Method and apparatus used for sidelink communication

Abstract

The present application provides a method and apparatus used for sidelink communication, which facilitate, on the basis of a sidelink, initial beam pairing of two or more terminal devices in a sidelink communication system. The method comprises: a first terminal device determining a first transmitting beam among multiple transmitting beams of a second terminal device, the first transmitting beam being used for the first terminal device to perform initial beam pairing with the second terminal device; the first terminal device sending beam feedback to the second terminal device on a first resource, the first resource being determined based on first information, the first information being used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources comprising the first resource and the multiple transmitting beams, and the first information also being used for the second terminal device to determine the first transmitting beam.

Description

Method and device for sideline communication Technical Field

[0001] The present application relates to the field of communication technology, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for sideline communication. Background Art

[0002] When communicating in higher-frequency bands (e.g., millimeter-wave bands), network equipment can achieve system coverage through beam scanning using large-scale antenna arrays. Beam scanning requires certain spatial and temporal resources and consumes significant power. Therefore, network equipment and terminal devices use beam pairing to determine the optimal transmit and receive beam pair for uplink and downlink transmission.

[0003] In a sideline communication system, when a terminal device performs initial beam pairing based on a sideline link, how to determine the resources used for beam feedback is a problem that needs to be solved.

[0004] Summary of the Invention

[0005] The present application provides a method and apparatus for sideline communication. The following describes various aspects of the embodiments of the present application.

[0006] In a first aspect, a method for sideline communication is provided, including: a first terminal device determines a first transmission beam among multiple transmission beams of a second terminal device, and the first transmission beam is used for initial beam pairing between the first terminal device and the second terminal device; the first terminal device sends beam feedback to the second terminal device on a first resource, and the first resource is determined based on first information, and the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmission beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmission beam.

[0007] According to a second aspect, a method for sideline communication is provided, comprising: a second terminal device sends a reference signal through multiple transmit beams, the multiple transmit beams are used by the first terminal device to determine a first transmit beam, and the first transmit beam is used for the first terminal device to perform initial beam pairing with the second terminal device; the second terminal device receives beam feedback sent by the first terminal device on a first resource, the first resource is determined based on first information, the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

[0008] According to a third aspect, a device for sideline communication is provided, wherein the device is a first terminal device, and the first terminal device includes: a determination unit, configured to determine a first transmission beam among multiple transmission beams of a second terminal device, wherein the first transmission beam is used for initial beam pairing between the first terminal device and the second terminal device; and a sending unit, configured to send beam feedback to the second terminal device on a first resource, wherein the first resource is determined based on first information, wherein the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmission beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmission beam.

[0009] In a fourth aspect, a device for sideline communication is provided, which is a second terminal device, and the second terminal device includes: a sending unit, used to send a reference signal through multiple transmit beams, and the multiple transmit beams are used by the first terminal device to determine a first transmit beam, and the first transmit beam is used for the first terminal device to perform initial beam pairing with the second terminal device; a receiving unit, used to receive beam feedback sent by the first terminal device on a first resource, and the first resource is determined according to first information, and the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

[0010] In a fifth aspect, a communication device is provided, comprising a memory and a processor, wherein the memory is used to store a program, and the processor is used to call the program in the memory to execute the method described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0011] In a sixth aspect, a device is provided, comprising a processor for calling a program from a memory to execute the method as described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0012] In a seventh aspect, a chip is provided, comprising a processor for calling a program from a memory so that a device equipped with the chip executes the method described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0013] In an eighth aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, on which a program is stored, wherein the program enables a computer to execute the method as described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0014] In a ninth aspect, a computer program product is provided, comprising a program, wherein the program enables a computer to execute the method as described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0015] In a tenth aspect, a computer program is provided, which enables a computer to execute the method as described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0016] In this embodiment of the present application, after determining the first transmit beam for initial beam pairing with the second terminal device, the first terminal device can determine the first resource for sending beam feedback based on the first information. The first information can indicate the correspondence between multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device and multiple resources. Thus, the second terminal device can determine the transmit beam selected by the first terminal device based on the first resource for which beam feedback was received, thereby achieving more efficient beam pairing. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0017] FIG1 is a wireless communication system used in an embodiment of the present application.

[0018] Figure 2 is an example diagram of NR-V2X communication.

[0019] FIG3 is a schematic diagram of beam scanning performed by a transmitting terminal and a receiving terminal respectively.

[0020] FIG4 is a schematic diagram of beam scanning of multiple transmitting terminals corresponding to one receiving terminal.

[0021] FIG5 is a flow chart of a method for sideline communication provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0022] FIG6 is a schematic diagram of the second terminal device performing periodic transmission beam scanning.

[0023] FIG7 is a schematic diagram of a possible mapping relationship between S-SSB and FO.

[0024] FIG8 is a schematic diagram of a possible mapping relationship between S-SSB and FO occupied resources.

[0025] FIG9 is a schematic diagram of another possible mapping relationship between S-SSB and FO occupied resources.

[0026] FIG10 is a flow chart of a possible implementation of the method shown in FIG5 .

[0027] FIG11 is a schematic structural diagram of a device for sideline communication provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0028] FIG12 is a schematic structural diagram of another device for sideline communication provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0029] FIG13 is a schematic diagram of the structure of a communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0030] The following will describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of this application in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of this application. Obviously, the embodiments described are part of the embodiments of this application, not all of the embodiments. With respect to the embodiments in this application, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without making creative efforts are within the scope of protection of this application.

[0031] Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating a system architecture of a wireless communication system 100 applicable to an embodiment of the present application. The wireless communication system 100 may include a network device 110 and terminal devices 121 to 129. The network device 110 may provide communication coverage for a specific geographic area and may communicate with terminals within the coverage area.

[0032] In some implementations, terminal devices may communicate with each other via a sidelink (SL). Sidelink communication may also be referred to as proximity service communication, unilateral communication, sidelink communication, device-to-device (D2D) communication, etc.

[0033] In other words, sidelink data is transmitted between terminal devices via a sidelink. The sidelink data may include data and / or control signaling. In some implementations, the sidelink data may be, for example, a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH), a PSCCH demodulation reference signal (DMRS), a PSSCH DMRS, a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH), etc.

[0034] The following describes several common sidelink communication scenarios with reference to Figure 1. Sidelink communication can be categorized into three scenarios, depending on whether the terminal device in the sidelink is within the coverage of the network device. Scenario 1: The terminal device conducts sidelink communication within the coverage of the network device. Scenario 2: Some terminal devices conduct sidelink communication within the coverage of the network device. Scenario 3: The terminal device conducts sidelink communication outside the coverage of the network device.

[0035] As shown in Figure 1, in scenario 1, terminal devices 121-122 can communicate via a sidelink, and terminal devices 121-122 are all within the coverage of network device 110, or in other words, terminal devices 121-122 are all within the coverage of the same network device 110. In this scenario, network device 110 can send configuration signaling to terminal devices 121-122, and accordingly, terminal devices 121-122 communicate via the sidelink based on the configuration signaling.

[0036] As shown in Figure 1, in scenario 2, terminal devices 123 to 124 can communicate via a side link, and terminal device 123 is within the coverage of network device 110, while terminal device 124 is outside the coverage of network device 110. In this scenario, terminal device 123 receives configuration information from network device 110 and communicates via a side link based on the configuration of the configuration signaling. However, for terminal device 124, since terminal device 124 is outside the coverage of network device 110, it cannot receive the configuration information of network device 110. At this time, terminal device 124 can obtain the configuration of the side link communication based on the pre-configuration configuration information and / or the configuration information sent by terminal device 123 within the coverage area, so as to communicate with terminal device 123 via the side link based on the obtained configuration.

[0037] In some cases, the terminal device 123 may send the above configuration information to the terminal device 124 via a physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH) to configure the terminal device 124 to communicate via the sidelink.

[0038] As shown in Figure 1, in scenario 3, terminal devices 125-129 are all outside the coverage of network device 110 and cannot communicate with network device 110. In this case, the terminal devices can all perform sidelink communication based on pre-configured information.

[0039] In some cases, terminal devices 127-129 located outside the coverage area of ​​the network device can form a communication group, and the terminal devices 127-129 in the communication group can communicate with each other. In addition, the terminal device 127 in the communication group can serve as a central control node, also known as a cluster header (CH), and correspondingly, the terminal devices in other communication groups can be referred to as "group members."

[0040] It should be noted that Figure 1 exemplarily shows a network device and multiple terminal devices. Optionally, the wireless communication system 100 may include multiple network devices and the coverage range of each network device may include other numbers of terminal devices. This embodiment of the present application does not limit this.

[0041] Optionally, the wireless communication system 100 may further include other network entities such as a network controller and a mobility management entity, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

[0042] It should be understood that the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: fifth generation (5G) system or new radio (NR) system, long term evolution (LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (TDD) system, etc. The technical solutions provided in this application can also be applied to future communication systems, such as the sixth generation mobile communication system, satellite communication system, etc.

[0043] The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may also be referred to as user equipment (UE), access terminal, user unit, user station, mobile station, mobile station (MS), mobile terminal (MT), remote station, remote terminal, mobile device, user terminal, wireless communication device, user agent or user device. The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be a device that provides voice and / or data connectivity to a user, and can be used to connect people, objects and machines, such as a handheld device with wireless connection function, a vehicle-mounted device, etc. The terminal device in the embodiment of the present application may be a mobile phone, a tablet computer (Pad), a laptop computer, a PDA, a mobile internet device (MID), a wearable device, a vehicle, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in self-driving, a wireless terminal in remote medical surgery, a wireless terminal in smart grid, a wireless terminal in transportation safety, a wireless terminal in smart city, a wireless terminal in smart home, etc. Optionally, the terminal device can be used to act as a base station. For example, a terminal device can act as a dispatching entity, providing sidelink signals between terminal devices in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) or D2D networks. For example, a cell phone and a car can communicate with each other using sidelink data. A cell phone and a smart home device can also communicate with each other without relaying the communication signal through a base station.

