includes transmitting the report for the at least one uplink beam to the base station, and receiving, from the base station, an indication that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission based on the report for the uplink beam.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 14

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] (CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS) This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 805,873, filed February 14, 2019, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. [Background technology]

[0002] Various embodiments may relate generally to the field of wireless communications. Summary of the Invention

[0003] Some embodiments of the present disclosure include methods, apparatus, and computer-readable media for performing beam selection.

[0004] Some embodiments relate to an apparatus including a processor circuit and a radio front-end circuit. The processing circuit can receive a request for a report for at least one uplink beam from a base station. The processing circuit can receive the request for a report for the at least one uplink beam via radio resource control (RPC) signaling, a media access control control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI).

[0005] In response to receiving a request for a report for the at least one uplink beam, the processing circuitry can generate a report for the at least one uplink beam. The report can also include an indication that resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam are available for uplink beam indication. The resources may be synchronization signal block (SSB) resources or channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources. The report can include radiation information for the resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam. The report can include antenna port groups for the resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam. The report can also include maximum power reduction (MPR) levels for the resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam. The processing circuitry can then transmit the report for the at least one uplink beam to a base station using the radio front-end circuitry.

[0006] The processing circuitry can then receive an indication from the base station that at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission based on the report for the at least one uplink beam. The processing circuitry can receive the indication that at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission via radio resource control (RPC) signaling, a media access control control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI). [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0007] [Figure 1] 1 illustrates an example of side lobes of a beam targeted at a human body, according to some embodiments. [Figure 2] 1 illustrates an example process for radiation-aware and / or panel-aware based beam selection, according to some embodiments. [Figure 3] 1 illustrates an example process for uplink beam recovery, according to some embodiments. [Figure 4] 1 illustrates an exemplary system architecture, according to some embodiments. [Figure 5] 1 illustrates another exemplary system architecture, according to some embodiments. [Figure 6] 1 illustrates another exemplary system architecture, according to some embodiments. [Figure 7] 1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary infrastructure facility, according to some embodiments. [Figure 8] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary platform, according to some embodiments. [Figure 9] 1 illustrates a block diagram of a baseband circuit and a front-end module according to some embodiments. [Figure 10] 1 illustrates a block diagram of various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device, according to some embodiments. [Figure 11] 1 illustrates a block diagram of components of a core network according to some embodiments. [Figure 12] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary computer system that can be utilized to implement various embodiments. [Figure 13] 10 is a flowchart illustrating a process for performing beam failure recovery, according to some embodiments. [Figure 14] 10 is a flowchart illustrating a process for beam selection according to some embodiments.

[0008] Features and advantages of the embodiments will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which like reference numbers identify corresponding elements throughout the drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and / or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the left-most digit(s) in the corresponding reference number. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0009] The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth, such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc., in order to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In some instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with unnecessary detail. For purposes of this disclosure, "A or B" means (A), (B), or (A and B).

[0010] Release 15 (Rel-15) specifies uplink beam management, in which a next-generation node B (gNB) can use a synchronization signal block (SSB) index, a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource index, or a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource index for uplink beam direction. The gNB may also be referred to as a base station. If an SRS resource index (SRI) is indicated, a user equipment (UE) can apply the same spatial domain transmit filter (Tx beam) as the SRS resource indicated by the SRI to the indicated uplink signal. If an SSB / CSI-RS index is indicated, the UE can apply the same Tx beam as the indicated SSB / CSI-RS index as the spatial domain receive filter (Rx beam) to the indicated uplink signal.

[0011] However, when SSB / CSI-RS is indicated, the gNB may not have information about the UE beam, which can lead to two technical problems. 1) There may be some radiation for a particular UE beam that is targeted at the human body. For example, some side lobes of the beam may be targeted at the human body. Such a beam may be considered "unsafe." Figure 1 shows an example of side lobes of a beam that targets a human body, according to some embodiments. As shown in Figure 1, the main lobe 102 targets the strongest channel cluster, and the side lobes 104 target the human body. 2) It is unknown which panel the UE will use to receive the instruction SSB / CSI-RS, and in that case, the gNB does not know from which panel the UE Tx beam should be, so the gNB cannot control interference and cannot select multi-panel transmission operation.

[0012] Additionally, due to movement and rotation, some or all of the current UE beams may be pointing at the body. Therefore, the UE may not find a way to communicate with the gNB in ​​the uplink. Therefore, recovery of some uplink beams may be necessary.

[0013] Some embodiments that allow for emission and / or panel recognition beam selection include, but are not limited to: Beam radiation status information and / or panel information reported by the UE Control signaling for beam and / or panel indication

[0014] The gNB may not have information about the radiation and UE panel(s) for the UE beam. Therefore, the first step may be to have the UE report this information. The second step may be to utilize some gNB control signaling for beam direction based on the UE reported information. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a UE panel can be considered as a group of UE antenna port(s).

[0015] 2 illustrates an exemplary process for radiation-aware and / or panel-aware based beam selection according to some embodiments. In FIG. 2, a base station 202 transmits control signaling for beam reporting to a UE 204 (e.g., step 206). In response, the UE 204 reports radiation and / or panel information for synchronization signal block (SSB) resources or channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resources to the base station 202 (e.g., step 208). In response, the base station 202 transmits beam instructions to the UE 204 (e.g., step 210). The beam instructions are based on the radiation and / or panel information of the beam. Control signaling for beam reporting

[0016] In some embodiments, for beam reporting, the gNB may indicate via radio resource control (RRC) signaling or medium access control - control element (MAC-CE) or downlink control information (DCI) or a combination thereof whether the UE should report radiation and / or panel-related information regarding the beam.

[0017] In some embodiments, the gNB may indicate whether a reported beam may be selected for uplink transmission. If the reported beam is configured to be selectable for uplink transmission, the reported beam in the corresponding beam reporting instance may be considered radiation-safe. Otherwise, the reported beam may not be used for uplink transmission. Instead, this beam reporting instance may be considered only for downlink beam selection.

[0018] In some embodiments, the gNB can indicate whether the UE can report whether the reported SSB / CSI-RS index can be selected for uplink beam direction. The gNB can also indicate whether the UE can report from which UE panel(s) the SSB / CSI-RS is being measured. Beam Report Contents

[0019] In some embodiments, in each beam reporting instance, if configured, the UE may report whether the SSB / CSI-RS resource can be used for uplink beam direction. Table 1 shows an example of UE beam reporting information according to some embodiments. In Table 1, CRI may indicate a CSI-RS resource index, and SSBRI may indicate an SSB resource index. The flag may take one bit, where a value of 0 may indicate that the reported beam cannot be used for uplink beam direction, and a value of 1 may indicate that the reported beam can be used for uplink beam direction. [Table 1]

[0020] In some embodiments, for each CRI / SSBRI, the UE can report a maximum power reduction (MPR) level to the gNB. Then, to reduce radiation, the UE can reduce the uplink maximum transmit power if the corresponding beam is indicated. Table 2 shows an example of MPR-based beam reporting according to some embodiments. Table 3 shows an example of MPR indication according to some embodiments. [Table 2] [Table 3]

[0021] In some embodiments, the UE may report the panel index(es) of the beam in the beam report if configured. Table 4 shows an example of a beam report using UE panel information, according to some embodiments. Table 5 shows an example of a UE antenna port group indication in a beam report, according to some embodiments. [Table 4] [Table 5] Beam Direction

[0022] In some embodiments, for uplink beam indication, the gNB may indicate the UE antenna port(s) group(s) for each uplink beam for the Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH), Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH), or Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) via RRC signaling, MAC-CE, and / or DCI. An example of spatial relationship information configuration for the SRS, PUCCH, and PRACH is configured as follows: [Table 6] [Table 7]

[0023] In some embodiments, antenna port(s) group(s) may also be indicated for each SRS resource set. There may be multiple SRS resource sets configured for uplink codebook and non-codebook based transmissions. Antenna ports may be configured differently in different SRS resource sets to support uplink panel selection.

[0024] In some embodiments, for PRACH with PDCCH command, the antenna port group index may be indicated by downlink control information (DCI). In one example, for a two-panel UE, the following may be set in the DCI to trigger PRACH: SS / PBCH block (SSB) index PRACH mask Antenna port group index

[0025] The UE can transmit the PRACH based on the Tx beam associated with the SSB index indicated by the DCI from the panel indicated by the antenna port group index, or the PRACH can be transmitted from the indicated panel using the Tx beam associated with the reference signal set in the transmission configuration indication (TCI) state of the corresponding PDCCH that triggers the PRACH.

[0026] In some embodiments, the antenna port group index for the PRACH according to the PDCCH command can be set by higher layer signaling, or based on the most recently reported panel index in the beam report for the corresponding SSB, or based on indicated spatial relationship information based on the indicated SSB.

[0027] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a transmission from an antenna port group index in the embodiments herein can be considered as an uplink transmission entity, and uplink transmissions from different antenna port indexes can be considered as different uplink transmission entities. Uplink beam recovery

[0028] As a result of the UE moving or rotating, the current uplink beam may not be radiation safe. Therefore, the UE may not use the current uplink beam to transmit the uplink signal. The UE may attempt to recover the uplink beam by an uplink beam recovery procedure.

[0029] 3 illustrates an exemplary process for uplink beam recovery, according to some embodiments. In FIG. 2, the UE 304 detects that a subset or all of the uplink beams are not radiation-safe or that the quality value of the uplink beams is below a threshold. In response, the UE 304 transmits a beam recovery request to the base station 302 (step 308). In response, the UE 304 receives a beam recovery request response from the base station 302 (step 310).

[0030] In some embodiments, the beam recovery request may be carried by the PUCCH or PRACH, which is used to identify the SSB or CSI-RS resource index(es) for uplink beam direction. In a PUCCH-based scheme, the SSB / CSI-RS resource index may be explicitly indicated. The failed SSB / CSI-RS resource index for uplink beam direction may also be transmitted. In a PRACH-based scheme, the SSB / CSI-RS resource index may be identified based on the PRACH resource index.

[0031] In some embodiments, the beam recovery request response may be carried by a PDCCH scrambled by the C-RNTI or a default / configured RNTI. This response may be transmitted within a dedicated search space or control resource set configured by higher layer signaling, or within the entire configured search space. After receiving the uplink beam reconfiguration of the uplink signal, the UE may consider the uplink beam to be recovered.

[0032] If no beam recovery request response is received within the configured time window, the UE may retransmit the uplink beam recovery request. The UE may allow N retransmissions, where N may be predefined or configured by higher layer signaling. Example Procedure

[0033] 13 is a flowchart of a method 1300 for performing beam failure recovery, according to some embodiments. Method 1300 can be performed by processing logic, which may include hardware (e.g., circuits, dedicated logic, programmable logic, microcode, etc.), software (e.g., instructions executing on a processing device), or a combination thereof. It should be understood that not all steps are required to practice the disclosure provided herein. Furthermore, as will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, some steps may be performed simultaneously or in a different order than that shown in FIG. 13.

[0034] In step 1302, the base station requests a report from the UE regarding uplink beams, which may include beam and / or panel selection (e.g., antenna port group) information.

[0035] In step 1304, the base station receives beam and / or panel instructions for downlink reception and / or uplink transmission from the UE.

[0036] The processes and functions described in FIG. 13 may be performed by one or more of the application circuitry 505 or 605, the baseband circuitry 510 or 610, or the processors 1112 and 1114.

[0037] 14 is a flowchart of a method 1400 for performing beam selection, according to some embodiments. Method 1400 can be performed by processing logic, which may include hardware (e.g., circuits, dedicated logic, programmable logic, microcode, etc.), software (e.g., instructions executing on a processing device), or a combination thereof. It should be understood that not all steps are required to practice the disclosure provided herein. Furthermore, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, some steps may be performed simultaneously or in a different order than that shown in FIG. 14.

[0038] In step 1402, the UE receives a request for reporting for at least one uplink beam from the base station. The UE may receive the request for reporting via RRC signaling, MAC-CE, or DCI. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the UE may receive the request for reporting using various other mechanisms.

[0039] In step 1404, the UE generates a report for at least one uplink beam. The report for the at least one uplink beam may include an indication that resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam are available for uplink beam indication. The resources may be SSB resources or CSI-RS resources.

[0040] In some embodiments, and as shown in Table 1, the report may include a flag indicating whether at least one uplink beam may be used for uplink beam indication.

[0041] The report may include radiation information for resources corresponding to at least one uplink beam. The report may also include an MPR level for the resources corresponding to at least one uplink beam. In some embodiments, and as shown in Table 2, the report may include MPR information for each resource using an MPR bit. The report may also include antenna port groups for the resources corresponding to at least one uplink beam. In some embodiments, and as shown in Table 3, the report may include antenna port group information for each resource using an antenna port group indicator bit.

[0042] In step 1406, the UE transmits a report for at least one uplink beam to a base station (e.g., a gNB).

[0043] In step 1408, the UE receives an indication from the base station that at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission based on the report for the at least one uplink beam. The UE may also receive antenna port groups for the at least one uplink beam via RPC signaling, MAC-CE, or DCI.

[0044] In some embodiments, after receiving an indication that at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission, the UE may determine that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or that a quality value of the at least one uplink beam falls below a threshold. This may occur as a result of UE movement or rotation. In response, the UE may transmit to the base station a beam recovery request identifying second resources corresponding to a second uplink beam available for uplink beam indication. The second resources may be SSB resources or CSI-RS resources. In response, the UE may receive a beam recovery request response from the base station indicating that the second uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission.

[0045] The processes and functions described in FIG. 14 may be performed by one or more of the application circuitry 505 or 605, the baseband circuitry 510 or 610, or the processors 1112 and 1114. System and Implementation

[0046] 4 illustrates an example architecture of a system 400 of networks according to various embodiments. The following description is provided for the example system 400 operating in conjunction with LTE system standards and 5G or NR system standards as provided by 3GPP technical specifications. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this respect, and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks that would benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems (e.g., sixth generation (6G) systems), IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g., WMAN, WiMAX, etc.), etc.

[0047] As shown in FIG. 4, system 400 includes UE 401a and UE 401b (collectively referred to as "UE 401"). In this example, UE 401 is illustrated as a smartphone (e.g., a portable touchscreen mobile computing device capable of connecting to one or more cellular networks), but may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as a consumer electronic device, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a feature phone, a tablet computer, a wearable computing device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a pager, a wireless handset, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), an in-vehicle entertainment (ICE) device, an instrument cluster (IC), a head-up display (HUD) device, an on-board diagnostics (OBD) device, a dash-top mobile equipment (DME), a mobile data terminal (MDT), an electronic engine management system (EEMS), an electronic / engine control unit (ECU), an electronic / engine control module (ECM), an embedded system, a microcontroller, a control module, an engine management system (EMS), a networked or "smart" appliance, an MTC device, an M2M, an IoT device, and / or the like.

[0048] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 401 may include an IoT UE, which may include a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-term UE connections. The IoT UE may utilize technologies such as M2M or MTC to exchange data with an MTC server or device via PLMN, ProSe, or D2D communications, a sensor network, or an IoT network. M2M or MTC data exchanges may be machine-initiated data exchanges. An IoT network describes IoT UEs connecting with each other, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure) over short-term connections. The IoT UE may run background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate IoT network connectivity.

[0049] The UE 401 may be configured to connect to, e.g., be communicatively coupled to, the RAN 410. In an embodiment, the RAN 410 may be an NG RAN or a 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a legacy RAN such as a UTRAN or a GERAN. As used herein, the terms "NG RAN" and the like may refer to a RAN 410 operating in an NR or 5G system 400, and the terms "E-UTRAN" and the like may refer to a RAN 410 operating in an LTE or 4G system 400. The UE 401 utilizes connections (or channels) 403 and 404, respectively, which each include a physical communication interface or layer (discussed in more detail below).

[0050] In this example, connections 403 and 404 are shown as air interfaces for enabling a communicative coupling and may correspond to a cellular communication protocol such as a GSM protocol, a CDMA network protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, an NR protocol, and / or any of the other communication protocols discussed herein. In this embodiment, UE 401 may also directly exchange communication data via ProSe interface 405. ProSe interface 405 may alternatively be referred to as SL interface 405 and may include one or more logical channels, including, but not limited to, a PSCCH, a PSSCH, a PSDCH, and a PSBCH.

[0051] The UE 401b is shown configured to access an AP 406 (also referred to as a "WLAN node 406," "WLAN 406," "WLAN terminal 406," "WT 406," etc.) via a connection 407. The connection 407 may include a local wireless connection, such as a connection conforming to any IEEE 802.11 protocol, and the AP 406 may comprise a Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) router. In this example, the AP 406 is shown connected to the Internet without connecting to a wireless system's core network (described in more detail below). In various embodiments, the UE 401b, the RAN 410, and the AP 406 may be configured to utilize LWA operation and / or LWIP operation. LWA operation may involve the UE 401b being RRC_CONNECTED and configured by the RAN nodes 411a-411b to utilize LTE and WLAN radio resources. LWIP operations may involve UE 401b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 407) via IPsec protocol tunneling to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent over connection 407. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating the entire original IP packet and adding a new packet header, thereby protecting the IP packet's original header.

[0052] The RAN 410 may include one or more AN or RAN nodes 411a and 411b (collectively referred to as "RAN node 411" or "RAN node 411") that enable connections 403 and 404. As used herein, the terms "access node," "access point," etc. may describe equipment that provides wireless baseband functionality for data and / or voice connections between a network and one or more users. These access nodes may be referred to as BSs, gNBs, RAN nodes, eNBs, NodeBs, RSUs, TRxPs, TRPs, etc., and may comprise earth stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations that provide coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). As used herein, the terms "NG RAN node" etc. may refer to a RAN node 411 operating in an NR or 5G system 400 (e.g., a gNB), and the terms "E-UTRAN node" etc. may refer to a RAN node 411 operating in an LTE or 4G system 400 (e.g., an eNB). According to various implementations, the RAN node 411 may be implemented as one or more of a macrocell base station and / or a dedicated physical device such as a femtocell, picocell, or other similar cell having a smaller coverage area, lower user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to a macrocell.

