Communication method and communication apparatus

Abstract

Provided in the present application are a communication method and a communication apparatus. When a terminal device sends wireless network access capability information of the terminal device to a network device, indication information used for indicating whether a first frequency band combination supports the fallback of an uplink transmission channel switching capability can be reported at the same time. On the basis of the indication information, the network device can quickly and effectively determine an uplink transmission channel switching capability of a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, which is conducive to improving the efficiency of configuring and / or scheduling the terminal equipment by the network device, and is also conducive to reducing the complexity of the network device. In the process of performing communication by using the communication method and communication apparatus, data transmission is high in efficiency and reliability.

Description

Communication method and communication device

[0001] This application claims priority to the Chinese patent application filed with the State Intellectual Property Office of China on November 2, 2023, with application number 202311455326.9 and invention name “Communication Method and Communication Device”, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference into this application.

[0002] This application claims priority to the Chinese patent application filed with the State Intellectual Property Office of China on November 16, 2023, with application number 202311541640.9 and invention name “Communication Method and Communication Device”, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference into this application. Technical Field

[0003] The present application relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a communication method and a communication device. Background Art

[0004] In wireless communication scenarios, the number of transmission channels used by terminal devices for communication is limited. Switching transmission channels between multiple uplink frequency bands can, on the one hand, improve the transmission efficiency of terminal devices for communication data transmission, and on the other hand, it is also conducive to improving the utilization efficiency of communication resources such as frequency domain resources.

[0005] The switching time of uplink transmission channel switching is an important factor affecting the reliability of data transmission between terminal devices and network devices. When the terminal device needs to switch the uplink transmission channel between frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination, how to efficiently determine the switching time is an issue worth considering.

[0006] Summary of the Invention

[0007] The present application provides a communication method, in which a terminal device can send indication information to a network device to indicate whether a first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability. The indication information is conducive to the network device determining the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and is conducive to aligning the understanding of the uplink transmission switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination between the terminal device and the network device to ensure the reliability of data transmission; on the other hand, it is also conducive to improving the flexibility of the terminal device implementation, that is, allowing the terminal device to support an uplink transmission channel switching capability different from the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination and indicate it to the network device, and it is conducive to reducing the complexity of network device configuration and scheduling of terminal devices.

[0008] In a first aspect, a communication method is provided, which is applied to a terminal device, including: receiving a capability query message; sending capability information, the capability information including first information, and the first information is used to indicate whether a first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0009] In some scenarios, whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability can also be understood as: whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as that of the first frequency band combination, or whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the same as that of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. Among them, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

[0010] In some scenarios, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination can be understood as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination.

[0011] In a possible implementation, the capability information here may be used to indicate the wireless access capability of the terminal device. In some scenarios, the capability information may also be referred to as the terminal device capability information (UE Capability information) or wireless access capability information.

[0012] By reporting to the network device indication information that can be used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, the network device can determine whether the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities based on the information. Thus, different configuration schemes are executed respectively when the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities and when the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have the same uplink transmission channel switching capabilities. This is beneficial for the network device to determine the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and is beneficial for improving the efficiency and reliability of data transmission between the terminal device and the network device.

[0013] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first information is also used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, the uplink transmission channel switching capability includes the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching, and the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

[0014] The network device can determine the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination based on the first information. The uplink transmission channel switching capability cannot be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination. This technical solution is beneficial for the network device to determine the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, reduce the complexity of the operation of the network device, and improve the applicability of this technical solution.

[0015] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the capability information further includes the second frequency band combination and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0016] The capability information reported by the terminal device can directly indicate the second frequency band combination and its uplink transmission channel switching capability that is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of its parent frequency band combination. The network device can directly schedule and configure the terminal device based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination. The implementation of this technical solution is conducive to the network device determining the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, thereby improving the reliability and efficiency of data transmission of the terminal device.

[0017] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first information further includes index information, and the index information is used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0018] Index information is used to indicate the second frequency band combination. The data volume of the index information is small. The implementation of this technical solution is conducive to saving network signaling overhead. The index information is included in the capability information of the first frequency band combination. Therefore, the network device can determine the position of the second frequency band combination based on the capability information of the first frequency band combination. To a certain extent, it is also conducive to reducing the complexity of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination configured by the network device for the first frequency band combination.

[0019] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the capability information includes capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes the first information.

[0020] In some scenarios, the above technical solution can also be understood as: the first information can be reported in the dimension of each frequency band combination.

[0021] Including the first information in the capability information of the first frequency band combination and sending it helps improve the correlation between the first information and the first frequency band combination. The network device can accordingly obtain the first information when reading the capability information of the first frequency band combination. The network device can determine, based on the first frequency band combination, whether the capability of the first frequency band combination can be used to determine the configuration and scheduling method for uplink transmit channel switching of a fallback frequency band combination with a small number of frequency bands. Implementation of this technical solution helps the network device determine the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, thereby reducing the complexity of network device operation.

[0022] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, the capability information includes the capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes second information and third information, the second information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the third information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination; wherein, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0023] In a possible implementation, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination does not include the third information, or in other words, the third information is empty.

[0024] The present technical solution provides another possible implementation method of the first information. When the terminal device supports different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities in the fallback frequency band combination, the terminal device reports the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of different fallback frequency band combinations in the parent frequency band combination of the fallback frequency band combination, without the need to additionally report another fallback frequency band combination entity. On the one hand, it can save the signaling overhead of capability reporting, and on the other hand, it can reduce the complexity of network implementation. That is, when the network configures the carrier aggregation / dual connection combination, the network device does not need to traverse all the frequency band combinations reported by the terminal device to find the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination. It can only refer to one parent frequency band combination to configure its fallback frequency band combination, without referring to the capabilities of multiple frequency band combinations for configuration.

[0025] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the target switching time, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the target switching time is the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination or the second frequency band combination.

[0026] In a possible implementation, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability. The capability information may not include the first information, or in other words, the first information is empty.

[0027] The present technical solution provides another possible implementation method of the first information. By directly indicating the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching in the capability information, the network device can configure the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination according to the indication information, which is beneficial for the network device to determine the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and is beneficial for the terminal device to support the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination. The switching time is consistent with the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination determined by the network device, which is beneficial to avoiding the switching time ambiguity problem and improving the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0028] In addition, also due to the indication information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is conducive to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0029] In combination with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the number of frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination is less than the number of frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination.

[0030] In a possible implementation, the first frequency band combination includes four frequency bands, and the second frequency band combination includes three frequency bands.

[0031] For the detailed explanation and description of the beneficial effects of the following technical solutions, please refer to the relevant content in the first aspect. For the sake of brevity, they will not be repeated below.

[0032] In a second aspect, a communication method is provided, which is applied to a network device, including: sending a capability query message; receiving capability information, the capability information including first information, and the first information is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0033] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first information is also used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, the uplink transmission channel switching capability includes the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching, and the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

[0034] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the capability information further includes the second frequency band combination and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0035] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first information further includes index information, and the index information is used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0036] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the capability information includes capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes the first information.

[0037] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, the capability information includes the capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes second information and third information, the second information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the third information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination; wherein, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0038] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the target switching time, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the target switching time is the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination or the second frequency band combination.

[0039] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the number of frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination is less than the number of frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination.

[0040] In a third aspect, a communication device is provided, which includes a transceiver unit, which is used to: receive a capability query message; send capability information, the capability information includes first information, and the first information is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0041] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the first information is also used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, the uplink transmission channel switching capability includes the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching, and the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

[0042] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the capability information further includes the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0043] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the first information further includes index information, and the index information is used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0044] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the capability information includes capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes the first information.

[0045] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, the capability information includes the capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes second information and third information, the second information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the third information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination; wherein, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0046] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the target switching time, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the target switching time is the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination or the second frequency band combination.

[0047] In combination with the third aspect, in certain implementations of the third aspect, the number of frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination is less than the number of frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination.

[0048] In a fourth aspect, a communication device is provided, which includes a transceiver unit, which is used to: send a capability query message; receive capability information, the capability information includes first information, and the first information is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0049] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the first information is also used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, the uplink transmission channel switching capability includes the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching, and the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

[0050] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the capability information further includes the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0051] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the first information further includes index information, and the index information is used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0052] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the capability information includes capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes the first information.

[0053] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, the capability information includes the capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes second information and third information, the second information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the third information is used to indicate the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination; wherein, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0054] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the target switching time, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the target switching time is the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination or the second frequency band combination.

[0055] In combination with the fourth aspect, in certain implementations of the fourth aspect, the number of frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination is less than the number of frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination.

[0056] In a fifth aspect, a communication device is provided, comprising a processor coupled to a memory and configured to execute instructions in the memory to implement any of the first and second aspects, as well as the method of any possible implementation of the first and second aspects. Optionally, the device further comprises a memory, which may be deployed separately from the processor or centrally. Optionally, the device further comprises a communication interface, the processor coupled to the communication interface.

[0057] In one implementation, the communication interface may be a transceiver, or an input / output interface.

[0058] In another implementation, the device is a terminal device or network device, or a chip configured in the terminal device or network device. It can also be a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the terminal device or network device. When the device is a chip, the communication interface can be an input / output interface, interface circuit, output circuit, input circuit, pin, or related circuit on the chip or chip system. The processor can also be embodied as a processing circuit or a logic circuit.

[0059] Optionally, the transceiver may be a transceiver circuit. Optionally, the input / output interface may be an input / output circuit.

[0060] In a specific implementation, the processor may be one or more chips, the input circuit may be an input pin, the output circuit may be an output pin, and the processing circuit may be a transistor, a gate circuit, a trigger, or various logic circuits. The input signal received by the input circuit may be, but is not limited to, received and input by a receiver, and the signal output by the output circuit may be, but is not limited to, output to and transmitted by a transmitter. The input circuit and the output circuit may be the same circuit, which functions as an input circuit and an output circuit at different times. The embodiments of the present application do not limit the specific implementation of the processor and various circuits.

[0061] In a sixth aspect, a communication device is provided, which includes a logic circuit and an input / output interface, wherein the logic circuit is used to couple with the input / output interface and transmit data through the input / output interface to execute any one of the above-mentioned first and second aspects, as well as the method in any possible implementation of the first and second aspects.

[0062] In one implementation, the device is a terminal device or network device, or a chip configured in the terminal device or network device. It can also be a logic module or software that can implement all or part of the functions of the terminal device or network device. When the device is a chip, the communication interface can be an input / output interface, interface circuit, output circuit, input circuit, pin, or related circuit on the chip or chip system. The processor can also be embodied as a processing circuit or a logic circuit.

[0063] In the seventh aspect, the present application provides a chip system, comprising: a processor, which is used to execute the computer program or instructions in the memory, so that the chip system implements the method in the above-mentioned first and second aspects and any possible implementation method of the first and second aspects.

[0064] In an eighth aspect, the present application provides a communication system comprising: a network device and a terminal device, wherein the network device is used to execute the method of the above-mentioned first aspect and any possible implementation of the first aspect; the terminal device is used to execute the method of the above-mentioned second aspect and any possible implementation of the second aspect.

[0065] In the ninth aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, which stores a computer program (also referred to as code, or instructions) which, when run on a computer, enables the computer to execute any one of the above-mentioned first and second aspects, as well as any possible implementation of the first and second aspects.

[0066] In the tenth aspect, a computer program product is provided, which includes: a computer program (also referred to as code, or instructions), which, when executed, enables a computer to execute any one of the above-mentioned first and second aspects, as well as a method in any possible implementation of the first and second aspects. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0067] FIG1 is a schematic diagram of a system architecture applicable to an embodiment of the present application.

[0068] FIG2 is a schematic diagram of the composition of a network device provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0069] FIG3 is a schematic diagram of a communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0070] FIG4 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0071] FIG5 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0072] FIG6 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0073] FIG7 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0074] FIG8 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0075] FIG9 is a schematic diagram of a CG provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0076] FIG10 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0077] FIG11 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0078] FIG12 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0079] FIG13 is a schematic diagram of another communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0080] FIG14 is a schematic diagram of a communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0081] FIG15 is a schematic diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application.

[0082] FIG16 is a schematic diagram of a chip system provided in an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0083] The technical solution in this application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0084] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: global system for mobile communications (GSM) system, code division multiple access (CDMA) system, wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system, general packet radio service (GPRS), long term evolution (LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (TDD), universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS), world-wide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) communication system, fourth generation (4G) system, fifth generation (5G) system or new radio (NR), etc.

[0085] A terminal device is a device with wireless transceiver capabilities that can send signals to a network device or receive signals from a network device. A terminal may refer to an access terminal, a user unit, a user station, a mobile station, a mobile station, a remote station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a user equipment (UE), a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user device. A user device may also be a cellular phone, a cordless phone, a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (WLL) station, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a handheld device with wireless communication capabilities, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, an in-vehicle device, a wearable device, a terminal in a 5G network, or any form of user equipment in a future network, etc., and the embodiments of the present application are not limited thereto.

[0086] The network device in the embodiments of the present application may be a device for communicating with a terminal, and for connecting the terminal to a radio access network (RAN). A network device may also sometimes be referred to as an access network device, an access network node, or a base station. It is understood that in systems employing different radio access technologies, the name of the device having base station functionality may vary. For ease of description, in the embodiments of the present application, the device providing wireless communication access functionality for a terminal is collectively referred to as a network device. The network equipment can be a base transceiver station (BTS) in the global system for mobile communications (GSM) system or code division multiple access (CDMA), a base station (NodeB, NB) in the wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system, an evolved NodeB (eNB or eNodeB) in the LTE system, a base station (gNodeB, gNB) in NR, a next generation evolved base station (ng-eNB) or a transmission receiving point / transmission reception point (TRP), a base station subsequently evolved by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), an access node, a wireless relay node, a wireless backhaul node in the wireless network communication technology (WiFi) system, or a cloud radio access network (CRN). The wireless controller in the CRAN (Cran) scenario, or the network device can be a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a network device in a 5G network, or a network device in a future evolved PLMN network, one or a group of antenna panels (including multiple antenna panels) of a base station in a 5G system, or a network node constituting a next generation base station node (next generation Node Base station, gNB) or a transmission point, such as a baseband unit (Baseband unit, BBU), a distributed unit (distributed unit, DU), a centralized unit (Central unit, CU), etc., and the embodiments of the present application are not limited.

[0087] In an embodiment of the present application, a terminal or network device includes a hardware layer, an operating system layer running on the hardware layer, and an application layer running on the operating system layer. The hardware layer includes hardware such as a central processing unit (CPU), a memory management unit (MMU), and memory (also called main memory). The operating system can be any one or more computer operating systems that implement business processing through processes, such as a Linux operating system, a Unix operating system, an Android operating system, an iOS operating system, or a Windows operating system. The application layer includes applications such as browsers, address books, word processing software, and instant messaging software. In addition, the embodiment of the present application does not specifically limit the specific structure of the execution subject of the method provided in the embodiment of the present application. As long as it is possible to communicate according to the method provided in the embodiment of the present application by running a program that records the code of the method provided in the embodiment of the present application, for example, the execution subject of the method provided in the embodiment of the present application can be a terminal or network device, or a functional module in the terminal or network device that can call and execute a program, such as a chip or processor.

[0088] In addition, various aspects or features of the present application can be implemented as methods, apparatus, or articles of manufacture using standard programming and / or engineering techniques. For example, computer-readable media can include, but are not limited to: magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disks, floppy disks, or magnetic tapes), optical disks (e.g., compact discs (CDs), digital versatile discs (DVDs), etc.), smart cards, and flash memory devices (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), cards, sticks, or key drives, etc.). In addition, the various storage media described herein can represent one or more devices and / or other machine-readable media for storing information. The term "machine-readable medium" can include, but is not limited to, wireless channels and various other media capable of storing, containing, and / or carrying instructions and / or data.

[0089] To facilitate understanding of the embodiments of the present application, several terms involved in the present application are first briefly explained.

[0090] Frequency band, in the field of communications, refers to the frequency range of radio waves.

[0091] Carrier aggregation (CA) is a wireless communication technology that aggregates multiple component carriers (CCs) to increase transmission bandwidth.

[0092] Dual connectivity (DC) refers to a communication technology that allows terminal devices to simultaneously use the wireless resources of at least two different base stations while connected, improving the utilization of wireless network resources and reducing switching latency.

[0093] Band combinations (BCs) are typically used to indicate the capabilities supported by a terminal device for carrier aggregation or dual connectivity. Each BC indicates the frequency bands it contains, and even if the terminal device supports only one band, this structure is used to report it. Each band entry in each BC supports one or more component carriers.

[0094] Fallback band combination (BC): In carrier aggregation technology, there is usually one carrier as the primary cell (PCell) and other serving cells as secondary cells (SCell). The secondary cell can be activated and deactivated during use. If there is no data transmission for a period of time, the network may deactivate the secondary cell and may consider reactivating the secondary cell when there is data to be sent later. Carrier aggregation includes aggregation of multiple carriers in a single frequency band and aggregation of multiple carriers in multiple frequency bands. The combination obtained by releasing at least one secondary cell, the uplink carrier component of the secondary cell, the secondary cell group (SCG), or the supplementary uplink (SUL) from a frequency band combination (parent band combination) is called a fallback band combination.