[0044] The network device in the embodiments of the present application may be a device for communicating with a terminal device, and may also be referred to as an access network device or a radio access network device. For example, the network device may be a base station. The network device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to a radio access network (RAN) node (or device) that connects a terminal device to a wireless network. A base station can broadly cover various names as follows, or be replaced with the following names, such as: NodeB, evolved NodeB (eNB), next generation NodeB (gNB), relay station, transmission point (TRP), transmitting point (TP), access point (AP), master station MeNB, secondary station SeNB, multi-standard radio (MSR) node, home base station, network controller, access node, wireless node, transmission node, transceiver node, baseband unit (BBU), remote radio unit (RRU), active antenna unit (AAU), remote radio head (RRH), central unit (CU), distributed unit (DU), positioning node, etc. A base station can be a macro base station, a micro base station, a relay node, a donor node or the like, or a combination thereof. A base station can also refer to a communication module, modem or chip used to be set in the aforementioned device or apparatus. The base station can also be a mobile switching center and a device that performs base station functions in D2D, V2X, and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, a network-side device in a 6G network, or a device that performs base station functions in future communication systems. The base station can support networks with the same or different access technologies. The embodiments of this application do not limit the specific technology and specific device form used by the network equipment.

[0045] Base stations can be fixed or mobile. For example, a helicopter or drone can be configured to act as a mobile base station, and one or more cells can move based on the location of the mobile base station. In other examples, a helicopter or drone can be configured to act as a device that communicates with another base station.

[0046] In some deployments, the network device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to a CU or a DU, or the network device may include a CU and a DU. The gNB may also include an AAU.

[0047] The network equipment and terminal devices can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, handheld or vehicle-mounted; they can also be deployed on water; they can also be deployed in the air on aircraft, balloons, and satellites. The embodiments of this application do not limit the scenarios in which the network equipment and terminal devices are located.

[0048] It should be understood that all or part of the functions of the communication device in this application can also be implemented through software functions running on hardware, or through virtualization functions instantiated on a platform (such as a cloud platform).

[0049] For ease of understanding, some relevant technical knowledge involved in the embodiments of this application is first introduced. The following related technologies can be combined with the technical solutions of the embodiments of this application as optional solutions, and they all fall within the scope of protection of the embodiments of this application. The embodiments of this application include at least part of the following contents.

[0050] With the development of wireless communication technology, communication systems have increasingly higher requirements for data transmission speeds, number of connections, and coverage. For example, the 5G mobile standard requires improvements based on higher data transmission speeds, a larger number of connections, and better coverage to provide data rates of tens of megabits per second for each of tens of thousands of users.

[0051] Some wireless communication networks (e.g., 5G or subsequent technology evolutions) can support operation in very high or even extra high frequency (EHF) bands. These higher frequency bands (FR) include millimeter wave (mmW) bands. Typically, these bands correspond to wavelengths of 1mm to 10mm, or frequencies of 30GHz to 300GHz. For example, FR2 in 5G systems corresponds to a frequency range of 24.25 to 52.6GHz.

[0052] These high-frequency bands can support very high throughput when used for communications. However, significant propagation loss at high frequencies is one of the challenges of wireless communications at these very high or extreme frequencies. For example, in the millimeter wave band, propagation loss can be severe.

[0053] To reduce propagation losses, beamforming can be performed using large-scale antenna arrays. However, the large number of densely distributed antenna elements increases the complexity and cost of digital beamforming. Communication devices typically perform beamforming in the analog domain based on large-scale antenna arrays. The beam generated by analog beamforming points in a single direction at a given moment. Communication devices transmit using beam scanning, also known as beam sweeping. For example, network equipment can transmit data to terminal devices by sweeping a set of beams focused in different directions. Another example is that network equipment can achieve system coverage through beam scanning. However, beam scanning requires certain spatial and temporal resources and consumes a lot of power. In other words, generating and scanning a set of swept beams is expensive in terms of power consumption, time, and air resources.

[0054] For communications between network devices and terminal devices, when the terminal device is within the coverage area of ​​the network device, beam pairing can be used to determine the optimal transmit and receive beam pair for uplink / downlink transmission. Beam pairing can also be referred to as beam alignment or beam targeting. For example, in communications between network devices and terminal devices based on the Uu communication interface, a three-stage initial beam pairing process can be used for initial pairing. The three-stage initial beam pairing process includes three processes: P1, P2, and P3.

[0055] For sidelink communication system terminals, beam pairing can effectively improve transmission rates and increase sidelink coverage. However, how to perform beam pairing on the sidelink remains a challenge. For example, in FR2, how to establish beam pairing for subsequent sidelink communications is one of the research topics of Release 18.

[0056] In order to analyze this problem, the communication mode of the sidelink is first briefly described with reference to FIG1 and FIG2 .

[0057] With the development of side-by-side communication technology, its application scenarios are increasing. For example, multiple V2X scenarios have been proposed in NR. These V2X scenarios include vehicle platooning, advanced driving, extended sensors, remote driving, and more.

[0058] Sidewalk communication technology can involve information exchange between multiple terminal devices. Taking the V2X communication system 200 shown in Figure 2 as an example, the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication performed by terminal device 201 and terminal device 202 involves information exchange between vehicles themselves. The vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, vehicle-to-network (V2N) communication, and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communication performed by terminal device 201 and terminal devices 203 to 205, respectively, involve information exchange between vehicles and external systems.

[0059] The gradual expansion of information exchange places higher demands on communication systems. For example, these systems must support higher throughput, lower latency, greater reliability, wider coverage, and more flexible resource allocation. Taking the development of V2X as an example, in LTE-V2X, only broadcast mode is supported for sidelink communication between end devices. NR-V2X supports three communication modes: broadcast, groupcast, and unicast.

[0060] Broadcast is the most basic communication mode in sideline communications. In a broadcast transmission mode, the terminal device receiving the sideline data can be any terminal device surrounding the transmitting terminal device. For example, referring to Figure 1 , assuming terminal device 125 is the transmitter and broadcasts sideline data, then terminal devices 121-124 and 126-129 located around terminal device 125 may all serve as receivers of the sideline data.

[0061] Multicast communication supports information exchange between terminal devices within a specific group (or communication group) to facilitate negotiation and decision-making among terminal devices within the group. Sidelink multicast is divided into two transmission types. Type 1 is for fixed groups (managed groups) with stable connections, with clear identification (ID) information and information about group members. Type 2 is for temporary groups (connectionless groups) formed in a connectionless manner. For example, it is a multicast that is dynamically formed based on distance and requires clear indication of the communication distance of the current service.

[0062] For the multicast transmission mode, the terminal devices receiving the sideline data may be all the terminal devices in a communication group. Alternatively, the terminal devices receiving the sideline data may be all the terminal devices within a certain transmission distance. For example, referring to FIG1 , for a communication group including terminal devices 127 to 129, when terminal device 127 sends sideline data in a multicast manner, the other terminal devices 128 to 129 in the communication group are all receiving terminals that receive the sideline data. For another example, referring to FIG1 , assuming that the terminal devices within a preset range include terminal devices 127 to 129, when terminal device 127 sends sideline data in a multicast manner, the other terminal devices 128 to 129 within the preset range are all receiving terminals that receive the sideline data.

[0063] Unicast communication can achieve sidelink communication between two terminal devices. Taking NR-V2X as an example, the radio resource control (RRC) signaling based on the newly defined PC5 interface can achieve reliable communication between terminal devices. For example, two terminal devices can achieve unicast communication by establishing a unicast link. A unicast link can also be called a unicast link. For example, a terminal device can establish a unicast link based on a direct communication request (DCR).

[0064] As mentioned previously, beam scanning consumes significant power and consumes expensive spatial and temporal resources. Therefore, in a sidelink communication system, terminal devices must perform beam pairing based on the sidelink to establish unicast or multicast links with other terminal devices. Whether establishing a unicast link, a multicast link, or a broadcast link, beam pairing cannot be performed solely by the receiving or transmitting terminal devices.

[0065] The previous section describes various sidelink communication modes. For unicast mode, the initial beam pairing process between two end devices can occur before or after the unicast link is established. The term "unicast link" in the following text can be replaced with a sidelink unicast link or a sidelink unicast link.

[0066] The initial beam pairing process is performed before the unicast link is established. That is, the initial beams are first paired, and the unicast link is established through the paired beams. The key goal of performing this initial beam pairing is to enable the terminal device to use the paired beams to establish a unicast link. By performing the initial beam pairing, the first terminal device can establish a unicast link with other terminal devices that are farther away, thereby meeting more business needs or more advanced business use case requirements. If the initial beam pairing process is not performed before the unicast link is established, the terminal device may not be able to determine the appropriate beam pair for the required information exchange, and the basic communication range cannot be guaranteed.

[0067] On the other hand, performing initial beam pairing before the unicast link is established can also improve resource utilization. Since no unicast link is established, the terminal device may not be aware of other communication devices in the surrounding area before beam pairing. Therefore, the terminal device may perform initial beam pairing based on DCR. For example, the terminal device on the transmitting end may need to perform multiple transmit beam scans based on all beams that send DCR messages in order to start the process of establishing a unicast link with the intended terminal device. Since DCR is usually carried on PSSCH, the terminal device on the transmitting end may need to establish a unicast link through the transmission of multiple PSSCHs, resulting in inefficient utilization of time-frequency resources.

[0068] Whether initial beam pairing is performed before or after a unicast link is established, the terminal device must predetermine the resources associated with beam transmission and reception. For example, for SL FR2, the initial beam pairing process must be specified to facilitate the terminal device's determination of transmission and reception resources.

[0069] Before beam pairing, the terminal device may not know whether there are other devices nearby, or which transmission occasions should be used for different beam transmissions, or whether it can receive reference signals. This means that the reference signal (RS) information used for initial beam pairing needs to be (pre-)configured. The reference signal transmission corresponding to different beams should be on (pre-)configured resources so that the receiving terminal device can monitor it.

[0070] The reference signal used for initial beam pairing refers to the reference signal that the terminal device can perform beam pairing by sending. Exemplarily, the reference signal used for initial beam pairing may be a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS). The CSI-RS may be a sidelink CSI-RS. Exemplarily, the reference signal used for initial beam pairing may be a synchronization signal similar to the CSI-RS. The synchronization signal may be, for example, a primary synchronisation signal (PSS) and / or a secondary synchronisation signal (SSS) block. For example, the reference signal used for initial beam pairing may be a sidelink-synchronization signal block (S-SSB).

[0071] It should be understood that for initial beam pairing, the periodic transmission of the reference signal is crucial for the terminal device at the receiving end to determine the expected resources for reception. Taking S-SSB as an example, the terminal device at the transmitting end (pre-)configures periodic transmission resources for S-SSB with different beam directions. However, the terminal device at the receiving end cannot receive every beam from the transmitting terminal device, and there is no information about when the beam scan starts or when the beam scan ends. In this scenario, the terminal device at the receiving end may miss the expected reception opportunity. Therefore, periodic signal transmission can make it easier for the terminal device at the receiving end to determine the appropriate reception opportunity.