[0053] In some implementations, all or part of the RAN node 411 may be implemented as one or more software entities running on a server computer as part of a virtual network, which software entities may be referred to as a CRAN and / or a virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these implementations, the CRAN or vBBUP may implement RAN function splitting, such as PDCP splitting, where the RRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP and other L2 protocol entities are operated by individual RAN nodes 411; MAC / PHY splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP and the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 411; or "lower PHY" splitting, where the RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and upper parts of the PHY layer are operated by the CRAN / vBBUP and the lower parts of the PHY layer are operated by individual RAN nodes 411. This virtualized framework allows freed processor cores of the RAN node 411 to run other virtualized applications. In some implementations, the individual RAN nodes 411 may represent individual gNB-DUs connected to a gNB-CU via individual F1 interfaces (not shown in FIG. 4). In these implementations, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (e.g., see FIG. 7), and the gNB-CUs may be served by servers located in the RAN 410 (not shown) or by a server pool in a manner similar to a CRAN / vBBUP. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 411 may be next-generation eNBs (ng-eNBs), which are RAN nodes that provide E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations toward the UE 401 and connect to the 5GC (e.g., the CN 620 in FIG. 6) via an NG interface.

[0054] In a V2X scenario, one or more of the RAN nodes 411 can be or play the role of an RSU. The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. The RSU may be implemented in or by an appropriate RAN node or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE; an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by a gNB may be referred to as a “gNB-type RSU,” etc. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled to radio frequency circuits located on the roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs 401 (vUEs 401). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications / software for detecting and controlling ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate in the 5.9 GHz Direct Short Range Communication (DSRC) band to provide very low latency communications necessary for high-speed events such as collision avoidance, traffic warnings, etc. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate in the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned low latency communications as well as other cellular communication services. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fi hotspot (2.4 GHz band) and / or provide connectivity to one or more cellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Some or all of the RSU's computing device and radio frequency circuitry may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation and may include a network interface controller for providing a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller and / or a backhaul network.

[0055] The RAN nodes 411 may terminate air interface protocols and may be the first point of contact for the UE 401. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 411 may perform various logical functions for the RAN 410, including, but not limited to, radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and radio network controller (RNC) functions such as mobility management.

[0056] In embodiments, the UEs 401 may be configured to communicate with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 411 using OFDM communication signals over multi-carrier communication channels according to various communication technologies, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication technologies (e.g., for downlink communication) or SC-FDMA communication technologies (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communication), and the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. OFDM signals may include multiple orthogonal subcarriers.

[0057] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 411 to the UE 401, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, also called a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which represents the downlink physical resources within each slot. Such a time-frequency plane representation is common practice in OFDM systems and makes radio resource allocation intuitive. Each column and row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit of the resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid contains a number of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of a particular physical channel to the resource elements. Each resource block contains a set of resource elements, which, in the frequency domain, can represent the smallest amount of resources that can currently be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels conveyed using such resource blocks.

[0058] According to various embodiments, the UEs 401, 402 and the RAN nodes 411, 412 communicate (e.g., transmit and receive) data over licensed media (also referred to as "licensed spectrum" and / or "licensed band") and unlicensed shared media (also referred to as "unlicensed spectrum" and / or "unlicensed band"). The licensed spectrum may include channels operating in a frequency range from about 400 MHz to about 3.8 GHz, and the unlicensed spectrum may include the 5 GHz band.

[0059] To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UEs 401, 402 and the RAN nodes 411, 412 may operate using LAA, eLAA, and / or feLAA mechanisms. In these implementations, the UEs 401, 402 and the RAN nodes 411, 412 may perform one or more known medium sensing and / or carrier sensing operations to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum are unavailable or otherwise occupied before transmitting in the unlicensed spectrum. The medium / carrier sensing operations may be performed in accordance with a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

[0060] LBT is a mechanism by which a device (e.g., UE 401, 402, RAN node 411, 412, etc.) senses the medium (e.g., a channel or carrier frequency) and transmits when the medium is sensed idle (or a particular channel within the medium is sensed unoccupied). The medium sensing operation may include CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine the presence or absence of other signals on the channel to determine whether the channel is occupied or clear. This LBT mechanism enables cellular / LAA networks to coexist with incumbent systems in unlicensed spectrum and other LAA networks. ED may include sensing RF energy over the intended transmission band for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to a predetermined or configured threshold.

[0061] Typically, current systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based on IEEE 802.11 technology. WLANs employ a contention-based channel access mechanism called CSMA / CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS), such as UE 401 or 402 or AP 406) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmitting. Furthermore, a backoff mechanism is used to avoid collisions in situations where two or more WLAN nodes sense the channel as idle and transmit simultaneously. The backoff mechanism may be a randomly drawn counter within the CWS, which exponentially increases when a collision occurs and is reset to a minimum value upon successful transmission. The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to CSMA / CA in WLANs. In some implementations, an LBT procedure for a DL or UL transmission burst containing a PDSCH or PUSCH transmission, respectively, can have an LAA contention window of variable length between XECCA and YECCA slots, where X and Y are the minimum and maximum CWS values ​​for LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for an LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (μs), although the size of the CWS and MCOT (e.g., transmission burst) may be based on government regulatory requirements.

[0062] The LAA mechanism is based on the CA technology of the LTE-Advanced system. In CA, each aggregated carrier is called a CC. A CC can have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 MHz, and up to five CCs can be aggregated, so the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In an FDD system, the number of aggregated carriers can be different between DL and UL, and the number of UL CCs is less than or equal to the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, individual CCs can have a different bandwidth from other CCs. In a TDD system, the number of CCs and the bandwidth of each CC are usually the same for DL ​​and UL.

[0063] CA also includes individual serving cells providing individual CCs. For example, CCs in different frequency bands experience different path losses, so the coverage area of ​​the serving cells may differ. The primary serving cell, or PCell, can provide the PCC for both the UL and DL and handle RRC and NAS-related activities. Other serving cells are called SCells, and each SCell can provide a separate SCC for both the UL and DL. Changing the PCC may require the UE 401, 402 to undergo handover, while SCCs can be added and removed as needed. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells can operate in the unlicensed spectrum (called "LAA SCells"), and the LAA SCells are supported by a PCell operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with two or more LAA SCells, the UE can receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCells indicating different PUSCH starting positions within the same subframe.

[0064] The PDSCH carries user data and higher layer signaling to the UE 401. The PDCCH carries, among other things, information about the transport format and resource allocation associated with the PDSCH channel. It may also inform the UE 401 about the transmission format, resource allocation, and HARQ information for the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (allocation of control and shared channel resource blocks to UEs 401b in a cell) may be performed by any of the RAN nodes 411 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 401. The downlink resource allocation information may be transmitted on the PDCCH used (e.g., assigned) for each of the UEs 401.

[0065] The PDCCH conveys control information using CCEs. Before being mapped to resource elements, PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets and then shuffled using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, and each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as REGs. Four quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of the DCI and the channel conditions. There may be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation levels, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

[0066] Some embodiments may use a concept for resource allocation for control channel information that is an extension of the concept described above. For example, some embodiments may utilize an EPDCCH that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more ECCEs. As above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as EREGs. An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

[0067] The RAN nodes 411 may be configured to communicate with each other via interface 412. In embodiments where the system 400 is an LTE system (e.g., where the CN 420 is the EPC 520 of FIG. 5), the interface 412 may be an X2 interface 412. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 411 (e.g., two or more eNBs) that connect to the EPC 420 and / or between two eNBs that connect to the EPC 420. In some implementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide a flow control mechanism for user data packets transferred over the X2 interface and may be used to communicate information regarding the distribution of user data between eNBs. For example, X2-U may provide specific sequence number information for user data transferred from MeNB to SeNB, information regarding successful sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs from SeNB to UE 401 for user data, information regarding PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to UE 401, information regarding the current minimum desired buffer size at the SeNB for transmitting UE user data, etc. X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functions, load management functions, and inter-cell interference coordination functions, including context transfer from source eNB to target eNB, user plane transport control, etc.

[0068] In embodiments where the system 400 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., where the CN 420 is the 5GC 620 of FIG. 6), the interface 412 may be an Xn interface 412. An Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes 411 (e.g., two or more gNBs) that connect to the 5GC 420, between a RAN node 411 (e.g., a gNB) and an eNB that connect to the 5GC 420, and / or between two eNBs that connect to the 5GC 420. In some implementations, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support / provide data transfer and flow control functions. The Xn-C may provide mobility support for a UE 401 in connected mode (e.g., CM-connected), including, among other functions, management and error handling functions, functions to manage the Xn-C interface, and functions to manage UE mobility for connected mode between one or more RAN nodes 411. Mobility support may include context transfer from the old (source) serving RAN node 411 to the new (target) serving RAN node 411 and control of user plane tunnels between the old (source) serving RAN node 411 and the new (target) serving RAN node 411. The Xn-U protocol stack may include a transport network layer built on an Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer and a UDP layer and / or a GTP-U layer on top of the IP layer to carry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include an application layer signaling protocol (called the Xn Application Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer built on SCTP. SCTP may be on top of the IP layer and may provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. At the transport IP layer, point-to-point transmission is used to deliver signaling PDUs.In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and / or the Xn-C protocol stack may be the same as or similar to the user plane and / or control plane protocol stacks shown and described herein.

[0069] The RAN 410 is shown communicatively coupled to a core network, in this embodiment, a core network (CN) 420. The CN 420 may comprise multiple network elements 422 configured to provide various data and telecommunication services to customers / subscribers (e.g., users of UEs 401) connected to the CN 420 via the RAN 410. The components of the CN 420 may be implemented in a single physical node or separate physical nodes, including components for reading and executing instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the above-described network node functions via executable instructions stored on one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). A logical instantiation of the CN 420 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 420 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. The NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more network functions on physical resources including a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches, or may be performed by dedicated hardware. In other words, an NFV system can be used to implement a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0070] In general, the application server 430 may be an element that provides applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 430 may also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UE 401 via the EPC 420.

[0071] In an embodiment, the CN 420 may be a 5GC (referred to, for example, as "5GC 420"), and the RAN 410 may be connected to the CN 420 via an NG interface 413. In an embodiment, the NG interface 413 may be divided into two parts: an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 414 that carries traffic data between the RAN node 411 and the UPF, and an S1 control plane (NG-C) interface 415 that is a signaling interface between the RAN node 411 and the AMF. An embodiment in which the CN 420 is a 5GC 420 is described in more detail with respect to FIG. 6.

[0072] In an embodiment, the CN 420 may be a 5G CN (referred to, for example, as "5GC 420"), while in other embodiments, the CN 420 may be an EPC. When the CN 420 is an EPC (referred to, for example, as "EPC 420"), the RAN 410 may be connected to the CN 420 via an S1 interface 413. In an embodiment, the S1 interface 413 may be divided into two parts: an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 414 that carries traffic data between the RAN node 411 and the S-GW, and an S1-MME interface 415 that is a signaling interface between the RAN node 411 and the MME. An exemplary architecture in which the CN 420 is the EPC 420 is shown in FIG. 5.

[0073] 5 illustrates an exemplary architecture of a system 500 including a first CN 520 according to various embodiments. In this example, the system 500 may implement the LTE standard, where the CN 520 is an EPC 520 corresponding to the CN 420 of FIG. 4. Furthermore, the UE 501 may be the same as or similar to the UE 401 of FIG. 4, and the E-UTRAN 510 may be a RAN that is the same as or similar to the RAN 410 of FIG. 4 and may include the RAN node 411 described above. The CN 520 may comprise an MME 521, an S-GW 522, a P-GW 523, an HSS 524, and an SGSN 525.

[0074] The MME 521 may be similar in function to the control plane of a legacy SGSN and may implement MM functions to track the current location of the UE 501. The MME 521 may perform various MM procedures to manage mobility aspects of access, such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. MM (also referred to as "EPS MM" or "EMM" in E-UTRAN systems) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data storage, etc. used to maintain knowledge of the current location of the UE 501, provide user identity confidentiality, and / or perform other similar services to a user / subscriber. Each UE 501 and MME 521 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and an MM context may be established in the UE 501 and MME 521 upon successful completion of the attach procedure. The MM context may be a data structure or database object that stores MM-related information for the UE 501. The MME 521 may be coupled to the HSS 524 via an S6a reference point, may be coupled to the SGSN 525 via an S3 reference point, and may be coupled to the S-GW 522 via an S11 reference point.

[0075] The SGSN 525 may be the node that serves the UE 501 by tracking the location of each UE 501 and performing security functions. Furthermore, the SGSN 525 can perform inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between 2G / 3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks, PDN and S-GW selection specified by the MME 521, handling time zone functions for the UE 501 specified by the MME 521, and MME selection for handover to the E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. The S3 reference point between the MME 521 and the SGSN 525 can enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in idle and / or active states.

[0076] The HSS 524 may comprise a database of network users, which contains subscription-related information to support the network entities' handling of communication sessions. The EPC 520 may comprise one or more HSSs 524, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, equipment capacity, network organization, etc. For example, the HSS 524 may provide support for routing / roaming, authentication, authorization, naming / addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. An S6a reference point between the HSS 524 and the MME 521 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating / authorizing user access to the EPC 520 between the HSS 524 and the MME 521.

[0077] The S-GW 522 may terminate the S1 interface 413 ("S1-U" in FIG. 5) to the RAN 510 and route data packets between the RAN 510 and the EPC 520. In addition, the S-GW 522 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and may also provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful interception, charging, and some policy enforcement. An S11 reference point between the S-GW 522 and the MME 521 may provide the control plane between the MME 521 and the S-GW 522. The S-GW 522 may be coupled to the P-GW 523 via an S5 reference point.

[0078] The P-GW 523 may terminate the SGi interface to the PDN 530. The P-GW 523 may route data packets between the EPC 520 and an external network, such as a network including an application server 430 (alternatively referred to as "AF"), via an IP interface 425 (e.g., see FIG. 4). In an embodiment, the P-GW 523 may be communicatively coupled to an application server (the application server 430 in FIG. 4 or the PDN 530 in FIG. 5) via the IP communication interface 425 (e.g., see FIG. 4). The S5 reference point between the P-GW 523 and the S-GW 522 may provide user plane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 523 and the S-GW 522. The S5 reference point may also be used for relocation of the S-GW 522 when, due to the mobility of the UE 501, the S-GW 522 needs to connect to a non-co-located P-GW 523 for required PDN connectivity. The P-GW 523 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection (e.g., a PCEF (not shown)). In addition, the SGi reference point between the P-GW 523 and the packet data network (PDN) 530 may be an operator-external public, private PDN, or intra-operator packet data network, for example, for providing IMS services. The P-GW 523 may be coupled to the PCRF 526 via a Gx reference point.

[0079] The PCRF 526 is the policy and charging control element of the EPC 520. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 526 in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with the UE 501's Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with the UE 501's IP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) in the HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) in the Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 526 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 530 via the P-GW 523. The application server 530 can signal the PCRF 526 to direct a new service flow and select appropriate QoS and charging parameters. The PCRF 526 can provision this rule to the PCEF (not shown) with the appropriate TFT and QCI, and the PCEF initiates the QoS and charging specified by the application server 530. The Gx reference point between the PCRF 526 and the P-GW 523 may enable the transfer of QoS policies and charging rules from the PCRF 526 to the PCEF of the P-GW 523. The Rx reference point may exist between the PDN 530 (or "AF 530") and the PCRF 526.

[0080] 6 illustrates an architecture of a system 600 including a second CN 620 according to various embodiments. The system 600 is shown to include a UE 601, which may be the same as or similar to the UE 401 and UE 501 described above, an (R)AN 610, which may be the same as or similar to the RAN 410 and RAN 510 described above and may include the RAN node 411 described above, a DN 603, which may be, for example, an operator service, internet access, or third-party service, and a 5GC 620. The 5GC 620 may include an AUSF 622, an AMF 621, an SMF 624, an NEF 623, a PCF 626, an NRF 625, a UDM 627, an AF 628, a UPF 602, and an NSSF 629.

[0081] The UPF 602 can function as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point interconnecting to the DN 603, and a branching point for supporting multi-homed PDU sessions. The UPF 602 also performs packet routing and forwarding, packet inspection, enforces the user plane portion of policy rules, lawfully intercepts packets (UP collection), performs traffic usage reporting, performs user plane QoS processing (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL / DL rate enforcement), performs uplink traffic validation (e.g., SDF-to-QoS flow mapping), performs transport-level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and performs downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. The UPF 602 can include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to the data network. The DN 603 can represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third-party services. The DN 603 may include or be similar to the application server 430 discussed above. The UPF 602 can interact with the SMF 624 via the N4 reference point between the SMF 624 and the UPF 602.

[0082] The AUSF 622 may store data for authentication of the UE 601 and process authentication-related functions. The AUSF 622 may facilitate a general authentication framework for various access types. The AUSF 622 may communicate with the AMF 621 via the N12 reference point between the AMF 621 and the AUSF 622 and with the UDM 627 via the N13 reference point between the UDM 627 and the AUSF 622. Additionally, the AUSF 622 may present a Nausf service-based interface.