[0095] Uplink Tx Switching is a communication technology in multi-frequency collaboration. It switches the uplink transmit antenna of the terminal device to achieve time-division uplink transmission of two carriers, thereby improving the uplink capacity of the network.

[0096] Figure 1 is a schematic architecture diagram of a 5G system. The 5G system 100 in Figure 1 includes a 5G core network (5G core, 5GC) and a 5G radio access network (next generation radio access network, NG RAN). Among them, the 5GC may include at least one access and mobility management function (Access and Mobility Management Function, AMF) network element / user plane function (user plane function, UPF) network element. Among them, the AMF network element mainly performs functions such as mobility management, access authentication / authorization, and can also transmit user policies between terminal devices and PCF network elements. The UPF network element can serve as an interface UPF with the data network to implement user plane data forwarding, session / flow-level billing statistics, bandwidth limitation and other functions.

[0097] Each gNB can provide the termination point for the NR user plane and control plane protocols. Each ng-eNB can provide the termination point for the user plane and control plane protocol stack of the evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN). Each gNB is connected to each other, each gNB is connected to the ng-eNB, and each ng-eNB is connected to the ng-eNB via the Xn interface. Each gNB is connected to the 5GC via the NG interface. Specifically, each gNB is connected to the AMF via the NG-C interface, and each gNB is connected to the UPF via the NR-U interface. Similarly, each ng-eNB is connected to the 5GC via the NG interface. Specifically, each ng-eNB is connected to the AMF via the NG-C interface, and each ng-eNB is connected to the UPF via the NR-U interface.

[0098] The NG RAN includes at least one gNB and / or at least one ng-eNB. Figure 2 exemplarily provides a schematic diagram of the composition structure of a gNB.

[0099] A gNB can consist of a base station-centralized unit-control plane (CP), multiple base stations-centralized units-user plane (UP), and multiple base stations-distributed units.

[0100] The gNB-CU-CP is connected to the gNB-DU through the F1-C interface. The gNB-CU-UP is connected to the gNB-DU through the F1-U interface. The gNB-CU-UP is connected to the gNB-CU-CP through the E1 interface. One gNB-DU is connected to only one gNB-CU-CP, and one gNB-CU-UP is connected to only one gNB-CU-CP.

[0101] In wireless communication systems, network equipment needs to know the capabilities of terminal devices and perform appropriate configuration and scheduling based on their capabilities to ensure correct data processing. Because terminal devices vary in capabilities, and capability signaling involves numerous parameters, terminal devices report capability information to the base station after establishing a connection. This information includes supported frequency bands, supported frequency band combinations, carrier bandwidth, and modulation order.

[0102] Carrier aggregation and / or dual connectivity technologies can improve wireless network system radio resource utilization and enhance the efficiency of data transmission between terminal devices and network equipment. Conventional carrier aggregation allows concurrent transmission across multiple carriers, and terminal devices can also perform single or dual transmissions on a single carrier. To mitigate the adverse effects of a terminal device's limited number of transmit channels on data transmission, terminal devices typically switch transmit channels between multiple uplink frequency bands.

[0103] The uplink transmit channel switching (UL Tx switching) process has a certain delay. The terminal device can report the switching time between the frequency band pairs that support uplink transmit channel switching to the network equipment. This can increase the flexibility of the frequency band combinations that the network equipment can schedule for sending uplink signals. For example, considering the dynamic changes in the channel quality of the carrier within a frequency band, the network can select a better frequency band and quickly and dynamically switch the frequency band for sending uplink signals to improve uplink throughput.

[0104] In the terminal device's capability information, the terminal device reports one or more supported band combinations to the network device. For band combinations that support uplink transmit channel switching, the capability of the band combination to support uplink transmit channel switching is also included. The uplink transmit channel switching capability includes the uplink transmit channel switching period (uplink Tx switching period) for at least one band pair in the band combination.

[0105] In addition, the concept of a fallback band combination is introduced. A fallback band combination is a band combination derived from another band combination (also called a parent band combination) by releasing at least one secondary cell (SCell), an SCell uplink configuration, a secondary cell group (SCG), or a supplementary uplink (UL).

[0106] For a fallback frequency band combination, the terminal device may not report the fallback frequency band combination in the capability information, but only report its parent frequency band combination. The network device will consider that the terminal device supports any fallback frequency band combination obtained from the parent frequency band combination, that is, the terminal device should at least support the same capabilities on the same frequency band as its parent frequency band combination in the fallback frequency band combination.

[0107] The benefit of capability fallback is that, on the one hand, it can save the signaling overhead of terminal devices reporting multiple frequency band combinations; on the other hand, from the perspective of the network side, it can reduce the complexity of network devices configuring frequency band combinations, that is, when the network device releases at least one SCell, or the uplink configuration of the SCell, or SCG, or SUL, there is no need to query the capability information of the terminal device to determine the capability of another frequency band combination (that is, the fallback frequency band combination), and configure the terminal device according to the capability reported by another frequency band combination, but allow the network device to determine the configuration of the fallback frequency band combination according to the capability of its parent frequency band combination. The terminal device will report the capabilities of multiple frequency band combinations respectively. In these reported multiple frequency band combinations, different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities can be reported. However, these different frequency band combinations may have fallback frequency band combinations composed of the same frequency bands. For example, the terminal device reports combination #1 {bandA+bandB+bandC+bandD} and combination #2 {bandA+bandB+bandC+bandE}, both of which contain fallback frequency band combinations composed of the same frequency bands bandA, bandB, and bandC. When the network device configures the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching for this type of fallback frequency band combination, it can be configured according to the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of any parent frequency band combination. In one possible case, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching configured by the network device for this type of fallback frequency band combination (for example, called switching time A) is different from the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching configured for the fallback frequency band combination determined by the terminal device (for example, called switching time B). Exemplarily, the switching time A can be shorter than the switching time B. For example, the switching time A is 35us and the switching time B is 140us. This situation will cause the terminal device to be unable to send uplink data blocks on the time-frequency domain resources scheduled by the network for uplink authorization, thereby causing the network to be unable to correctly decode the uplink data sent by the terminal device.

[0108] In order to solve the problem of inconsistent understanding of switching time between the above-mentioned network equipment and terminal equipment (or the switching time ambiguity problem), a feasible way is that the terminal equipment can additionally report a fallback frequency band combination that can override the parent frequency band combination, and the switching time of the uplink transmission switching reported by the terminal equipment in the fallback frequency band combination covers the switching time on the same frequency band of the parent frequency band combination. However, the problem with this method is that since the number of frequency band combinations reported by the terminal equipment in the capability information is large, the network equipment needs to traverse all the frequency band combinations reported by the terminal equipment when selecting and configuring the carrier combination for communication, in order to determine whether the fallback frequency band combination of the parent frequency band combination is additionally reported in addition to the parent frequency band combination reported by the terminal equipment. When it is determined that the capability information contains the additionally reported fallback frequency band combination, the terminal equipment is configured and scheduled according to the switching time of the additionally reported fallback frequency band combination.

[0109] Another feasible approach is to use the longest switching time to schedule the terminal device when there are multiple frequency band combinations with different switching times for the same frequency band pair. However, the problem with this approach is that in order to determine whether there are different switching times reported for the same frequency band pair in different frequency band combinations, the network device needs to traverse all frequency band combinations reported by the terminal device to determine whether there are two or more frequency band combinations with inconsistent switching times for the same frequency band pair. It then needs to determine the longest switching time among the multiple different switching times for the same frequency band pair and use this longest switching time to configure and schedule the terminal device.

[0110] Both of the above solutions require network devices to perform relatively complex and time-consuming traversal operations, which increases network complexity and reduces the efficiency of wireless resource configuration of network devices.

[0111] In order to improve the data transmission efficiency between terminal devices and network devices, improve the utilization of wireless resources, reduce network complexity, and improve the flexibility and efficiency of network devices in configuring wireless resources, the present application provides a communication method, which is introduced as follows.

[0112] When reporting capability information, the terminal device may indicate whether one or more frequency band combinations in the capability information support fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the network device may configure and schedule the terminal device according to the indication.

[0113] In this technical solution, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability that is different from the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, and indicate it to the network device, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device. For example, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability that is weaker than the fallback frequency band combination (such as a longer switching time) in the fallback frequency band combination. For another example, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching supported on multiple parent frequency band combinations is different, and the fallback frequency band combination only supports the uplink transmission channel switching capability of one of the parent frequency band combinations.

[0114] S110, the network device sends a capability query message, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the capability query message.

[0115] In some examples, the capability query information is used to request wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. After receiving the capability query information, the terminal device can report information related to its wireless access capabilities.

[0116] In some examples, when a terminal device establishes a relationship with a network device for the first time, the network device may send the capability query information to the terminal device.

[0117] In some examples, when the network device needs to re-query the capability information of the terminal device, or the terminal device sends a mobile registration update request carrying a capability update indication to the network device, the network device may send the capability query information to the terminal device.

[0118] S120, the terminal device sends capability information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the capability information.

[0119] UE capability information can be used to indicate the wireless access capabilities of a terminal device. After receiving the capability information of a terminal device, the network device can configure and schedule the terminal device based on the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. In some scenarios, the capability information can also be referred to as the terminal device capability information or wireless access capability information.

[0120] For example, the capability information may include one or more of the capabilities of the terminal device, such as the frequency bands supported by the terminal device, the frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the carrier bandwidth, the number of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) layers, or the modulation order.

[0121] In some examples, the capability information may include one or more frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, or in other words, the capability information may include information about one or more frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device. The one or more frequency band combinations may be frequency band combinations for uplink transmit channel switching. Uplink transmit channel switching may also be referred to as dynamic uplink transmit switching (dynamic UL Tx switching), uplink transmit channel switching, etc.

[0122] In some examples, the information of the frequency band combination may include one or more of the following: identifiers of one or more frequency bands included in the frequency band combination, identifiers of frequency bands included in one or more frequency band pairs for uplink transmission channel switching included in the frequency band combination (for example, a frequency band pair includes two frequency bands, and the identifiers of the frequency bands are indicated by bandIndexUL1 and bandIndexUL2 respectively), and switching time of uplink transmission channel switching supported by each frequency band pair, etc.

[0123] In some examples, multiple types of information for the same frequency band combination may be included in the capability information as one information unit.

[0124] Exemplarily, the capability information may include capability information of the first frequency band combination, capability information of the second frequency band combination, and capability information of the third frequency band combination, etc. The capability information of the frequency band combination is generally used to indicate the capability of carrier aggregation or dual connectivity supported by the terminal device, and may also be used to indicate the capability of non-carrier aggregation, such as the capability of a single carrier. The capability information of the first frequency band combination may include the identifiers of one or more frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination, the bandwidth class (ca-bandwidthClass) of each of the one or more frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination, the power class (power class) of the first frequency band combination, the identifier of the feature set combination (feature set combination) of the first frequency band combination, one or more frequency band pairs supporting uplink transmission channel switching included in the first frequency band combination (for example, the frequency band pair includes two frequency bands, and the identifiers of the frequency bands are indicated by bandIndexUL1 and bandIndexUL2 respectively), and the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching supported by each frequency band pair, etc. Similarly, the capability information of the second frequency band combination and the capability information of the third frequency band combination may also include the above information respectively.

[0125] In some scenarios, the capability information of the above-mentioned frequency band combination may also be referred to as frequency band combination information, frequency band combination, etc. For the sake of convenience, it is referred to as the capability information of the frequency band combination below.

[0126] In some examples, the capability information may further include first information, where the first information may be used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0127] In other words, the first information may be used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as or different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0128] In other words, the first information is used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be determined according to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0129] In other words, the first information may be used to indicate whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the same as or different from the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination.

[0130] In other words, the first information is used to indicate whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be determined according to the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination.

[0131] In other words, the first information is used to indicate, for a frequency band pair consisting of the same frequency band, whether the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination supports the same uplink transmission channel switching time as the first frequency band combination.

[0132] In some examples, both the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination support uplink transmission channel switching. In other words, the first information may be applicable to the frequency band combination that supports uplink transmission channel switching.

[0133] Here, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, or the first frequency band combination is a parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination.

[0134] The second frequency band combination obtained by releasing at least one of the following from the first frequency band combination can be called a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination: secondary cell, uplink carrier component of secondary cell, secondary cell group or secondary uplink, etc.

[0135] In some examples, the fallback band combination may refer to a band combination obtained by deleting at least one band from a parent band combination, or in other words, the number of bands in the fallback band combination is less than the number of bands in the parent band combination.

[0136] For example, the fallback band combination may be a band combination obtained by reducing a band from a parent band combination. For example, the parent band combination includes four bands, and the fallback band combination includes three bands. For another example, the parent band combination includes three bands, and the fallback band combination includes two bands.

[0137] Exemplarily, the fallback band combination may be a fallback band combination obtained by reducing a plurality of bands from a parent band combination. For example, the parent band combination includes four bands, and the fallback band combination includes two bands or one band. For another example, the parent band combination includes three bands, and the fallback band combination includes one band.

[0138] For example, the band combination {A,B,C,D} represents a band combination that includes band A, band B, band C, and band D. The following band combinations can be referred to as fallback band combinations of the band combination {A,B,C,D}: band combination {A,B,C}, band combination {B,C,D}, band combination {B,C}, and band combination {A}, etc.

[0139] For example, frequency band G of frequency band combination #1{E,F,G} supports both the first component carrier and the second component carrier, and frequency band G of frequency band combination #2{E,F,G} supports only the first component carrier or the second component carrier. In other words, frequency band G of frequency band combination #2{E,F,G} does not support the second component carrier or the first component carrier. In these cases, frequency band combination #1{E,F,G} can also be called the parent frequency band combination of frequency band combination #2{E,F,G}, and frequency band combination #2{E,F,G} can also be called the fallback frequency band combination of frequency band combination #1{E,F,G}.

[0140] In some examples, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination may include one or more of the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching options of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination (for example, switched UL, dual UL or Both, both means supporting both swithedUL and dual UL), the frequency band identifier of the downlink reception affected by the uplink transmission channel switching, the ability to support uplink codebooks (for example, supporting omnidirectional interference full coherent codebook subsets or non-coherent codebook subsets), etc.

[0141] The above-mentioned switching time may also include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor2T field), and the switching time may also include multiple of the above-mentioned three switching times.

[0142] In some examples, the above-mentioned uplink transmission channel switching may also refer to switching between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, switching between 4 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels; the switching time may also indicate the switching time between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, the switching time between 3 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels. This application does not impose any restrictions on this.

[0143] In this case, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination. It can be understood that: the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination is the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching between the same number of transmission channels of the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination is the same, and other uplink transmission channel switching capabilities are the same.

[0144] The uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination, which can be understood as: at least one of the capabilities related to uplink transmission channel switching, such as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination and the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching between the same number of transmission channels of the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination, and the switching options of the first frequency band combination and the first frequency band combination, is different.

[0145] In some examples, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of a frequency band combination may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination. The switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching between one or more frequency band pairs consisting of any two frequency bands included in the frequency band combination, or may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching between one frequency band pair and another frequency band pair or another frequency band.

[0146] In this case, whether the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from that of the uplink transmit channel of the second frequency band combination, or whether the switching time of the uplink transmit channel switching of the second frequency band combination is different from that of the uplink transmit channel switching of the first frequency band combination, can be understood as follows:

[0147] Exemplarily, the first frequency band combination includes a first frequency band pair, the second frequency band combination includes a second frequency band pair, and the first frequency band pair and the second frequency band pair consist of the same frequency band.

[0148] When the switching time (or switching capability) of the uplink transmission channel of the first frequency band pair is different from the cut-in time (or switching capability) of the uplink transmission channel of the second frequency band pair, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0149] The first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination may include one or more frequency band pairs consisting of the same frequency band. When the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of these frequency band pairs are the same, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0150] In some examples, the capability information may also include the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0151] Exemplarily, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination may include one or more of a switching time for the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, a switching option for the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, and the like.

[0152] Also exemplarily, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination may only include the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, or in other words, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination may refer to the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination.

[0153] Similar to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the aforementioned first frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be understood as the switching time of one or more frequency band pairs included in the second frequency band combination.

[0154] In some examples, the aforementioned first information may also include index information, which can be used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0155] Exemplarily, the terminal device can report one or more frequency band combinations it supports in the form of a frequency band combination set (for example, a frequency band combination list). The frequency band combinations in the frequency band combination set can be arranged in a certain order, or in other words, each frequency band combination in the frequency band combination set has an implicit corresponding serial number, and the above-mentioned index information can refer to the serial number of each frequency band combination in the frequency band combination set.

[0156] In some examples, the aforementioned first information is also used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device, or in other words, the first information can be the aforementioned index information.