[0072] Furthermore, during beam pairing, the receiving terminal device may be unable to determine which terminal device a received beam originates from. This means the terminal device cannot determine which terminal device each of the multiple beams received originates from. For beam pairing, it is crucial that the receiving terminal can distinguish whether the multiple beams received originate from a single transmitter or multiple transmitters. If the terminal device cannot distinguish the origin of the received beams, it cannot determine which is the optimal beam, and thus cannot perform beam pairing based on the received beams.

[0073] For ease of understanding, the following describes potential issues with beam communication and beam pairing between terminal devices, using Figures 3 and 4. Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of beam communication between two terminal devices. Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of beam communication between a receiving terminal device and multiple transmitting terminal devices.

[0074] Referring to Figure 3 , terminal device 310 receives data (RX) using three receive beams, while terminal device 320 transmits data (TX) using three transmit beams. The three transmit beams are TX1, TX2, and TX3, and the three receive beams are RX1, RX2, and RX3. As shown in Figure 3 , when terminal devices 310 and 320 communicate using beams, they perform transmit beam scanning and receive beam scanning, respectively.

[0075] Referring to Figure 4 , terminal device 410 receives data via three receive beams, namely RX1, RX2, and RX3. There are three transmitting terminal devices, namely terminal device 420, terminal device 430, and terminal device 440. As shown in Figure 4 , the three transmitting terminal devices may each transmit the same signal via three transmit beams (TX). For example, all three terminal devices may transmit synchronization signals based on the same synchronization source.

[0076] In this case, if terminal device 410 cannot identify terminal devices at different transmitting ends, problems may occur with the beam reports sent by terminal device 410. For example, when terminal device 410 should send reporting beams to terminal devices 420 to 440 respectively, terminal device 410 may only send the reporting beam to terminal device 440 and not report to terminal devices 420 and 460.

[0077] In order to facilitate the identification of the terminal device at the receiving end, the information structure of S-SSB can be improved when using S-SSB to perform the initial beam pairing before the unicast link is established. For example, identification information is added to the S-SSB so that the terminal device at the receiving end can identify the transmitting terminal device from the S-SSB transmission of the transmitting terminal device. In an embodiment of the present application, S-SSB can also represent a sidelink synchronization signal / physical sidelink broadcast channel signal block (sidelink synchronisation signal and PSBCH block). For example, the sidelink synchronization signal of NR V2X mainly includes a sidelink primary synchronization signal block (sidelink-PSS, S-PSS), a sidelink secondary synchronization signal block (sidelink-SSS, S-SSS), and is combined with PSBCH to form S-SSB in a block format.

[0078] The above discussion explains that performing initial beam pairing on the sidelink requires (pre-)configuration of beam transmit and beam receive resources. Furthermore, regardless of whether initial beam pairing occurs before or after the unicast link is established, the receiving terminal device must provide beam feedback after determining the beam pair to complete the final beam pairing process. Therefore, determining the resources for beam feedback on the receiving terminal device is also a consideration.

[0079] Based on this, an embodiment of the present application proposes a method for sideline communication. In this method, after a first terminal device determines a first transmit beam for initial beam pairing, it can determine a first resource for transmitting beam feedback based on first information. The first information can indicate a correspondence between the first resource and the first transmit beam. Therefore, a second terminal device that receives the beam feedback can determine the transmit beam selected by the first terminal device based on the resources occupied by the beam feedback.

[0080] For ease of understanding, the method proposed in the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to FIG5 .

[0081] 5 , in step S510 , a first terminal device determines a first transmit beam among multiple transmit beams of a second terminal device.

[0082] The first terminal device and the second terminal device can be any two of the terminal devices described above for sidelink communication. For example, the first terminal device can be a vehicle in V2X, and the second terminal device can be a vehicle or a pedestrian in V2X. In another example, the first terminal device can be a transmitting terminal in a sidelink, and the second terminal device can be a receiving terminal in a sidelink. In another example, the first terminal device can be a receiving terminal in a sidelink, and the second terminal device can be a transmitting terminal.

[0083] The first terminal device and the second terminal device may be two communication devices that need to transmit data in sideline communication. In some embodiments, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may be two communication devices performing initial beam pairing. In some embodiments, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may be two communication devices establishing a unicast link. In some embodiments, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may be two communication devices performing beam pair management.

[0084] The second terminal device can perform unicast, multicast, or broadcast communication with one or more terminal devices. The first terminal device can be any one of the one or more terminal devices. That is, the second terminal device can be a source terminal device, and the first terminal device can be any one of the one or more destination terminal devices. Exemplarily, the second terminal device can be a group head terminal that initiates a multicast or broadcast communication, and the first terminal device can be any group member in the multicast or broadcast communication. For example, in V2X, the second terminal device can be a vehicle that performs multicast communication with other vehicles, and the first terminal device can be another vehicle in the multicast communication.

[0085] The first terminal device and the second terminal device may be located within or outside the network coverage area. The terminal devices located within the network coverage area may perform side communication based on the configuration of the network device.

[0086] The first terminal device and the second terminal device may be communication devices that support antenna arrays. In some embodiments, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may perform analog beamforming based on the antenna array. For example, the second terminal device may generate a transmit beam and send a signal to the first terminal device through beam scanning. A transmit beam may also be referred to as a transmit beam. In another example, the first terminal device may generate a receive beam and receive a signal sent by the second terminal device through beam scanning. In some embodiments, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may communicate at high frequency or ultra-high frequency. For example, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may communicate within the frequency range corresponding to FR2.

[0087] The multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device refer to multiple sideways transmit beams used by the second terminal device to send a reference signal. In other words, the second terminal device can send the reference signal via multiple transmit beams. The second terminal device is, for example, a source UE, and the first terminal device is, for example, a destination UE.

[0088] In some embodiments, the second terminal device may periodically generate multiple beams for transmit beam scanning. For example, the multiple transmit beams may be directed in different directions. Thus, the multiple transmit beams may be beams in a set of beams generated by the second terminal device that are focused in different directions.

[0089] In some embodiments, the number of multiple transmission beams of the second terminal device can be determined based on the capabilities of the second terminal device, or based on (pre) configuration parameters, or based on communication requirements, which is not limited here.

[0090] In some embodiments, multiple transmit beams can be used to carry reference signals. The reference signal can be any of the sidelink reference signals described above. For example, the reference signal includes one or more of the following: S-SSB, sidelink CSI-RS. For ease of description, the following description uses S-SSB as an example to illustrate the embodiments of this application.

[0091] In some embodiments, multiple transmit beams may be associated with a time unit. For example, different S-SSB time indexes may correspond to different side-by-side transmit beams. Multiple transmit beams may be periodically beam-scanned based on the transmission resources corresponding to the S-SSB. For example, within an S-SSB period, multiple transmit beams generated by the second terminal device may be periodically beam-scanned based on a repetition period. For another example, in Release 16 (Rel-16), S-SSBs may be sent outside the resource pool with a period of 160ms.

[0092] For ease of understanding, the following example illustrates periodic beam scanning by a second terminal device, in conjunction with FIG6 . Referring to FIG6 , on the time axis, the second terminal device performs transmit beam scanning based on the time interval corresponding to period 610. Each transmit beam scan in FIG6 includes four transmit beams, which can be directed in four different directions. The four beams in different directions can be used to repeatedly transmit the S-SSB.

[0093] In some embodiments, the reference signals carried by multiple transmit beams may not be periodic to avoid unnecessary reference signal transmission and alleviate resource congestion. For example, the reference signals for initial beam pairing may be semi-persistently transmitted during activation and deactivation. As an example, if the transmitting terminal (e.g., UE) does not want to trigger unicast link establishment or it has already paired beams for a unicast link, the transmitting terminal does not need to periodically transmit the reference signals for initial beam pairing (e.g., S-SSB or sidelink CSI-RS).

[0094] The first terminal device determines a first transmit beam from among multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device. This means that the first terminal device determines the first transmit beam based on beam reception. The first terminal device may receive some or all of the multiple transmit beams. The first terminal device may determine a transmit beam for initial beam pairing with the second terminal device based on the received some or all of the transmit beams.

[0095] Exemplarily, the first transmit beam may be a beam among multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device, or may be a beam among some transmit beams that can be received by the first terminal device.

[0096] The first transmit beam can be one beam or multiple beams. For example, the first terminal device can receive one or more transmit beams among the multiple transmit beams. When the first terminal device receives one transmit beam, the first transmit beam is that transmit beam; when the first terminal device receives multiple transmit beams, the first transmit beam is one or more of those transmit beams.

[0097] The first transmit beam is used for initial beam pairing between the first terminal device and the second terminal device. The initial beam pairing can be performed before or after the unicast link is established, which will be explained later in conjunction with the first information.

[0098] In some embodiments, initial beam pairing between two terminal devices before establishing a unicast link can facilitate the establishment of a sidelink transmission link between any two or more terminal devices. In some embodiments, initial beam pairing between two terminal devices after establishing a unicast link can facilitate sidelink transmission between the two terminal devices in a high-frequency band, thereby improving resource utilization.

[0099] The first terminal device can determine the first transmit beam in various ways. For example, the first terminal device can measure a reference signal carried by the transmit beam and independently determine the first transmit beam based on the measurement results. For another example, when the first terminal device is within network coverage, the first transmit beam can be determined based on instructions from a network device. For another example, the first terminal device can determine the first transmit beam based on the measurement results and (pre-)configured parameters.

[0100] For the first terminal device, the first transmit beam may be the optimal transmit beam for beam pairing with the second terminal device. In some embodiments, when the first terminal device receives multiple transmit beams carrying reference signals, the first terminal device may compare the signal strengths of different transmit beams based on signal measurement to determine the first transmit beam. The signal strength may include reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), and other parameters that can reflect signal transmission quality, such as signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR).

[0101] For example, the first terminal device may measure the S-SSS and / or PSBCH-DMRS carried by multiple beams. For example, the first terminal device may perform a PSBCH-RSRP measurement. After measuring all S-SSBs, the first terminal device determines the optimal transmit beam for the second terminal device based on the measurement results. The optimal transmit beam corresponds to the S-SSB with the highest measured RSRP.

[0102] In some embodiments, the first terminal device may determine the first transmit beam based on instructions from the network device. In the case of network coverage, sidelink transmission occurs only in uplink (UL) time slots. In UL time slots, uplinks may also occur in the same cell or adjacent cells scheduled by the network device (e.g., a base station such as a gNB). Therefore, interference from sidelink transmission to UL reception needs to be controlled.