[0083] The AMF 621 may be involved in registration management (e.g., to register the UE 601), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, as well as access authentication and authorization. The AMF 621 may be the termination point of the N11 reference point between the AMF 621 and the SMF 624. The AMF 621 provides transport for SM messages between the UE 601 and the SMF 624 and can function as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. The AMF 621 may also provide transport for SMS messages between the UE 601 and the SMSF (not shown in FIG. 6). The AMF 621 may function as a Security Assistance Facility (SEAF), which may include interaction with the AUSF 622 and the UE 601 and receiving intermediate keys established as a result of the UE 601 authentication process. If USIM-based authentication is used, the AMF 621 may obtain security material from the AUSF 622. The AMF 621 may also include an SCM function that receives keys from the SEA to use to derive access network-specific keys. Furthermore, the AMF 621 may be the termination point of the RAN CP interface and may include or be the N2 reference point between the (R)AN 610 and the AMF 621, and the AMF 621 may be the termination point of the NAS (N1) signaling and may perform NAS encryption and integrity protection.

[0084] The AMF 621 can also support NAS signaling with the UE 601 via the N3 IWF interface. The N3 IWF can be used to provide access to untrusted entities. The N3 IWF may be the termination point of the N2 interface between the (R)AN 610 and the AMF 621 for the control plane, and the termination point of the N3 reference point between the (R)AN 610 and the UPF 602 for the user plane. Thus, the AMF 621 can process N2 signaling from the SMF 624 and the AMF 621 for PDU sessions and QoS, encapsulate / decapsulate packets for IPsec and N3 tunneling, mark N3 user plane packets in the uplink, and enforce QoS corresponding to N3 packet markings, taking into account QoS requirements associated with such markings received via the N2. The N3IWF can also relay uplink and downlink control plane NAS signaling between the UE 601 and the AMF 621 via the N1 reference point between the UE 601 and the AMF 621, and can relay uplink and downlink user plane packets between the UE 601 and the UPF 602. The N3IWF also provides a mechanism for IPsec tunnel establishment with the UE 601. The AMF 621 can present a Namf service-based interface and can be the termination point of the N14 reference point between two AMFs 621 and the N17 reference point between the AMF 621 and the 5G-EIR (not shown in Figure 6).

[0085] UE601 may need to register with AMF621 to receive network services. RM is used to register or deregister UE601 with a network (e.g., AMF621) and establish a UE context within the network (e.g., AMF621). UE601 may operate in an RM-REGISTERED state or an RM-DEREGISTERED state. In the RM-DEREGISTERED state, UE601 is not registered with the network, and the UE context within AMF621 does not hold valid location or routing information for UE601, such that UE601 is not reachable by AMF621. In the RM-REGISTERED state, UE601 is registered with the network, and the UE context within AMF621 may hold valid location or routing information for UE601, such that UE601 is reachable by AMF621. In the RM-REGISTERED state, the UE 601 may, among other things, perform a mobility registration update procedure, perform a periodic registration update procedure triggered by the expiry of a periodic update timer (e.g., to inform the network that the UE 601 is still active), and perform a registration update procedure to update UE capability information or renegotiate protocol parameters with the network.

[0086] The AMF 621 may store one or more RM contexts for the UE 601, each RM context being associated with a particular access to the network. An RM context may be a data structure, database object, etc. that indicates or stores, among other things, registration state and periodic update timers per access type. The AMF 621 may also store a 5GC MM context, which may be the same as or similar to the (E)MM context described above. In various embodiments, the AMF 621 may store the CE Mode B restriction parameters of the UE 601 in the associated MM context or RM context. The AMF 621 may also derive values ​​from the UE's usage configuration parameters already stored in the UE context (and / or MM / RM context), as needed.

[0087] The CM may be used to establish and release a signaling connection between the UE 601 and the AMF 621 via the N1 interface. The signaling connection is used to enable NAS signaling exchange between the UE 601 and the CN 620 and includes both a signaling connection between the UE and the AN (e.g., an RRC connection or a UE-N3IWF connection for non-3GPP access) and an N2 connection for the UE 601 between the AN (e.g., the RAN 610) and the AMF 621. The UE 601 may operate in either of two CM states: a CM-IDLE mode or a CM-CONNECTED mode. When the UE 601 is operating in the CM-IDLE state / mode, the UE 601 may not have an NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 621 via the N1 interface, and there may be an (R)AN 610 signaling connection (e.g., an N2 and / or N3 connection) for the UE 601. When UE 601 is operating in CM-CONNECTED state / mode, UE 601 may have an established NAS signaling connection with AMF 621 via the N1 interface, and there may be an (R)AN 610 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and / or N3 connection) for UE 601. Establishment of the N2 connection between (R)AN 610 and AMF 621 may transition UE 601 from CM-IDLE mode to CM-CONNECTED mode, and UE 601 may transition from CM-CONNECTED mode to CM-IDLE mode when the N2 signaling between (R)AN 610 and AMF 621 is released.

[0088] The SMF 624 may be involved in SM (e.g., session establishment, modification, and release, including tunnel maintenance between the UPF and AN nodes), UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization), UP function selection and control, traffic steering in the UPF to route traffic to the appropriate destination, terminating the interface towards the policy control function, controlling policy enforcement and parts of QoS, lawful interception (of SM events and interfaces towards the LI system), terminating the SM part of NAS messages, downlink data notification, initiating AN-specific SM information sent to the AN via the AMF over N2, and determining the SSC mode of the session. SM can refer to the management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or "session" can refer to a PDU connectivity service that performs or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 601 and a data network (DN) 603 identified by a data network name (DNN). PDU sessions may be established at the request of the UE 601, modified at the request of the UE 601 and the 5GC 620, and released at the request of the UE 601 and the 5GC 620 using NAS SM signaling exchanged over the N1 reference point between the UE 601 and the SMF 624. The 5GC 620 may trigger specific applications in the UE 601 in response to a request from an application server. In response to receiving a trigger message, the UE 601 may pass the trigger message (or relevant parts / information of the trigger message) to one or more identified applications in the UE 601. The identified applications in the UE 601 may establish PDU sessions to specific DNNs. The SMF 624 may check whether the UE 601 request complies with the user subscription information associated with the UE 601. In this regard, the SMF 624 may request to obtain and / or receive update notifications regarding SMF 624-level subscription data from the UDM 627.

[0089] The SMF 624 may include the following roaming functions: local enforcement processing for applying QoS SLAs (VPLMN), charging data collection and charging interface (VPLMN), lawful intercept (within the VPLMN for SM events and interfaces to the LI system), and support for interworking with external DNs for carrying signaling for authorization / authentication of PDU sessions by the external DN. An N16 reference point between two SMFs 624 may be included in the system 600, which may be between another SMF 624 in a visited network and an SMF 624 in a home network in a roaming scenario. Additionally, the SMF 624 may present an Nsmf service-based interface.

[0090] The NEF 623 may provide a means for securely exposing services and capabilities offered by 3GPP network functions for third parties, internal publication / re-publication, application functions (e.g., AF 628), edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF 623 may authenticate, authorize, and / or throttle AFs. The NEF 623 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 628 and with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 623 may translate between AF service identifiers and internal 5GC information. The NEF 623 may also receive information from other network functions (NFs) based on the other network functions' published capabilities. This information may be stored in the NEF 623 as structured data or in a data storage NF using a standardized interface. The stored information can then be re-published by the NEF 623 to other NFs and AFs and / or used for other purposes, such as analytics. Furthermore, the NEF 623 may present an NEF service-based interface.

[0091] The NRF 625 supports service discovery functionality, receives NF discovery requests from NF instances, and can provide information about discovered NF instances to NF instances. The NRF 625 also maintains information about available NF instances and their supported services. As used herein, the terms "instance," "instantiation," and the like, can refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" can refer to a specific occurrence of an object that may occur, for example, during the execution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 625 can present an Nnrf service-based interface.

[0092] The PCF 626 can provide policy rules to the control plane function(s) and enforce them and can support a unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 626 may also implement an FE to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of the UDM 627. The PCF 626 can communicate with the AMF 621 via the N15 reference point between the PCF 626 and the AMF 621, and in the case of a roaming scenario, can include the PCF 626 in the visited network, i.e., the AMF 621. The PCF 626 can communicate with the AF 628 via the N5 reference point between the PCF 626 and the AF 628 and may communicate with the SMF 624 via the N7 reference point between the PCF 626 and the SMF 624. The system 600 and / or the CN 620 can also include an N24 reference point between the PCF 626 (in the home network) and the PCF 626 in the visited network. Furthermore, the PCF 626 can present an NPCF service-based interface.

[0093] The UDM 627 can process subscription-related information to support the processing of communication sessions for network entities and can store subscription data for the UE 601. For example, the subscription data can be communicated between the UDM 627 and the AMF 621 via the N8 reference point between the UDM 627 and the AMF. The UDM 627 can include two parts: application FEs and UDRs (FEs and UDRs are not shown in FIG. 6). The UDRs can store structured data for subscription and policy data for the UDM 627 and the PCF 626, and / or publication and application data for the NEF 623 (including PFDs for application discovery, application request information for multiple UEs 601). A Nudr service-based interface can be exposed by the UDR 221 to enable the UDM 627, PCF 626, and NEF 623 to access specific sets of stored data, read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notifications of associated data changes in the UDRs. The UDM may include a UDM FE responsible for handling credential, location management, subscription management, etc. Several different front ends can serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM FE accesses the subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authorization credential processing, user identification processing, access permission, registration / mobility management, and subscription management. The UDR can interact with the SMF 624 via the N10 reference point between the UDM 627 and the SMF 624. The UDM 627 can also support SMS management, and the SMS FE implements application logic similar to that described above. In addition, the UDM 627 may present a Nudm service-based interface.

[0094] The AF 628 can influence traffic routing for applications, provide access to the NCE, and interact with the policy framework for policy control. The NCE may be a mechanism that allows the 5GC 620 and AF 628 to provide information to each other via the NEF 623, which can be used in edge computing implementations. In such implementations, network operators and third-party services can be hosted close to the UE 601's access point of attachment to achieve efficient service delivery with reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network. In edge computing implementations, the 5GC can select a UPF 602 close to the UE 601 and perform traffic steering from the UPF 602 to the DN 603 via the N6 interface. This may be based on UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 628. In this way, the AF 628 can influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when the AF 628 is considered a trusted entity, the network operator can allow the AF 628 to interact directly with the associated NF. Furthermore, the AF 628 can present a NAF service-based interface.

[0095] The NSSF 629 can select a set of network slice instances to serve the UE 601. The NSSF 629 can also determine the mapping to authorized NSSAIs and subscribed S-NSSAIs, if necessary. The NSSF 629 can also determine the AMF set or a list of candidate AMF(s) 621 to be used to serve the UE 601 based on a preferred configuration, possibly by querying the NRF 625. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 601 can be triggered by the AMF 621, to which the UE 601 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 629, which can lead to its change. The NSSF 629 can interact with the AMF 621 via the N22 reference point between the AMF 621 and the NSSF 629, and can communicate with another NSSF 629 in the visited network via the N31 reference point (not shown in FIG. 6). Furthermore, the NSSF 629 can present an Nnssf service-based interface.

[0096] As mentioned above, the CN 620 may include an SMSF that is involved in SMS subscription checks and validations and can relay SM messages between the UE 601 and other entities such as the SMS-GMSC / IWMSC / SMS Router, etc. The SMS may also interact with the AMF 621 and the UDM 627 for notification procedures that the UE 601 is available for SMS forwarding (e.g., setting an unreachable flag for the UE and notifying the UDM 627 when the UE 601 is available for SMS).

[0097] The CN 120 may also include other elements not shown in Figure 6, such as a data storage system / architecture, a 5G-EIR, and a SEPP. The data storage system may include an SDSF, a UDSF, etc. Any NF can store unstructured data in and retrieve it from a UDSF (e.g., a UE context) via an N18 reference point (not shown in Figure 6) between any NF and the UDSF. Individual NFs may share a UDSF to store their respective unstructured data, or each NF may have its own UDSF located at or near the individual NF. Furthermore, the UDSF may present a Nudsf service-based interface (not shown in Figure 6). The 5G-EIR may be an NF that checks the status of a PEI to determine whether a particular device / entity is blacklisted from the network, and the SEPP may be an opaque proxy that performs topology hiding, message filtering, and policing on the inter-PLMN control plane interface.

[0098] Additionally, there may be more reference points and / or service-based interfaces between NF services within an NF. However, these interfaces and reference points are omitted from FIG. 6 for clarity. In one example, the CN 620 may include an Nx interface, which is a CN-to-CN interface between an MME (e.g., MME 521) and an AMF 621, to enable interworking between the CN 620 and the CN 520. Other example interfaces / reference points include the N5g-EIR service-based interface presented by the 5G-EIR, the N27 reference point between the NRF in the visited network and the NRF in the home network, and the N31 reference point between the NSSF in the visited network and the NSSF in the home network.

[0099] 7 illustrates an example of an infrastructure facility 700 in accordance with various embodiments. The infrastructure facility 700 (or "system 700") may be implemented as a base station, a radio head, a RAN node such as the RAN node 411 and / or AP 406 previously shown and described, an application server 430, and / or any other element / device described herein. In other examples, the system 700 may be implemented in or by a UE.

[0100] System 700 includes application circuitry 705, baseband circuitry 710, one or more radio front-end modules (RFEMs) 715, memory circuitry 720, power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 725, power T circuitry 730, network controller circuitry 735, network interface connector 740, satellite positioning circuitry 745, and user interface 750. In some embodiments, device 700 may include additional elements, such as memory / storage, a display, a camera, sensors, or input / output (I / O) interfaces. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in two or more devices. For example, the circuits may be included separately in two or more devices for a CRAN, vBBU, or other similar implementation.

[0101] The application circuitry 705 may include, but is not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, as well as low dropout voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers, SPI, I 2The application circuitry 705 may include circuits such as one or more of the following: a serial interface such as a SPI, SPI-C, or universal programmable serial interface module; a real-time clock (RTC), timer counters including interval and watchdog timers; general-purpose input / output (I / O or IO); a memory card controller such as a Secure Digital (SD) Multimedia Card (MMC); a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface; a Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interface; and a Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuitry 705 may be coupled to or include memory / storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 700. In some implementations, the memory / storage elements may be on-chip memory circuits, which may include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, and / or any other type of memory device technology as described herein.

[0102] The processor of application circuitry 705 may include, for example, one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more application processors, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISC machine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction set computing (CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, application circuitry 705 may include or be a special-purpose processor / controller that operates in accordance with various embodiments herein. By way of example, the processor of application circuit 705 may include one or more Intel Pentium®, Core®, or Xeon® processors, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processors, Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), or Epyc® processors, ARM-based processors offered by ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARM Cortex-A family of processors, and MIPS-based designs offered by MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the ThunderX2®, MIPS Warrior, or P-class processors offered by Cavium™ Inc. In some embodiments, system 700 may not utilize application circuit 705 and instead may include a dedicated processor / controller for processing IP data received from, for example, an EPC or 5GC.

[0103] In some implementations, the application circuitry 705 may include one or more hardware accelerators, which may be a microprocessor, a programmable processing device, or the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, a computer vision (CV) and / or a deep learning (DL) accelerator. By way of example, the programmable processing device may include one or more field programmable devices (FPDs) such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), ASICs such as structured ASICs, programmable system-on-chips (PSoCs), or other circuitry. In such implementations, the circuitry of the application circuitry 705 may include logic blocks or logic fabric and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, and functions of various implementations described herein. In such an embodiment, the circuitry of application circuit 705 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc., in look-up tables (LUTs), etc.

[0104] The baseband circuitry 710 may be implemented, for example, as a soldered board containing one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. The various hardware electronic elements of the baseband circuitry 710 are described below with respect to FIG.

[0105] User interface circuitry 750 may include one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with system 700 or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interaction with system 700. User interfaces may include, but are not limited to, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), one or more indicators (e.g., light-emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physical keyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, a speaker or other audio-light emitting device, a microphone, a printer, a scanner, a headset, a display screen or device, etc. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power interface, etc.

[0106] The radio front-end module (RFEM) 715 may include a millimeter-wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more submillimeter-wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more submillimeter-wave RFICs may be physically separate from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (e.g., see antenna array 911 in FIG. 9 below), and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both mmWave and submillimeter-wave radio functionality may be implemented within the same physical RFEM 715 that incorporates both mmWave antennas and submillimeter-wave.

[0107] The memory circuit 720 may include one or more of volatile memory, including dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and / or synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), and non-volatile memory (NVM), including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may incorporate Intel® and Micron® three-dimensional (3D) cross point (XPOINT) memory. The memory circuit 720 may be implemented as one or more of a solder-packaged integrated circuit, a socketed memory module, and a plug-in memory card.

[0108] The PMIC 725 may include a voltage regulator, a surge protector, a power alarm detection circuit, and one or more backup power sources, such as a battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuit may detect one or more of brownout (undervoltage) and surge (overvoltage) conditions. The power T-circuit 730 may supply power drawn from the network cable to provide both power and data connectivity to the infrastructure equipment 700 using a single cable.

[0109] The network controller circuitry 735 may provide connectivity to a network using a standard network interface protocol, such as Ethernet, Ethernet over a GRE tunnel, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may be provided to / from the infrastructure equipment 700 via network interface connectors 740 using physical connections that may be electrical (commonly referred to as "copper wiring"), optical, or wireless. The network controller circuitry 735 may include one or more dedicated processors and / or FPGAs for communicating using one or more of the aforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the network controller circuitry 735 may include multiple controllers for providing connectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

[0110] The positioning circuitry 745 includes circuitry for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcast by a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning network. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), the Russian Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou navigation satellite system, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., Navigation by Indian Constellation (NAVIC), Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France's Doppler Orbitography and Radio positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS), etc.). The positioning circuitry 745 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. to facilitate OTA communications) for communicating with components of the positioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 745 may include a Micro-Technology for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) IC for performing position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance using a master timing clock. The positioning circuitry 745 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuitry 710 and / or RFEM 715 to communicate with nodes and components of a positioning network. The positioning circuitry 745 may also provide position and / or time data to the application circuitry 705, which may use the data to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RAN nodes 411, etc.).