[0157] In some examples, the second frequency band combination is a plurality of frequency band combinations, and the first information may include a plurality of index information, which may be used to indicate the positions of the plurality of frequency band combinations in the frequency band combination of at least one uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0158] In some examples, the first information may be included in the capability information of the first frequency band combination, or in other words, the first indication information may be reported in each frequency band combination dimension.

[0159] In some examples, the aforementioned first information may be an identification field or an identification bit, which is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0160] Exemplarily, the first information is 1 bit, and the presence of the bit or the setting of the bit to {true} or the setting of the bit to 1 indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability, or the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination cannot be determined based on the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the switching time of the uplink transmit channel switching of the second frequency band combination cannot be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmit channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or, for frequency band pairs consisting of the same frequency band, the frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination and the frequency band pairs in the first frequency band combination have different uplink transmit channel switching times;

[0161] This bit does not exist (default) or is set to 0, indicating that the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or, for frequency band pairs composed of the same frequency band, the frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination have the same uplink transmission channel switching time as the frequency band pairs in the first frequency band combination.

[0162] By using the first information to clearly indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability, it is beneficial to improve the efficiency of the network device in configuring the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and to reduce the probability of the switching time ambiguity problem, and to improve the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0163] In addition, also due to the first information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is conducive to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0164] When the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the same fallback frequency band combination of multiple frequency band combinations are different, the use of this technical solution is beneficial to reducing decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of the application switching time between the terminal device and the network device.

[0165] In the case where the fallback band combination capability supported by the terminal is different from the parent band combination, this solution can effectively reduce the complexity caused by requiring the network device to blindly traverse all band combinations to determine whether the terminal device has additionally reported the fallback band combination, and thus determine the configuration based on the capability of the reported fallback band combination. The network device can determine based on the parent band combination whether the capability of the parent band combination can be used to determine the configuration and scheduling method of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback band combination with a small number of bands. If the terminal device reports the first information, the network device can know that when the number of frequency bands that need to be configured for the carrier aggregation combination is less than the frequency band combination reported by the terminal device (or when configuring the fallback band combination), the fallback band combination should be configured with reference to other frequency band combinations.

[0166] In addition, the network device can determine, based on the first information, that the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination supported by the terminal device is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination. In this way, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination determined by the network device is not the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability that is different from the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device.

[0167] In some examples, the capability information of the first frequency band combination may include the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0168] In the case where the first frequency band combination capability information includes the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination, the second frequency band combination and / or the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be used to indicate that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability. In other words, the first frequency band combination capability information includes the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination, indicating that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability.

[0169] The first frequency band combination capability information does not include the second frequency band combination and / or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination, or the field of the second frequency band combination and / or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination in the first frequency band combination capability information is empty, indicating that the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0170] In some examples, the first information may include identifiers of the frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination, and the first information may also include a switching time of each frequency band pair included in the second frequency band combination.

[0171] Exemplarily, the frequency band identifier included in the second frequency band combination included in the first information may be the sequence number of the frequency band in the parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination (ie, the first frequency band combination).

[0172] In some examples, the second frequency band combination may be multiple frequency band combinations, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination may include the multiple frequency band combinations and the uplink transmit channel switching capabilities of the multiple frequency band combinations. In other words, the first information may include multiple fallback frequency band combinations of the same parent frequency band combination and the uplink transmit channel switching capabilities of the multiple fallback frequency band combinations.

[0173] In some examples, the aforementioned capability information may include capability information of multiple different parent frequency band combinations, and the capability information of these different parent frequency band combinations may include the above-mentioned first information, or in other words, the capability information of these different parent frequency band combinations may include one or more fallback frequency band combinations and the uplink transmission channel switching capability corresponding to the fallback frequency band combination.

[0174] By including a frequency band combination that is different from its uplink transmission channel switching capability and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination in the capability information of the first frequency band combination, it is beneficial to improve the efficiency of the network device in configuring the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, it is beneficial to reduce the probability of switching time ambiguity problems, and it is beneficial to improve the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0175] In addition, also due to the first information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is conducive to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0176] When the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the same fallback frequency band combination of multiple frequency band combinations are different, the use of this technical solution is beneficial to reducing decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of the application switching time between the terminal device and the network device.

[0177] When the terminal device supports different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities in the fallback frequency band combination, the terminal device reports the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of different fallback frequency band combinations in the parent frequency band combination of the fallback frequency band combination, without the need to additionally report another fallback frequency band combination entity. On the one hand, it can save the signaling overhead of capability reporting, and on the other hand, it can reduce the complexity of network implementation. That is, when the network configures carrier aggregation / dual connection combination, it can only refer to one parent frequency band combination to configure its fallback frequency band combination, without the need to refer to the capabilities of multiple frequency band combinations for configuration.

[0178] In addition, the network device can directly determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination included in the capability information of the first frequency band combination. However, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is not the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability different from that of the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device.

[0179] In some examples, the first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is a target switching time. The target switching time can be the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination. The target switching time can also be the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the second frequency band combination.

[0180] In some examples, the first information may be included in the capability information of each parent frequency band combination, or in other words, the aforementioned first information may be reported in each frequency band combination dimension.

[0181] In some examples, the aforementioned capability information may include multiple first information, and the multiple first information may be used to indicate target switching times corresponding to multiple different frequency band combinations.

[0182] In some examples, the first information may include an identification field and an identification bit. For example, the first information may be an identification bit with a length of 1 bit.

[0183] By directly indicating the first information in the capability information of the first frequency band combination, the network device can determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination based on the indication information, which is beneficial to improving the efficiency of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination configured by the network device for the first frequency band combination, is beneficial to reducing the probability of switching time ambiguity problems, and is beneficial to improving the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0184] In addition, also due to the indication information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is conducive to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0185] When the uplink transmit channel switching capabilities of the same fallback band combination vary across multiple band combinations, the technical solution provided by this embodiment helps mitigate decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of application switching times between terminal devices and network devices. Furthermore, it reduces the implementation complexity associated with network devices blindly traversing band combinations to determine when to use the maximum value for switching.

[0186] In addition, the network device can determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination according to the target switching time indicated by the first information. The switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination determined by this method may not be the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability different from that of the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device.

[0187] The above S110 and S120 provide a solution to the problem caused by inconsistent understanding of application switching time between the terminal device and the network device, that is, the terminal device sends a first message to the network device to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0188] In one possible implementation, the network device may also send indication information to the terminal device when configuring uplink transmission channel switching of a second frequency band combination for the terminal device. For example, the indication information may be called target indication information, and the target indication information may be used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. Here, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

[0189] Exemplarily, the target indication information indicates the identifiers of the frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination. In a possible implementation, the frequency band list for uplink transmission channel switching is indicated (for example, indicated by uplinkTxSwitchingbandList) in the configuration information of uplink transmission channel switching (for example, indicated by uplinkTxSwitchingMoreBands), and the frequency band list includes the identifiers of all frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination. Exemplarily, the identifiers of the above frequency bands are indicated by the FreqBandIndicatorNR field. For example, the network device configures the carrier aggregation or dual connection combination for communication for the terminal device as {A, B, C}, that is, the service cell configured by the network device is located on the carrier of frequency bands A, B, and C. However, in the configuration information of uplink transmission channel switching, the target indication information indicates that the frequency bands for uplink transmission channel switching include A, B, C, and E. However, in communication, the network device will not schedule the uplink transmission channel switching in band E, that is, the actual communication does not occur on the carrier of band E. By indicating A, B, C, and E in the configuration information of the uplink transmission channel switching, the terminal device can know that the network device is scheduling the uplink transmission channel switching on the combination {A, B, C} based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the {A, B, C, E} frequency band combination. In this way, the switching time ambiguity problem can be effectively avoided.

[0190] Exemplarily, the target indication information may include the switching time for uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination and the multiple frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination. After receiving the target indication information, the terminal device may determine the switching time for uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination determined by the network device based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0191] For example, when the network device configures the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} for the terminal device, it determines the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} according to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, E}. The above-mentioned target indication information sent by the network device to the terminal device may include: the uplink transmission channel switching time of multiple frequency band pairs (for example, (A, B), (A, C), (B, C)) included in the frequency band combination {A, B, C}.

[0192] After receiving the target indication information, the terminal device can combine the target indication information with the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band pair supported by itself to perform corresponding operations. The terminal device switches the uplink transmission channel according to the configuration issued by the network device.

[0193] The network device indicates to the terminal device the configuration method of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination determined by it (that is, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is determined according to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination). The terminal device can perform corresponding operations according to the different indication information. This technical solution is also conducive to reducing decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of the application switching time between the terminal device and the network device.

[0194] Figure 4 is another communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application. The capability information of the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device may include information that can be used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability. This information is helpful for the network device to more efficiently determine the method of scheduling and / or configuring the terminal device.

[0195] S201: A network device sends a first capability query message, and correspondingly, a terminal device receives the first capability query message.

[0196] The first capability query information is used to request the wireless access capability of the terminal device. After receiving the first capability query information, the terminal device may report information related to its wireless access capability.

[0197] In some examples, when a terminal device establishes a relationship with a network device for the first time, the network device may send first capability query information to the terminal device.

[0198] In some examples, when the network device needs to re-query the capability information of the terminal device, or the terminal device sends a mobile registration update request carrying a capability update indication to the network device, the network device may send first capability query information to the terminal device.

[0199] S202: The terminal device sends first capability information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the first capability information.

[0200] The first capability information can be used to indicate the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. After receiving the first capability information, the network device can configure and schedule the terminal device based on the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. In some scenarios, the first capability information can also be referred to as the first capability information of the terminal device or the first wireless access capability information.

[0201] Exemplarily, the first capability information may include one or more capabilities of the terminal device, such as the frequency bands supported by the terminal device, the frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the carrier bandwidth, the number of multiple-input and multiple-output layers, or the modulation order.

[0202] In some examples, the first capability information may include information about one or more frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device. For example, information about frequency band combination #1, information about frequency band combination #2, and information about frequency band combination #3. These frequency band combinations may include different numbers of frequency bands. For example, frequency band combination #1 and frequency band combination #2 may include four frequency bands, and frequency band combination #3 may include three frequency bands or two frequency bands.

[0203] The one or more frequency band combinations may be frequency band combinations for uplink transmit channel switching. Uplink transmit channel switching may also be referred to as dynamic uplink transmit switching (dynamic UL Tx switching), uplink transmit channel switching, etc.

[0204] Exemplarily, the aforementioned frequency band combination information may include: one or more of: frequency band pair identifiers of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination, switching time of uplink transmission channel switching of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination, etc.

[0205] In some examples, the information of the above-mentioned frequency band combination can be included in the first capability information as an information unit.

[0206] Exemplarily, various information about frequency band combination #1 may be included in the capability information of frequency band combination #1. The capability information of the frequency band combination is generally used to indicate the carrier aggregation or dual connectivity capabilities supported by the terminal device, and may also be used to indicate non-carrier aggregation capabilities, such as single carrier capabilities. In other words, the aforementioned first capability information may include the capability information of frequency band combination #1, and the capability information of frequency band combination #1 may include one or more of the following:

[0207] The identifiers of one or more frequency bands included in frequency band combination #1, the bandwidth class (ca-bandwidthClass) of each frequency band in the one or more frequency bands included in frequency band combination #1, the power class (power class) of frequency band combination #1, the identifier of the feature set combination (feature set combination) of frequency band combination #1, the one or more frequency band pairs supporting uplink transmit channel switching included in frequency band combination #1 (for example, the frequency band pair includes two frequency bands, and the identifiers of the frequency bands are indicated by bandIndexUL1 and bandIndexUL2, respectively), or the switching time of the uplink transmit channel switching supported by each frequency band pair, etc.

[0208] In the case where the first capability information includes multiple frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the first capability information may include capability information of multiple frequency band pairs.

[0209] For example, the first capability information may include capability information of frequency band combination #1, capability information of frequency band combination #2, and capability information of frequency band combination #3. The capability information of frequency band combination #2 and the capability information of frequency band combination #3 may also include information content similar to that included in the capability information of frequency band combination #1 described above.

[0210] In some scenarios, the capability information of the above-mentioned frequency band combination may also be referred to as frequency band combination information, frequency band combination, etc. For example, the capability information of frequency band combination #1 may also be referred to as frequency band combination #1 information or frequency band combination #1, etc. For the sake of convenience, it is referred to as the capability information of the frequency band combination below.

[0211] In some examples, the first capability information may include first indication information, and the first indication information may be used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as or different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0212] In other words, the first indication information may be used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0213] In other words, the first indication information is used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be determined according to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0214] In other words, the first indication information may be used to indicate whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the same as or different from the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination.

[0215] In other words, the first indication information is used to indicate whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be determined according to the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination.

[0216] In other words, the first information is used to indicate, for a frequency band pair consisting of the same frequency band, whether the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination supports the same uplink transmission channel switching time as the first frequency band combination.

[0217] In some examples, both the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination support uplink transmission channel switching. In other words, the first indication information may be applicable to the frequency band combination that supports uplink transmission channel switching.

[0218] Here, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, or in other words, the first frequency band combination is a parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination.

[0219] The second frequency band combination obtained after releasing at least one of the following from the first frequency band combination can be called a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination: secondary cell, uplink carrier component of the secondary cell, secondary cell group or secondary uplink, etc.

[0220] In some examples, a fallback band combination may be a band combination obtained by removing at least one band from a parent band combination, or in other words, the fallback band combination may have fewer bands than the parent band combination. For example, the parent band combination may include four bands, while the fallback band combination may include three bands.

[0221] For the relevant description of the fallback band combination or the parent band combination, please refer to the relevant description of S120 in the previous text, which will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity. It should be noted that the technical solution provided in this embodiment is applicable but not limited to the case where the parent band combination includes 4 bands and the fallback band combination includes 2 or 3 bands.

[0222] In some examples, the first indication information can also be used to indicate that there is at least one fallback frequency band combination among all fallback frequency band combinations of the first frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination.

[0223] Exemplarily, for a first frequency band combination comprising four frequency bands, which includes four different fallback frequency band combinations, the above-mentioned first indication information can be used to indicate that there is at least one fallback frequency band combination among these four different fallback frequency band combinations, and its uplink transmission channel switching capability is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0224] In some examples, the first indication information may be used to indicate that the uplink transmit channel switching capabilities of all fallback frequency band combinations of the first frequency band combination are different from the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the first indication information may be used to indicate that the first frequency band combination does not include a fallback frequency band combination whose uplink transmit channel switching capability is the same as the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination.

[0225] For example, for a first frequency band combination comprising four frequency bands, which includes four different fallback frequency band combinations, the above-mentioned first indication information may indicate that the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of these four different fallback frequency band combinations are not the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the first frequency band combination.

[0226] In some examples, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination may include one or more of the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching options of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the frequency band identifier affecting the downlink reception by the uplink transmission channel switching, or the ability to support the uplink code book, etc.

[0227] Exemplarily, the switching options for uplink transmission channel switching may be switched UL, dual UL, or Both, where both indicates supporting both switched UL and dual UL.

[0228] Exemplarily, the capability of supporting an uplink codebook may be supporting a full coherent codebook subset or a non-coherent codebook subset.

[0229] The switching time may include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor2T field), and the switching time may also include multiple of the above three switching times.

[0230] In some examples, the above-mentioned uplink transmission channel switching may also refer to switching between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, switching between 4 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels; the switching time may also indicate the switching time between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, the switching time between 3 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels. This application does not impose any restrictions on this.

[0231] For the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the above-mentioned frequency band combination, including one or more of the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching options of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the frequency band identifier affecting the downlink reception or the ability to support the uplink codebook, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination, which can be understood as: the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination is the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching between the same number of transmission channels of the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination is the same, and other uplink transmission channel switching capabilities are respectively the same.

[0232] The uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the capability of the uplink transmission channel of the second frequency band combination, which can be understood as: at least one of the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination and the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching between the same number of transmission channels of the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination, the switching options of the first frequency band combination and the first frequency band combination, and other capabilities related to uplink transmission channel switching is different.

[0233] In some examples, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of a frequency band combination may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination. The switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching between one or more frequency band pairs consisting of any two frequency bands included in the frequency band combination, or may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching between one frequency band pair and another frequency band pair or another frequency band.

[0234] In this case, whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the capability of the uplink transmission channel of the second frequency band combination, or whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is different from the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination can be understood as follows.

[0235] Table 1 exemplarily provides two frequency band combinations, where the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D} indicates that the frequency band combination includes frequency band A, frequency band B, frequency band C, and frequency band D. Similarly, the frequency band combination {A, B, C} indicates that the frequency band combination includes frequency band A, frequency band B, and frequency band C.

[0236] Table 1

[0237] If the switching time for uplink transmit channel switching of any of the frequency band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C) is different based on the results determined for the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D} and the frequency band combination {A,B,C}, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D} is different from the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C}.