[0103] In some embodiments, in the case of network coverage, the network device can manage the data transmission of the sidelink unicast link in which the first terminal device participates, as long as the network device deems it useful. For example, the network device can directly manage the sidelink data transmission without using the Uu link. For example, the network device can manage the sidelink data transmission through Uu transparent transmission.

[0104] In some embodiments, the network device can compare which link is most suitable for transmitting data to the first terminal device and, if necessary, instruct a switch between the Uu link and the sidelink unicast link. For example, if network coverage is present, the first terminal device can report the sidelink beam to the network device via the Uu link, allowing the network device to indicate or configure the sidelink beam. This allows the network device to understand the quality of the beam-level link and better utilize the licensed spectrum.

[0105] Exemplarily, for Uu, the network device can support beam reporting for the current serving cell or for different serving cells. Furthermore, the network device can attach side beam reporting information to this beam report. For example, the first terminal device can report the side beam to the network device via the Uu link. After the Uu beam report is combined with the beam report of the side unicast link, it can ensure that the network device can obtain the channel quality of the Uu link and the side link related to the first terminal device, and then make a reasonable decision.

[0106] In step S520, the first terminal device sends beam feedback to the second terminal device on the first resource. In other words, the first resource is used to carry the beam feedback sent by the first terminal device to the second terminal device.

[0107] Beam feedback is used by a first terminal device to feed back beam measurement information to a second terminal device, or to feed back the selected first transmit beam for initial beam allocation or beam management. Beam feedback can also be the beam report described above.

[0108] In some embodiments, beam feedback may include, or at least include, at least one of a reference signal source ID, a destination ID, and a layer 1 (L1) RSRP (L1-RSRP) measurement result to facilitate information identification. For example, beam feedback may include the destination ID and the L1-RSRP measurement.

[0109] In some embodiments, beam feedback can be a simple RS. That is, beam feedback does not need to be a payload. For example, beam feedback can be associated with one or more of the following: CSI-RS, PSFCH, and sidelink control information (SCI). For example, beam feedback can be carried by CSI-RS or PSFCH. In another example, beam feedback can be carried in the SCI of the PSCCH.

[0110] The first resource may be a time domain resource and / or a frequency domain resource, which is not limited here.

[0111] In some embodiments, the first resource may be any resource in a dedicated resource pool for initial beam pairing. Exemplarily, the first terminal device selects the first resource in a dedicated resource pool for initial beam pairing to send beam feedback.

[0112] Exemplarily, dedicated resources for initial beam pairing can be implemented through a dedicated sidelink resource pool. This resource pool can configure specific time / frequency resources for RS transmissions with different beams. When these resources are (pre-)configured, the information about these resources is common to multiple terminal devices in the resource pool.

[0113] In some embodiments, the first resource may be a dedicated resource for sending beam feedback to reduce resource conflicts. Exemplarily, the source terminal device may configure multiple resources as dedicated resources for sending beam feedback in a pre-allocated resource pool for initial beam pairing. The size of each of the multiple resources may also be set in the pre-configured resource pool. The dedicated resource may be used for multiple destination terminal devices to send beam feedback. When the source terminal device is the second terminal device, the multiple resources are used by one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device. It can be seen that the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

[0114] Exemplarily, the dedicated resources for transmitting beam feedback are independent of other resources of the initial beam pairing. For example, the beam feedback resources are (pre-)configured separately from the transmission resources of PSCCH / PSSCH and the transmission resources of the reference signal.

[0115] In some embodiments, the first resource may be a resource outside the resource pool used for initial beam pairing. That is, in addition to the dedicated resource pool used for initial beam pairing, corresponding time-frequency resources are configured for beam feedback.

[0116] The first resource may be any one of multiple resources used for beam feedback. The multiple resources may be multiple time domain resources and / or frequency domain resources used for beam feedback. The multiple resources may also be referred to as beam feedback resources or beam reporting resources. The multiple resources may be dedicated time slots or dedicated resources allocated for beam feedback.

[0117] In some embodiments, the multiple resources may be time-frequency resources configured by the second terminal device for multiple destination terminal devices for sending beam feedback. Exemplarily, the multiple resources may be all resources in a dedicated resource pool for beam feedback, or dedicated resources in a sidelink resource pool for initial beam pairing.

[0118] Exemplarily, the multiple resources may be dedicated resources for sending beam feedback, so as to reduce resource conflicts with other transmissions paired with the initial beam when multiple receiving terminal devices send beam feedback to the transmitting terminal device.

[0119] Multiple resources may include multiple feedback occasions (FOs) for beam feedback. FOs may indicate different resources by different time domain locations or by different frequency domain locations, so that both the sender and receiver of beam feedback can confirm the beam associated with the resource. After determining the first transmit beam, the first terminal device may use the FO associated with the first transmit beam to indicate to the second terminal device that the first transmit beam has been selected.

[0120] In some embodiments, the first resource may be one FO or multiple FOs, which will be exemplified below in conjunction with various implementations of FO.

[0121] The first terminal device can determine the first resource based on the first information. The first information can indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and multiple transmit beams. That is, the beam feedback of the first terminal device is associated with the first transmit beam determined by the first terminal device. Among them, the first resource corresponds to the first transmit beam. That is, after the first terminal device determines the first transmit beam, it can find the first resource corresponding to the first transmit beam in multiple resources based on the first information, and then send beam feedback on the first resource. Exemplarily, the transmit beam of each S-SSB or independent side CSI-RS has a beam feedback opportunity associated with it.

[0122] Exemplarily, the mapping relationship between multiple resources and multiple transmit beams can be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or many-to-many. For example, when the first transmit beam is a single beam, the first resource can be a single resource corresponding to the single beam, or multiple resources corresponding to the single beam. For another example, when the first transmit beam is multiple beams, the first resource can be a single resource corresponding to multiple beams, or multiple resources corresponding to multiple beams.

[0123] Exemplarily, the mapping relationship in the first information refers to the association between the beam feedback resource of the first terminal device and the determined transmit beam of the second terminal device. When the second terminal device selects the first resource for beam feedback, the first resource may be mapped to the first transmit beam.

[0124] In some embodiments, the mapping between the multiple resources for beam feedback and the multiple transmit beams of the first terminal device is (pre-)configured and known to both the first terminal device and the second terminal device. In other words, the first information is shared between the first terminal device and the second terminal device.

[0125] In some embodiments, the mapping relationship in the first information may also refer to a mapping relationship between a beam feedback resource and a reference signal carried by a transmit beam. For example, after the second terminal device receives reference signals carried by multiple transmit beams, it can determine the corresponding transmit beam and beam feedback resource based on the index of the reference signal.

[0126] In some embodiments, the first terminal device may further determine the beam for transmitting beam feedback based on the first transmit beam of the second terminal device. For example, the first terminal device may determine the receive beam based on the first transmit beam. The transmit beam for transmitting beam feedback by the first terminal device may be determined based on the determined receive beam.

[0127] For ease of understanding, the mapping relationship between transmit beams and beam feedback resources is illustrated below with reference to Figures 7 and 8. Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of a possible mapping relationship between S-SSB and FO. Figure 8 is a schematic diagram of the mapping relationship between S-SSB and FO occupied resources.

[0128] Referring to Figure 7, the second terminal device transmits four S-SSBs through four beams. The four beams are beam 0 to beam 3. Beam 0 is used to transmit S-SSB0, beam 1 is used to transmit S-SSB1, beam 2 is used to transmit S-SSB2, and beam 3 is used to transmit S-SSB3. The four S-SSBs correspond to four FOs, respectively. Specifically, S-SSB0 corresponds to FO0, S-SSB1 corresponds to FO1, S-SSB2 corresponds to FO2, and S-SSB3 corresponds to FO3.

[0129] As shown in Figure 7, the first terminal device can measure all S-SSBs and determine the optimal transmit beam (first transmit beam) of the second terminal device based on the measurement results. Exemplarily, after the first terminal device selects S-SSB2 as the first transmit beam, the receive beam of the first terminal device can be determined accordingly based on the first transmit beam. Using the determined receive beam, a transmit beam for the beam report of the first terminal device can be selected. Based on the mapping relationship in the first information, the first terminal device sends a beam report on FO2, and the beam report can be carried in the PSFCH or other reference signals.

[0130] The correspondence between S-SSB and FO in Figure 8 is the same as in Figure 7. Referring to Figure 8 , when the first terminal device sends a beam report on FO2, the resources corresponding to FO2 are the time-frequency resources in resource pool 810. Resource pool 810 is a pre-allocated resource pool. Furthermore, the resource size corresponding to each FO can also be set in a pre-configured resource pool.

[0131] In some embodiments, the first information may be shared by the second terminal device with the first terminal device. For example, when the second terminal device transmits reference signals via multiple transmit beams, these reference signals may carry the first information, so that the first terminal device and the second terminal device can send and receive beam feedback based on the same mapping relationship.

[0132] The above, in conjunction with Figures 5 to 8, describes how the second terminal device determines beam feedback resources during initial beam pairing, and how the first terminal device determines the optimal transmit beam to be selected based on the beam feedback resources. The first terminal device and the second terminal device can each determine the first resource and the first transmit beam based on the shared first information, effectively improving the efficiency of initial beam pairing.

[0133] As can be seen from the foregoing, the initial beam pairing can be performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, or after the unicast link is established. The sending of the first information is related to the timing of executing the initial beam pairing.

[0134] For example, when initial beam pairing is performed before a unicast link is established, PC5-RRC signaling cannot be used to provide reference signal resource information. In this scenario, the reference signal can be an S-SSB, and the first information can be determined based on the PSFCH. For example, the first information can be carried in the PSFCH.

[0135] Exemplarily, when initial beam pairing is performed after a unicast link is established, a side channel may be transmitted between the two terminal devices. Therefore, the first information may be determined based on the SCI. For example, the first information may be carried in the SCI.

[0136] For ease of understanding, the following describes various ways of sending the first information in the initial beam pairing in combination with two embodiments. Embodiment 1 is the initial beam pairing before the unicast link is established, and embodiment 2 is the initial beam pairing after the unicast link is established.

[0137] In the first embodiment, the key to performing initial beam pairing is to enable terminal devices to use paired beams to establish unicast or multicast links. In other words, initial beam pairing can allow a terminal device at the transmitting end to establish a unicast or multicast link with a terminal device at a further receiving end.