[0111] The components shown in FIG. 7 may communicate with each other using interface circuitry that may include any number of bus and / or interconnect (IX) technologies, such as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Extended ISA (EISA), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Enhanced Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCIx), PCI Express (PCIe), or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may also be a proprietary bus used in SoC-based systems, for example. Among other things, the I 2 Other bus / IX systems may be included such as a C interface, an SPI interface, a point-to-point interface, and a power bus.

[0112] FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a platform 800 (or “device 800”) according to various embodiments. In embodiments, the platform 800 may be suitable for use as a UE 401, 402, 501, an application server 430, and / or any other element / device described herein. The platform 800 may include any combination of components shown in the examples. The components of the platform 800 may be implemented as an integrated circuit (IC) adapted to the computer platform 800, as part thereof, as a separate electronic device, or as other modules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof, or as components incorporated within the chassis of a larger system. The block diagram of FIG. 8 is intended to illustrate a high-level view of the components of the computer platform 800. However, some of the components shown may be omitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangements of the components shown may occur in other implementations.

[0113] The application circuit 805 may include, but is not limited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one or more LDOs, an interrupt controller, an SPI, an I / O, and the like. 2The application circuitry 805 may include circuits such as a serial interface such as a SPI, SPI-C, or universal programmable serial interface module, timer counters including RTC, interval and watchdog timers, general-purpose I / O, memory card controllers such as SD MMC, USB interface, MIPI interface, and JTAG test access port. The processor (or core) of the application circuitry 805 may be coupled to or may include memory / storage elements and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory / storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the system 800. In some implementations, the memory / storage elements may be on-chip memory circuits, which may include any suitable volatile and / or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state memory, and / or any other type of memory device technology as described herein.

[0114] The processor of application circuitry 705 may include, for example, one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one or more GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, one or more CISC processors, one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, multi-threaded processors, ultra-low voltage processors, embedded processors, some other known processing elements, or any suitable combination thereof. In some embodiments, application circuitry 705 may include or be a special-purpose processor / controller that operates in accordance with various embodiments herein.

[0115] By way of example, the processor of application circuit 805 may include an Intel® Architecture Core™-based processor, such as a Quark™, ​​Atom™, i3, i5, i7, or MCU-class processor, or another such processor available from Intel® Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif. The processor of application circuit 805 may also be one or more of an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor or Accelerated Processing Units (APU), an A5-A9 processor manufactured by Apple® Inc., a Snapdragon™ processor from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc., a Texas Instruments, Inc.® Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™ processor, a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc., such as the MIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors, an ARM-based design licensed from ARM Holdings, such as the ARM Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M families of processors, or the like. In some implementations, the application circuit 805 may be part of a system-on-chip (SoC) in which the application circuit 805 and other components are formed in a single integrated circuit or a single package, such as an Edison™ or Galileo™ SoC board manufactured by Intel® Corporation.

[0116] Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry 805 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more field programmable devices (FPDs) such as FPGAs, programmable logic devices (PLDs) such as composite PLDs (CPLDs) or high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), ASICs such as structured ASICs, programmable SoCs (PSoCs), etc. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry 805 may include logic blocks or logic fabric and other interconnected resources that may be programmed to perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, and functions of the various embodiments described herein. In such embodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry 805 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), antifuses, etc.) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc., such as in look-up tables (LUTs).

[0117] The baseband circuitry 810 may be implemented, for example, as a soldered board containing one or more integrated circuits, a single packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. The various hardware electronic elements of the baseband circuitry 810 are described below with respect to FIG. 9.

[0118] The RFEM 815 may include a millimeter-wave (mmWave) RFEM and one or more submillimeter-wave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more submillimeter-wave RFICs may be physically separate from the mmWave RFEM. The RFIC may include connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (e.g., see antenna array 911 in FIG. 9 below), and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both mmWave and submillimeter-wave radio functionality may be implemented within the same physical RFEM 815 that incorporates both mmWave antennas and submillimeter-wave.

[0119] Memory circuit 820 may include any number and type of memory devices used to provide a given amount of system memory. By way of example, memory circuit 820 may include one or more of: volatile memory, including random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and / or synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), and non-volatile memory (NVM), including high-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as flash memory), phase-change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc. Memory circuit 820 may be developed according to a Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC) low-power double data rate (LPDDR)-based design, e.g., LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, etc. The memory circuit 820 may be implemented as one or more of a solder package integrated circuit, a single die package (SDP), a dual die package (DDP), or a quad die package (Q17P), a socketed memory module, a dual in-line memory module (DIMM) including a micro DIMM or a mini DIMM, and / or soldered onto a motherboard via a ball grid array (BGA). In low-power implementations, the memory circuit 820 may be on-die memory or registers associated with the application circuit 805. To provide persistent storage of information such as data, applications, and an operating system, the memory circuit 820 may include one or more mass storage devices, which may include, among others, a solid-state disk drive (SSDD), a hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, a resistive memory, a phase-change memory, a holographic memory, or a chemical memory. For example, the computer platform 800 may incorporate three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memory from Intel® and Micron®.

[0120] Removable memory circuitry 823 may include devices, circuits, enclosures, ports or receptacles, etc. used to couple portable data storage devices with platform 800. These portable data storage devices may be used for mass storage purposes and may include, for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, microSD cards, xD image cards, etc.), USB flash drives, optical disks, external HDDs, etc.

[0121] Platform 800 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) used to connect external devices with platform 800. External devices connected to platform 800 via the interface circuitry include sensor circuitry 821 and electromechanical components (EMC) 822, as well as a removable memory device coupled to removable memory circuitry 823.

[0122] Sensor circuitry 821 includes devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and transmit information about the detected events (sensor data) to other devices, modules, subsystems, etc. Examples of such sensors include inertial measurement units (IMUs) including accelerometers, gyroscopes, and / or magnetometers, among others, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) or nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) with 3-axis accelerometers, 3-axis gyroscopes, and / or magnetometers, level sensors, flow sensors, temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors), pressure sensors, barometric pressure sensors, gravimeters, altimeters, image capture devices (e.g., cameras or lensless apertures), light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors, proximity sensors (e.g., infrared detectors, etc.), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonic transceivers, microphones or other similar audio capture devices, etc.

[0123] EMC 822 includes devices, modules, or subsystems intended to enable platform 800 to change its state, position, and / or orientation, or to move or control mechanisms or (sub)systems. Additionally, EMC 822 may be configured to generate and send messages / signals to other components of platform 800 to indicate the current state of EMC 822. Examples of EMC 822 include one or more power switches, relays, including electromechanical relays (EMRs) and / or solid-state relays (SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), audible sound generators, visual warning devices, motors (e.g., DC motors, stepper motors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, and / or other similar electromechanical components. In an embodiment, platform 800 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 822 based on one or more captured events and / or commands or control signals received from service providers and / or various clients.

[0124] In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 800 with positioning circuitry 845. The positioning circuitry 845 includes circuitry for receiving and decoding signals transmitted / broadcast by a GNSS positioning network. Examples of navigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include the United States' GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China's Beidou navigation satellite system, regional navigation systems or GNSS augmentation systems (e.g., NAVIC, Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, etc.), etc. The positioning circuitry 845 includes various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, etc. to facilitate over-the-air (OTA) communications) for communicating with components of the positioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 845 includes a Micro-PNT IC for performing position tracking / estimation without GNSS assistance using a master timing clock. The positioning circuitry 845 may also be part of or interact with the baseband circuitry 710 and / or RFEM 815 to communicate with nodes and components of a positioning network. The positioning circuitry 845 may also provide position and / or time data to the application circuitry 805, which may use the data to synchronize operation with various infrastructures (e.g., wireless base stations), such as for turn-by-turn navigation applications.

[0125] In some implementations, the interface circuit may connect the platform 800 with a near field communication (NFC) circuit 840. The NFC circuit 840 is configured to provide contactless, short-range communication based on the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) standard, and magnetic field induction is used to enable communication between the NFC circuit 840 and an NFC-enabled device (e.g., an “NFC touchpoint”) external to the platform 800. The NFC circuit 840 includes an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processor coupled to the NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip / IC that provides NFC functionality to the NFC circuit 840 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element to radiate a short-range RF signal. The RF signal can power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transmit stored data to NFC circuitry 840, or can initiate data transfer between NFC circuitry 840 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or NFC-enabled POS terminal) in proximity to platform 800.

[0126] Driver circuitry 846 may include software and hardware elements that operate to control particular devices embedded in, attached to, or otherwise communicatively coupled to platform 800. Driver circuitry 846 may include individual drivers that enable other components of platform 800 to interact with or control various input / output (I / O) devices that may be present in or connected to platform 800. For example, driver circuitry 846 may include a display driver for controlling and allowing access to a display device, a touchscreen driver for controlling and allowing access to a touchscreen interface of platform 800, a sensor driver for obtaining sensor readings of and controlling and allowing access to sensor circuitry 821, an EMC driver for obtaining actuator positions of and / or controlling and allowing access to EMC 822, a camera driver for controlling and allowing access to an embedded capture device, and an audio driver for controlling and allowing access to one or more audio devices.

[0127] A power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 825 (also referred to as "power management circuit 825") can manage the power supplied to various components of platform 800. Specifically, with respect to baseband circuit 810, PMIC 825 can control power source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-DC conversion. A PMIC 825 may often be included when platform 800 can be powered by a battery 830, for example, when the device is included in a UE 401, 402, 501.

[0128] In some embodiments, the PMIC 825 may control or otherwise be a part of various power-saving mechanisms of the platform 800. For example, if the platform 800 is in the RRC_Connected state and is still connected to a RAN node because it expects to receive traffic soon, after a period of inactivity the platform may enter a state known as discontinuous reception mode (DRX). While in this state, the platform 800 may power down for a short period of time, thereby saving power. If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, the platform 800 may transition to the RRC_Idle state, disconnecting from the network and not performing operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The platform 800 enters a very low power state, performs paging, where it again periodically wakes up to listen to the network, and then powers down again. The platform 800 may not receive data in this state; to receive data, it must transition to the RRC_Connected state. Additional power-saving modes may allow the device to be unavailable to the network for longer periods than the paging interval (ranging from seconds to hours). During this time, the device cannot connect to the network at all and can power down completely. Any data sent during this time will incur a large delay, and it is assumed that the delay is tolerable.

[0129] The battery 830 can power the platform 800, although in some examples the platform 800 may be located and mounted in a fixed location or may have a power source coupled to a power grid. The battery 830 may be a lithium-ion battery, a metal-air battery such as a zinc-air battery, an aluminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, or the like. In some implementations, such as for V2X applications, the battery 830 may be a typical lead-acid automotive battery.

[0130] In some implementations, the battery 830 may be a "smart battery" that includes or is coupled to a Battery Management System (BMS) or battery monitoring integrated circuit. The BMS may be included in the platform 800 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 830. The BMS may be used to monitor other parameters of the battery 830 to provide fault predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and state of function (SoF) of the battery 830. The BMS may communicate information about the battery 830 to the application circuit 805 or other components of the platform 800. The BMS may also include an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter that allows the application circuit 805 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 830 or the current draw from the battery 830. Battery parameters may be used to determine operations that the platform 800 may perform, such as transmission frequency, network operation, and detection frequency.

[0131] A power block, or other power source coupled to the power grid, may be coupled to the BMS to charge the battery 830. In some embodiments, the power block XS30 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtain power wirelessly, for example, via a loop antenna within the computer platform 800. In these embodiments, wireless battery charging circuitry may be included in the BMS. The particular charging circuit selected may depend on the size of the battery 830 and, therefore, the current required. Charging may be performed using, among other things, the Airfuel standard promulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standard promulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence charging standard promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power.

[0132] User interface circuitry 850 includes various input / output (I / O) devices present within or connected to platform 800, including one or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with platform 800 and / or peripheral component interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interaction with platform 800. User interface circuitry 850 includes input device circuitry and output device circuitry. Input device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for accepting input, including, among others, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, a microphone, a scanner, a headset, etc. Output device circuitry includes any physical or virtual means for displaying or otherwise communicating information, such as sensor readings, actuator positions, or other similar information. The output device circuitry can include any number and / or combination of audio or visual displays, including, among others, one or more simple visual outputs / indicators (e.g., light-emitting diodes (LEDs)) and multi-digit character visual outputs, or more complex outputs such as display devices or touchscreens (e.g., liquid crystal displays (LCDs), LED displays, quantum dot displays, projectors, etc.), where output such as text, graphics, multimedia objects, etc. is generated from operation of the platform 800. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or other audio emitting devices, printers, and / or the like. In some embodiments, the sensor circuitry 821 may be used as input device circuitry (e.g., image capture devices, motion capture devices, etc.), and one or more EMCs may be used as output device circuitry (e.g., actuators for providing tactile feedback, etc.). In another example, an NFC circuit comprising an NFC controller coupled to an antenna element and a processing device may be included for reading electronic tags and / or connecting with another NFC-enabled device.Peripheral component interfaces include, but are not limited to, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power interface, and the like.

[0133] Although not shown, the components of platform 800 may communicate with each other using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, which may include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx, PCIe, a time-triggered protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or any number of other technologies. The bus / IX may be, for example, a proprietary bus / IX used in SoC-based systems. In particular, the IX 2 Other bus / IX systems may be included such as a C interface, an SPI interface, a point-to-point interface, and a power bus.

[0134] 9 illustrates exemplary components of a baseband circuit 910 and a radio front-end module (RFEM) 915, according to various embodiments. The baseband circuit 910 corresponds to the baseband circuits 710 and 810, respectively, of FIGS. 7 and 8. The RFEM 915 corresponds to the RFEMs 715 and 815, respectively, of FIGS. 7 and 8. As shown, the RFEM 915 may include at least a radio frequency (RF) circuit 906, a front-end module (FEM) circuit 908, and an antenna array 911, coupled together as shown.

[0135] The baseband circuitry 910 includes circuitry and / or control logic configured to execute various wireless / network protocol and wireless control functions that enable communication with one or more wireless networks via the RF circuitry 906. The wireless control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation / demodulation, encoding / decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, the modulation / demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 910 may include fast Fourier transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping / demapping functions. In some embodiments, the encoding / decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 910 may include convolutional, tail-biting convolutional, turbo, Viterbi, or low-density parity check (LDPC) encoder / decoder functions. Embodiments of the modulation / demodulation and encoder / decoder functions are not limited to these examples, and may include other suitable functions in other embodiments. The baseband circuitry 910 is configured to process baseband signals received from the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 906 and generate baseband signals for the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 906. The baseband circuitry 910 is configured to interface with the application circuitry 705 / 805 (see FIGS. 7 and 8) for generating and processing baseband signals and for controlling the operation of the RF circuitry 906. The baseband circuitry 910 can handle a variety of radio control functions.

[0136] The aforementioned circuitry and / or control logic of the baseband circuitry 910 may include one or more single- or multi-core processors. For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor 904A, a 4G / LTE baseband processor 904B, a 5G / NR baseband processor 904C, or some other baseband processor 904D of another existing, developing, or future generation (e.g., sixth generation (6G)). In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of the baseband processors 904A-904D may be included in modules stored in memory 904G and executed via a central processing unit (CPU) 904E. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of the baseband processors 904A-904D may be provided as hardware accelerators (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs, etc.) loaded with appropriate bitstreams or logic blocks stored in corresponding memory cells. In various embodiments, the memory 904G may store program code of a real-time operating system (RTOS) that, when executed by the CPU 904E (or other baseband processor), causes the CPU 904E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources, schedule tasks, and so forth, of the baseband circuitry 910. Examples of an RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE)™ provided by Enea®, Nucleus RTOS™ provided by Mentor Graphics®, Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Mentor Graphics®, ThreadX™ provided by Express Logic®, FreeRTOS, REX OS provided by Qualcomm®, OKL4 provided by Open Kernel (OK) Labs®, or any other suitable RTOS as described herein. Additionally, the baseband circuitry 910 may include one or more audio digital signal processors (DSPs) 904F.The audio DSP(s) 904F include elements for compression / decompression and echo cancellation, and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments.

[0137] In some embodiments, each of the processors 904A-904E includes a respective memory interface for transmitting and receiving data to / from the memory 904G. The baseband circuit 910 may further include one or more interfaces for communicatively coupling to other circuits / devices, such as an interface for transmitting and receiving data to / from a memory external to the baseband circuit 910, an application circuit interface for transmitting and receiving data to / from the application circuits 705 / 805 of FIGS. 7-9, an RF circuit interface for transmitting and receiving data to / from the RF circuit 906 of FIG. 9, a wireless hardware connection interface for transmitting and receiving data to / from one or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., a near field communication (NFC) component, a Bluetooth® / Bluetooth Low Energy component, a WiFi® component, and / or the like), and a power management interface for transmitting and receiving power or control signals to / from the PMIC 825.

[0138] In an alternative embodiment (which may be combined with the above-described embodiments), the baseband circuitry 910 includes one or more digital baseband systems coupled to each other and to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interface subsystem via an interconnection subsystem. The digital baseband subsystem may also be coupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband subsystem via another interconnection subsystem. Each of the interconnection subsystems may include a bus system, a point-to-point connection, a network-on-chip (NOC) structure, and / or some other suitable bus or interconnection technology such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include DSP circuitry, buffer memory, program memory, audio processing accelerator circuitry, data conversion circuitry such as analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion circuitry, analog circuitry including one or more amplifiers and filters, and / or other similar components. In one aspect of the present disclosure, the baseband circuitry 910 may include protocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digital baseband circuitry and / or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., radio front-end module 915).