[0238] If the uplink transmit channel switching times for the three frequency band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C) are the same as those determined for the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D} and the frequency band combination {A,B,C}, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D} is the same as that of the frequency band combination {A,B,C}.

[0239] In some examples, the first capability information may also include a second frequency band combination and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0240] Exemplarily, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination may include one or more of a switching time for the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, a switching option for the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, and the like.

[0241] Also exemplarily, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination may only include the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination, or in other words, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination may refer to the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination.

[0242] Similar to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the aforementioned first frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be understood as the switching time of one or more frequency band pairs included in the second frequency band combination.

[0243] For example, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} can be understood as the switching time between the frequency band pairs (A, B), the switching time between the frequency band pairs (A, C), and the switching time between the frequency band pairs (B, C).

[0244] In some examples, the first indication information may be included in the capability information of each parent frequency band combination, or in other words, the first indication information may be reported in each frequency band combination dimension.

[0245] In some examples, the first indication information may be an identification field or an identification bit, which is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability. The length of the identification field or the identification bit may be 1 bit or 2 bits, etc., which is not limited in this application.

[0246] Exemplarily, when the identification field or identification bit is included in the capability information of the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device, the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities; or, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination cannot be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination cannot be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or, for frequency band pairs composed of the same frequency band, the frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination and the frequency band pairs in the first frequency band combination have different uplink transmission channel switching times.

[0247] In the case where the identification field or identification bit is not included in the capability information of the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device (or is default or 0), or in the case where the identification field or identification bit in the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device is empty, the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have the same uplink transmission channel switching capability. Alternatively, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or, for frequency band pairs consisting of the same frequency band, the frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination and the frequency band pairs in the first frequency band combination have the same uplink transmission channel switching time.

[0248] Exemplarily, when the value of the identification field or identification bit in the capability information of the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device is "true", the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities; or, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination cannot be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination cannot be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or, for frequency band pairs composed of the same frequency band, the frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination and the frequency band pairs in the first frequency band combination have different uplink transmission channel switching times.

[0249] When the value of the identification field or identification bit in the capability information of the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device is "false", the first frequency band combination and its fallback frequency band combination have the same uplink transmission channel switching capability. Alternatively, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, or the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination can be determined based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, or, for frequency band pairs consisting of the same frequency band, the frequency band pairs in the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination and the frequency band pairs in the first frequency band combination have the same uplink transmission channel switching time.

[0250] In some examples, the aforementioned first indication information can also be used to indicate that the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination needs to be determined based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the additionally reported fallback frequency band combination.

[0251] In some examples, the aforementioned first indication information may also include index information, which may be used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0252] Exemplarily, the terminal device can report one or more frequency band combinations it supports in the form of a frequency band combination set. The frequency band combinations in the frequency band combination set can be arranged in a certain order, or in other words, each frequency band combination in the frequency band combination set has an implicit corresponding serial number, and the above-mentioned index information can refer to the serial number of each frequency band combination in the frequency band combination set.

[0253] Exemplarily, the terminal device may report a first frequency band combination list consisting of the frequency band combinations it supports, and the aforementioned index information may be used to indicate the position of different frequency band combinations in the first frequency band combination list. For example, the index information of the frequency band combination ranked first in the first frequency band combination list is 1, the index information of the frequency band combination ranked second in the first frequency band combination list is 2, and so on.

[0254] Exemplarily, the terminal device may report a second frequency band combination list consisting of frequency band combinations that support uplink transmit channel switching among the frequency band combinations it supports, and the aforementioned index information may be used to indicate the positions of different frequency band combinations in the second frequency band combination list. For example, the index information of the frequency band combination ranked first in the second frequency band combination list is 1, the index information of the frequency band combination ranked second in the second frequency band combination list is 2, and so on.

[0255] In some examples, there are multiple second frequency band combinations, or in other words, the aforementioned second frequency band combination is a plurality of frequency band combinations. In this case, the first indication information may include multiple index information, and the multiple index information can be used to indicate the positions of the multiple frequency band combinations in the frequency band combination of at least one uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

[0256] For example, for the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D}, the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of its fallback frequency band combination {A,B,C} and the fallback frequency band combination {A,B,D} are different from the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the parent frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination {B,C,D} is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination. The index information of the fallback frequency band combination {A,B,C} in the frequency band combination list is 3, the index information of the fallback frequency band combination {A,B,D} in the frequency band combination list is 8, and the index information of the fallback frequency band combination {B,C,D} in the frequency band combination list is 12. The first indication information reported by the terminal device may include index information 3 and index information 8, but does not include index information 12.

[0257] In some examples, the aforementioned first indication information is also used to indicate the position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device, or in other words, the first indication information can be the aforementioned index information.

[0258] In some examples, the aforementioned first capability information may also include a frequency band combination entity (BC entry) of the fallback frequency band combination, or in other words, the terminal device may report a fallback frequency band combination that is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination when reporting capability information to the network device.

[0259] For example, Table 2 shows the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the two parent frequency band combinations reported by the terminal device. The two parent frequency band combinations can be respectively recorded as the parent frequency band combination {A, B, C, D} and the parent frequency band combination {A, B, C, E}. Both parent frequency band combinations contain 4 frequency bands.

[0260] Table 2

[0261] The parent band combination {A,B,C,D} and the parent band combination {A,B,C,E} both contain the same band combination {A,B,C}. As the fallback band combination for the parent band combination {A,B,C,D}, the uplink transmit channel switching times for the three band pairs (band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C)) contained in band combination {A,B,C} are 35us, 140us, and 140us, respectively. As the fallback band combination for the parent band combination {A,B,C,D}, the uplink transmit channel switching times for the same three band pairs contained in band combination {A,B,C} are 140us, 35us, and 140us, respectively.

[0262] In the frequency band combination {A, B, C}, it is assumed that the terminal device supports switching times of 35 μs for the frequency band pair (A, B), 140 μs for the frequency band pair (A, C), and 140 μs for the frequency band pair (B, C). In this case, in the first capability information, the capability information of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D} may not include the aforementioned first indication information, and the capability information of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, E} may include the aforementioned first indication information. The first indication information may be used to indicate that the frequency band combination {A, B, C, E} does not support fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability, or in other words, the first indication information may be used to indicate that the uplink transmit channel switching capabilities of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, E} and the frequency band combination {A, B, C} are different, or in other words, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} cannot be determined based on the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, E}.

[0263] As mentioned above, in this case, the first capability information may also include the capability information of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} and the frequency band combination {A, B, C}, which can be used by the network device to determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C}.

[0264] After the network device receives the first capability information reported by the terminal device, if it is necessary to configure the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} according to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}, since the capability information of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D} does not contain the first indication information, the network device can directly configure the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} according to the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the capability information of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}, that is, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of multiple frequency band pairs in the frequency band combination {A, B, C} configured by the network device is the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the corresponding frequency band pairs in the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}.

[0265] If a network device needs to configure the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination {A,B,C} based on the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,E}, since the capability information of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,E} includes first indication information, the network device can determine, based on the first indication information, that the switching time for uplink transmit channel switching of multiple frequency band pairs in the frequency band combination {A,B,C} needs to be determined based on the additionally reported uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C}. In this case, the network device can determine the position of the frequency band combination {A,B,C} and its uplink transmit channel switching capability based on the first indication information or the index information included in the capability information of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,E}.

[0266] The capability information of the first frequency band combination includes first indication information, and the first indication information is used to clearly indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability. This is conducive to improving the efficiency of the network device in configuring the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and is conducive to ensuring that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination supported by the terminal device is consistent with the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination determined by the network device. This is conducive to reducing the probability of switching time ambiguity problems and improving the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0267] In addition, also due to the first indication information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is beneficial to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0268] When the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the same fallback frequency band combination of multiple frequency band combinations are different, the technical solution provided by this embodiment is beneficial to reducing decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of the application switching time by the terminal device and the network device.

[0269] In the case where the fallback band combination capability supported by the terminal is different from the parent band combination, this solution can effectively reduce the complexity caused by requiring the network device to blindly traverse all band combinations to determine whether the terminal device has additionally reported the fallback band combination, and thus determine the configuration based on the capability of the reported fallback band combination. The network device can determine based on the parent band combination whether the capability of the parent band combination can be used to determine the configuration and scheduling method of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback band combination with a small number of bands. If the terminal device reports the first indication information, the network device can know that when the number of frequency bands that need to be configured for the carrier aggregation combination is less than the frequency band combination reported by the terminal device (or when configuring the fallback band combination), the fallback band combination should be configured with reference to other frequency band combinations.

[0270] In addition, the network device can determine, based on the first information, that the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination supported by the terminal device is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination. In this way, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination determined by the network device is not the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability that is different from the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device.

[0271] FIG5 is another communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application, in which the capability information of the first frequency band combination reported by the terminal device may include the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0272] S301: The network device sends a second capability query message, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the second capability query message.

[0273] In some examples, the second capability query information is used to request the wireless access capability of the terminal device. After receiving the second capability query information, the terminal device can report information related to its wireless access capability.

[0274] In some examples, when the terminal device establishes a relationship with the network device for the first time, the network device may send second capability query information to the terminal device.

[0275] In some examples, when the network device needs to re-query the capability information of the terminal device, or the terminal device sends a mobile registration update request carrying a capability update indication to the network device, the network device may send second capability query information to the terminal device.

[0276] S302: The terminal device sends second capability information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the second capability information.

[0277] The second capability information can be used to indicate the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. After receiving the second capability information, the network device can configure and schedule the terminal device based on the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. In some scenarios, the second capability information can also be referred to as the second capability information of the terminal device or the second wireless access capability information.

[0278] Exemplarily, the second capability information may include one or more capabilities of the terminal device, such as the frequency bands supported by the terminal device, the frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the carrier bandwidth, the number of multiple-input and multiple-output layers, or the modulation order.

[0279] In some examples, the second capability information may include information about one or more frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, for example, information about frequency band combination #1, information about frequency band combination #2, and information about frequency band combination #3. These frequency band combinations may include different numbers of frequency bands. For example, frequency band combination #1 and frequency band combination #2 may include four frequency bands, and frequency band combination #3 may include three frequency bands or two frequency bands.

[0280] The one or more frequency band combinations may be frequency band combinations for uplink transmit channel switching. Uplink transmit channel switching may also be referred to as dynamic uplink transmit switching (dynamic UL Tx switching), uplink transmit channel switching, etc.

[0281] Exemplarily, the information of the aforementioned frequency band combination may include: one or more of the frequency band pair identifiers of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination, etc.

[0282] In some examples, the information of the above-mentioned frequency band combination can be included in the second capability information as an information unit.

[0283] Exemplarily, various information about frequency band combination #1 may be included in the capability information of frequency band combination #1. The capability information of the frequency band combination is generally used to indicate the carrier aggregation or dual connectivity capabilities supported by the terminal device, and may also be used to indicate non-carrier aggregation capabilities, such as single carrier capabilities. In other words, the aforementioned first capability information may include the capability information of frequency band combination #1. The capability information of frequency band combination #1 may include one or more of the following:

[0284] The identifiers of one or more frequency bands included in frequency band combination #1, the bandwidth class (ca-bandwidthClass) of each frequency band in the one or more frequency bands included in frequency band combination #1, the power class (power class) of frequency band combination #1, the identifier of the feature set combination (feature set combination) of frequency band combination #1, the one or more frequency band pairs supporting uplink transmit channel switching included in frequency band combination #1 (for example, the frequency band pair includes two frequency bands, and the identifiers of the frequency bands are indicated by bandIndexUL1 and bandIndexUL2, respectively), or the switching time of the uplink transmit channel switching supported by each frequency band pair, etc.

[0285] In the case where the first capability information includes multiple frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the first capability information may include capability information of multiple frequency band pairs.

[0286] For example, the first capability information may include capability information of frequency band combination #1, capability information of frequency band combination #2, and capability information of frequency band combination #3. The capability information of frequency band combination #2 and the capability information of frequency band combination #3 may also include information content similar to that included in the capability information of frequency band combination #1 described above.

[0287] In some scenarios, the capability information of the above-mentioned frequency band combination may also be referred to as frequency band combination information, frequency band combination, etc. For example, the capability information of frequency band combination #1 may also be referred to as frequency band combination #1 information or frequency band combination #1, etc. For the sake of convenience, it is referred to as the capability information of the frequency band combination below.

[0288] In some examples, the capability information of the first frequency band combination may include the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0289] In some scenarios, the above technical solution can also be understood as that the second capability information includes the capability information of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination may include second indication information, and the second indication information can be used to indicate the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

[0290] For example, in the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D}, the uplink transmit channel switching times for the frequency band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C) supported by the terminal device are 35us, 140us, and 140us, respectively. In the fallback frequency band combination {A,B,C}, the uplink transmit channel switching times for the frequency band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C) supported by the terminal device are 140us, 35us, and 140us, respectively.

[0291] In this case, the above-mentioned second indication information may include the capability of switching the uplink transmission channel of the frequency band combination {A, B, C}. Specifically, the second indication information may include the frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination {A, B, C} and the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching corresponding to the frequency band pairs.

[0292] In some examples, the second indication information may include identifiers of the frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination, and the second indication information may also include a switching time for each frequency band pair included in the second frequency band combination.

[0293] Exemplarily, the frequency band identifier included in the frequency band combination included in the second indication information may be the sequence number of the frequency band in the parent frequency band combination (ie, the first frequency band combination) of the second frequency band combination.

[0294] For example, the serial numbers of frequency band A, frequency band B, frequency band C and frequency band D in the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D} can be 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}. In this case, the second indication information can include serial numbers 1, 2 and 3 to indicate the frequency bands included in the frequency band combination {A, B, C}.

[0295] For example, if a frequency band combination includes a maximum of 32 frequency bands, the frequency band identifier may be represented by a 5-bit binary number.

[0296] In the above example, the second indication information may further include the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band pair (A, B), the frequency band pair (A, C) and the frequency band pair (B, C) included in the frequency band combination {A, B, C}.

[0297] In some examples, when the first capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the first capability of the first frequency band combination and only the capability of uplink transmission channel switching is different, the second capability information may include second indication information.

[0298] Here, the first capability may include one or more of a feature set combination, a carrier aggregation capability, and the like.

[0299] In the case where the first frequency band combination capability information includes the second frequency band combination and the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination, the second frequency band combination and / or the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination can be used to indicate that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability. In other words, the first frequency band combination capability information includes the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination, indicating that the first frequency band combination does not support the fallback of the uplink transmit channel switching capability.

[0300] The first frequency band combination capability information does not include the second frequency band combination and / or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination, or the field of the second frequency band combination and / or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination in the first frequency band combination capability information is empty, indicating that the first frequency band combination supports the fallback of the uplink transmission channel switching capability.

[0301] In some examples, both the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination support uplink transmission channel switching. In other words, the second indication information may be applicable to the frequency band combination that supports uplink transmission channel switching.

[0302] In the above description, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, or in other words, the first frequency band combination is a parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination.

[0303] The second frequency band combination obtained after releasing at least one of the following from the first frequency band combination can be called a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination: secondary cell, uplink carrier component of the secondary cell, secondary cell group or secondary uplink, etc.

[0304] In some examples, a fallback band combination may be a band combination obtained by removing at least one band from a parent band combination, or in other words, the fallback band combination may have fewer bands than the parent band combination. For example, the parent band combination may include four bands, while the fallback band combination may include three bands.

[0305] For the relevant description of the fallback band combination or the parent band combination, please refer to the relevant description of S120 in the previous text, which will be omitted here for the sake of brevity. It should be noted that the technical solution provided in this embodiment is applicable to but not limited to the case where the parent band combination includes four bands and the fallback band combination includes two or three bands.

[0306] In some examples, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination may include one or more of the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching options of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the frequency band identifier affecting the downlink reception by the uplink transmission channel switching, or the ability to support the uplink code book, etc.

[0307] Exemplarily, the switching options for uplink transmission channel switching may be switched UL, dual UL, or Both, where both indicates supporting both switched UL and dual UL.

[0308] Exemplarily, the capability of supporting an uplink codebook may include supporting a full coherent codebook subset or a non-coherent codebook subset.

[0309] The switching time may include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor2T field), and the switching time may also include multiple of the above three switching times.

[0310] In some examples, the above-mentioned uplink transmission channel switching may also refer to switching between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, switching between 4 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels; the switching time may also indicate the switching time between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, the switching time between 3 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels. This application does not impose any restrictions on this.

[0311] For the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the above-mentioned frequency band combination, including the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching option of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the frequency band identifier affecting the downlink reception or the ability to support the uplink codebook, etc., the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is the same as or different from the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination. For the understanding, please refer to the relevant description in S202 above. For the sake of brevity, it will not be repeated here.

[0312] In some examples, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of a frequency band combination may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination. The switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching between one or more frequency band pairs consisting of any two frequency bands included in the frequency band combination, or may refer to the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching between one frequency band pair and another frequency band pair or another frequency band.