[0138] Exemplarily, multiple terminal devices may transmit RS for transmitting beam scanning in a dedicated sideline (SL) resource pool. To achieve this, the dedicated SL resource pool for transmitting RS transmission for transmitting beam scanning has multiple candidate resources and / or multiple resources corresponding to multiple candidate sequences for RS transmission in time / frequency (hereinafter referred to as sequence resources for simplicity). The second terminal device may select or determine the resources / sequence resources for RS transmission for transmitting beam scanning from the candidate resources / candidate sequence resources. The selection or determination of the resources / sequence resources for RS transmission shall depend on the value of the destination ID of the subsequent unicast link establishment process.

[0139] If any terminal device can be the first terminal device, this may cause multiple first terminal devices to generate unnecessary power consumption to measure RS and report the first transmit beam. Since the (pre-)configured resource information is common to multiple terminal devices in the same SL resource pool, it may cause resource conflicts between RS transmissions from different terminal devices.

[0140] To address the above issues, resources / sequence resources can be linked to the destination ID. Based on this link, different terminal devices can use different resources / sequence resources for RS transmission. In other words, when the second terminal device uses S-SSB or side CSI-RS for transmit beam scanning, it is associated with the destination terminal device ID, thereby avoiding or at least reducing the probability of resource / sequence resource conflicts between multiple terminal devices transmitting RS in the same SL resource pool.

[0141] In the second embodiment, since the pre-configured resource information is common to multiple terminal devices, resource conflicts between RS transmissions from different terminal devices may also occur.

[0142] Optionally, resources / sequence resources can also be associated with a destination ID. Terminal devices with different destination IDs can use different resources for RS transmission. The source and destination ID information can be carried in the SCI, thereby avoiding or at least reducing the probability of resource conflicts between multiple terminal devices transmitting RSs in the same SL resource pool.

[0143] Optionally, after determining the transmit beam of the second terminal device, the first terminal device may indicate the determined transmit beam of the second terminal device to the second terminal device. As previously described, the first terminal device may determine the transmit beam based on the measurement results (e.g., RSRP, RSRQ, SINR) of the RS used for initial beam pairing. The first terminal device may also perform further measurements and checks after successfully decoding the PSCCH / PSSCH carrying the DCR message.

[0144] Optionally, the first terminal device may check whether the measurement result of PSCCH / PSSCH is higher than a threshold.

[0145] Optionally, the first terminal device may find the best N transmission beams of the first terminal device based on the measurement results.

[0146] To achieve beam pairing, each DCR message transmission opportunity will have an associated receive resource, or an associated response window, to distinguish between the multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device. The second terminal device can indicate different transmit beam indices via the PSCCH / PSSCH carrying the unicast link establishment message. Furthermore, the second terminal device can add an information field in the SCI for beam reporting.

[0147] Optionally, the SCI may give an association between the S-SSB and the FO, and the SCI carries ID information of the second terminal device and the first terminal device to indicate the first information related to the beam feedback resource.

[0148] Optionally, if the second end device knows the first end device's Layer 2 (L2) ID in advance, it can use this L2 ID as the destination ID for the DCR message. Each end device has an L2 ID when conducting V2X PC5 communications. For example, the end device may assign its own L2 ID. Every frame transmitted over the L2 link contains this ID information.

[0149] Optionally, the second terminal device may also use a default ID as a destination identifier for DCR information transmission. The default ID is, for example, a proximity based services (ProSe) identifier.

[0150] Optionally, when supporting V2X messages based on the Internet Protocol (IP), the terminal device can automatically configure an IPv6 link as the source IP address.

[0151] The first terminal device may check the destination ID of the PSCCH / PSSCH it receives. If the first terminal device finds that the destination identifier of the received DCR message is set to its own L2 identifier, or is set to a related ProSe identifier, the first terminal device may respond. If the first terminal device receives a DCR from a second terminal device, the first terminal device may send a message for establishing a link with the second terminal device within the window associated with the received DCR. The message is, for example, a direct communication accept (DCA).

[0152] Optionally, the sending space used to transmit the above-mentioned DCA and other messages can be set based on different space settings. For example, the receiving space can be set based on the receiving space used to receive the DCR, or based on the sending space indicated by the second terminal device sending the DCR, or based on both.

[0153] Optionally, for subsequent beam management, the first terminal device may report measurement results (e.g., RSRP, RSRQ, SINR) based on the RS. The RS may be associated with one or more DCRs received from the second terminal device. The time position of the DCR may be aperiodic, and the corresponding response window position may also be aperiodic.

[0154] The first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam. For example, based on the mapping relationship indicated by the first information, after receiving beam feedback on the first resource, the second terminal device can determine which transmit beam the first terminal device selected. In other words, the second terminal device can determine the first transmit beam selected by the first terminal device based on the first information and the first resource on which the beam feedback is located.

[0155] For example, based on the mapping of S-SSB and FO, the beam index can be implicitly indicated by the time resource of the beam feedback transmission. For example, the first terminal device will receive PSBCH or SCI. These two information fields will carry an implicit indication of the time resource of the beam feedback transmission. Furthermore, in order for the second terminal device to identify the corresponding beam report from the first terminal device, the beam report should carry information related to the ID of the second terminal device.

[0156] For example, the second terminal device may desire to use a corresponding receive beam for each FO. In Figure 7, after receiving the beam report in FO2, the second terminal device can identify the desired beam, Beam 2, for transmission. Based on the determined transmit and receive beam pair, a unicast link can be established according to existing link establishment procedures.

[0157] As can be seen from the foregoing, the multiple resources used to send beam feedback may include multiple FOs. The first information may indicate a mapping relationship between multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device and multiple resources used for the first terminal device to send beam feedback. The mapping relationship may also indicate a corresponding relationship between multiple transmit beams and multiple FOs. Exemplarily, any one of the multiple transmit beams may correspond to one or more FOs. For example, the first transmit beam may correspond to one FO or multiple FOs. Therefore, the first terminal device may send beam feedback on the one FO, or may select one or more FOs from the multiple FOs to send beam feedback.

[0158] In some embodiments, the number of FOs may be greater than the number of transmit beams. To achieve correspondence, the FOs may be divided into FO groups based on the number of transmit beams. Any one of the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs located at the same position in the multiple FO groups.

[0159] Exemplarily, dividing according to the number of multiple transmit beams as a period means that the division period can be the number of multiple transmit beams or an integer multiple of the number.

[0160] For example, the period determined based on the number of multiple transmit beams may also be referred to as the association period. The association period for mapping an S-SSB to a FO may be defined as completing at least one round of SSB to FO mapping within the period, such that each actually transmitted S-SSB is mapped to at least one FO. For example, when beam feedback is performed via the PSFCH, the association period for mapping an S-SSB to a FO may be an integer multiple of the PSFCH configuration period. The association period may be calculated starting from radio frame 0.

[0161] In some embodiments, when the number of FOs in the last FO group of multiple FO groups is less than the number of multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used to transmit beam feedback. The FOs are not used to transmit beam feedback, which means that the FOs cannot be associated with multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device or reference signals carried by multiple transmit beams.

[0162] For example, after completing one round of S-SSB to FO mapping within an association cycle, the next round of mapping continues until the remaining FOs are insufficient to complete one round of S-SSB to FO mapping. If the remaining FOs are insufficient to complete one round of S-SSB to FO mapping, the remaining FOs may form an invalid FO set. All FOs in the invalid FO set cannot be associated with an S-SSB.

[0163] For example, when the second terminal device has four transmit beams (beams 0 to 3) and the number of configured FOs is 10 (FO0 to FO9), three FO groups can be obtained with a period of 4. The first FO group includes FO0 to FO3, the second FO group includes FO4 to FO7, and the third FO group includes FO8 and FO9.

[0164] As can be seen from the above grouping, the number of FOs in the third FO group is insufficient to complete a mapping round, and it can be called an invalid FO set. FOs in the same position in the first and second FO groups can correspond to the same transmit beam. For example, beam 0 corresponds to FO0 and FO4, beam 1 corresponds to FO1 and beam FO5, and so on.

[0165] In some embodiments, the number of the plurality of FOs may be determined based on the number of the plurality of transmit beams. Exemplarily, the first information is further used to indicate a one-to-one correspondence between the plurality of transmit beams and the plurality of FOs. Exemplarily, the number of FOs may be equal to the number of the plurality of transmit beams or an integer multiple of the number of the plurality of transmit beams.

[0166] Exemplarily, the mapping relationship between multiple resources and multiple transmit beams can also be a one-to-one mapping rule. That is, a one-to-one mapping rule is (pre-)defined between the resource for the second terminal device to send the S-SSB and the timing for the first terminal device to send beam feedback. For the first terminal device, if S-SSB2 is the best beam based on its RSRP measurement result, after the second terminal device sends all S-SSBs, a beam report is sent in FO2 corresponding to the resource where S-SSB2 is located.

[0167] In some embodiments, the multiple resources may include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1. The M FOs are used for N terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M. The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is further determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

[0168] For example, the service priority of the terminal device may be the priority of the communication service that the second terminal device desires to establish with the first terminal device. The service priority may also indicate the urgency of the communication between the second terminal device and the first terminal device.

[0169] Exemplarily, the number of valid FOs included in the association period in which the S-SSB is mapped to the FO is variable. For example, the number of FOs can be configured based on the urgency and / or service priority of the second terminal device to the first terminal device. In this scenario, the number of FOs for each first terminal device may be different.

[0170] For example, at least two of the N terminal devices have different numbers of FOs. Among the N mid-range devices, the terminal device with a higher service priority has a larger number of FOs. In other words, the number of FOs can be positively correlated with service priority. For example, of two terminal devices with different numbers of FOs, the terminal device with the highest service priority has the largest number of FOs.

[0171] For ease of understanding, the following formula illustrates the number of FOs for different terminal devices. If independent resources are configured for beam feedback, assuming the number of resource blocks used for FO is M, the number of terminal devices currently requiring beam reporting is N. These N terminal devices can be N destination terminal devices, including the first terminal device.

[0172] Allocate valid FO to each terminal device according to the urgency and priority of the service. That is, allocate corresponding FO to each terminal device in N terminal devices. Assume that the maximum number of valid FO resources allocated to the i-th terminal device in N terminal devices is k i ,i∈[1,2,…N]. If k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed by the first descent gradient until The first descent gradient is, for example, 1, or 2.