[0139] Although not shown in FIG. 9 , in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 910 includes individual processing device(s) for executing one or more wireless communication protocols (e.g., a “multi-protocol baseband processor” or “protocol processing circuit”) and individual processing device(s) for implementing PHY layer functionality. In these embodiments, the PHY layer functionality includes the radio control functionality described above. In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry operates or implements various protocol layers / entities of one or more wireless communication protocols. In a first example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate LTE protocol entities and / or 5G / NR protocol entities when the baseband circuitry 910 and / or the RF circuitry 906 are part of a millimeter wave communication circuit or some other suitable cellular communication circuit. In a first example, the protocol processing circuitry operates MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. In a second example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one or more IEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry 910 and / or the RF circuitry 906 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In a second embodiment, the protocol processing circuitry operates WiFi MAC and Logical Link Control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may include one or more memory structures (e.g., 904G) for storing program code and data for operating the protocol functions, and one or more processing cores for executing the program code and performing various operations using the data. The baseband circuitry 910 may also support wireless communication for more than one wireless protocol.

[0140] The various hardware elements of the baseband circuitry 910 discussed herein may be implemented, for example, as a soldered substrate containing one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged IC soldered to a main circuit board, or a multi-chip module containing two or more ICs. In one embodiment, the components of the baseband circuitry 910 may be suitably combined within a single chip or chipset, or may be located on the same circuit board. In another embodiment, some or all of the components of the baseband circuitry 910 and the RF circuitry 906 may be implemented together, for example, in a system-on-chip (SoC) or system-in-package (SiP). In another embodiment, some or all of the components of the baseband circuitry 910 may be implemented as a separate SoC communicatively coupled to the RF circuitry 906 (or multiple instances of the RF circuitry 906). In yet another embodiment, some or all of the components of the baseband circuitry 910 and the application circuitry 705 / 805 may be implemented together as individual SoCs mounted on the same circuit board (e.g., a "multi-chip package").

[0141] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 910 may provide communications compatible with one or more wireless technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 910 may support communications with E-UTRAN or other WMAN, WLAN, or WPAN. Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 910 is configured to support wireless communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0142] The RF circuitry 906 can enable communication with a wireless network using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 906 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate communication with the wireless network. The RF circuitry 906 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry for downconverting RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 908 and providing a baseband signal to the baseband circuitry 910. The RF circuitry 906 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry for upconverting baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 910 and providing an RF output signal to the FEM circuitry 908 for transmission.

[0143] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 906 may include a mixer circuit 906a, an amplifier circuit 906b, and a filter circuit 906c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 906 may include a filter circuit 906c and a mixer circuit 906a. The RF circuitry 906 may also include a combiner circuit 906d for combining frequencies used by the mixer circuit 906a of the receive and transmit signal paths. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receive signal path may be configured to downconvert the RF signal received from the FEM circuitry 908 based on a combined frequency provided by the combiner circuit 906d. The amplifier circuit 906b may be configured to amplify the downconverted signal, and the filter circuit 906c may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or a band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the downconverted signal to generate an output baseband signal. The output baseband signal may be provided to the baseband circuitry 910 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signal may be a zero-frequency baseband signal, although this is not required. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a of the receive signal path may include a passive mixer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0144] In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a in the transmit signal path may be configured to upconvert an input baseband signal based on a synthesis frequency provided by the synthesizer circuit 906d to generate an RF output signal for the FEM circuit 908. The baseband signal may be provided by baseband circuit 910 and may be filtered by filter circuit 906c.

[0145] In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a in the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 906a in the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be configured for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a in the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 906a in the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be configured for image rejection (e.g., Hartley-type image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a in the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 906a in the transmit signal path may be configured for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuit 906a in the receive signal path and the mixer circuit 906a in the transmit signal path may be configured for superheterodyne operation.

[0146] In some embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternative embodiments, the output baseband signal and the input baseband signal may be digital baseband signals. In these alternative embodiments, the RF circuitry 906 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry, and the baseband circuitry 910 may include a digital baseband interface for communicating with the RF circuitry 906.

[0147] In some dual-mode embodiments, separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals in each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0148] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuit 906d may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional-N / N+1 synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuit 906d may be a synthesizer comprising a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0149] The combiner circuit 906d may be configured to combine, based on the frequency input and the divider control input, the output frequency used by the mixer circuit 906a of the RF circuit 906. In some embodiments, the combiner circuit 906d may be a fractional N / N+1 combiner.

[0150] In some embodiments, the frequency input may be provided by a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), but this is not required. The divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 910 or the application circuitry 705 / 805 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, the divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a lookup table based on the channel indicated by the application circuitry 705 / 805.

[0151] The synthesizer circuit 906d of the RF circuit 906 may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer, and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD), and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on the implementation) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some exemplary embodiments, the DLL may include a cascaded tunable delay element, a phase detector, a charge pump, and a set of D-type flip-flops. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to divide the VCO period into Nd equal-phase packets, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[0152] In some embodiments, the combiner circuit 906d may be configured to generate the carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and may be used in conjunction with a quadrature generator and divider circuit to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with different phases relative to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be the LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuit 906 may include an IQ / polar converter.

[0153] The FEM circuitry 908 may include a receive signal path that may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from the antenna array 911, amplify the received signals, and provide an amplified version of the received signals to the RF circuitry 906 for further processing. The FEM circuitry 908 may also include a transmit signal path that may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 906 for transmission by one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 911. In various embodiments, amplification throughout the transmit or receive signal path may occur solely in the RF circuitry 906, solely in the FEM circuitry 908, or in both the RF circuitry 906 and the FEM circuitry 908.

[0154] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 908 may include a TX / RX switch for switching between transmit and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry 908 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 908 may include an LNA for amplifying a received RF signal and providing the amplified received RF signal as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 906). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 908 may include a power amplifier (PA) for amplifying an input RF signal (e.g., provided by the RF circuitry 906) and one or more filters for generating an RF signal for subsequent transmission by one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 911.

[0155] The antenna array 911 includes one or more antenna elements, each configured to convert electrical signals into radio waves transmitted over the air and to convert received radio waves into electrical signals. For example, a digital baseband signal provided by the baseband circuitry 910 is converted into an analog RF signal (e.g., a modulated waveform), amplified, and transmitted via antenna elements of the antenna array 911, which includes one or more antenna elements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional, directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formed in multiple arrangements as known and / or described herein. The antenna array 911 may include microstrip antennas or printed antennas fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuit boards. The antenna array 911 may be formed as patches of metal foil (e.g., patch antennas) of various shapes and may be coupled to the RF circuit 906 and / or the FEM circuit 908 using metal transmission lines, etc.

[0156] The processors of the application circuits 705 / 805 and the processor of the baseband circuitry 910 can be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, the processor of the baseband circuitry 910 can be used alone or in combination to execute layer 3, layer 2, or layer 1 functions, while the processor of the application circuits 705 / 805 can utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and can also execute layer 4 functions (e.g., TCP and UDP layers). As referred to herein, layer 3 may include the RRC layer, which is described in more detail below. As referred to herein, layer 2 may include the MAC layer, RLC layer, and PDCP layer, which are described in more detail below. As referred to herein, layer 1 may include the PHY layer of a UE / RAN node, which is described in more detail below.

[0157]

[0013] Figure 10 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented in a wireless communication device, according to various embodiments. In particular, Figure 10 includes an arrangement 1000 illustrating interconnections between various protocol layers / entities. The following description of Figure 10 is provided for various protocol layers / entities operating in conjunction with 5G / NR and LTE system standards, although some or all of the aspects of Figure 10 may also be applicable to other wireless communication network systems.

[0158] The protocol layers of arrangement 1000 may include one or more of PHY 1010, MAC 1020, RLC 1030, PDCP 1040, SDAP 1047, RRC 1055, and NAS layer 1057, in addition to other higher layer functions not shown. The protocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g., items 1059, 1056, 1050, 1049, 1045, 1035, 1025, and 1015 in FIG. 10) that may provide communication between two or more protocol layers.

[0159] The PHY 1010 can send and receive physical layer signals 1005 that can be received from or transmitted to one or more other communication devices. The physical layer signals 1005 can include one or more physical channels, as described herein. The PHY 1010 can further perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as the RRC 1055. The PHY 1010 can also perform error detection on transport channels, forward error correction (FEC) encoding / decoding of transport channels, modulation / demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping to physical channels, and MIMO antenna processing. In embodiments, an instance of the PHY 1010 can process requests and provide instructions from an instance of the MAC 1020 via one or more PHY-SAPs 1015. According to some embodiments, requests and instructions communicated via the PHY-SAPs 1015 can include one or more transport channels.

[0160] An instance of MAC 1020 can process requests from and provide instructions to instances of RLC 1030 via one or more MAC-SAPs 1025. These requests and instructions communicated via MAC-SAPs 1025 can include one or more logical channels. MAC 1020 can perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs from one or more logical channels onto TBs delivered to PHY 1010 via transport channels, demultiplexing MAC SDUs from TBs to one or more logical channels delivered from PHY 1010 via transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction via HARQ, and logical channel prioritization.

[0161] An instance of the RLC 1030 can process requests from and provide instructions to instances of the PDCP 1040 via one or more Radio Link Control Service Access Points (RLC-SAPs) 1035. These requests and instructions communicated via the RLC-SAPs 1035 can include one or more RLC channels. The RLC 1030 can operate in multiple modes of operation, including Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC 1030 can perform higher layer protocol data unit (PDU) transfer, error correction via Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) for AM data transfer, and concatenation, segmentation, and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfer. The RLC 1030 may also perform re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transfer, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transfer, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfer, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfer, detect protocol errors for AM data transfer, and perform RLC re-establishment.

[0162] An instance of PDCP 1040 can process requests and provide instructions to an instance of RRC 1055 and / or an instance of SDAP 1047 via one or more Packet Data Convergence Protocol Service Access Points (PDCP-SAPs) 1045. These requests and instructions communicated via PDCP-SAPs 1045 can comprise one or more radio bearers. PDCP 1040 can perform header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP sequence numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs upon lower layer re-establishment, remove duplicates of lower layer SDUs upon lower layer re-establishment for radio bearers mapped onto RLC AM, cipher and decrypt control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based discarding of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, decryption, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

[0163] An instance of the SDAP 1047 can process requests and provide instructions from one or more upper layer protocol entities via one or more SDAP-SAPs 1049. These requests and instructions communicated via the SDAP-SAPs 1049 can include one or more QoS flows. The SDAP 1047 can map QoS flows to DRBs and vice versa, and can also mark QFIs in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity 1047 may be configured for an individual PDU session. In the UL direction, the NG-RAN 410 can control the mapping of QoS flows to DRBs in two different ways: reflective mapping or explicit mapping. For reflective mapping, the SDAP 1047 of the UE 401 may monitor the QFI of DL packets for each DRB and apply the same mapping to packets flowing in the UL direction. With respect to DRBs, the SDAP 1047 of the UE 401 can map UL packets belonging to the QoS flow(s) corresponding to the QoS flow ID(s) and PDU session(s) observed in DL packets for that DRB. To enable reflective mapping, the NG-RAN 610 can mark DL packets on the Uu interface with a QoS flow ID. Explicit mapping may involve the RRC 1055 configuring the SDAP 1047 with explicit QoS flow-to-DRB mapping rules, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 1047. In an embodiment, the SDAP 1047 may be used only in an NR implementation and not in an LTE implementation.

[0164] The RRC 1055 may configure aspects of one or more protocol layers, which may include one or more instances of PHY 1010, MAC 1020, RLC 1030, PDCP 1040, and SDAP 1047, via one or more Management Service Access Points (M-SAPs). In an embodiment, an instance of the RRC 1055 may process requests and provide instructions from one or more NAS entities 1057 via one or more RRC-SAPs 1056. The main services and functions of the RRC 1055 may include broadcasting system information (e.g., contained in MIBs or NAS-related SIBs), broadcasting system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance, and release of RRC connections between the UE 401 and the RAN 410 (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance, and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting. The MIB and SIB may each contain one or more IEs, which may contain individual data fields or data structures.

[0165] The NAS 1057 may form the highest layer of the control plane between the UE 401 and the AMF 621. The NAS 1057 may support mobility and session management procedures for the UE 401 to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 401 and a P-GW of the LTE system.

[0166] According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 1000 may be implemented in a UE 401, a RAN node 411, an AMF 621 in an NR implementation or an MME 521 in an LTE implementation, a UPF 602 in an NR implementation, or an S-GW 522 and P-GW 523 in an LTE implementation, etc., used for a control plane or user plane communication protocol stack between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments, one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more of the UE 401, gNB 411, AMF 621, etc. may communicate with a respective peer protocol entity that may be implemented in or on another device using the services of a respective lower layer protocol entity to perform such communication. In some embodiments, a gNB-CU of a gNB 411 may host an RRC 1055, SDAP 1047, and PDCP 1040 of the gNB, which control the operation of one or more gNB-DUs, and a gNB-DU of a gNB 411 may host an RLC 1030, MAC 1020, and PHY 1010 of the gNB 411, respectively.

[0167] In a first example, the control plane protocol stack may comprise, from top to bottom, NAS 1057, RRC 1055, PDCP 1040, RLC 1030, MAC 1020, and PHY 1010. In this example, upper layers 1060 may be built on top of NAS 1057, including IP layer 1061, SCTP 1062, and application layer signaling protocol (AP) 1063.

[0168] In an NR implementation, the AP 1063 may be an NG application protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 1063 for the NG interface 413 defined between the NG-RAN node 411 and the AMF 621, or the AP 1063 may be an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 1063 for the Xn interface 412 defined between two or more RAN nodes 411.

[0169] The NG-AP 1063 may support the functionality of the NG interface 413 and may include Elementary Procedures (EPs). The NG-AP EP may be the unit of interaction between the NG-RAN node 411 and the AMF 621. The NG-AP 1063 services may include two groups: UE-related services (e.g., services related to the UE 401, 402) and non-UE-related services (e.g., services related to the entire NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 411 and the AMF 621). These services include, but are not limited to, a paging function for sending paging requests to NG-RAN nodes 411 included in a particular paging area; a UE context management function for enabling the AMF 621 to establish, modify, and / or release UE context within the AMF 621 and the NG-RAN nodes 411; a mobility function for the UE 401 in ECM connected mode for intra-system HO supporting mobility within the NG-RAN and inter-system HO supporting mobility between EPS systems; and a function for transporting or rerouting NAS messages between the UE 401 and the AMF 621. a NAS signaling transport function for configuring the NG interface and monitoring errors via the NG interface; a NAS node selection function for determining the association between the AMF 621 and the UE 401; an NG interface management function(s) for configuring the NG interface and monitoring errors via the NG interface; an alert message transmission function for forwarding alert messages via the NG interface or providing a means to cancel ongoing broadcast of alert messages; a configuration transfer function for requesting and transferring RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information, performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes 411 via the CN 420; and / or other similar functions.

[0170] The XnAP 1063 may support the functionality of the Xn interface 412 and may include XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. The XnAP basic mobility procedures may include procedures used to handle UE mobility within the NG RAN 411 (or E-UTRAN 510), such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN status transfer procedures, UE context acquisition and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, and dual connectivity related procedures. The XnAP global procedures may include procedures not related to a specific UE 401, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RAN update procedures, and cell activation procedures.

[0171] In an LTE implementation, the AP 1063 may be an S1 application protocol layer (S1-AP) 1063 for an S1 interface 413 defined between an E-UTRAN node 411 and an MME, or the AP 1063 may be an X2 application protocol layer (X2AP or X2-AP) 1063 for an X2 interface 412 defined between two or more E-UTRAN nodes 411.

[0172] The S1 Application Protocol Layer (S1-AP) 1063 can support the functionality of the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP described above, the S1-AP can include an S1-AP EP. The S1-AP EP can be the unit of interaction between the E-UTRAN node 411 and the MME 521 in the LTE CN 420. The S1-AP 1063 services may include two groups: UE-related services and non-UE-related services. These services perform functions including, but not limited to, E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transmission, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

[0173] The X2AP 1063 may support the functionality of the X2 interface 412 and may include X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. The X2AP basic mobility procedures may include procedures used to handle UE mobility within the E-UTRAN 420, such as handover preparation and cancellation procedures, SN status transfer procedures, UE context acquisition and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, and dual connectivity related procedures. The X2AP global procedures may include procedures not related to a specific UE 401, such as X2 interface setup and reset procedures, load indication procedures, error indication procedures, and cell activation procedures.

[0174] The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP / IP layer) 1062 can provide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP or XnAP messages in an NR implementation, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in an LTE implementation). The SCTP 1062 can ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 411 and the AMF 621 / MME 521 based in part on the IP protocol supported by the IP 1061. The Internet Protocol layer (IP) 1061 can be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. In some implementations, the IP layer 1061 can use point-to-point transmission to deliver and convey PDUs. In this regard, the RAN node 411 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) with the MME / AMF to exchange information.

[0175] In a second example, the user plane protocol stack may comprise, from highest layer to lowest layer, an SDAP 1047, a PDCP 1040, an RLC 1030, a MAC 1020, and a PHY 1010. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communication between the UE 401, the RAN node 411, and the UPF 602 in an LTE implementation, or may be used for communication between the S-GW 522 and the P-GW 523. In this example, the upper layers 1051 may be built on top of the SDAP 1047 and may include a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and IP Security Layer (UDP / IP) 1052, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the User Plane Layer (GTP-U) 1053, and a User Plane PDU Layer (UP PDU) 1063.

[0176] The transport network layer 1054 (also called the "transport layer") may be built on top of IP transport and may carry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs) using GTP-U 1053 on top of the UDP / IP layer 1052 (which includes the UDP and IP layers). The IP layer (also called the "Internet layer") may be used to perform packet addressing and routing functions. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packets, for example, in either IPv4, IPv6, or PPP format.