[0313] In this case, whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination, or whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is different from the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, can be understood in accordance with the relevant description in S202. For the sake of brevity, detailed description is omitted here.

[0314] In some examples, the capability information of the first frequency band combination may include multiple frequency band combinations and uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the multiple frequency band combinations.

[0315] In some examples, the aforementioned second capability information may include capability information of multiple different frequency band combinations, and the capability information of these different frequency band combinations may include the aforementioned second indication information, or in other words, the capability information of these different frequency band combinations may include one or more frequency band combinations and the uplink transmission channel switching capability corresponding to the frequency band combination. The multiple second indication information may be used to respectively indicate the fallback of multiple parent frequency band combinations that do not support the uplink transmission channel switching capability, and the multiple second indication information may also be used to indicate a fallback frequency band combination with different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities for each parent frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability corresponding to the fallback frequency band combination.

[0316] For example, for the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D}, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of its fallback frequency band combination {A,B,C} and the fallback frequency band combination {A,B,D} is different from the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination, and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination {B,C,D} is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the parent frequency band combination.

[0317] In this case, the capability information of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D} may include: the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C} and the frequency band combination {A,B,C}, the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,D} and the frequency band combination {A,B,D}, but does not include the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {B,C,D} or the frequency band combination {B,C,D}.

[0318] When the network device configures the carrier aggregation combination as the frequency band combination {A,B,C} or the frequency band combination {A,B,D}, if the network device configures and schedules the terminal device according to the capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D}, for the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C} or the frequency band combination {A,B,D}, the network device can configure and schedule the terminal device for uplink transmission channel switching communication based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C} or the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination {A,B,C} in the capability information of the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D}.

[0319] When a network device configures the carrier aggregation combination {B,C,D} as the band combination, and configures and schedules terminal devices based on the capabilities of the band combination {A,B,C,D}, the network device can directly configure the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the band combination {B,C,D} based on the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the band combination {A,B,C,D}. Because the capability information of the band combination {A,B,C,D} reported by the terminal device does not include the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the band combination {B,C,D} or the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the band combination {B,C,D}, the network device can directly configure the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the band combination {B,C,D} based on the uplink transmit channel switching capability of the band combination {A,B,C,D}. In other words, the network device can ensure that the uplink transmit channel switching timing of the band combination {B,C,D} is the same as the uplink transmit channel switching timing of its parent band combination {A,B,C,D}.

[0320] By including the second indication information and / or a frequency band combination different from its uplink transmission channel switching capability and the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination in the capability information of the first frequency band combination, it is beneficial to improve the efficiency of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination configured by the network device, and it is beneficial to ensure that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination supported by the terminal device is consistent with the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination determined by the network device, which is beneficial to reduce the probability of switching time ambiguity problem and improve the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0321] In addition, also due to the second indication information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is beneficial to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0322] When the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of the same fallback frequency band combination of multiple frequency band combinations are different, the technical solution provided by this embodiment is beneficial to reducing decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of the application switching time by the terminal device and the network device.

[0323] When the terminal device supports different uplink transmission channel switching capabilities in the fallback frequency band combination, the terminal device reports the uplink transmission channel switching capabilities of different fallback frequency band combinations in the parent frequency band combination of the fallback frequency band combination, without the need to additionally report another fallback frequency band combination entity. On the one hand, it can save the signaling overhead of capability reporting, and on the other hand, it can reduce the complexity of network implementation. That is, when the network configures carrier aggregation / dual connection combination, it can only refer to one parent frequency band combination to configure its fallback frequency band combination, without the need to refer to the capabilities of multiple frequency band combinations for configuration.

[0324] In addition, the network device can directly determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination based on the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination included in the capability information of the first frequency band combination. However, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is not the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability different from that of the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device.

[0325] Figure 6 is another communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application. The capability information reported by the terminal device may include indication information indicating the target switching time. Based on the indication information, the network device can determine the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination. The existence of the indication information is conducive to reducing the complexity of the network device configuring the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination.

[0326] S401: The network device sends a third capability query message, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the third capability query message.

[0327] The third capability query information is used to request the wireless access capability of the terminal device. After receiving the third capability query information, the terminal device may report information related to its wireless access capability.

[0328] In some examples, when the terminal device establishes a relationship with the network device for the first time, the network device may send third capability query information to the terminal device.

[0329] In some examples, when the network device needs to re-query the capability information of the terminal device, or the terminal device sends a mobile registration update request carrying a capability update indication to the network device, the network device may send third capability query information to the terminal device.

[0330] S402: The terminal device sends third capability information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the third capability information.

[0331] The third capability information can be used to indicate the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. After receiving the third capability information, the network device can configure and schedule the terminal device based on the wireless access capabilities of the terminal device. In some scenarios, the third capability information can also be referred to as the third capability information of the terminal device or the third wireless access capability information.

[0332] Exemplarily, the third capability information may include one or more capabilities of the terminal device, such as the frequency bands supported by the terminal device, the frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the carrier bandwidth, the number of multiple-input and multiple-output layers, or the modulation order.

[0333] In some examples, the third capability information may include information about one or more frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device. For example, information about frequency band combination #1, information about frequency band combination #2, and information about frequency band combination #3. These frequency band combinations may include different numbers of frequency bands. For example, frequency band combination #1 and frequency band combination #2 may include four frequency bands, and frequency band combination #3 may include three frequency bands or two frequency bands.

[0334] The one or more frequency band combinations may be frequency band combinations for uplink transmit channel switching. Uplink transmit channel switching may also be referred to as dynamic uplink transmit switching (dynamic UL Tx switching), uplink transmit channel switching, etc.

[0335] Exemplarily, the aforementioned frequency band combination information may include: one or more of: frequency band pair identifiers of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination, switching time of uplink transmission channel switching of one or more frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination, etc.

[0336] In some examples, multiple types of information on the same frequency band combination can be included in the third capability information as one information unit.

[0337] Exemplarily, various information about frequency band combination #1 may be included in the capability information of frequency band combination #1. The capability information of the frequency band combination is generally used to indicate the carrier aggregation or dual connectivity capabilities supported by the terminal device, and may also be used to indicate non-carrier aggregation capabilities, such as single carrier capabilities. In other words, the aforementioned third capability information may include the capability information of frequency band combination #1. The capability information of frequency band combination #1 may include one or more of the following:

[0338] The identifiers of one or more frequency bands included in frequency band combination #1, the bandwidth class (ca-bandwidthClass) of each frequency band in the one or more frequency bands included in frequency band combination #1, the power class (power class) of frequency band combination #1, the identifier of the feature set combination (feature set combination) of frequency band combination #1, the one or more frequency band pairs supporting uplink transmit channel switching included in frequency band combination #1 (for example, the frequency band pair includes two frequency bands, and the identifiers of the frequency bands are indicated by bandIndexUL1 and bandIndexUL2, respectively), or the switching time of the uplink transmit channel switching supported by each frequency band pair, etc.

[0339] In the case where the third capability information includes multiple frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the third capability information may include capability information of the multiple frequency band combinations.

[0340] For example, the third capability information may include capability information of frequency band combination #1, capability information of frequency band combination #2, and capability information of frequency band combination #3. The capability information of frequency band combination #2 and the capability information of frequency band combination #3 may also include information content similar to that included in the capability information of frequency band combination #1 described above.

[0341] In some scenarios, the capability information of the above-mentioned frequency band combination may also be referred to as frequency band combination information, frequency band combination, etc. For example, the capability information of frequency band combination #1 may also be referred to as frequency band combination #1 information or frequency band combination #1, etc. For the sake of convenience, it is referred to as the capability information of the frequency band combination below.

[0342] In some examples, the third capability information may also include third indication information, which is used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is a target switching time. The target switching time may be the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination. The target switching time may also be the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the second frequency band combination.

[0343] Exemplarily, the target switching time may be the longest switching time of uplink transmission channels among all frequency band pairs included in the second frequency band combination.

[0344] For example, for the frequency band combination {A,B,C,D}, the uplink transmit channel switching switching times for the frequency band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C) in this frequency band combination reported by the terminal device are 35us, 140us, and 140us, respectively. For the fallback frequency band combination {A,B,C} of this frequency band combination {A,B,C}, the uplink transmit channel switching switching times for the frequency band pairs (A,B), (A,C), and (B,C) supported by the terminal device are 140us, 35us, and 140us, respectively.

[0345] In this case, the target switching time may be the longest switching time for uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band pairs (A, B), (A, C), and (B, C) included in the frequency band combination {A, B, C}, that is, 140 μs.

[0346] After receiving the above indication information, the network device can determine that the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band combination {A, B, C} is the longest switching time among the switching times for the uplink transmit channel switching of the frequency band pair (A, B), the frequency band pair (A, C), and the frequency band pair (B, C), that is, 140 us. When the frequency band combination for carrier aggregation or the frequency band combination for dual connectivity is configured as the frequency band combination {A, B, C}, the network device can determine that the switching time for the uplink transmit channel switching of multiple frequency band combinations in the frequency band combination is 140 us.

[0347] Exemplarily, the target switching time may be the longest switching time of uplink transmission channels among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination.

[0348] For example, for the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}, the terminal device can report the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of multiple frequency band pairs contained in the frequency band combination. For example, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band pairs (A, B), (A, C), (B, C), (A, D), (B, C) and (B, D) are: 35us, 140us, 140us, 210us, 140us and 140us respectively.

[0349] In this case, the target switching time may be the longest switching time for uplink transmission channel switching of multiple frequency band pairs included in the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}, that is, 210 μs.

[0350] When the terminal device sends the third indication information, the network device can determine, based on the third indication information, all fallback frequency band combinations of the frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}, such as the frequency band combination {A, B, C}, the frequency band combination {A, B, D} and the frequency band combination {B, C, D}, etc., the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of each frequency band pair supported by the terminal device is 210us, that is, the maximum value of the aforementioned 35us, 140us, 140us, 210us, 140us and 140us.

[0351] In some examples, both the first frequency band combination and the second frequency band combination support uplink transmission channel switching. In other words, the first indication information may be applicable to the frequency band combination that supports uplink transmission channel switching.

[0352] In the above description, the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, or in other words, the first frequency band combination is a parent frequency band combination of the second frequency band combination.

[0353] The second frequency band combination obtained by releasing at least one of the following from the first frequency band combination can be called a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination: secondary cell, uplink carrier component of secondary cell, secondary cell group or secondary uplink, etc.

[0354] In some examples, a fallback band combination may be a band combination obtained by removing at least one band from a parent band combination, or in other words, the fallback band combination may have fewer bands than the parent band combination. For example, the parent band combination may include four bands, while the fallback band combination may include three bands.

[0355] For the relevant description of the fallback band combination or the parent band combination, please refer to the relevant description of S120 in the previous text, which will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity. It should be noted that the technical solution provided in this embodiment is applicable but not limited to the case where the parent band combination includes 4 bands and the fallback band combination includes 2 or 3 bands.

[0356] In some examples, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination may include one or more of the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching options of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the frequency band identifier affecting the downlink reception by the uplink transmission channel switching, or the ability to support the uplink code book, etc.

[0357] Exemplarily, the switching options for uplink transmission channel switching may be switched UL, dual UL, or Both, where both indicates supporting both switched UL and dual UL.

[0358] Exemplarily, the capability of supporting an uplink codebook may include supporting a full coherent codebook subset or a non-coherent codebook subset.

[0359] The switching time may include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between one uplink transmission channel (1Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor1T field), the switching time may also include the switching time for switching between two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) and two uplink transmission channels (2Tx) (for example, indicated by the switchingPeriodFor2T field), and the switching time may also include multiple of the above three switching times.

[0360] In some examples, the above-mentioned uplink transmission channel switching may also refer to switching between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, switching between 4 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels; the switching time may also indicate the switching time between a larger number of uplink transmission channels, for example, the switching time between 3 uplink transmission channels and another 4 uplink transmission channels. This application does not impose any restrictions on this.

[0361] For the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the above-mentioned frequency band combination, including the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the switching option of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination, the frequency band identifier affecting the downlink reception or the ability to support the uplink codebook, etc., the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is the same as or different from the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination. For the understanding, please refer to the relevant description in S202 above. For the sake of brevity, it will not be repeated here.

[0362] In some examples, the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the frequency band combination may refer to the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band combination.

[0363] In this case, whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from the uplink transmission channel capability of the second frequency band combination, or whether the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is different from the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination, can be understood in accordance with the relevant description in S202. For the sake of brevity, detailed description is omitted here.

[0364] In some examples, the third indication information may be included in the capability information of each parent frequency band combination, or in other words, the third indication information may be reported in each frequency band combination dimension.

[0365] In some examples, the aforementioned third capability information may include multiple third indication information, and the multiple third indication information may be used to indicate target switching times corresponding to multiple different frequency band combinations.

[0366] Exemplarily, the third capability information includes capability information of frequency band combination #1, capability information of frequency band combination #2, and capability information of frequency band combination #3, wherein neither frequency band combination #1 nor frequency band combination #2 supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, and frequency band combination #3 supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability. In this case, the third capability information may also include indication information #1 and indication information #2, wherein indication information #1 may be used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel of the fallback frequency band combination of frequency band combination #1 is the first target switching time, and indication information #2 may be used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel of the fallback frequency band combination of frequency band combination #2 is the second target switching time. The determination of the first target switching time and the second target switching time is similar to the determination method of the target switching time in the previous text. For details, please refer to the previous text. For the sake of brevity, it will not be repeated here.

[0367] Regarding the switching time of the uplink transmission channel of the fallback frequency band combination of frequency band combination #3, since the third capability information does not include indication information corresponding to frequency band combination #3, the network device can determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel of its fallback frequency band combination based on the uplink transmission channel switching capability of frequency band combination #3.

[0368] In some examples, the third indication information may include an identification field and an identification bit. For example, the third indication information may be an identification bit with a length of 1 bit.

[0369] By directly indicating the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching in the capability information, the network device can configure the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination according to the indication information, which is conducive to improving the efficiency of the network device in configuring the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and is conducive to ensuring that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination supported by the terminal device is consistent with the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination determined by the network device, which is conducive to reducing the probability of switching time ambiguity problems and improving the reliability of communication between the network device and the terminal device.

[0370] In addition, also due to the indication information, the network device does not need to perform complex information traversal operations, which is conducive to reducing the complexity of network device scheduling and configuration of terminal devices.

[0371] When the uplink transmit channel switching capabilities of the same fallback band combination vary across multiple band combinations, the technical solution provided by this embodiment helps mitigate decoding failures caused by inconsistent understanding of application switching times between terminal devices and network devices. Furthermore, it reduces the implementation complexity associated with network devices blindly traversing band combinations to determine when to use the maximum value for switching.

[0372] In addition, the network device can determine the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination according to the target switching time indicated by the third indication information. The switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination determined by this method may not be the same as the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the first frequency band combination. In other words, the terminal device can support an uplink transmission channel switching capability different from that of the parent frequency band combination on the fallback frequency band combination, thereby increasing the flexibility of the terminal device.

[0373] The following are some descriptions of the relevant processes for RRC (Radio Resource Control) reconfiguration and RRC reestablishment:

[0374] RRC reconfiguration:

[0375] The purpose of RRC reconfiguration is to modify the RRC connection. For example, it can establish / modify / release a radio bearer (RB), establish / modify / release a backhaul (BH) RLC channel, establish / modify / release a Uu relay RLC channel, establish / modify / release a PC5 relay RLC channel, set / modify / release measurements, add / modify / release a secondary cell (SCell) and cell group, or add / modify / release a conditional handover configuration.

[0376] In the RRC reconfiguration process, after the network device sends an RRC reconfiguration (RRCReconfiguration) message to the terminal, if the configuration is successful, the terminal replies with an RRC reconfiguration complete (RRCReconfigurationComplete) message. Alternatively, if the configuration fails, the terminal triggers the RRC reestablishment process (triggered when the prerequisites for the RRC reestablishment process are met).

[0377] Here, configuration success can be understood as: the terminal accepts or supports the configuration of the network device. Configuration failure can be understood as: the terminal does not accept or does not support the configuration of the network device.

[0378] RRC reconfiguration is divided into RRC reconfiguration based on incremental configuration and RRC reconfiguration based on full configuration. Among them, RRC reconfiguration based on incremental configuration means that the configuration currently sent is added, deleted, and modified based on the current RRC configuration of the terminal to obtain a new configuration. The RRC reconfiguration based on incremental configuration only needs to carry the parts that are different from the current terminal RRC configuration. When the terminal receives the incremental RRC reconfiguration, it applies the configuration in the incremental RRC reconfiguration based on the current RRC configuration. RRC reconfiguration based on full configuration (the term Full configuration) means that the configuration carried by the RRC reconfiguration is an RRC reconfiguration that is configured based on the default RRC configuration. When the terminal receives the RRC reconfiguration with full configuration, it will clear the current RRC configuration, apply the default RRC configuration, and apply the configuration in the full RRC reconfiguration based on the default RRC configuration.