[0173] For example, if Search k m =max{k i}. Further, take 1 as the descending gradient for k m Process so that k m =k m -1, and so on, until

[0174] After determining the number of FOs for each of the N terminal devices according to the above processing method, the number of FOs for the i-th terminal device is k i , the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device can be expressed as:

[0175] {FO si , k i};

[0176] Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device,

[0177] Take the transmit beam carrying N S-SSBs as an example, among the N S-SSBs, S-SSB i Time index and FO si The corresponding relationship established can be {S-SSBi, ({FO si , k i})}.

[0178] As can be seen from the above, the second terminal device can allocate FO according to the urgency and service priority of N terminal devices, and allocate FO according to the time index of S-SSBi and FO si In this way, the second terminal device can guarantee the number of FOs for the highest priority service to the greatest extent possible, and further can perform beam pairing with the terminal device for the high priority service to the greatest extent possible.

[0179] In some embodiments, the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices can be adjusted based on a configuration coefficient. The configuration coefficient can be related to the service priority of the terminal device. In other words, the second terminal device can establish a dynamic resource allocation mechanism, that is, the FO allocated to each destination terminal device can be adjusted.

[0180] For example, a certain base number can be set for each destination terminal device based on the total number of FOs. For example, M FOs first satisfy the base number of N terminal devices, and then the remaining FOs can be used for dynamic adjustment based on the configuration coefficient of each destination terminal device.

[0181] Optionally, the configuration coefficient is a coefficient used to adjust the number of FOs for each destination terminal device. The configuration coefficient can be set according to the service priority.

[0182] Exemplarily, the number of FOs corresponding to each of N terminal devices is determined by dividing M FOs into N equal parts. The remaining FOs after the M FOs are divided into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than a first threshold. In other words, for terminal devices with a priority lower than or equal to the first threshold, the corresponding FO is any one of the N equal parts of the FO. For terminal devices with a priority higher than the first threshold, the corresponding FO may be larger than the N equal parts. The first threshold may be configured or preconfigured.

[0183] For example, the second terminal device first allocates an equal number of available FOs to each destination terminal device in an equal manner. Then, the remaining FOs can be used for some destination terminal devices with higher priorities. For example, based on the configuration coefficient of each destination terminal device, the remaining FOs can be used for destination terminal devices with a configuration coefficient greater than 1. When the priority is higher than the first threshold, the configuration coefficient is greater than 1.

[0184] After determining the number of FOs for each of the N terminal devices according to the above processing method, the number of FOs for the i-th terminal device is α i ×H, the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device among N terminal devices can be expressed as:

[0185] {FO si , α i ×H};

[0186] Among them, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer, Furthermore, FO s1 =1.

[0187] In some embodiments, the multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for transmitting beam feedback. Any of the one or more dedicated time slots may include resources occupied by K×X FOs, where K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain and is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and X represents the number of FOs in the time domain and is a natural number greater than or equal to 1.

[0188] Exemplarily, a dedicated time slot for transmitting beam feedback may include resources occupied by one FO or multiple FOs. When any time slot within a dedicated time slot includes resources occupied by multiple FOs, the time-frequency resources occupied by the multiple FOs may overlap in the time domain and differ in the frequency domain, or may differ in the time domain and overlap in the frequency domain.

[0189] Optionally, the indexes of the K×X FOs may be incremented in the time domain and / or frequency domain. For example, multiple FOs may correspond to multiple S-SSBs that are incremented in index order. That is, the multiple S-SSBs corresponding to the multiple FOs may be incremented in index order. For another example, when the frequency domain includes resources occupied by multiple FOs, the FOs may be incremented in frequency domain indexes. For another example, when multiple FOs are configured to occupy resources within a PSFCH time slot, the FOs may be incremented in indexes within the PSFCH time slot.

[0190] Optionally, when multiple FOs are incremented by the index of multiple configured PSFCH time slots, the impact on automatic gain control (AGC) needs to be considered. For example, to reduce the impact on AGC, if the destination terminal device does not process an S-SSB in the PSFCH time slot corresponding to the current FO, the next FO and the previous most recent S-SSB should be separated by at least P gap That is, the next FO and the previous most recent S-SSB symbol are at least P apart. gap In the case of symbols, the FO is valid. gap It is an integer and can be 1, 2, 3, etc.

[0191] For example, when beam feedback is configured in an independent time slot and beam feedback is fed back via the PSFCH, this time slot can be called a PSFCH time slot. In a PSFCH time slot, there will be many frequency-domain PSFCH feedback opportunities (FOs), which together cover K×X consecutive resource blocks, where K is the number of frequency-domain FOs and X is the number of time-domain FOs. For example, within a time slot in the time domain, the second terminal device can be configured to allow multiple time-domain FOs within a time slot.

[0192] For ease of understanding, the following takes the reference signal S-SSB as an example, and combines Figure 9 to illustrate the correspondence between the S-SSB and FO occupied resources when a dedicated PSFCH time slot is configured.

[0193] 9 , the time index of the S-SSB and FO(s) correspond to each other in the frequency domain and the time domain, respectively. The time domain in FIG9 includes two PSFCH time slots, namely, PSFCH time slot 910 and PSFCH time slot 920 .

[0194] As shown in Figure 9, there are 2 FOs in the frequency domain (K is 2), and there are 3 FOs in each PSFCH time slot in the time domain (X is 3). Therefore, each PSFCH time slot includes the resources occupied by 2×3 FOs. Figure 9 shows 12 FOs, and the time index of each S-SSB is associated with the resources occupied by 4 FOs. For example, S-SSB0 corresponds to the resources occupied by the first 2×2 FOs of PSFCH time slot 910, S-SSB1 corresponds to the resources occupied by the last 2×1 FOs of PSFCH time slot 910 and the resources occupied by the first 2×1 FOs of PSFCH time slot 920, and S-SSB2 corresponds to the resources occupied by the last 2×2 FOs of PSFCH time slot 920.

[0195] The following is a more complete description of the embodiment of the present application in conjunction with the specific example Figure 10. It should be noted that the examples of Figures 5 to 9 are only intended to help those skilled in the art understand the embodiment of the present application, and are not intended to limit the embodiment of the present application to the specific numerical values ​​or specific scenarios illustrated. Those skilled in the art can obviously make various equivalent modifications or changes based on the examples of Figures 5 to 9 given, and such modifications or changes also fall within the scope of the embodiment of the present application.

[0196] Figure 10 is an introduction from the perspective of interaction between a first terminal device and a second terminal device, wherein the second terminal device may be a source UE, and the first terminal device may be any UE among multiple destination UEs.

[0197] Referring to FIG. 10 , in step S1010 , the second terminal device transmits a reference signal through multiple transmit beams.

[0198] In step S1020, the first terminal device determines a first transmit beam from among the plurality of transmit beams. After receiving the reference signal, the first terminal device may perform a measurement based on the received reference signal to thereby determine the first transmit beam. The first terminal device may determine a first resource corresponding to the first transmit beam based on the first information.

[0199] In step S1030, the first terminal device sends beam feedback to the second terminal device on the first resource. The beam feedback can be used by the second terminal device to determine that the best transmit beam selected by the first terminal device is the first transmit beam.

[0200] The method embodiment of the present application is described in detail above in conjunction with Figures 1 to 10. The device embodiment of the present application is described in detail below in conjunction with Figures 11 and 13. It should be understood that the description of the device embodiment corresponds to the description of the method embodiment. Therefore, for portions not described in detail, reference can be made to the above method embodiment.

[0201] FIG11 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus for sideline communication according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1100 may be any of the first terminal devices described above. The apparatus 1100 shown in FIG11 includes a determining unit 1110 and a sending unit 1120.

[0202] The determination unit 1110 may be configured to determine a first transmit beam from among multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device, where the first transmit beam is used for initial beam pairing between the first terminal device and the second terminal device.

[0203] Sending unit 1120 can be used to send beam feedback to the second terminal device on the first resource. The first resource is determined based on the first information. The first information is used to indicate the mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and multiple transmission beams. The first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmission beam.

[0204] Optionally, the multiple resources are dedicated resources used for one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device, and the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

[0205] Optionally, the multiple resources include multiple feedback opportunities FO, and the mapping relationship includes any one transmit beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponding to one or more FOs.

[0206] Optionally, the number of the multiple FOs is greater than the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the multiple FOs are divided into multiple FO groups with the number of the multiple transmit beams as a period, and any beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs in the same position in the multiple FO groups.

[0207] Optionally, when the number of FOs in the last FO group of the multiple FO groups is less than the number of the multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used to send beam feedback.

[0208] Optionally, the number of the multiple FOs is determined according to the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is further used to indicate a one-to-one correspondence between the multiple transmit beams and the multiple FOs.

[0209] Optionally, the multiple resources include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1, and the M FOs are used to send beam feedback to N terminal devices other than the second terminal device, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M, and the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is also determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices, and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

[0210] Optionally, at least two of the N terminal devices correspond to different numbers of FOs, and the terminal device with the highest service priority among the at least two terminal devices corresponds to the largest number of FOs.

[0211] Optionally, the number of FOs corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is represented by k i Represents, i∈[1,2,…N], if k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed by the first descent gradient until The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device is expressed as:

[0212] {FO si , k i};

[0213] Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device,

[0214] Optionally, the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is adjusted according to a configuration coefficient. The configuration coefficient is related to the service priority of the terminal device. The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is expressed as:

[0215] {FO si , α i ×H};

[0216] Among them, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer,

[0217] Optionally, the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is determined by dividing the M FOs into N equal parts, and the remaining FOs after dividing the M FOs into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than the first threshold.

[0218] Optionally, the multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for sending beam feedback, and any time slot of the one or more dedicated time slots includes resources occupied by K×X FOs, where K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain, K is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, X represents the number of FOs in the time domain, X is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and the indexes of the K×X FOs increase according to the time domain and / or frequency domain.

[0219] Optionally, the determining unit 1110 is further configured to determine the first transmit beam according to an instruction of the network device.

[0220] Optionally, the beam feedback is associated with one or more of the following: sidelink CSI-RS; PSFCH; SCI.

[0221] Optionally, the initial beam pairing is performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined based on the PSFCH; or, the initial beam pairing is performed after the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined based on the SCI.

[0222] Optionally, multiple transmit beams are used to carry reference signals, and the reference signals include one or more of the following: S-SSB, sidelink CSI-RS.

[0223] FIG12 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus for sideline communication according to an embodiment of the present application. The apparatus 1200 may be any of the second terminal devices described above. The apparatus 1200 shown in FIG12 includes a sending unit 1210 and a receiving unit 1220.