[0177] The GTP-U 1053 may be used to carry user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. The transmitted user data may be packets in either IPv4, IPv6, or PPP format, for example. The UDP / IP 1052 may provide checksums for data integrity, port numbers to accommodate different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication on selected data flows. The RAN node 411 and the S-GW 522 may utilize the S1-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including the L1 layer (e.g., PHY 1010), the L2 layer (e.g., MAC 1020, RLC 1030, PDCP 1040, and / or SDAP 1047), the UDP / IP layer 1052, and the GTP-U 1053. The S-GW 522 and the P-GW 523 can utilize the S5 / S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack including an L1 layer, an L2 layer, a UDP layer / IP layer 1052, and a GTP-U 1053. As previously mentioned, the NAS protocol can support mobility and session management procedures of the UE 401 to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 401 and the P-GW 523.

[0178] 10 , an application layer may exist above the AP 1063 and / or the transport network layer 1054. The application layer may be a layer where a user of the UE 401, the RAN node 411, or other network element interacts with a software application executed by, for example, the application circuit 705 or the application circuit 805. The application layer may also provide one or more interfaces for the software application to interact with a communication system of the UE 401 or the RAN node 411, such as the baseband circuit 910. In some implementations, the IP layer and / or the application layer may provide functionality the same as or similar to layers 5-7 or portions thereof of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (e.g., OSI layer 7—application layer, OSI layer 6—presentation layer, and OSI layer 5—session layer).

[0179] FIG. 11 illustrates components of a core network according to various embodiments. The components of the CN 520 may be implemented in a single physical node or separate physical nodes, including components for reading and executing instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In embodiments, the components of the CN 620 may be implemented in the same or similar manner as described herein with respect to the components of the CN 520. In some embodiments, NFV is utilized to virtualize any or all of the network node functions described above via executable instructions stored on one or more computer-readable storage media (described in further detail below). A logical instantiation of the CN 520 may be referred to as a network slice 1101, and individual logical instantiations of the CN 520 may provide particular network capabilities and characteristics. A logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 520 may be referred to as a network sub-slice 1102 (e.g., the network sub-slice 1102 is shown to include the P-GW 523 and the PCRF 526).

[0180] As used herein, the terms "instance," "instantiation," etc., can refer to the creation of an instance, and "instance" can refer to a specific occurrence of an object that may occur, for example, during the execution of program code. A network instance can refer to information identifying a domain that can be used for traffic detection and routing in the case of different IP domains or overlapping IP addresses. A network slice instance can refer to a network function (NF) instance and a set of resources (e.g., compute, storage, and networking resources) required to deploy a network slice.

[0181] For 5G systems (see, for example, Figure 6), a network slice always includes a RAN part and a CN part. Support for network slicing relies on the principle that traffic for different slices is handled by different PDU sessions. The network can realize different network slices through scheduling and by providing different L1 / L2 configurations. The UE 601 provides assistance information for network slice selection in appropriate RRC messages, if provided by the NAS. The network can support multiple slices, but the UE does not need to support 8 slices simultaneously.

[0182] A network slice may include the CN620 control plane and user plane NFs, the NG-RAN610 in the serving PLMN, and the N3IWF function in the serving PLMN. Each network slice may have a different S-NSSAI and / or a different SST. An NSSAI includes one or more S-NSSAIs, and each network slice is uniquely identified by an S-NSSAI. Network slices may differ in supported features and network feature optimization, and / or multiple network slice instances may deliver the same service / function for different groups of UEs 601 (e.g., enterprise users). For example, each network slice may deliver different committed services and / or may be dedicated to a specific customer or enterprise. In this example, each network slice may have a different NSSAI with the same SST but different slice atomizers. Furthermore, a single UE may be served by more than one network slice instance simultaneously via a 5G AN and associated with eight different S-NSSAIs. Furthermore, the AMF621 instance serving an individual UE601 may belong to each of the network slice instances serving that UE.

[0183] Network slicing in the NG-RAN 610 includes RAN slice awareness, which involves differentiated handling of traffic for different preconfigured network slices. Slice awareness in the NG-RAN 610 is implemented at the PDU session level by indicating the S-NSSAI corresponding to the PDU session in all signaling containing PDU session resource information. How the NG-RAN 610 supports slice enablement with respect to NG-RAN capabilities (e.g., the set of network functions that comprise each slice) is implementation-dependent. The NG-RAN 610 selects the RAN portion of a network slice using assistance information provided by the UE 601 or 5GC 620, which unambiguously identifies one or more preconfigured network slices within the PLMN. The NG-RAN 610 also supports inter-slice resource management and policy enforcement according to SLAs. A single NG-RAN node can support multiple slices, and the NG-RAN 610 may also apply appropriate RRM policies for each supported slice based on the SLA in effect. The NG-RAN 610 can also support QoS differentiation within a slice.

[0184] The NG-RAN 610 can also use the UE assistance information to select an AMF 621 during initial attach, if available. The NG-RAN 610 uses the assistance information to route the initial NAS to the AMF 621. If the NG-RAN 610 cannot select an AMF 621 using the assistance information or if the UE 601 does not provide such information, the NG-RAN 610 sends NAS signaling to a default AMF 621, which may be in a pool of AMFs 621. For subsequent accesses, the UE 601 provides a temporary ID (temp ID) assigned to the UE 601 by the 5GC 620 to enable the NG-RAN 610 to route NAS messages to the appropriate AMF 621 as long as the temporary ID is valid. The NG-RAN 610 recognizes and can reach the AMF 621 associated with the temporary ID. Otherwise, the method for initial attach applies.

[0185] The NG-RAN 610 supports resource isolation between slices. NG-RAN 610 resource isolation may be achieved by RRM policies and protection mechanisms, which are necessary to avoid starvation of shared resources if one slice violates a service level agreement for another slice. In some implementations, NG-RAN 610 resources can be fully dedicated to a specific slice. How the NG-RAN 610 supports resource isolation is implementation dependent.

[0186] Some slices may be available only in parts of the network. Knowledge in the NG-RAN 610 of slices supported in its neighboring cells can be beneficial for inter-frequency mobility in connected mode. Slice availability can remain constant within the UE's registration area. The NG-RAN 610 and 5GC 620 are responsible for handling service requests for slices that may or may not be available in a given area. Granting or denying access to a slice can depend on factors such as slice support, resource availability, and support of the requested service by the NG-RAN 610.

[0187] The UE 601 may be associated with multiple network slices simultaneously. When the UE 601 is associated with multiple slices simultaneously, only one signaling connection is maintained, and for intra-frequency cell reselection, the UE 601 attempts to camp on the best cell. For inter-frequency cell reselection, a dedicated priority can be used to control the frequency on which the UE 601 camps. The 5GC 620 will verify that the UE 601 has the right to access the network slice. Before receiving the initial context setup request message, the NG-RAN 610 may be permitted to apply some interim / local policies based on its knowledge of the specific slice to which the UE 601 is requesting access. During the initial context setup, the NG-RAN 610 is informed of the slice for which resources are requested.

[0188] The NFV architecture and infrastructure may be used to virtualize one or more NFs, or alternatively, may be implemented on proprietary hardware and virtualized onto physical resources including a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, an NFV system may be used to run a virtual or reconfigurable implementation of one or more EPC components / functions.

[0189] 12 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, according to some demonstrative embodiments. Specifically, FIG. 12 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1200, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1210, one or more memory / storage devices 1220, and one or more communication resources 1230, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1240. In embodiments in which node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1202 may execute to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices / sub-slices for utilizing the hardware resources 1200.

[0190] Processor 1210 may include, for example, processor 1212 and processor 1214. Processor(s) 1210 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP, a baseband processor such as an ASIC, an FPGA, a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

[0191] Memory / storage 1220 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. Memory / storage 1220 may include any type of volatile or non-volatile memory, such as, but not limited to, dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[0192] Communications resources 1230 may include interconnect or network interface components or other suitable devices for communicating with one or more peripherals 1204 or one or more databases 1206 over network 1208. For example, communications resources 1230 may include wired communications components (e.g., for coupling via USB), cellular communications components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® Low Energy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communications components.

[0193] The instructions 1250 may include software, programs, applications, applets, apps, or other executable code for causing at least one of the processors 1210 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 1250 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 1210 (e.g., in a processor's cache memory), the memory / storage 1220, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 1250 may be transferred to the hardware resources 1200 from any combination of the peripherals 1204 or the database 1206. Accordingly, the memory of the processor 1210, the memory / storage 1220, the peripherals 1204, and the database 1206 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media. Example Procedure

[0194] In some embodiments, an electronic device, network, system, chip, or component of Figures 4-11 and 12, or any other figure herein, or a portion or implementation thereof, may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques, or methods described herein, or portions thereof. One such process is shown in Figure 13. For example, the process may include reporting information regarding beam emission and panel selection, and receiving beam and panel instructions for downlink reception and uplink transmission.

[0195] For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components depicted in one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and / or methods as described in the example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry described above in connection with one or more of the foregoing figures may be configured to operate according to one or more of the examples described below. As another example, circuitry associated with a UE, a base station, a network element, etc., as described above in connection with one or more of the foregoing figures, may be configured to operate according to one or more of the examples described below in the example section. Example

[0196] Example 1 is means for reporting information regarding the beam emission; a means for reporting information regarding panel selection; and means for receiving beam and panel instructions for downlink reception and uplink transmission.

[0197] Example 2 may include the apparatus of Example 1 or any other example herein, further comprising: means for reporting whether the SSB / CSI-RS resource can be used for uplink beam direction.

[0198] Example 3 may include the apparatus of Example 1 or any other example herein, further comprising: means for reporting a maximum power reduction (MPR) level for each CRI / SSBRI.

[0199] Example 4 may include the apparatus of Example 1 or any other example herein, wherein for the uplink beam indication, the receiving means further receives at least one antenna port(s) group(s) for each uplink beam for PUSCH / SRS / PUCCH / PRACH via at least one of RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0200] Example 5 may include the apparatus of Example 1 or any other example herein, further comprising: means for receiving an indication of at least one antenna port(s) group(s) for each SRS resource set.

[0201] Example 6 may include the apparatus of Example 5 or any other example herein, wherein the apparatus is configured with multiple SRS resource sets for codebook-based or non-codebook-based transmission.

[0202] Example 7 may include the apparatus of Example 1 or any other example herein, further comprising: means for transmitting a beam recovery request used to identify an SSB or CSI-RS resource index for uplink beam direction.

[0203] Example 8 may include the apparatus of Example 7 or any other example herein, wherein the transmitting means transmits the beam recovery request on one of the PUCCH or the PRACH.

[0204] Example 9 may include the device of Example 7 or any other example herein, further including means for receiving a beam recovery request response, the response being carried by a PDCCH scrambled by a C-RNTI or a default / configured RNTI.

[0205] Example 10 may include the device of Example 9 or any other example herein, wherein the response is transmitted within a dedicated search space or control resource set configured by higher layer signaling or within all configured search spaces.

[0206] Example 11 may include the device of Example 7 or any other example herein, further comprising means for retransmitting an uplink beam recovery request if a beam recovery request response is not received within a set time window.

[0207] Example 11.5 may include an apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 11 provided within or as part of a user equipment (UE).

[0208] Example 12 may include a user equipment (UE) having circuitry for reporting information regarding beam radiation, reporting information regarding panel selection, and determining beams and panels for downlink reception and uplink transmission.

[0209] Example 13 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which for beam reporting, the gNB may indicate whether the UE should report radiation and / or panel-related information for the beam by RRC signaling or a medium access control control element (MAC-CE) or downlink control information (DCI) or a combination thereof.

[0210] Example 14 may include the method of Example 13 or any other example herein, in which the gNB may indicate whether the reported beam may be selected for uplink transmission.

[0211] Example 15 may include the method of Example 14 or any other example herein, wherein if the reported beam is configured to be selected for uplink transmission, the reported beam in the corresponding beam report instance should be radiation-safe; otherwise, the reported beam may not be used for uplink transmission, so that this beam report instance may be considered to be for downlink beam selection only.

[0212] Example 16 may include the method of Example 13 or any other example herein, in which the gNB can indicate whether the UE should report whether one reported SSB / CSI-RS index can be selected for uplink beam indication.

[0213] Example 17 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which, in each beam reporting instance, the UE can report whether SSB / CSI-RS resources, if configured, can be used for uplink beam indication.

[0214] Example 18 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which the UE can report a maximum power reduction (MPR) level to the gNB for each CRI / SSBRI.

[0215] Example 19 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which, for uplink beam indication, the gNB may indicate UE antenna port(s) group(s) for each uplink beam for PUSCH / SRS / PUCCH / PRACH by RRC signaling and / or MAC CE and / or DCI.

[0216] Example 20 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, wherein antenna port(s) group(s) may also be indicated for each SRS resource set.

[0217] Example 21 may include the method of Example 20 or any other example herein, in which the UE may be configured with multiple SRS resource sets for codebook-based or non-codebook-based transmission.

[0218] Example 22 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which the beam recovery request may be carried by a PUCCH or PRACH, which is used to identify an SSB or CSI-RS resource index(es) for uplink beam indication.

[0219] Example 23 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which for a PUCCH-based scheme, the SSB / CSI-RS resource index(es) may be explicitly indicated.

[0220] Example 24 may include the method of Example 23 or any other example herein, in which the failed SSB / CSI-RS resource index of the uplink beam indication may also be transmitted.

[0221] Example 25 may include the method of Example 23 or any other example herein, in which the beam recovery request response may be carried by a PDCCH scrambled by a C-RNTI or a default / configured RNTI.

[0222] Example 26 may include the method of Example 25 or any other example herein, in which the response may be transmitted within a dedicated search space or control resource set configured by higher layer signaling or within all configured search spaces.

[0223] Example 27 may include the method of Example 22 or any other example herein, in which the UE may retransmit an uplink beam recovery request if a beam recovery request response is not received within a set time window.

[0224] Example 28 may include the method of Example 22 or any other example herein, in which the UE is allowed N retransmissions, where N may be predefined or configured by higher layer signaling.

[0225] Example 29 may include the method of example 12 or any other example herein, wherein for a PRACH with a PDCCH command, the antenna port group index may be indicated by downlink control information (DCI).

[0226] Example 30 may include the method of Example 29 or any other example herein, in which the UE transmits a PRACH based on a Tx beam associated with an SSB index indicated by a DCI from a panel indicated by an antenna port group index.

[0227] Example 31 may include the method of Example 29 or any other example herein, in which the PRACH may be transmitted from the indicated panel using a Tx beam associated with a reference signal set in the transmission configuration indication (TCI) state of the corresponding PDCCH that triggers the PRACH.

[0228] Example 32 may include the method of example 12 or any other example herein, in which the antenna port group index of the PRACH according to the PDCCH command may be configured by higher layer signaling.

[0229] Example 33 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which the antenna port group index of the PRACH by PDCCH command may be based on the most recently reported panel index in the beam report of the corresponding SSB.

[0230] Example 34 may include the method of Example 12 or any other example herein, in which the antenna port group index for the PRACH according to the PDCCH command can be based on indicated spatial relationship information based on the indicated SSB.

[0231] Example 35 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of the method described in or related to any of Examples 1-34, or any other method or process described herein.

[0232] Example 36 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media containing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Examples 1-34, or any other method or process described herein.

[0233] Example 37 may include an apparatus having logic, modules, or circuitry for performing one or more elements of a method described or related to any of Examples 1-34, or any other method or process described herein.

[0234] Example 38 may include any method, technique, or process described in or related to any of Examples 1-34, or any part or portion thereof.

[0235] Example 39 may include an apparatus having one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media containing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method, technique, or process, or portions thereof, described in or related to any of Examples 1 to 34.

[0236] Example 40 may include a signal according to or related to any of Examples 1-34, or a part or portion thereof.