[0379] RRC re-establishment:

[0380] Typically, when the RRC layer of the terminal is in the RRC connected state (RRC_CONNECTED), the NAS layer is in the configuration management (CM) connected state (CM-CONNECTED), the access stratum (AS) of the terminal is securely activated, and the signaling radio bearer (SRB) 2 and the data radio bearer (DRB) are configured, if an RRC reconfiguration failure or a radio link failure occurs, the terminal can trigger the RRC reconstruction process. Figure 7 below shows the cross-site RRC reconstruction process. Exemplarily, the RRC reconstruction process may include the following steps:

[0381] S701: The terminal sends an RRC reestablishment request (RRCReestablishmentReq terminal st) message to the target network device. Correspondingly, the target network device receives the RRC reestablishment request message from the terminal.

[0382] Before step S701, the terminal may perform cell selection, and after selecting the target cell, execute step S701. The target network device is the network device to which the target cell belongs, or in other words, the target network device is used to manage the target cell.

[0383] Optionally, the target network device and the source network device may be the same or different. The source network device may be understood as the last serving gNB, or the network device that last served the terminal before the terminal selected the target cell.

[0384] Optionally, the RRC reestablishment request message may include the terminal's identifier and the reason for requesting RRC reestablishment. The terminal's identifier is used by the target network device to locate the terminal's context. The reason for requesting RRC reestablishment indicates the type of abnormality that occurred in the terminal, such as reconfiguration failure, handover failure, or other failure.

[0385] S702: The target network device sends a terminal context request (Retrieve Terminal Context Req Terminal st) message to the source network device. Correspondingly, the source network device receives the Retrieve Terminal Context Req Terminal st message from the target network device. The Retrieve Terminal Context Req Terminal st is used to request the terminal context.

[0386] S703: The source network device sends a Retrieve Terminal Context Response message to the target network device. Correspondingly, the target network device receives the Retrieve Terminal Context Response message from the source network device. The Retrieve Terminal Context Response message includes the context of the terminal.

[0387] S704: The target network device sends an RRC reestablishment message to the terminal. Correspondingly, the terminal receives the RRC reestablishment message from the target network device.

[0388] The RRC re-establishment message is a response message to the RRC re-establishment request message, and can be understood as a reply of the target network device to the RRC re-establishment request of the terminal.

[0389] Optionally, the RRC re-establishment message may include a next hop chaining count (nextHopChainingCount) for the terminal to update AS security parameters.

[0390] S704a: The terminal sends an RRC reestablishment complete (RRCReestablishmenComplete) message to the target network device. Correspondingly, the target network device receives the RRC reestablishment complete message from the terminal.

[0391] S705: The target network device sends an RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal. Correspondingly, the terminal receives the RRC reconfiguration message from the target network device.

[0392] Exemplarily, the RRC reconfiguration message is used to perform configuration based on the previously established RRC connection between the terminal and the source network device. In other words, this RRC reconfiguration inherits the RRC connection configuration before the reestablishment.

[0393] S705a: The terminal sends an RRC reconfiguration complete message to the target network device. Correspondingly, the target network device receives the RRC reconfiguration complete message from the terminal.

[0394] It should be noted that Figure 7 is only an exemplary description of the RRC re-establishment process. For a detailed description of the process, please refer to the relevant description in the protocol and will not be repeated here. In addition, the above process can be understood as the process in the scenario where RRC re-establishment is successful.

[0395] The problems with the current process are as follows:

[0396] After the network device sends an RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal, the terminal needs to send an RRC reconfiguration completion message to the network device after applying the reconfiguration message. If a radio link failure occurs between the terminal and the network device after receiving the RRC reconfiguration message, the RRC reconfiguration completion message sent by the terminal may or may not be sent to the network device. If the network device receives the RRC reconfiguration completion message, the network device can know that the terminal has applied the configuration in the RRC reconfiguration message. After the terminal subsequently triggers RRC reconstruction, the network device can use the configuration corresponding to the RRC reconfiguration message as a baseline and send a new RRC reconfiguration message to update the RRC configuration of the terminal. If the network device does not receive the RRC reconfiguration completion message, the network device cannot confirm whether the terminal has applied the configuration in the RRC reconfiguration message. After the terminal subsequently triggers RRC reconstruction, the network device can only fall back to the RRC configuration before the RRC reconfiguration message was sent as a baseline and send a new incremental RRC reconfiguration message to update the RRC configuration of the terminal. At this time, since the terminal has already applied the configuration in the RRC reconfiguration message, when a new incremental RRC reconfiguration message is received after RRC reconstruction, the configuration in the RRC reconfiguration message will be used as the configuration baseline to apply the configuration in the new RRC reconfiguration message to update the RRC configuration, which will cause the RRC configuration between the terminal and the base station to be misaligned.

[0397] To solve the above problems, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, which is now introduced as follows.

[0398] S801: A terminal sends a first message to a first network device. Correspondingly, the first network device receives the first message from the terminal.

[0399] The first message is used to request the reestablishment of the RRC connection. Exemplarily, the first message may be an RRC Reestablishment Request message. The first message carries the terminal identifier of the terminal. The implementation of the RRC Reestablishment Request message can be referred to the relevant description in the process shown in FIG. 7 and will not be further described here.

[0400] Prior to this, the terminal detected a radio link failure, thereby triggering the terminal to select a cell and send a first message. Before the terminal detected the radio link failure, the terminal received a first RRC reconfiguration message and configured the terminal's RRC parameters according to the reconfiguration message. The time between the terminal receiving the first RRC reconfiguration message and the terminal sending the first message or detecting the radio link failure is less than a first time length.

[0401] S802: The first network device and the second network device send a context request message, requesting the second network device to send the terminal context to the first network device.

[0402] After receiving the RRC reestablishment request message, the first network device determines that the terminal belongs to the second network device according to the terminal identifier of the terminal, and then sends a context request message to the second network device, requesting the second network device to send the terminal context to the first network device.

[0403] S803. The second network device receives the context request message sent by the first network device, and sends a third message to the first network device, so that the first network device sends a full RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal according to the third message.

[0404] The second network device receives the context request message and determines whether a first condition is met based on the context request message. The first condition is that the second network device has previously sent an RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal and has not received a confirmation message for the reconfiguration message. The confirmation message can be an RRC reconfiguration completion message or a layer 2 confirmation message for the RLC (radio link control) PDU (protocol data unit) containing the RRC reconfiguration message. If the first condition is met, the second network device sends a third message to the first network device so that the first network device sends a full RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal based on the third message. Specifically, if the second network device has previously sent an RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal and has not received a confirmation message for the reconfiguration message, there is a possibility that the RRC configuration of the terminal and the RRC configuration of the network device for the terminal are not aligned. Therefore, it is necessary to notify the first network device to use full RRC reconfiguration to avoid communication failures caused by RRC configuration misalignment after incremental RRC reconfiguration. Because full RRC reconfiguration is based on the default configuration and does not depend on the RRC configuration information currently used by the terminal, the problem of RRC configuration misalignment after incremental RRC reconfiguration can be avoided.

[0405] The third message includes the first indication information. Specifically, the third message is a context request confirmation message or a context request failure message, and the first indication information may be an indication that the terminal has an unconfirmed RRC reconfiguration message, or an indication that there is a risk of misalignment between the RRC configuration of the terminal and the RRC configuration of the network device, or an indication that the RRC configuration of the terminal is unavailable, or an indication that a context exists for the terminal.

[0406] S804. The first network device receives the third message and sends a full RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal according to the third message.

[0407] The first network device sends a full RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal based on the received third message. Specifically, before or simultaneously with sending the full RRC reconfiguration message, the first network device sends an RRC reestablishment message to the terminal.

[0408] The first network device sends a full RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal according to the third message, specifically including: the third message includes first indication information, and the first network device sends the full RRC reconfiguration message to the terminal according to the first indication information. Specifically, the third message is a context request confirmation message or a context request failure message, and the first indication information can be an indication that the terminal has an unconfirmed RRC reconfiguration message, or an indication that the RRC configuration of the terminal and the RRC configuration of the network device may be at risk of misalignment, or an indication that the RRC configuration of the terminal is unavailable, or an indication that a context of the terminal exists.

[0409] The full RRC reconfiguration message specifically includes a full configuration indication in the RRC reconfiguration message.

[0410] After receiving the full reconfiguration message, the terminal device deletes the stored RRC configuration, applies the default configuration, and then configures and updates the RRC configuration parameters based on the full reconfiguration message.

[0411] Based on this solution, the first network device can determine that a full RRC reconfiguration message needs to be used after RRC reconstruction, avoiding the problem of context misalignment between the terminal and the network caused by using incremental RRC reconfiguration, thereby avoiding the risk of potential communication failure.

[0412] The following is some introduction about CG resources:

[0413] (1) SDT small data transmission

[0414] To address the high overhead associated with transmitting or receiving very small amounts of data in the RRC_CONNECTED state, a terminal device can transmit or receive small amounts of data without entering the RRC_CONNECTED state. This data transmission mechanism is known as small data transmission (SDT). For example, a terminal device can communicate with a network device in the inactive or idle state.

[0415] For example, in an embodiment of the present application, data that is smaller than a preset value may be referred to as small data. For example, the preset value may be set as needed, such as 500 bytes, 300 bytes, etc. The network device and the terminal device may determine whether the data is small data based on the data label or data type. Specifically, the network device and the terminal device may negotiate the data label or data type based on the size of the data. For example, the data label may include big data or small data; for another example, data whose data type is a heartbeat packet, instant message, or periodic data is small data, and data whose data type is a file, video, or audio is big data.

[0416] (2) Introduction to time units in NR:

[0417] In a communication system, time domain resources include: hyper frames, radio frames (also called system frames, or simply frames), subframes, time slots, and symbols (for example, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols).

[0418] The duration of a frame is 10ms, and each frame may have a system frame number (SFN) (also referred to as a frame index). Exemplarily, the range of SFN is 0 to 1023. For example, the period of a frame is 1024×10ms=10240ms. In the 5GNR system, a group of frames with SFNs of 0 to 1023 is called a superframe (e.g., a hyper system frame, or a hyper frame), that is, a superframe is equal to 1024 frames, which is equal to 10240ms. For example, each superframe may have a hyperframe number (H-SFN, or a hyper frame number, HFN). For example, the network device may include H-SFN information in the system information (e.g., SIB1). For example, the H-SFN information included in the system information may occupy 10 bits. For example, the range of H-SFN may be 0 to 1023. For example, the period of a superframe (or, superframe period) is 1024 superframes = 1024×1024×10ms. For example, the terminal device obtains the H-SFN information contained in the system information, and the terminal device can determine the H-SFN of the superframe in which the system information is received. For example, when the SFN flips, the H-SFN changes. For example, the H-SFN of the next superframe = (H-SFN of the previous superframe + 1) mod 1024. For example, if the H-SFN of the previous superframe is not equal to 1023 or is less than 1023, the H-SFN of the next superframe = H-SFN of the previous superframe + 1. For example, if the H-SFN of the previous superframe is equal to 1023, the H-SFN of the next superframe = 0. For example, SFN flipping can be understood as: SFN changes from 1023 to 0. For example, 1024 superframes can be called a superframe period or a superframe period.

[0419] Furthermore, a frame contains 10 subframes, each of which has a duration of 1ms. A subframe can contain one or more time slots. Note that when the subcarrier spacing (SCS) is different, the number of time slots contained in each frame varies, the number of time slots contained in each subframe also varies, and the duration of each time slot also varies. This is shown in Table 3.

[0420] in, is the number of symbols contained in a time slot, is the number of time slots contained in a frame, is the number of time slots contained in a subframe, Δf = 2 u 15 represents the subcarrier spacing, in kHz. Optionally, μ represents the index corresponding to the subcarrier spacing, which is used to indicate a subcarrier spacing.

[0421] Table 3

[0422] (3) Configured grant (CG)

[0423] For example, uplink resources may include dynamic grant (DG) and CG.

[0424] For example, DG is a resource that a network device dynamically schedules to a terminal device through downlink control information (DCI). In the uplink, a network device can dynamically allocate resources to a terminal device on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (e.g., through a cell-radio network temporary identity (C-RNTI) or a configured scheduling-radio network temporary identity (CS-RNTI)). For example, when its downlink reception is enabled (e.g., when DRX is configured, this behavior is controlled by DRX), the terminal device monitors PDCCH in order to find possible uplink resources for uplink transmission.

[0425] For example, a CG is a resource that a network device configures for a terminal device. For example, a CG may include type 1 CG and / or type 2 CG.

[0426] For example, for type 1CG, the network device can directly provide the configured uplink authorization (for example, which can be a periodic resource) to the terminal device through RRC signaling.

[0427] For example, for type 1CG, the network device can indicate any one or more of the following CG-related items to the terminal device through RRC signaling: time reference frame (timeReferenceSFN), time domain offset (timeDomainOffset), periodicity (periodicity), time domain resource allocation (timeDomainAllocation). For example, timeDomainAllocation can indicate any one or more of the starting symbol S, length L, and PUSCH mapping type (PUSCH mapping type). For example, S is the starting symbol. For example, L is the number of symbols occupied by an uplink resource.

[0428] For example, for type 2CG, the network device can configure the CG period for the terminal device through RRC signaling, and then activate the configured uplink authorization through the CS-RNTI encrypted PDCCH.

[0429] For example, the network device may indicate the periodicity of the CG to the terminal device via RRC signaling.

[0430] For example, the network device activates type 2CG through DCI, and the terminal device can determine the SFN start time , slotstart time and symbolstart time, as well as S and L. For example, SFN start time , slotstart time, and symbolstart time are respectively the SFN, slot, and symbol of the first transmission opportunity of the PUSCH where the configured uplink grant is initialized or reinitialized (or, the starting SFN, the starting slot, and the starting symbol).

[0431] Optionally, CG resources are periodic and suitable for periodic services, so that the network device does not need to schedule uplink resources for the terminal device through DCI every time. For a description of CG, please refer to Figure 9.

[0432] For example, CG may include / be replaced by: CG-SDT (Configured Grant-based SDT).

[0433] (4) CG Occasion

[0434] For example, a CG opportunity may be a resource unit. For example, a resource unit may include resources represented in the time domain and the frequency domain.

[0435] For example, the CG opportunity may be a PUSCH resource. For example, the CG opportunity may be a configured uplink grant.

[0436] For example, a CG opportunity may be a PUSCH resource. For example, a CG opportunity may be a configured uplink grant.

[0437] For example, the CG opportunity may be used by the terminal device to send uplink information. For example, the uplink information may include uplink data and / or uplink signaling. For example, the uplink signaling may include at least one of the following: signaling of the physical layer, control information of the medium access control (MAC) layer (e.g., MAC CE), control information of the RLC layer (e.g., control PDU), control information of the PDCP layer (e.g., control PDU), control information of the SDAP layer (e.g., control PDU), signaling of the RRC layer, and signaling of the NAS layer.

[0438] (5) Calculation formula of CG occasion:

[0439] For example, for Type 1 CG, the Nth CG opportunity is located at (or appears at) the symbol (or SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula:

[0440] [(SFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceSFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity) modulo(1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (1-1)

[0441] For example, N≥0.

[0442] For example, numberOfSlotsPerFrame indicates the number of time slots contained in a frame.

[0443] For example, numberOfSymbolsPerSlot indicates the number of symbols contained in a time slot.

[0444] For example, the slot number in the frame indicates the index of the time slot, or the index of the time slot in a frame (or the frame corresponding to the SFN).

[0445] For example, in an embodiment of the present application, the index may include / be replaced by: number, or, number.

[0446] For example, symbol number in the slot represents the index of a symbol or the index of a symbol in a time slot (or, the time slot corresponding to slot number in the frame).

[0447] For example, when the sub-carrier spacing (SCS) is different, the range of slot numbers in the frame also varies. For example, when numberOfSymbolsPerSlot is different, the range of symbol numbers in the slot also varies. This is shown in Table 4. For example, symbol 10 can correspond to symbol A, symbol 11 can correspond to symbol B, symbol 12 can correspond to symbol C, and symbol 13 can correspond to symbol D.

[0448] Table 4

[0449] For example, timeReferenceSFN represents an SFN used to determine the offset of a resource in the time domain. For example, timeReferenceSFN may be 0 or 512.

[0450] For example, timeDomainOffset represents the offset of the resource in the time domain relative to SFN=timeReferenceSFN. For example, the unit of timeDomainOffset is slot.

[0451] For example, S represents the index of the starting symbol.

[0452] For example, periodicity represents the period of CG. For example, the unit of periodicity is symbol.

[0453] For example, for Type 2CG, the Nth CG opportunity is located at (or appears at) the symbol (or SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula:

[0454] [(SFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=[(SFN start time×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+slotstart time×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+symbolstart time)+N×periodicity]modulo(1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (1-2)

[0455] For example, N≥0.

[0456] For example, numberOfSlotsPerFrame indicates the number of time slots contained in a frame.