[0224] The sending unit 1210 can be used to send a reference signal through multiple transmit beams, where the multiple transmit beams are used by the first terminal device to determine a first transmit beam, and the first transmit beam is used by the first terminal device to perform initial beam pairing with the second terminal device.

[0225] Receiving unit 1220 can be used to receive beam feedback sent by the first terminal device on the first resource. The first resource is determined based on first information. The first information is used to indicate the mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and multiple transmit beams. The first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

[0226] Optionally, the multiple resources are dedicated resources used for one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device, and the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

[0227] Optionally, the multiple resources include multiple feedback opportunities FO, and the mapping relationship includes any one transmit beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponding to one or more FOs.

[0228] Optionally, the number of the multiple FOs is greater than the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the multiple FOs are divided into multiple FO groups with the number of the multiple transmit beams as a period, and any beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs in the same position in the multiple FO groups.

[0229] Optionally, when the number of FOs in the last FO group of the multiple FO groups is less than the number of the multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used to send beam feedback.

[0230] Optionally, the number of the multiple FOs is determined according to the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is further used to indicate a one-to-one correspondence between the multiple transmit beams and the multiple FOs.

[0231] Optionally, the multiple resources include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1, and the M FOs are used to send beam feedback to N terminal devices other than the second terminal device, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M, and the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is also determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices, and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

[0232] Optionally, at least two of the N terminal devices correspond to different numbers of FOs, and the terminal device with the highest service priority among the at least two terminal devices corresponds to the largest number of FOs.

[0233] Optionally, the number of FOs corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is represented by k i Represents, i∈[1,2,…N], if k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed by the first descent gradient until The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device is expressed as:

[0234] {FO si , k i};

[0235] Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device,

[0236] Optionally, the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is adjusted according to a configuration coefficient. The configuration coefficient is related to the service priority of the terminal device. The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is expressed as:

[0237] {FO si , α i ×H};

[0238] Among them, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer,

[0239] Optionally, the number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is determined by dividing the M FOs into N equal parts, and the remaining FOs after dividing the M FOs into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than the first threshold.

[0240] Optionally, the multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for sending beam feedback, and any time slot of the one or more dedicated time slots includes resources occupied by K×X FOs, where K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain, K is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, X represents the number of FOs in the time domain, X is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and the indexes of the K×X FOs increase according to the time domain and / or frequency domain.

[0241] Optionally, the first transmit beam is determined according to an instruction of the network device.

[0242] Optionally, the beam feedback is associated with one or more of the following: sidelink CSI-RS; PSFCH; SCI.

[0243] Optionally, the initial beam pairing is performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined based on the PSFCH; or, the initial beam pairing is performed after the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined based on the SCI.

[0244] Optionally, the reference signal includes one or more of the following: S-SSB, sidelink CSI-RS.

[0245] FIG13 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application. The dashed lines in FIG13 indicate that the unit or module is optional. Apparatus 1300 may be used to implement the method described in the above method embodiment. Apparatus 1300 may be a chip or a terminal device.

[0246] The device 1300 may include one or more processors 1310. The processor 1310 may support the device 1300 to implement the method described in the above method embodiment. The processor 1310 may be a general-purpose processor or a special-purpose processor. For example, the processor may be a central processing unit (CPU). Alternatively, the processor may be another general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware component, etc. The general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor, etc.

[0247] The apparatus 1300 may further include one or more memories 1320. The memories 1320 store programs that can be executed by the processor 1310, causing the processor 1310 to perform the methods described in the above method embodiments. The memories 1320 may be independent of the processor 1310 or integrated into the processor 1310.

[0248] The apparatus 1300 may further include a transceiver 1330. The processor 1310 may communicate with other devices or chips via the transceiver 1330. For example, the processor 1310 may transmit and receive data with other devices or chips via the transceiver 1330.

[0249] The present application also provides a computer-readable storage medium for storing a program. The computer-readable storage medium can be applied to a terminal device or network device provided in the present application, and the program enables a computer to execute the method performed by the terminal device or network device in each embodiment of the present application.

[0250] The computer-readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be read by a computer or a data storage device such as a server or data center that includes one or more available media. The available medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., a floppy disk, a hard disk, or a magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., a digital versatile disc (DVD)), or a semiconductor medium (e.g., a solid state drive (SSD)).

[0251] The present application also provides a computer program product. The computer program product includes a program. The computer program product can be applied to a terminal device or network device provided in the present application, and the program causes a computer to execute the method performed by the terminal or network device in each embodiment of the present application.

[0252] In the above embodiments, it can be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof. When implemented using software, it can be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer program instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, the process or function described in the embodiment of the present application is generated in whole or in part. The computer can be a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable device. The computer instructions can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium. For example, the computer instructions can be transmitted from one website, computer, server or data center to another website, computer, server or data center via wired (e.g., coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital subscriber line (DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) means.

[0253] The present application also provides a computer program that can be applied to a terminal device or network device provided in the present application, and enables a computer to execute the method performed by the terminal or network device in each embodiment of the present application.

[0254] The terms "system" and "network" in this application may be used interchangeably. In addition, the terms used in this application are only used to explain the specific embodiments of this application and are not intended to limit this application. The terms "first," "second," "third," and "fourth" in the specification and claims of this application and the accompanying drawings are used to distinguish different objects rather than to describe a specific order. In addition, the terms "including" and "having," as well as any variations thereof, are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusions.

[0255] In the embodiments of this application, the term "indication" can refer to direct or indirect indications, or can indicate an associated relationship. For example, "A indicates B" can mean that A directly indicates B, for example, B can be obtained through A; it can also mean that A indirectly indicates B, for example, A indicates C, and B can be obtained through C; it can also mean that A and B are associated. In the embodiments of this application, determining B based on A does not mean determining B based solely on A; B can also be determined based on A and / or other information.

[0256] In the embodiments of the present application, the term "corresponding" may indicate a direct or indirect correspondence between the two, or an association relationship between the two, or a relationship between indication and indication, configuration and configuration, etc.

[0257] In the embodiments of the present application, "pre-definition" or "pre-configuration" may be implemented by pre-storing corresponding codes, tables, or other methods that can be used to indicate relevant information in a device (e.g., including a terminal device and a network device). The present application does not limit the specific implementation method. For example, pre-definition may refer to a definition in a protocol.

[0258] In the embodiments of the present application, the "protocol" may refer to a standard protocol in the communication field, for example, it may include an LTE protocol, a NR protocol, and related protocols used in future communication systems, and this application does not limit this.

[0259] In the embodiments of this application, the term "and / or" is simply a description of the association relationship between related objects, indicating that three relationships can exist. For example, A and / or B can represent: A exists alone, A and B exist at the same time, and B exists alone. In addition, the character " / " in this document generally indicates that the related objects are in an "or" relationship.

[0260] In various embodiments of the present application, the size of the serial numbers of the above-mentioned processes does not mean the order of execution. The execution order of each process should be determined by its function and internal logic, and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

[0261] In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are merely schematic. For example, the division of the units is merely a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods, such as multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. Another point is that the mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed can be through some interfaces, indirect coupling or communication connection of devices or units, which can be electrical, mechanical or other forms.

[0262] The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separate, and the components shown as units may or may not be physical units, that is, they may be located in one place or distributed across multiple network units. Some or all of these units may be selected to achieve the purpose of this embodiment according to actual needs.

[0263] In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist physically separately, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit.

[0264] The above description is merely a specific embodiment of the present application, but the scope of protection of the present application is not limited thereto. Any changes or substitutions that can be easily conceived by a person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in this application should be included in the scope of protection of this application. Therefore, the scope of protection of this application should be based on the scope of protection of the claims.

Claims

1. A method for sideline communication, characterized in that: include: The first terminal device determines a first transmit beam from among multiple transmit beams of the second terminal device, where the first transmit beam is used for performing initial beam pairing between the first terminal device and the second terminal device; The first terminal device sends beam feedback to the second terminal device on a first resource, where the first resource is determined based on first information, where the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that The multiple resources are dedicated resources used for one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device, and the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The multiple resources include multiple feedback opportunities FO, and the mapping relationship includes that any transmit beam among the multiple transmit beams corresponds to one or more FOs.

4. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is greater than the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the multiple FOs are divided into multiple FO groups with the number of the multiple transmit beams as a period, and any beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs that are respectively at the same position in the multiple FO groups.

5. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that When the number of FOs in the last FO group of the multiple FO groups is less than the number of the multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used for sending beam feedback.

6. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is determined according to the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used to indicate that the multiple transmit beams correspond one-to-one to the multiple FOs.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that The multiple resources include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1. The M FOs are used to send beam feedback to N terminal devices other than the second terminal device, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M. The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is also determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

8. The method according to claim 7, characterized in that At least two of the N terminal devices correspond to different numbers of FOs, and the terminal device with the highest service priority among the at least two terminal devices corresponds to the largest number of FOs.

9. The method according to claim 8, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is k i Represents, i∈[1,2,…N], if k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed according to the first descent gradient until The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device is expressed as: si , k i }; Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

10. The method according to claim 8, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is adjusted according to a configuration coefficient, and the configuration coefficient is related to the service priority of the terminal device. The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device in the N terminal devices is expressed as: {FO si , α i ×H}; Wherein, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in the N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

11. The method according to claim 8, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is determined by dividing the M FOs into N equal parts, and the remaining FOs after the M FOs are divided into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than the first threshold.

12. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 11, characterized in that The multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for sending beam feedback, and any time slot of the one or more dedicated time slots includes resources occupied by K×X FOs, wherein K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain, K is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, X represents the number of FOs in the time domain, X is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and the indexes of the K×X FOs are incremented according to the time domain and / or frequency domain.

13. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 12, characterized in that The method further comprises: The first terminal device determines the first transmit beam according to an instruction of a network device.

14. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 13, characterized in that The beam feedback is associated with one or more of the following: Side channel state information reference signal CSI-RS; Physical side feedback channel PSFCH; Side control information SCI.

15. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 14, characterized in that The initial beam pairing is performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to PSFCH; or, the initial beam pairing is performed after the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to SCI.

16. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 15, characterized in that The multiple transmit beams are used to carry reference signals, and the reference signals include one or more of the following: S-SSB, side CSI-RS.