[0237] Example 41 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0238] Example 42 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0239] Example 43 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

[0240] Example 44 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

[0241] Any of the above examples can be combined with any other example (or combination of examples) unless otherwise specified. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the implementations to the precise forms disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practicing embodiments consistent with the present disclosure. Abbreviation

[0242] For the purposes of this document, the following abbreviations may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein, but are not meant to be limiting:

[0243] 3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project

[0244] 4G 4th Generation

[0245] 5G (5th Generation)

[0246] 5GC 5G Core Network

[0247] ACK confirmation

[0248] AF Application Features

[0249] AM Confirmation Mode

[0250] AMBR Aggregate Max Bitrate

[0251] AMF access and mobility management function

[0252] AN Access Network

[0253] ANR Automatic Neighbor Relations

[0254] AP application protocol, antenna port, access point

[0255] API Application Programming Interface

[0256] APN Access Point Name

[0257] ARP Allocation and Retention Priority

[0258] ARQ Automatic Repeat Request

[0259] AS access layer

[0260] ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation 1

[0261] AUSF authentication server function

[0262] AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise

[0263] BCH Broadcast Channel

[0264] BER Bit Error Rate

[0265] BFD Beam Fault Detection

[0266] BLER Block Error Rate

[0267] BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying

[0268] BRAS Broadband Remote Access Server

[0269] BSS Business Support System

[0270] BS base station

[0271] BSR Buffer Status Report

[0272] BW Bandwidth

[0273] BWP Bandwidth Portion

[0274] C-RNTI Cell Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0275] CA Carrier Aggregation, Certification Authority

[0276] CAPEX capital investment

[0277] CBRA Contention-Based Random Access

[0278] CC Component Carrier, Country Code, Cryptographic Checksum

[0279] CCA Clear Channel Assessment

[0280] CCE Control Channel Element

[0281] CCCH Common Control Channel

[0282] CE Coverage Extension

[0283] CDM Content Delivery Network

[0284] CDMA code division multiple access

[0285] CFRA Contention-Free Random Access

[0286] CG Cell Group

[0287] CI Cell Identity

[0288] CID Cell ID (e.g., positioning method)

[0289] CIM Common Information Model

[0290] CIR Carrier to Interference Ratio

[0291] CK encryption key

[0292] CM Connection Management, conditionally required

[0293] CMAS Commercial Mobile Alert Service

[0294] CMD command

[0295] CMS Cloud Management System

[0296] CO Conditional Options

[0297] CoMP Coordinated Multipoint

[0298] CORESET Control resource set

[0299] COTS: Commercially available products

[0300] CP Control Plane, Cyclic Prefix, Attachment Point

[0301] CPD Attachment Point Descriptor

[0302] CPE Customer Premises Equipment

[0303] CPICH Common Pilot Channel

[0304] CQI Channel Quality Indicator

[0305] CPU CSI processing unit, central processing unit

[0306] C / R Command / Response Field Bit

[0307] CRAN Cloud Radio Access Network, Cloud RAN

[0308] CRB Common Resource Block

[0309] CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check

[0310] CRI Channel State Information Resource Indicator, CSI-RS Resource Indicator

[0311] C-RNTI Cell RNTI

[0312] CS circuit switching

[0313] CSAR Cloud Services Archive

[0314] CSI Channel State Information

[0315] CSI-IM CSI interference measurement

[0316] CSI-RS CSI reference signal

[0317] CSI-RSRP CSI reference signal received power

[0318] CSI-RSRQ CSI reference signal reception quality

[0319] CSI SINR CSI signal to interference and noise ratio

[0320] CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access

[0321] CSMA / CA CSMA with collision avoidance

[0322] CSS common search space, cell-specific search space

[0323] CTS Clear to Send

[0324] CW Codeword

[0325] CWS Contention Window Size

[0326] D2D Device to Device

[0327] DC Dual Connectivity, Direct Current

[0328] DCI Downlink Control Information

[0329] DF Deployment Flavor

[0330] DL Downlink

[0331] DMTF Distributed Management Task Force

[0332] DPDK Data Plane Development Kit

[0333] DM-RS, DMRS demodulation reference signal

[0334] DN Data Network

[0335] DRB Data Radio Bearer

[0336] DRS Discovery Reference Signal

[0337] DRX Discontinuous Reception

[0338] DSL Domain Specific Language Digital Subscriber Line

[0339] DSLAM DSL Access Multiplexer

[0340] DwPTS Downlink Pilot Time Slot

[0341] E-LAN ​​Ethernet Local Area Network

[0342] E2E End-to-End

[0343] ECCA Enhanced Clear Channel Assessment, Enhanced CCA

[0344] ECCE Extended Control Channel Element, Extended CCE

[0345] ED Energy Detection

[0346] Enhanced Data for EDGE GSM Evolution (GSM Evolution)

[0347] EGMF Exposure Governance Management Function

[0348] EGPRS Enhanced GPRS

[0349] EIR Equipment Identity Register

[0350] eLAA enhanced License Assisted Access, enhanced LAA

[0351] EM Element Manager

[0352] eMBB Enhanced Mobile Broadband

[0353] EMS Element Management System

[0354] eNB Evolved Node B, E-UTRAN Node B

[0355] EN-DC E-UTRA-NR dual connectivity

[0356] EPC Evolved Packet Core

[0357] EPDCCH Enhanced PDCCH, Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0358] EPRE Energy per resource element

[0359] EPS Evolved Packet System

[0360] EREG Enhanced REG, Enhanced Resource Element Group

[0361] ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute

[0362] ETWS Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System

[0363] eUICC embedded UICC, embedded universal integrated circuit card

[0364] E-UTRA Evolved UTRA

[0365] E-UTRAN Evolved UTRAN

[0366] EV2X Enhanced V2X

[0367] F1AP F1 Application Protocol

[0368] F1-C F1 control plane interface

[0369] F1-U F1 user plane interface

[0370] FACCH Fast Associated Control Channel

[0371] FACCH / F Fast Associated Control Channel / Full Rate

[0372] FACCH / H Fast Associated Control Channel / Half Rate

[0373] FACH Forward Access Channel

[0374] FAUSCH High Speed ​​Uplink Signaling Channel

[0375] FB Function Block

[0376] FBI Feedback Information

[0377] FCC Federal Communications Commission

[0378] FCCH Frequency Correction Channel

[0379] FDD Frequency Division Duplex

[0380] FDM frequency division multiplexing

[0381] FDMA code division multiple access

[0382] FE Front End

[0383] FEC Forward Error Correction

[0384] FFS Further Research

[0385] FFT Fast Fourier Transform

[0386] feLAA further enhanced license-assisted access, further enhanced LAA

[0387] FN Frame Number

[0388] FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array

[0389] FR Frequency Range

[0390] G-RNTI GERAN Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0391] GERAN GSM EDGE RAN, GSM EDGE Radio Access Network

[0392] GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node

[0393] GLONASS Global Navigation Satellite System

[0394] gNB Next Generation Node B

[0395] gNB-CU gNB-Centralized Unit, Next Generation NodeB Centralized Unit

[0396] gNB-DU gNB distributed unit, next generation NodeB distributed unit

[0397] GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System

[0398] GPRS General Packet Radio Service

[0399] GSM Global System for Mobile Communications, Group Special Mobile

[0400] GTP GPRS Tunneling Protocol

[0401] GTP-U GPRS Tunneling Protocol for User Plane

[0402] GTS Sleep request signal (WUS related)

[0403] GUMMEI Globally Unique MME Identifier

[0404] GUTI Globally Unique Temporary UE Identity

[0405] HARQ Hybrid ARQ, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request

[0406] HANDO, HO Handover

[0407] HFN Hyperframe Number

[0408] HHO Hard Handover

[0409] HLR Home Location Register

[0410] HN Home Network

[0411] HO Handover

[0412] HPLMN Home Public Land Mobile Network

[0413] HSDPA High-Speed ​​Downlink Packet Access

[0414] HSN Hopping Sequence Number

[0415] HSPA High Speed ​​Packet Access

[0416] HSS Home Subscriber Server

[0417] HSUPA High Speed ​​Uplink Packet Access

[0418] HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol

[0419] HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (https is http / 1.1 over SSL, i.e. port 443)

[0420] I-Block Information Block

[0421] ICCID Integrated Card Identification

[0422] ICIC Inter-cell Interference Coordination

[0423] ID identity, identifier

[0424] IDFT Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform

[0425] IE Information Elements

[0426] IBE In-Band Emissions

[0427] IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

[0428] IEI Information Element Identifier

[0429] IEIDL Information Element Identifier Data Length

[0430] IETF Internet Engineering Task Force

[0431] IF Infrastructure

[0432] IM Interference measurement, intermodulation, IP multimedia

[0433] IMC IMS Credentials

[0434] IMEII International Mobile Device Identity

[0435] IMGI International Mobile Group Identity

[0436] IMPI IP Multimedia Private Identity

[0437] IMPU IP Multimedia Public Identity

[0438] IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem

[0439] IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity

[0440] IoT Internet of Things

[0441] IP Internet Protocol

[0442] Ipsec IP Security, Internet Protocol Security

[0443] IP-CAN IP Connectivity Access Network

[0444] IP-M IP Multicast

[0445] IPv4 Internet Protocol Version 4

[0446] IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6

[0447] IR Infrared

[0448] IS in sync

[0449] IRP integration reference point

[0450] ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

[0451] ISIM IM Service Identity Module

[0452] ISO International Organization for Standardization

[0453] ISP Internet Service Provider

[0454] IWF Interaction Function

[0455] I-WLAN Interconnected WLAN

[0456] K is the constraint length of the convolutional code, USIM individual key

[0457] kB kilobyte (1000 bytes)

[0458] kbps kilobits per second

[0459] Kc encryption key

[0460] Ki Individual subscriber authentication key

[0461] KPI Key Performance Indicators

[0462] KQI Key Quality Indicator

[0463] KSI Keyset Identifier

[0464] ksps kilosymbols per second

[0465] KVM Kernel Virtual Machine

[0466] L1 layer 1 (physical layer)

[0467] L1-RSRP Layer 1 Reference Signal Received Power

[0468] L2 Layer 2 (Data Link Layer)

[0469] L3 Layer 3 (Network Layer)

[0470] LAA License Assisted Access

[0471] LAN Local Area Network

[0472] LBT Listen Before Talk

[0473] LCM Lifecycle Management

[0474] LCR Low Chip Rate

[0475] LCS Location Service

[0476] LCID Logical Channel ID

[0477] LI Layer Indicator

[0478] LLC Logical Link Control, Low Layer Compatibility

[0479] LPLMN Local PLMN

[0480] LPP LTE Positioning Protocol

[0481] LSB least significant bit

[0482] LTE Long Term Evolution

[0483] LWA LTE-WLAN aggregation

[0484] LTE / WLAN radio-level integration with LWIP IPsec tunnels

[0485] LTE Long Term Evolution

[0486] M2M Machine to Machine

[0487] MAC Media Access Control (Protocol Layer Context)

[0488] MAC Message Authentication Code (Security / Cryptographic Context)

[0489] MAC-A MAC used for authentication and key agreement (TSG T WG3 context)

[0490] MAC-I MAC used for data integrity of signalling messages (TSG T WG3 context)

[0491] MANO Management and Orchestration

[0492] MBMS Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service

[0493] MBSFN Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service Single Frequency Network

[0494] MCC Mobile Country Code

[0495] MCG Master Cell Group

[0496] MCOT Maximum Channel Occupancy Time

[0497] MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme

[0498] MDAF Management Data Analysis Function

[0499] MDAS Managed Data Analysis Service

[0500] Minimizing MDT drive tests

[0501] ME Mobile Device

[0502] MeNB Master eNB

[0503] MER Message Error Rate

[0504] MGL Measurement gap length

[0505] MGRP Measurement Gap Repeat Period

[0506] MIB Master Information Block, Management Information Base

[0507] MIMO multiple input multiple output

[0508] MLC Mobile Location Center

[0509] MM Mobility Management

[0510] MME Mobility Management Entity

[0511] MN Master Node

[0512] MO Measurement Object, Mobile Originated

[0513] MPBCH MTC Physical Broadcast Channel

[0514] MPDCCH MTC Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0515] MPDSCH MTC Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0516] MPRACH MTC Physical Random Access Channel

[0517] MPDSCH MTC Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0518] MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching

[0519] MS mobile station

[0520] MSB Most Significant Bit

[0521] MSC Mobile Switching Center

[0522] MSI Minimum System Information, MCH Scheduling Information

[0523] MSID Mobile Station Identifier

[0524] MSIN Mobile Station Identification Number

[0525] MSISDN Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number

[0526] MT Mobile Termination

[0527] MTC Machine Type Communication

[0528] mMTC Large-scale MTC, Large-scale Machine-Type Communication

[0529] MU-MIMO Multi-User MIMO

[0530] MWUS MTC wake-up signal, MTC WUS

[0531] NACK Negative Acknowledgment

[0532] NAI Network Access Identifier

[0533] NAS non-access layer

[0534] NCT Network Connection Topology

[0535] NEC Network Capability Disclosure

[0536] NE-DC NR-E-UTRA dual connectivity

[0537] NEF Network Disclosure Function

[0538] NF Network Function

[0539] NFP network transfer route

[0540] NFPD Network Forwarding Path Descriptor

[0541] NFV Network Functions Virtualization

[0542] NFVI NFV Infrastructure

[0543] NFVO NFV Orchestrator

[0544] NG Next generation

[0545] NGEN-DC NG-RAN E-UTRA-NR dual connectivity

[0546] NM Network Manager

[0547] NMS Network Management System

[0548] N-PoP Network Point of Presence

[0549] NMIB, N-MIB Narrowband MIB

[0550] NPBCH Narrowband Physical Broadcast Channel

[0551] NPDCCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0552] NPDSCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0553] NPRACH Narrowband Physical Random Access Channel

[0554] NPUSCH Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0555] NPSS Narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal

[0556] NSSS Narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal

[0557] NR New Radio, Neighborhood Relations

[0558] NRF NF Repository Function

[0559] NRS Narrowband Reference Signal

[0560] NS Network Services

[0561] NSA Non-Standalone Operation Mode

[0562] NSD Network Service Descriptor

[0563] NSR Network Service Record

[0564] NSSAI Network Slice Selection Support Information

[0565] S-NNSAI Single NSSAI

[0566] NSSF Network Slice Selection Function

[0567] NW Network

[0568] NWUS Narrowband wake-up signal, narrowband WUS

[0569] NZP Non-Zero Power

[0570] O&M Operation and Maintenance

[0571] ODU2 Optical Channel Data Unit - Type 2

[0572] OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

[0573] OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0574] OOB Out of Band

[0575] OOS Out of Sync

[0576] OPEX operating costs

[0577] OSI and other system information

[0578] OSS Operation Support System

[0579] OTA over-the-air

[0580] PAPR Peak-to-Average Power Ratio

[0581] PAR Peak to Average Ratio

[0582] PBCH Physical Broadcast Channel

[0583] PC power control, personal computer

[0584] PCC Primary Component Carrier, Primary CC

[0585] PCell Primary Cell

[0586] PCI Physical Cell ID, Physical Cell Identity

[0587] PCEF Policy and Charging Enforcement Function

[0588] PCF Policy Control Function

[0589] PCRF policy control and charging rule function

[0590] PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol, Packet Data Convergence Protocol Layer

[0591] PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0592] PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol

[0593] PDN Packet Data Network, Public Data Network

[0594] PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel

[0595] PDU Protocol Data Unit

[0596] PEI Permanent Equipment Identifier

[0597] PFD Packet Flow Description

[0598] P-GW PDN Gateway

[0599] PHICH Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel

[0600] PHY physical layer

[0601] PLMN Public Land Mobile Network

[0602] PIN Personal Identification Number

[0603] PM performance measurement

[0604] PMI Precoding Matrix Indicator

[0605] PNF Physical Network Function

[0606] PNFD Physical Network Function Descriptor

[0607] PNFR Physical Network Function Record

[0608] POC PTT via Cellular

[0609] PP,PTP Point-to-Point

[0610] PPP Point-to-Point Protocol

[0611] PRACH Physical RACH

[0612] PRB Physical Resource Block

[0613] PRG Physical Resource Block Group

[0614] ProSe Proximity Services, Proximity-Based Services

[0615] PRS Positioning Reference Signal

[0616] PRR packet receiving radio

[0617] PS Packet Service

[0618] PSBCH Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel

[0619] PSDCH Physical Sidelink Downlink Channel

[0620] PSCCH Physical Sidelink Control Channel

[0621] PSSCH Physical Sidelink Shared Channel

[0622] PSCell Primary SCell

[0623] PSS Primary Synchronization Signal

[0624] PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

[0625] PT-RS Phase Tracking Reference Signal

[0626] PTT Push to Talk

[0627] PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel

[0628] PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0629] QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

[0630] QCI Identifier QoS Class

[0631] QCL Quasi-collocation

[0632] QFI QoS Flow ID, QoS Flow Identifier

[0633] QoS Quality of Service

[0634] QPSK Quadrature (Quaternary) Phase Shift Keying

[0635] QZSS Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

[0636] RA-RNTI Random Access RNTI

[0637] RAB Radio Access Bearer, Random Access Burst

[0638] RACH Random Access Channel

[0639] Remote Authentication Dial in RADIUS User Service

[0640] RAN Radio Access Network

[0641] RAND Random number (used for authentication)

[0642] RAR Random Access Response

[0643] RAT Radio Access Technology

[0644] RAU Routing Area Update

[0645] RB Resource Block, Radio Bearer

[0646] RBG Resource Block Group

[0647] REG Resource Element Group

[0648] Rel release

[0649] REQ request

[0650] RF radio frequency

[0651] RI Rank Indicator

[0652] RIV Resource Indicator Value

[0653] RL Radio Link

[0654] RLC Radio Link Control, Radio Link Control Layer

[0655] RLC AM RLC acknowledged mode

[0656] RLC UM RLC Unacknowledged Mode

[0657] RLF Radio Link Failure

[0658] RLM Radio Link Monitoring

[0659] RLM-RS Reference signal for RLM

[0660] RM Registration Management

[0661] RMC Reference Measurement Channel

[0662] RMSI Remaining MSI, Minimum Remaining System Information

[0663] RN Relay Node

[0664] RNC Radio Network Controller

[0665] RNL Radio Network Layer

[0666] RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier

[0667] ROHC Robust Header Compression

[0668] RRC Radio Resource Control, Radio Resource Control Layer

[0669] RRM Radio Resource Management

[0670] RS reference signal

[0671] RSRP reference signal received power

[0672] RSRQ Reference Signal Received Quality

[0673] RSSI Received Signal Strength Indicator

[0674] RSU roadside unit

[0675] RSTD Reference signal time difference

[0676] RTP Real Time Protocol

[0677] RTS ready to send

[0678] RTT Round Trip Time

[0679] Rx Receiver

[0680] S1AP S1 Application Protocol

[0681] S1-MME S1 for control plane

[0682] S1-U S1 for user plane

[0683] S-GW Serving Gateway

[0684] S-RNTI SRNC Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0685] S-TMSI SAE temporary mobile station identifier

[0686] SA Standalone Operation Mode

[0687] SAE System Architecture Evolution

[0688] SAP Service Access Point

[0689] SAPD Service Access Point Descriptor

[0690] SAPI Service Access Point Identifier

[0691] SCC Secondary Component Carrier, Secondary CC

[0692] SCell Secondary Cell

[0693] SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0694] SCG Secondary Cell Group