[0457] For example, numberOfSymbolsPerSlot indicates the number of symbols contained in a time slot.

[0458] For example, the slot number in the frame indicates the index of the time slot, or the index of the time slot in a frame (or the frame corresponding to the SFN).

[0459] For example, symbol number in the slot represents the index of a symbol or the index of a symbol in a time slot (or, the time slot corresponding to slot number in the frame).

[0460] For example, SFN start time Indicates the starting SFN, or the SFN (or starting SFN) of the first transmission opportunity of the PUSCH where the configured uplink grant is initialized or reinitialized.

[0461] For example, slotstart time indicates the starting slot, or the slot and symbol (or starting slot) of the first transmission opportunity of the PUSCH where the configured uplink grant is initialized or reinitialized.

[0462] For example, symbolstart time indicates a starting symbol, or a symbol (or a starting symbol) of a first transmission opportunity of a PUSCH where a configured uplink grant is initialized or reinitialized.

[0463] For example, periodicity represents the period of CG. For example, the unit of periodicity is symbol.

[0464] It should be noted that the above formula calculation can be performed by the network device, or by the terminal device, or by both the network device and the terminal device. For example, the position of the CG opportunity (or, CG occasion) can be calculated by the MAC entity of the network device, or by the MAC entity of the terminal device. It should be understood that the embodiments of the present application are not limited to this.

[0465] For example, the CG periods supported by different subcarrier spacings SCS may be different. For example, Table 5 shows the CG periods corresponding to the five subcarrier spacings.

[0466] Table 5 CG periods corresponding to different subcarrier spacings

[0467] For example, the S and L configured by the network device will ensure that the resources of a PUSCH do not span time slots. For example, the sum of S and L will not exceed 14 or 12.

[0468] FIG9 is a schematic diagram of a CG provided by an embodiment of the present application. For example, a CG may be as shown in FIG9 (a), and a CG cycle includes one CG opportunity. For example, a block is a CG opportunity. For example, a CG may be as shown in FIG9 (b), and a CG cycle includes multiple CG opportunities.

[0469] For example, if the CG period is divisible by a superframe period (or, if a superframe period is divisible by the CG period), for example, the CG period in Table 5, the CG occasion (or, the first CG occasion in each CG period) calculated using formula (1-1) or (1-2) will be periodic. However, if the CG period cannot be divided evenly by a superframe period (or, if a superframe period cannot divide evenly by the CG period), for example, the CG period may be any of the following: 61440ms (or 6 superframes), 122880ms (or 12 superframes), 307200ms (or 30 superframes), 604160ms (or 59 superframes), 1208320ms (or 118 superframes), 1802240ms (or 176 superframes), 3604480ms (or 352 superframes); the CG occasion (or, the first CG occasion in each CG period) calculated using formula (1-1) or (1-2) will no longer be periodic (or, the CG occasion calculated using formula (1-1) or (1-2) The occasion (or the first CG occasion in each CG cycle) will no longer be periodic when it crosses the superframe period), which may cause the CG resources to not match the service, may increase the transmission delay of the service, and may also increase the power consumption of the terminal device, which is not conducive to user experience. When the CG cycle cannot be divided evenly by a superframe period, how to determine the CG occasion so that the CG resources can match the service, or so that the calculated CG occasion (or the first CG occasion in each CG cycle) will be periodic.

[0470] It should be noted that, in this application, H-SFN may also include / be replaced by HFN.

[0471] In this application, "indication" may include: direct indication, indirect indication, explicit indication, or implicit indication.

[0472] In this application, "include" may include: direct inclusion, indirect inclusion, explicit inclusion, or implicit inclusion.

[0473] It should be noted that different embodiments or partial steps (for example, any one or more steps) in different embodiments in this application can be combined with each other to form new embodiments. It should be noted that it is not limited to that partial steps or any one or more steps in different embodiments can include optional steps in a certain embodiment, can also include mandatory steps in a certain embodiment, or can also include optional steps and mandatory steps in a certain embodiment, and this application does not limit this.

[0474] It should be noted that, unless otherwise specified or there is no logical conflict, the terms and / or descriptions between different embodiments are consistent and can be referenced to each other.

[0475] It should be noted that the present application does not limit the order of the steps in the embodiments of the present application.

[0476] It should be noted that the order of judging different conditions in the embodiments of the present application is not limited by the present application.

[0477] It should be noted that the terms “after” and “when” in this application do not strictly limit the time point.

[0478] It should be noted that the nouns, terms, etc. involved in this application are merely examples and may also be other names, which are not limited in this application.

[0479] The following describes in detail a communication method 1000 provided by the present application in conjunction with a specific embodiment. As shown in FIG10 , FIG10 is a schematic flow chart of a communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application, and the method includes at least the following steps.

[0480] S1010, the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG.

[0481] For example, the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG may include / be replaced by: the terminal device receives the configuration information of the first CG.

[0482] For example, obtaining can be understood as / replaced by: determining or receiving or decoding or parsing out.

[0483] For example, accordingly, the network device sends the configuration information of the first CG to the terminal device.

[0484] For example, the configuration information of the first CG may include information of the period of the first CG.

[0485] Optionally, the period of the first CG or the first CG is associated with an extended period or an extended period related to SDT.

[0486] Optionally, the period of the first CG may not be divisible by the superframe period or one superframe period.

[0487] For example, the first CG may include / be replaced by: first CG-SDT.

[0488] For example, the superframe period or one superframe period is equal to the first coefficient superframes, or the first coefficient × 10240 ms. For example, the first coefficient is the superframe period or the number of superframes included in one superframe period. For example, the first coefficient can be 1024 or other values ​​without limitation.

[0489] For example, the period of the first CG includes / is any one or more of the following: 61440ms (or 6 super frames), 122880ms (or 12 super frames), 307200ms (or 30 super frames), 604160ms (or 59 super frames), 1208320ms (or 118 super frames), 1802240ms (or 176 super frames), or 3604480ms (or 352 super frames).

[0490] Optionally, the first CG is associated with the SDT service.

[0491] Optionally, the configuration information of the first CG may include other information in addition to the period information of the first CG.

[0492] Optionally, for different CG types, such as Type1CG or Type2CG, the configuration information of the first CG can be different or the same, without restriction.

[0493] For example, the configuration information of the first CG of Type 1 CG may include, but is not limited to, any one or more of time reference frame (timeReferenceSFN), time domain offset (timeDomainOffset), periodicity, time domain resource allocation (timeDomainAllocation), starting symbol S, and length L. For example, timeDomainAllocation may indicate any one or more of starting symbol S, length L, and PUSCH mapping type. For example, S is the starting symbol. For example, L is the number of symbols occupied by an uplink resource.

[0494] For example, the configuration information of the first CG of Type 2 CG may include but is not limited to SFN start time , slotstart time, symbolstart time, periodicity, any one or more of length L.

[0495] For example, the relevant description of the configuration information of the first CG can be referred to the above, and for the sake of simplicity, it will not be repeated here. In addition, the configuration information of the first CG may also be different from that described above, and it should be understood that this application does not limit this.

[0496] S1020, the terminal device determines information about the first CG opportunity based on the first value, information about the first H-SFN, information about the first SFN, and information about the period of the first CG. Alternatively, the terminal device determines information about the first CG opportunity based on the first value, information about the first offset, information about the first SFN, and information about the period of the first CG.

[0497] Optionally, in S1030, the network device determines information about the first CG opportunity based on the first value, information about the first H-SFN, information about the first SFN, and information about the period of the first CG. Alternatively, the network device determines information about the first CG opportunity based on the first value, information about the first offset, information about the first SFN, and information about the period of the first CG.

[0498] For example, the first value is associated with a superframe period or one superframe period.

[0499] For example, the first value = first coefficient × second coefficient × numberOfSlotsPerFrame × numberOfSymbolsPerSlot.

[0500] For example, the first value may include / is / is replaced by: first coefficient×second coefficient×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot.

[0501] For example, the first value is a superframe period or the number of symbols contained in a superframe period.

[0502] For example, the first coefficient is 1024 or the number of superframes included in one superframe period.

[0503] For example, the second coefficient is 1024 or the number of frames included in a superframe.

[0504] For example, numberOfSlotsPerFrame is the number of time slots contained in a frame.

[0505] For example, numberOfSymbolsPerSlot is the number of symbols contained in a time slot.

[0506] For example, the first offset is associated with a superframe with H-SFN=0 and / or a first SFN.

[0507] For example, the first offset may be: an offset relative to a frame with SFN=the first SFN, or an offset relative to a boundary / position of a frame with SFN=the first SFN, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to SFN=the first SFN, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to a frame with SFN=the first SFN (or a boundary / position of a frame), or an offset relative to a frame with SFN=the first SFN in a superframe with H-SFN=0, or an offset relative to a boundary / position of a frame with SFN=the first SFN in a superframe with H-SFN=0, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to SFN=the first SFN in a superframe with H-SFN=0, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to a frame with SFN=the first SFN in a superframe with H-SFN=0, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to a frame with SFN=the first SFN in a superframe with H-SFN=0.

[0508] For example, offset may include / be replaced by: time domain offset.

[0509] For example, the boundary / position of the frame may include / be replaced by: the first symbol / subframe / time slot in the frame, or, the boundary / position of the first symbol / subframe / time slot in the frame, or, the first symbol in the first time slot / subframe in the frame, or, the boundary of the first symbol in the first time slot / subframe in the frame.

[0510] For example, the boundary can include / replace with: start boundary.

[0511] For example, position may include / be replaced by: start position, or, time domain position, or, time domain start position.

[0512] Optionally, the first H-SFN value ranges from 0 to 1023. Optionally, the first H-SFN value ranges from 0 to 1023. For example, the first H-SFN is a reference H-SFN. Optionally, the first H-SFN is 0 or 512.

[0513] Optionally, the first SFN is 0 or 512. For example, the first SFN is a reference SFN or a timeReferenceSFN.

[0514] Optional, determine, can include / replace with: determine in order.

[0515] For example, in sequence, you can include / replaced with: in sequence.

[0516] For example, in order can be understood as in the order of increasing N.

[0517] Optionally, the information of the first CG opportunity includes one or more of the following information of the first CG opportunity: superframe, frame, time slot, symbol, subframe.

[0518] Optionally, in one possible implementation, the information of the first CG opportunity includes information of the superframe, frame, time slot and symbol of the first CG opportunity.

[0519] For example, the information of the superframe, frame, time slot and symbol of the first CG opportunity may include / be replaced by: the information of the superframe, frame, time slot and symbol in which the first CG opportunity is located, or the information of the starting superframe, starting frame, starting time slot and starting symbol of the first CG opportunity, or the information of the superframe, frame, time slot and symbol at the starting position of the first CG opportunity, or the information of the superframe, frame, time slot and symbol at the starting position of the first CG opportunity.

[0520] Optionally, in the first possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG may also include: information of the first H-SFN and information of the first SFN.

[0521] Optionally, for the first possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG does not include: information about the first offset.

[0522] Optionally, for the first possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG may also include: information of the second offset.

[0523] Optionally, the second offset is associated with the first SFN.

[0524] For example, the second offset may be: an offset relative to a frame where SFN=the first SFN, or an offset relative to a boundary / position of a frame where SFN=the first SFN.

[0525] Optionally, the second offset is associated with the first H-SFN and / or the first SFN.

[0526] For example, the second offset may be: an offset relative to a frame in which SFN=the first SFN in a superframe in which H-SFN=the first H-SFN, or an offset relative to a boundary / position of a frame in which SFN=the first SFN in a superframe in which H-SFN=the first H-SFN, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to SFN=the first SFN in a superframe in which H-SFN=the first H-SFN, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to a frame (or boundary / position of a frame) in which SFN=the first SFN in a superframe in which H-SFN=the first H-SFN, or an offset relative to a frame in which SFN=the first SFN, or an offset relative to a boundary / position of a frame in which SFN=the first SFN, or an offset of resources in the time domain relative to SFN=the first SFN, or an offset relative to a frame (or boundary / position of a frame) in which SFN=the first SFN.

[0527] Optionally, in the second possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG may also include: information on the first offset and information on the first SFN.

[0528] Optionally, for the second possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG does not include: information of the first H-SFN.

[0529] Optionally, in a third possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG may further include: information of the first SFN. Furthermore, the terminal device determines the information of the first H-SFN based on the information of the first SFN and / or the first time information.

[0530] For example, the first time information includes information about the time when the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG.

[0531] Optionally, for the third possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG does not include: information on the first offset and information on the first H-SFN.

[0532] Optionally, for the third possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG may also include: information of the second offset.

[0533] For example, the terminal device determines the first H-SFN information according to the first SFN information and / or the first time information, which may include any one or more of the following:

[0534] If the information of the first SFN indicates 512, and the time when the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG is the first half superframe of a superframe (for example, the second superframe), the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN1;

[0535] If the terminal device acquires the configuration information of the first CG within the second half of a superframe (for example, the second superframe), the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN2; or,

[0536] If the information of the first SFN indicates 0, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN2.

[0537] For example, H-SFN1 is the H-SFN of the superframe (e.g., the first superframe) before the superframe (e.g., the second superframe) in which the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG, or the H-SFN of the superframe (e.g., the first superframe) in which the network device sends the configuration information of the first CG.

[0538] For example, H-SFN2 is the H-SFN of the superframe (e.g., the second superframe) in which the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG, or the H-SFN of the superframe (e.g., the first superframe) in which the network device sends the configuration information of the first CG.

[0539] Optionally, the first CG opportunity may be / include: the Nth CG opportunity, or the N+1th CG opportunity, or the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle, or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle, or the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle, or the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle.

[0540] For example, N≥0, or N≥1, or N>1. For example, N is an integer.

[0541] Optionally, the first CG opportunity may be / include: the Kth CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle, or the Kth CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle.

[0542] For example, K ≥ 1. For example, K is an integer.

[0543] Optionally, information determining the first CG timing based on the first value may include: information determining the first CG timing based on the mod of the first value.

[0544] Optionally, determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG may include: determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the first SFN, the information of the period of the first CG and the information of the second offset.

[0545] For example, if the first CG is Type1CG, the first CG opportunity or the Nth CG opportunity or the N+1th CG opportunity, the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle) or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle) is located at (or appears in) the symbol (or, H-SFN, SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula (2-1).

[0546] [((H - SFN×1024 + SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×NumberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot] = ((timeReferenceH - SFN×1024 + timeReferenceSFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S + N×periodicity) modulo (1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), Formula (2 - 1)

[0547] For example, H - SFN is the superframe number of the superframe where the first CG opportunity is located.

[0548] For example, "where the... is located" can be included / replaced with: "of the...".

[0549] For example, SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located.

[0550] For example, slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot, or the index of the time slot in a frame (or, in the frame corresponding to SFN), or the index of the time slot of the first CG opportunity, or the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame (e.g., the frame indicated by SFN).

[0551] For example, symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol, or the index of the symbol in a time slot (or, in the time slot corresponding to slot number in the frame), or the index of the symbol of the first CG opportunity, or the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot (e.g., the time slot indicated by slot number in the frame).

[0552] For example, timeReferenceH - SFN is the first H - SFN.

[0553] For example, timeReferenceSFN is the first SFN.

[0554] For example, timeDomainOffset is the second offset. For example, timeDomainOffset in formula (2-1) is the second offset. For example, the unit of timeDomainOffset is time slot. It should be noted that if the unit of the second offset information included in the configuration information of the first CG is not time slot, the second offset information needs to be converted into time slot for use in the formula calculation.

[0555] For example, S is the index of the starting symbol.

[0556] For example, periodicity is the period of the first CG. For example, the unit of periodicity is symbol. It should be noted that if the unit of the information of the period of the first CG included in the configuration information of the first CG is not symbol, the information of the period of the first CG needs to be converted into symbol before being used in the formula calculation.

[0557] For example, if the first CG is Type2CG, the first CG opportunity or the Nth CG opportunity or the N+1th CG opportunity, the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle) or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle) is located at (or, appears in) the symbol (or, H-SFN, SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula (2-2).

[0558] [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=[((timeReferenceH-SFN×1024+SFN start time )×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+slotstart time×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+symbolstart time)+N×periodicity]modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (2-2)

[0559] For example, SFN start time Indicates the starting SFN.

[0560] For example, slotstart time indicates the starting slot.

[0561] For example, symbolstart time indicates the starting symbol.

[0562] For example, if the first CG is Type1CG, the first CG opportunity or the Nth CG opportunity or the N+1th CG opportunity, the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle) or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle) is located at (or appears in) the symbol (or, H-SFN, SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula (3-1).

[0563] [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceSFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (3-1)

[0564] For example, timeDomainOffset is the first offset. For example, timeDomainOffset in formula (2-1) is the first offset. For example, the unit of timeDomainOffset is time slot. It should be noted that if the unit of the first offset information included in the configuration information of the first CG is not time slot, the first offset information needs to be converted into time slot before being used in the formula calculation.