17. A method for sideline communication, characterized in that: include: The second terminal device sends a reference signal through multiple transmit beams, where the multiple transmit beams are used by the first terminal device to determine a first transmit beam, and the first transmit beam is used for the first terminal device to perform initial beam pairing with the second terminal device; The second terminal device receives beam feedback sent by the first terminal device on a first resource, where the first resource is determined based on first information, where the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

18. The method according to claim 17, characterized in that The multiple resources are dedicated resources used for one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device, and the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

19. The method according to claim 17 or 18, characterized in that The multiple resources include multiple feedback opportunities FO, and the mapping relationship includes that any transmit beam among the multiple transmit beams corresponds to one or more FOs.

20. The method according to claim 19, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is greater than the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the multiple FOs are divided into multiple FO groups with the number of the multiple transmit beams as a period, and any beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs that are respectively at the same position in the multiple FO groups.

21. The method according to claim 20, characterized in that When the number of FOs in the last FO group of the multiple FO groups is less than the number of the multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used for sending beam feedback.

22. The method according to claim 19, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is determined according to the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used to indicate that the multiple transmit beams correspond one-to-one to the multiple FOs.

23. The method according to any one of claims 17 to 22, characterized in that The multiple resources include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1. The M FOs are used to send beam feedback to N terminal devices other than the second terminal device, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M. The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is also determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

24. The method according to claim 23, characterized in that At least two of the N terminal devices correspond to different numbers of FOs, and the terminal device with the highest service priority among the at least two terminal devices corresponds to the largest number of FOs.

25. The method according to claim 24, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is k i Represents, i∈[1,2,…N], if k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed according to the first descent gradient until The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device is expressed as: si , k i }; Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

26. The method according to claim 24, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is adjusted according to a configuration coefficient, and the configuration coefficient is related to the service priority of the terminal device. The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device in the N terminal devices is expressed as: {FO si , α i ×H}; Wherein, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in the N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

27. The method according to claim 24, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is determined by dividing the M FOs into N equal parts, and the remaining FOs after the M FOs are divided into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than the first threshold.

28. The method according to any one of claims 17 to 27, characterized in that The multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for sending beam feedback, and any time slot of the one or more dedicated time slots includes resources occupied by K×X FOs, wherein K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain, K is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, X represents the number of FOs in the time domain, X is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and the indexes of the K×X FOs are incremented according to the time domain and / or frequency domain.

29. The method according to any one of claims 17 to 28, characterized in that The first transmission beam is determined according to an instruction of a network device.

30. The method according to any one of claims 17 to 29, characterized in that The beam feedback is associated with one or more of the following: Side channel state information reference signal CSI-RS; Physical side feedback channel PSFCH; Side control information SCI.

31. The method according to any one of claims 17 to 30, characterized in that The initial beam pairing is performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to PSFCH; or, the initial beam pairing is performed after the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to SCI.

32. The method according to any one of claims 17 to 31, characterized in that The reference signal includes one or more of the following: S-SSB, sidelink CSI-RS.

33. A device for sideline communication, characterized in that: The apparatus is a first terminal device, and the first terminal device includes: A determination unit, configured to determine a first transmit beam from among multiple transmit beams of a second terminal device, wherein the first transmit beam is used for performing initial beam pairing between the first terminal device and the second terminal device; A sending unit is used to send beam feedback to the second terminal device on a first resource, the first resource is determined based on first information, the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

34. The device according to claim 33, characterized in that The multiple resources are dedicated resources used for one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device, and the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

35. The device according to claim 33 or 34, characterized in that The multiple resources include multiple feedback opportunities FO, and the mapping relationship includes that any transmit beam among the multiple transmit beams corresponds to one or more FOs.

36. The device according to claim 35, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is greater than the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the multiple FOs are divided into multiple FO groups with the number of the multiple transmit beams as a period, and any beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs that are respectively at the same position in the multiple FO groups.

37. The device according to claim 36, characterized in that When the number of FOs in the last FO group of the multiple FO groups is less than the number of the multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used for sending beam feedback.

38. The device according to claim 35, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is determined according to the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used to indicate that the multiple transmit beams correspond one-to-one to the multiple FOs.

39. The device according to any one of claims 33 to 38, characterized in that The multiple resources include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1. The M FOs are used to send beam feedback to N terminal devices other than the second terminal device, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M. The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is also determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

40. The device according to claim 39, characterized in that At least two of the N terminal devices correspond to different numbers of FOs, and the terminal device with the highest service priority among the at least two terminal devices corresponds to the largest number of FOs.

41. The device according to claim 40, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is k i Represents, i∈[1,2,…N], if k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed according to the first descent gradient until The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device is expressed as: si , k i }; Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

42. The device according to claim 40, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is adjusted according to a configuration coefficient, and the configuration coefficient is related to the service priority of the terminal device. The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device in the N terminal devices is expressed as: {FO si , α i ×H}; Wherein, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in the N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

43. The device according to claim 40, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is determined by dividing the M FOs into N equal parts, and the remaining FOs after the M FOs are divided into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than the first threshold.

44. The device according to any one of claims 33 to 43, characterized in that The multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for sending beam feedback, and any time slot of the one or more dedicated time slots includes resources occupied by K×X FOs, wherein K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain, K is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, X represents the number of FOs in the time domain, X is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and the indexes of the K×X FOs are incremented according to the time domain and / or frequency domain.

45. The device according to any one of claims 33 to 44, characterized in that The determining unit is further configured to determine the first transmit beam according to an instruction of a network device.

46. ​​The device according to any one of claims 33 to 45, characterized in that The beam feedback is associated with one or more of the following: Side channel state information reference signal CSI-RS; Physical side feedback channel PSFCH; Side control information SCI.

47. The device according to any one of claims 33 to 46, characterized in that The initial beam pairing is performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to PSFCH; or, the initial beam pairing is performed after the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to SCI.

48. The device according to one of claims 33 to 47, characterized in that The multiple transmit beams are used to carry reference signals, and the reference signals include one or more of the following: S-SSB, side CSI-RS.

49. An apparatus for wireless communication, characterized in that: The apparatus is a second terminal device, and the second terminal device includes: A sending unit, configured to send a reference signal through a plurality of transmit beams, wherein the plurality of transmit beams are used by a first terminal device to determine a first transmit beam, and the first transmit beam is used by the first terminal device to perform initial beam pairing with the second terminal device; A receiving unit is used to receive beam feedback sent by the first terminal device on a first resource, where the first resource is determined based on first information, where the first information is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple resources including the first resource and the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used by the second terminal device to determine the first transmit beam.

50. The device according to claim 49, characterized in that The multiple resources are dedicated resources used for one or more terminal devices other than the second terminal device to send beam feedback to the second terminal device, and the one or more terminal devices include the first terminal device.

51. The device according to claim 49 or 50, characterized in that The multiple resources include multiple feedback opportunities FO, and the mapping relationship includes that any transmit beam among the multiple transmit beams corresponds to one or more FOs.

52. The device according to claim 51, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is greater than the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the multiple FOs are divided into multiple FO groups with the number of the multiple transmit beams as a period, and any beam in the multiple transmit beams corresponds to multiple FOs that are respectively at the same position in the multiple FO groups.

53. The device according to claim 52, characterized in that When the number of FOs in the last FO group of the multiple FO groups is less than the number of the multiple transmit beams, the FOs in the last FO group are not used for sending beam feedback.

54. The device according to claim 51, characterized in that The number of the multiple FOs is determined according to the number of the multiple transmit beams, and the first information is also used to indicate that the multiple transmit beams correspond one-to-one to the multiple FOs.

55. The device according to any one of claims 49 to 54, characterized in that The multiple resources include M FOs, where M is a natural number greater than 1. The M FOs are used to send beam feedback to N terminal devices other than the second terminal device, where N is a natural number greater than 1 and less than M. The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is also determined based on the service priorities of the N terminal devices and / or the communication requirements of the N terminal devices.

56. The device according to claim 55, characterized in that At least two of the N terminal devices correspond to different numbers of FOs, and the terminal device with the highest service priority among the at least two terminal devices corresponds to the largest number of FOs.

57. The device according to claim 56, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to the i-th terminal device among the N terminal devices is k i Represents, i∈[1,2,…N], if k1 to k N The maximum value in is processed according to the first descent gradient until The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device is expressed as: si , k i }; Among them, FO si is the starting position of the FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

58. The device according to claim 56, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is adjusted according to a configuration coefficient, and the configuration coefficient is related to the service priority of the terminal device. The FO corresponding to the i-th terminal device in the N terminal devices is expressed as: {FO si , α i ×H}; Wherein, H represents the cardinality of FO corresponding to each terminal device in the N terminal devices, α i is the configuration coefficient of the i-th terminal device, α i is an integer, j∈[1,2,…i-1].

59. The device according to claim 56, characterized in that The number of FOs corresponding to each of the N terminal devices is determined by dividing the M FOs into N equal parts, and the remaining FOs after the M FOs are divided into N equal parts are used for one or more terminal devices among the N terminal devices whose priority is higher than the first threshold.

60. The device according to any one of claims 49 to 59, characterized in that The multiple resources include one or more dedicated time slots for sending beam feedback, and any time slot of the one or more dedicated time slots includes resources occupied by K×X FOs, wherein K represents the number of FOs in the frequency domain, K is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, X represents the number of FOs in the time domain, X is a natural number greater than or equal to 1, and the indexes of the K×X FOs are incremented according to the time domain and / or frequency domain.

61. The device according to any one of claims 49 to 60, characterized in that The first transmission beam is determined according to an instruction of a network device.

62. The device according to any one of claims 49 to 61, characterized in that The beam feedback is associated with one or more of the following: Side channel state information reference signal CSI-RS; Physical side feedback channel PSFCH; Side control information SCI.

63. The device according to any one of claims 49 to 62, characterized in that The initial beam pairing is performed before the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to PSFCH; or, the initial beam pairing is performed after the first terminal device and the second terminal device establish a unicast link, and the first information is determined according to SCI.

64. The device according to any one of claims 49 to 63, characterized in that The reference signal includes one or more of the following: S-SSB, sidelink CSI-RS.

65. A communication device, characterized in that: The invention comprises a memory and a processor, wherein the memory is used to store a program, and the processor is used to call the program in the memory to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 32.

66. A device, characterized in that The invention comprises a processor, which is used to call a program from a memory to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 32.

67. A chip, characterized in that: It comprises a processor, which is used to call a program from a memory, so that a device equipped with the chip executes a method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 32.

68. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that A program is stored thereon, the program causing a computer to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 32.

69. A computer program product, characterized in that The method comprises a program which causes a computer to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 32.

70. A computer program, characterized in that The computer program causes a computer to execute the method according to any one of claims 1 to 32.

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