[0695] SCM Security Context Management

[0696] SCS Subcarrier Spacing

[0697] SCTP Stream Control Transmission Protocol

[0698] SDAP Service Data Adaptation Protocol, Service Data Adaptation Protocol Layer

[0699] SDL Auxiliary Downlink

[0700] SDNF Structured Data Storage Network Function

[0701] SDP Service Discovery Protocol (Bluetooth related)

[0702] SDSF Structured Data Storage Facility

[0703] SDU Service Data Unit

[0704] SEAF Security Anchor Function

[0705] SeNB Secondary eNB

[0706] SEPP Security Edge Protection Proxy

[0707] SFI Slot Format Indication

[0708] SFTD Space Frequency Time Diversity, SFN and Frame Timing Difference

[0709] SFN System Frame Number

[0710] SgNB Secondary gNB

[0711] SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node

[0712] S-GW Serving Gateway

[0713] SI System Information

[0714] SI-RNTI System Information RNTI

[0715] SIB System Information Block

[0716] SIM Subscriber Identity Module

[0717] SIP Session Initiation Protocol

[0718] SiP System in Package

[0719] SL Side Link

[0720] SLA Service Level Agreement

[0721] SM Session Management

[0722] SMF Session Management Facility

[0723] SMS Short Message Service

[0724] SMSF SMS function

[0725] SMTC SSB-based measurement timing configuration

[0726] SN Secondary Node, Sequence Number

[0727] SoC System on Chip

[0728] SON Self-Organizing Network

[0729] SpCell dedicated cell

[0730] SP-CSI-RNTI Anti-persistent CSI RNTI

[0731] SPS Anti-persistent Scheduling

[0732] SQN Sequence Number

[0733] SR Scheduling Request

[0734] SRB Signaling Radio Bearer

[0735] SRS Sounding Reference Signal

[0736] SS Sync Signal

[0737] SSB synchronization signal block, SS / PBCH block

[0738] SSBRI SS / PBCH Block Resource Indicator, Synchronization Signal Block Resource Indicator

[0739] SSC Session and Service Continuity

[0740] SS-RSRP synchronization signal-based reference signal received power

[0741] SS-RSRQ Synchronization Signal-Based Reference Signal Reception Quality

[0742] SS-SINR Synchronization signal based signal-to-noise and interference ratio

[0743] SSS Secondary Synchronization Signal

[0744] SSSG Search Space Set Group

[0745] SSSIF Search Space Set Indicator

[0746] SST Slice / Service Type

[0747] SU-MIMO Single User MIMO

[0748] SUL Auxiliary Uplink

[0749] TA Timing Advance, Tracking Area

[0750] TAC Tracking Area Code

[0751] TAG Timing Advance Group

[0752] TAU Tracking Area Update

[0753] TB Transport Block

[0754] TBS Transport Block Size

[0755] TBD To Be Defined

[0756] TCI Transmit Configuration Indicator

[0757] TCP transmission communication protocol

[0758] TDD Time Division Duplex

[0759] TDM time division multiplexing

[0760] TDMA Time Division Multiple Access

[0761] TE Terminal Equipment

[0762] TEID Tunnel Endpoint Identifier

[0763] TFT Traffic Flow Template

[0764] TMSI Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity

[0765] TNL Transport Network Layer

[0766] TPC transmit power control

[0767] TPMI Transmit Precoding Matrix Indicator

[0768] TR technical report

[0769] TRP,TRxP Transmission and reception point

[0770] TRS Tracking Reference Signal

[0771] TRx Transceiver

[0772] TS Technical Specifications, Technical Standards

[0773] TTI Transmission Time Interval

[0774] Tx Transmitter

[0775] U-RNTI UTRAN Radio Network Temporary Identity

[0776] UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter

[0777] UCI Uplink Control Information

[0778] UE User Equipment

[0779] UDM Unified Data Management

[0780] UDP User Datagram Protocol

[0781] UDSF Unstructured Data Storage Network Facility

[0782] UICC Universal Integrated Circuit Card

[0783] UL Uplink

[0784] UM Unacknowledged Mode

[0785] UML Unified Modeling Language

[0786] UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

[0787] UP User Plane

[0788] UPF User Plane Function

[0789] URI Uniform Resource Identifier

[0790] URL Uniform Resource Locator

[0791] URLLC Ultra-reliable and low latency

[0792] USB Universal Serial Bus

[0793] USIM Universal Subscriber Identity Module

[0794] USS UE unique search space

[0795] UTRA UMTS terminal radio access

[0796] UTRAN Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network

[0797] UwPTS Uplink Pilot Time Slot

[0798] V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure

[0799] V2P Vehicle-to-Pedestrian

[0800] V2V Vehicle to Vehicle

[0801] V2X Vehicle to Everything

[0802] VIM Virtualization Infrastructure Manager

[0803] VL Virtual Link,

[0804] VLAN Virtual LAN, Virtual Local Area Network

[0805] VM Virtual Machine

[0806] VNF Virtualized Network Functions

[0807] VNFFG VNF forwarding graph

[0808] VNFFGD VNF Forwarding Graph Descriptor

[0809] VNFM VNF Manager

[0810] VoIP Voice over IP, Voice over Internet Protocol

[0811] VPLMN Visited Public Mobile Land Network

[0812] VPN Virtual Private Network

[0813] VRB Virtual Resource Block

[0814] WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access

[0815] WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

[0816] WMAN Wireless Metropolitan Area Network

[0817] WPAN Wireless Personal Area Network

[0818] X2-C X2-Control Plane

[0819] X2-U X2-User Plane

[0820] XML Extensible Markup Language

[0821] XRES Expected User Response

[0822] XOR Exclusive OR

[0823] ZC Zadoff-Chu

[0824] ZP Zero Power Terminology

[0825] For purposes of this specification, the following terms and definitions are applicable to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

[0826] As used herein, the term “circuitry” refers to, is a part of, or includes hardware components configured to provide a described functionality, such as electronic circuits, logic circuits, processors (shared, dedicated, or groups) and / or memories (shared, dedicated, or groups), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable devices (FPDs) (e.g., field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-volume PLDs (HCPLDs), structured ASICs, or programmable SoCs), digital signal processors (DSPs), etc. In some embodiments, a circuit can execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least a portion of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” can also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or combinations of circuitry used in an electrical or electronic system) and program code used to perform the functions of that program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuit.

[0827] As used herein, the term "processor circuitry" refers to, is a part of, or includes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically performing a series of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing, and / or transferring digital data. The term "processor circuitry" can refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, physical central processing units (CPUs), single-core processors, dual-core processors, triple-core processors, quad-core processors, and / or any other device capable of executing or running computer-executable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and / or functional processes. The terms "application circuitry" and / or "baseband circuitry" are considered synonymous with "processor circuitry" and may be referred to as "processor circuitry."

[0828] As used herein, the term "interface circuitry" refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuitry" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I / O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, and / or the like.

[0829] As used herein, the term "user equipment" or "UE" refers to a device having wireless communication capabilities and may represent a remote user of network resources in a communication network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered synonymous with and may be referred to as client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless / wired device or any computing device that includes a wireless communication interface.

[0830] As used herein, the term "network element" refers to physical or virtualized equipment and / or infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered synonymous with and / or may be referred to as a networked computer, networked hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, etc.

[0831] As used herein, the term "computer system" refers to any type of interconnected electronic device, computing device, or component thereof. Additionally, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" can refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled to each other. Additionally, the terms "computer system" and / or "system" can refer to multiple computing devices and / or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled to each other and configured to share computing and / or networking resources.

[0832] As used herein, the terms "device," "computer device," and the like refer to a computing device or system having program code (e.g., software or firmware) specifically designed to provide specific computing resources. A "virtual device" is a virtual machine image implemented by a device with a dedicated hypervisor to virtualize or emulate a computing device or to provide specific computing resources.

[0833] As used herein, the term "resource" refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and / or a physical or virtual component within a specific device, such as a computer device, mechanical device, memory space, processor / CPU time, processor / CPU usage, processor and accelerator load, hardware time or usage, power, input / output operations, ports or network sockets, channel / link allocation, throughput, memory usage, storage, network, database and application, or workload unit. A "hardware resource" may refer to computational, storage, and / or network resources provided by a physical hardware element. A "virtualized resource" may refer to computational, storage, and / or network resources provided by a virtualization infrastructure to an application, device, system, etc. The term "network resource" or "communication resource" may refer to a resource accessible by a computer device / system via a communications network. The term "system resource" may refer to any type of shared entity for providing services and may include computing resources and / or network resources. A system resource may be considered a set of coherent functions, network data objects, or services accessible through a clearly identifiable server, where such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts.

[0834] As used herein, the term "channel" refers to any tangible or intangible transmission medium used to communicate data or data streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous and / or equivalent to "communication channel," "data communication channel," "transmission channel," "data transmission channel," "access channel," "data access channel," "link," "data link," "carrier," "radio frequency carrier," and / or any other similar term indicating a path or medium over which data is communicated. Furthermore, as used herein, the term "link" refers to a connection between two devices via a RAT for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

[0835] As used herein, the terms "instantiate," "instantiation," and the like refer to the creation of an instance. An "instance" also refers to a concrete occurrence of an object that may occur, for example, during the execution of program code.

[0836] The terms "coupled" and "communicatively coupled," along with their derivatives, are used herein. The term "coupled" can mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, can mean that two or more elements cooperate or interact with each other while in indirect contact with each other, and / or can mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements that are said to be coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" can mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" can mean that two or more elements can be in contact with each other by communication means, including via a wire or other interconnection, via a wireless communication channel or interface, and / or the like.

[0837] The term "information element" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to an individual piece of content in an information element or data element that contains content.

[0838] The term "SMTC" refers to the SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

[0839] The term "SSB" refers to an SS / PBCH block.

[0840] The term "primary cell" refers to an MCG cell operating on a primary frequency, on which the UE performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

[0841] "Primary SCG cell" refers to the SCG cell that the UE randomly accesses when reconfiguring using the synchronization procedure for DC operation.

[0842] The term "secondary cell" refers to a cell that provides additional radio resources above a dedicated cell for a UE configured with CA.

[0843] The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells including a PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UE configured with a DC.

[0844] The term "serving cell" refers to the primary cell for a UE in RRC_CONNECTED that is not configured with CA / DC, and there is only one serving cell that consists of the primary cell.

[0845] The term "serving cells" refers to the set of cells including the special cells and all secondary cells for the UE in RRC_CONNECTED configured with CA / .

[0846] The term "dedicated cell" refers to a PCell of an MCG or a PSCell of an SCG for DC operation. Otherwise, the term "dedicated cell" refers to a PCell.

[0847] As noted above, aspects of the present technology may include collecting and using data available from various sources, for example, to improve or enhance functionality. This disclosure contemplates that, in some examples, this collected data may include personal information data that uniquely identifies a particular person or that can be used to contact or locate a particular person. Such personal information data may include demographic data, location-based data, phone numbers, email addresses, Twitter IDs, addresses, data or records regarding a user's health or fitness level (e.g., vital sign measurements, medication information, exercise information), birth date, or any other identifying or personal information. This disclosure recognizes that the use of such personal information data in the present technology may be for the user's benefit.

[0848] This disclosure contemplates that entities involved in the collection, analysis, disclosure, transmission, storage, or other use of such personal information data will adhere to robust privacy policies and / or privacy practices. Specifically, such entities should implement and consistently use privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or government requirements for maintaining the strict confidentiality of personal information data. Such policies should be easily accessible to users and should be updated as data collection and / or use changes. Personal information from users should be collected for the entity's lawful and legitimate use and should not be shared or sold except for those lawful uses. Furthermore, such collection / sharing should only be carried out after the user's informed consent is obtained. Furthermore, such entities should consider taking all necessary measures to protect and secure access to such personal information data and to ensure that others with access to that personal information data comply with their privacy policies and procedures. Furthermore, such entities may be able to undergo third-party assessments to demonstrate their adherence to widely accepted privacy policies and practices. Furthermore, policies and practices should be tailored to the specific types of personal data collected and / or accessed and should comply with applicable laws, regulations, and standards, including jurisdiction-specific considerations. For example, in the United States, the collection of or access to certain health data may be governed by federal and / or state laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), while health data in other countries may be subject to other regulations and policies and should be addressed accordingly. Therefore, different privacy practices should be maintained in each country with respect to different types of personal data.

[0849] Notwithstanding the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplates embodiments in which a user selectively blocks use of or access to personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplates that hardware and / or software elements may be provided to prevent or block access to such personal information data. For example, the present technology may be configured to allow a user to select "opt-in" or "opt-out" of participating in the collection of personal information data during service registration or at any time thereafter. In addition to providing "opt-in" and "opt-out" options, the present disclosure contemplates providing notice regarding the access or use of personal information. For example, the user may be notified upon downloading an app that will access the user's personal information data, and then again immediately before the app accesses the user's personal information data.

[0850] Furthermore, it is the intent of this disclosure that personal information data should be managed and handled in a manner that minimizes the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use. Risk can be minimized by limiting data collection and deleting data when it is no longer needed. Furthermore, where applicable, de-identification of data can be used to protect user privacy in certain health-related applications. De-identification can be facilitated, where appropriate, by removing certain identifiers (e.g., date of birth, etc.), controlling the amount or specificity of data stored (e.g., collecting location data at a city level rather than an address level), controlling how data is stored (e.g., aggregating data across users), and / or other methods.

[0851] Thus, while this disclosure broadly covers the use of personal information data to implement one or more of the various disclosed embodiments, this disclosure also contemplates that the various embodiments may be implemented without requiring access to such personal information data, i.e., various embodiments of the present technology are not rendered inoperable by the absence of all or part of such personal information data.

Claims

1. 1. An apparatus for performing beam selection, comprising: a radio front-end circuit; a processor circuit coupled to the radio front-end circuit, receiving a request for a report for at least one uplink beam from a base station; generating the report in response to receiving the request for the report, the report including an indication that resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam are available for uplink beam indication; the resource is a synchronization signal block (SSB) resource, and the indication includes an SSB resource indicator (SSBRI) for indicating an SSB resource index; or the resource is a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource, and the indication includes a channel state information resource indicator for indicating a CSI-RS resource index; transmitting the report to the base station using the radio front-end circuit; receiving a second indication from the base station that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission based at least on the report; determining that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or that a quality value of the at least one uplink beam is below a threshold; Upon determining that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or the quality value of the at least one uplink beam is below a threshold, using the radio front-end circuitry, transmit a beam recovery request to the base station identifying second resources corresponding to a second uplink beam available for uplink beam direction, the second resources being SSB resources or CSI-RS resources; receiving a beam recovery request response from the base station indicating that the second uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission; a processor circuit configured as follows:

1. An apparatus for performing beam selection, comprising:

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the report includes radiation information for the resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam.

3. 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the report includes a maximum power reduction (MPR) level for the resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam.

4. 10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to receive the request for the report from the base station via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI).

5. to receive the second indication that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission, the processor circuitry:

10. The apparatus of claim 1, further configured to receive, from the base station, via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI), an antenna port group for the at least one uplink beam.

6. 1. A method for performing beam selection, comprising: receiving a request for a report for at least one uplink beam from a base station; generating the report in response to receiving the request for the report, the report including an indication that resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam are available for uplink beam indication; the resource is a synchronization signal block (SSB) resource, and the indication includes an SSB resource indicator (SSBRI) for indicating an SSB resource index; or generating a CSI-RS resource index indicator for indicating a CSI-RS resource index; transmitting said report to said base station; receiving a second indication from the base station that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission based at least on the report; and determining that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or that a quality value of the at least one uplink beam is below a threshold; transmitting, using a radio front-end circuit, a beam recovery request to the base station upon determining that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or the quality value of the at least one uplink beam is below a threshold, the beam recovery request identifying second resources corresponding to a second uplink beam available for uplink beam direction, the second resources being SSB resources or CSI-RS resources; receiving a beam recovery request response from the base station indicating that the second uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission; and A method for performing beam selection, including:

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the report includes radiation information for the resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the report includes a maximum power reduction (MPR) level for the resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam.

9. receiving the request for the report; 10. The method of claim 6, further comprising receiving the request for the report from the base station via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI).

10. receiving the second indication that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission; 10. The method of claim 6, further comprising receiving, from the base station, via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI), an antenna port group for the at least one uplink beam.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors, causing the one or more processors to: receiving a request for a report for at least one uplink beam from a base station; generating the report in response to receiving the request for the report for the at least one uplink beam, the report including an indication that resources corresponding to the at least one uplink beam are available for uplink beam indication; the resource is a synchronization signal block (SSB) resource, and the indication includes an SSB resource indicator (SSBRI) for indicating an SSB resource index; or the resource is a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource, and the indication includes a channel state information resource indicator for indicating a CSI-RS resource index; transmitting the report for the at least one uplink beam to the base station; receiving a second indication from the base station that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission based on the report for the at least one uplink beam; determining that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or that a quality value of the at least one uplink beam is below a threshold; upon determining that the at least one uplink beam is not radiation-safe or the quality value of the at least one uplink beam is below a threshold, causing the base station, using a radio front-end circuit, to transmit a beam recovery request identifying second resources corresponding to a second uplink beam available for uplink beam direction, the second resources being SSB resources or CSI-RS resources; A non-transitory computer-readable medium that performs operations including receiving a beam recovery request response from the base station indicating that the second uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission.

12. 12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the report includes radiation information for the resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam.

13. 12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the report includes a maximum power reduction (MPR) level for the resource corresponding to the at least one uplink beam.

14. receiving the request for the report; 12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising receiving the request for the report from the base station via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI).

15. receiving the second indication that the at least one uplink beam is selectable for uplink transmission; 12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising receiving, from the base station, via radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control element (MAC-CE), or downlink control information (DCI), an antenna port group for the at least one uplink beam.

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