[0565] For example, if the first CG is Type2CG, the first CG opportunity or the Nth CG opportunity or the N+1th CG opportunity, the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle) or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle) is located at (or appears in) the symbol (or, H-SFN, SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula (3-2).

[0566] [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=[(SFN start time ×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+slotstart time×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+symbolstart time)+N×periodicity]modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (3-2)

[0567] Optionally, the present application may also include that if the period of the first CG or the first CG is associated with an extended period or an extended period related to SDT, the terminal device and / or the network device executes steps 1020 and / or 1030 or determines information about the timing of the first CG based on steps 1020 and / or 1030.

[0568] Optionally, the present application may also include, if the period of the first CG or the first CG is not associated with the extended period or the extended period related to SDT, the terminal device and / or the network device determines the information of the first CG timing according to the existing technology (or formula 1-1 or formula 1-1).

[0569] It should be noted that in this application, H-SFN can be replaced by the first parameter. For example, the first parameter is a parameter related to the superframe. For example, the first parameter can be the first counter. For example, the range of the first parameter can be 0 to (first coefficient - 1), or another range. The first parameter can be other than the H-SFN. For example, when the SFN rolls over, the first parameter changes. For example, the first parameter of the next superframe = the first parameter of the previous superframe + 1. For example, the first parameter of the next superframe = (first parameter of the previous superframe + 1) modulo the first coefficient. For example, if the first parameter of the previous superframe is not equal to (first coefficient - 1) or less than (first coefficient - 1), the first parameter of the next superframe = the first parameter of the previous superframe + 1. For example, if the first parameter of the previous superframe is equal to (first coefficient - 1), the first parameter of the next superframe = 0. For example, SFN rollover can be understood as: the SFN changes from 1023 to 0. For example, H-SFN1 can be L+0 or L. For example, H-SFN2 can be L+1. For example, L may be configured by the network device to the terminal device, or may be pre-configured, or may be pre-defined by a protocol, and this application does not limit this.

[0570] According to the technical solution provided in the present application, when the CG period cannot be divided by a superframe period (or, a superframe period cannot be divided by the CG period), the calculated CG occasion (or, the first CG occasion in each CG period) will be periodic (also periodic in the case of crossing superframe periods), so that the CG resources can be matched with the service, which is beneficial to reducing the transmission delay of the service, reducing the power consumption of the terminal equipment, and improving the user experience.

[0571] Another communication method 1100 provided by the present application is described in detail below in conjunction with a specific embodiment. As shown in FIG11 , FIG11 is a schematic flow chart of a communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application, and the method includes at least the following steps.

[0572] S1110, the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG.

[0573] It should be noted that the content of the embodiment shown in FIG11 can refer to the content of the embodiment described in FIG10 , and will not be repeated here.

[0574] S1120, the terminal device determines the information of the first CG timing based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN and the information of the period of the first CG.

[0575] Optionally, S1130, the network device determines the information of the first CG timing based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN and the information of the period of the first CG.

[0576] Optionally, in a possible implementation, the configuration information of the first CG may further include: information of the first SFN. Furthermore, the terminal device determines the information of the first H-SFN based on the information of the first SFN and / or the first time information.

[0577] Optionally, the configuration information of the first CG does not include: information of the first H-SFN.

[0578] Optionally, the configuration information of the first CG may also include: information of the third offset.

[0579] Optionally, the third offset is associated with the first H-SFN.

[0580] For example, the third offset may be: an offset relative to the superframe where H-SFN = the first H-SFN, or an offset relative to the boundary / position of the superframe where H-SFN = the first H-SFN, or an offset of the resource in the time domain relative to H-SFN = 0, or an offset of the resource in the time domain relative to the superframe (or boundary / position of the superframe) where H-SFN = 0.

[0581] Optionally, information determining the first CG timing based on the first value may include: information determining the first CG timing based on the mod of the first value.

[0582] Optionally, determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN and the information of the period of the first CG may include: determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the period of the first CG and the information of the third offset.

[0583] For example, if the first CG is Type1CG, the first CG opportunity or the Nth CG opportunity or the N+1th CG opportunity, the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle) or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle) is located at (or appears in) the symbol (or, H-SFN, SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula (4-1).

[0584] [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceH-SFN×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (4-1)

[0585] For example, timeDomainOffset is the third offset. For example, timeDomainOffset in formula (4-1) is the third offset. For example, the unit of timeDomainOffset is time slot. It should be noted that if the unit of the third offset information included in the configuration information of the first CG is not time slot, the third offset information needs to be converted into time slot before being used in the formula calculation.

[0586] For example, if the first CG is Type2CG, the first CG opportunity or the Nth CG opportunity or the N+1th CG opportunity, the CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the Nth CG cycle) or the CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle (or, the first CG opportunity in the N+1th CG cycle) is located at (or appears in) the symbol (or, H-SFN, SFN, slot, symbol) calculated according to the following formula (4-2).

[0587] [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=[((timeReferenceH-SFN×1024+SFN start time)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+slotstart time×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+symbolstart time)+N×periodicity]modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), formula (4-2)

[0588] Optionally, the present application may also include, if the period of the first CG or the first CG is associated with an extended period or an extended period related to SDT, the terminal device and / or the network device executes steps 1120 and / or 1130 or determines information of the first CG timing according to steps 1120 and / or 1130.

[0589] Optionally, the present application may also include, if the period of the first CG or the first CG is not associated with the extended period or the extended period related to SDT, the terminal device and / or the network device determines the information of the first CG timing according to the existing technology (or formula 1-1 or formula 1-1).

[0590] It should be noted that, in this application, H-SFN can be replaced by the first parameter.

[0591] According to the technical solution provided in the present application, when the CG period cannot be divided by a superframe period (or, a superframe period cannot be divided by the CG period), the calculated CG occasion (or, the first CG occasion in each CG period) will be periodic (also periodic in the case of crossing superframe periods), so that the CG resources can be matched with the service, which is beneficial to reducing the transmission delay of the service, reducing the power consumption of the terminal equipment, and improving the user experience.

[0592] In order to improve the data transmission efficiency between terminal devices and network devices, improve the utilization of wireless resources, reduce network complexity, and improve the flexibility and efficiency of network devices in configuring wireless resources, this application provides another communication method, which is introduced as follows.

[0593] The terminal device can send fourth information to the network device so that the network device can determine whether the terminal device supports uplink transmit channel switching capabilities that are different from those reported in the UE capability information. The network device can determine to configure a shorter uplink transmit channel switching time for the terminal device based on the fourth information. The implementation of this technical solution is conducive to ensuring that the terminal device and the network device have an aligned understanding of the switching time, thereby helping to avoid bit errors or packet loss caused by misaligned understanding. In addition, the fourth information can include multiple sets of switching times for the same frequency band pair. The network device can determine the switching time used for configuring and scheduling uplink transmit switching based on one of them, thereby helping to improve the flexibility of the network device.

[0594] S1201: The network device obtains fourth capability information.

[0595] The fourth capability information may be used to indicate the wireless access capability of the terminal device. The fourth capability information may include the switching time for uplink transmit channel switching for at least one frequency band pair in the fourth frequency band combination supported by the terminal device. In some scenarios, the fourth capability information may also be referred to as the fourth capability information of the terminal device or the fourth wireless access capability information.

[0596] Exemplarily, the fourth capability information may also include one or more capabilities of the terminal device, such as the frequency bands supported by the terminal device, the frequency band combinations supported by the terminal device, the carrier bandwidth, the number of multiple-input and multiple-output layers, or the modulation order.

[0597] In some examples, the network device may receive the fourth capability information from the terminal device. In some examples, the network device may obtain the fourth capability information from the core network device.

[0598] In some examples, the fourth capability information may be one or more of the first capability information, the second capability information, or the third capability information in the aforementioned embodiments.

[0599] It is understandable that the fourth capability information may include the sixth frequency band combination supported by the terminal device, and the fourth frequency band combination may be a fallback frequency band combination of the sixth frequency band combination. The fourth frequency band combination may be reported in the fourth capability information, or may not be displayed and reported in the fourth capability information, that is, the fourth capability information may not include the fourth frequency band combination and only include the sixth frequency band combination. The network device can determine the capabilities of the fourth frequency band combination based on the sixth frequency band combination.

[0600] Illustratively, the fourth capability information includes the sixth frequency band combination {A, B, C, D}, but does not include the fourth frequency band combination {A, B, C}. Table 6 below exemplarily provides a fallback frequency band combination for the sixth frequency band combination—the switching time for uplink transmission switching of multiple frequency band pairs in the fourth frequency band combination.

[0601] Exemplarily, the fourth capability information may also include a fourth frequency band combination {A, B, C}.

[0602] Table 6

[0603] S1202, the network device sends first configuration information, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the first configuration information.

[0604] The first configuration information can be used to configure uplink transmit channel switching for at least one frequency band pair in the fourth frequency band combination. For ease of explanation, the at least one frequency band pair is hereinafter referred to as a first frequency band pair set. It should be understood that the first frequency band pair set may include one or more frequency band pairs. In some scenarios, uplink transmit channel switching may also be referred to as uplink transmit switching.

[0605] Exemplarily, the fourth frequency band combination may include multiple frequency bands, and the first configuration information may be used to configure uplink transmission channel switching of one or more frequency band pairs consisting of the multiple frequency bands.

[0606] The fourth frequency band combination mentioned above may be replaced by a fourth frequency band set, which is used to indicate uplink frequency bands related to uplink transmission channel switching.

[0607] For example, the fourth frequency band combination may be a frequency band combination {A, B, C}, or in other words, the fourth frequency band set related to uplink transmit channel switching includes frequency band A, frequency band B, and frequency band C. The first configuration information may be used to configure uplink transmit switching of multiple frequency band pairs consisting of the above three frequency bands, for example, one or more of uplink transmit switching of frequency band A and frequency band B, uplink transmit switching of frequency band A and frequency band C, or uplink transmit switching of frequency band B and frequency band C.

[0608] In some examples, the first configuration information may also be used to indicate a switching time for uplink transmission switching of one or more frequency band pairs included in the fourth frequency band combination.

[0609] For example, the first configuration information may be used to indicate the uplink transmission switching time of one or more frequency band pairs in the frequency band pair (A, B), the frequency band pair (A, C), or the frequency band pair (B, C) as shown in Table 6.

[0610] In some examples, the first configuration information may be determined based on the fourth capability information obtained in S1201. In other words, the network device may indicate the uplink switching time of one or more frequency band pairs in the fourth frequency band combination based on the fourth capability information.

[0611] In some examples, the first configuration information may be included in an RRC reconfiguration message (RRCReconfiguration), and / or, the first configuration information may be included in an RRC resume message (RRCResume).

[0612] S1203, the terminal device sends the fourth information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the fourth information.

[0613] In response to the first configuration information in S1202, the terminal device may send the fourth information to the network device, or in other words, the terminal device may send the fourth information to the network device according to the first configuration information.

[0614] In some examples, the fourth information is used to indicate a switching time for uplink transmission switching of a third frequency band pair in a fourth frequency band combination supported by the terminal device, where the third frequency band pair is included in the aforementioned first frequency band pair set, and the number of the third frequency band pairs may be multiple. In other words, the third frequency band pair is one or more of the one or more frequency band pairs included in the aforementioned first frequency band pair set.

[0615] In the case that there are multiple third frequency band pairs, the fourth information may be used to indicate the switching time of uplink transmission switching of the multiple frequency band pairs respectively.

[0616] In some examples, the switching time for uplink transmission switching of the third frequency band pair indicated in the fourth information may be less than (shorter than) the switching time for uplink transmission switching of the corresponding frequency band pair included in the aforementioned fourth capability information.

[0617] In this case, the terminal device can select the shorter switching time indicated in the fourth information as the switching time for the uplink transmission channel switching and use it to send uplink data. In this way, S1204 may not be executed, or the network device may not send the second configuration information to the terminal device.

[0618] Since the fourth information indicates that the terminal device can support stronger uplink transmission switching capability on the third frequency band pair, when the terminal device uses this capability to send uplink data, there will be no bit errors or packet loss caused by the misalignment of the terminal device and the network device's understanding of the switching time.

[0619] For example, compared with Table 6 in S1201, the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the frequency band pair (A, B), frequency band pair (A, C) and frequency band pair (B, C) indicated in the fourth information can be as shown in Table 7.

[0620] Table 7

[0621] Comparing Table 6 and Table 7, it can be seen that the switching time of the uplink transmission switching of the frequency band pair (A, B) indicated in the fourth information is less than the switching time of the uplink transmission switching of the frequency band pair (A, B) included in the fourth capability information.

[0622] In some examples, the fourth information may be used to indicate multiple sets of switching times for the same frequency band pair.

[0623] For example, the terminal device supports multiple groups of switching times for frequency band pairs (A, B), frequency band pairs (A, C) and frequency band pairs (B, C). In this case, the fourth information can be used to indicate the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of multiple groups of frequency band pairs (A, B), frequency band pairs (A, C) and frequency band pairs (B, C) as shown in Table 8.

[0624] Table 8

[0625] The network device can determine the switching time used for configuring and scheduling uplink transmission switching based on one of the multiple switching times of the same frequency band pair included in the fourth information, thereby facilitating improving the flexibility of the network device.

[0626] Taking the two groups of uplink transmission channel switching switching times in Table 8 as an example, the network device can configure and schedule the terminal device according to the first group of switching times or the second group of switching times.

[0627] In some examples, when the terminal device supports multiple sets of switching times, the network device can determine the switching time of the frequency band pair based on the frequency band priority in the fourth frequency band combination.

[0628] For example, the network device can determine a shorter switching time for a higher-priority frequency band pair. The priorities of different frequency bands in a frequency band combination can be determined based on their order within the frequency band combination. For example, higher-priority frequency bands are ranked first, while lower-priority frequency bands are ranked later. Alternatively, the highest-priority frequency band in the frequency band combination is ranked first.

[0629] For example, the aforementioned first configuration information can indicate the frequency bands included in the fourth frequency band combination. The multiple frequency bands in the fourth frequency band combination are arranged in descending order of priority. The frequency band ranked in the first position has the highest priority, the frequency band ranked in the second position has the second highest priority, and so on.

[0630] Taking the frequency band combination {A, B, C} as an example, the frequency band A has the highest priority in this frequency band combination, the frequency band B has the second highest priority, and the frequency band C has the lowest priority. Referring to Table 8, the switching time of the frequency band pair (A, B) in the first group of switching time is shorter than the switching time of the frequency band pair (A, B) in the second group of switching time, then the fourth information can be used to indicate the first group of switching time in Table 8.

[0631] Configuring and scheduling the switching time used for uplink transmission switching according to the priority of different frequency bands in the frequency band combination is conducive to improving the utilization efficiency of communication resources, reducing the switching time of frequency band pairs with higher priority, and thus improving system performance.

[0632] In some examples, when a terminal device supports multiple sets of switching times, the terminal device may select the switching times of the frequency band pairs to be reported based on the priority of the frequency bands in the frequency band combination. For example, the terminal device may report a set of switching times with shorter switching times for frequency band pairs with higher priority.

[0633] In other words, when the terminal device supports multiple groups of switching times, the fourth information can be used to indicate one group of switching times among multiple groups of switching times for the same frequency band pair, and the group of switching times can be determined according to the priority of the frequency bands in the frequency band combination.

[0634] The fourth information includes the switching time selected by the terminal device, which is beneficial to improving the efficiency of network device scheduling and terminal device configuration.

[0635] In some examples, the fourth information may be included in one or more of the following messages: an RRC reconfiguration complete message (RRCReconfigurationComplete), an RRC recovery complete message (RRCResumeComplete), or terminal device assistance information (UE assistance information).

[0636] S1204, the network device sends second configuration information, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the second configuration information.

[0637] Optionally, the network device may send second configuration information to the terminal device, where the second configuration information may be used to configure uplink transmission switching of at least one frequency band pair in the fourth frequency band combination.

[0638] In some examples, after receiving the fourth information in S1203, the network device determines to schedule the terminal device according to the switching time indicated in the fourth capability information obtained in S1201, and the network device may not send the second configuration information to the terminal device. In other words, if the network device determines not to update the configuration of uplink transmission channel switching according to the fourth information, the network device may not send the second configuration information to the terminal device.

[0639] In some examples, after receiving the fourth information in S1203, the network device may schedule the terminal device according to the switching time indicated in the fourth information, and the network device may send the second configuration information to the terminal device.

[0640] In some examples, the second configuration information can be determined based on the fourth information received in S1203.

[0641] The network device can indicate to the terminal device the switching time of the frequency band pair configured by the network device based on the fourth information sent by the terminal device, which is conducive to ensuring that the terminal device and the network device have aligned understandings of the switching time, thereby helping to avoid bit errors or packet loss caused by misaligned understanding.

[0642] For example, when the fourth information indicates that the terminal device supports multiple sets of switching times, the network device may determine the switching time of the configured frequency band pair based on one of the multiple sets of switching times. The network-configured switching time may be understood as the switching time applied when the network device schedules uplink transmission channel switching between frequency band pairs.

[0643] One possible implementation is that the network device may determine the configured switching time according to the priority of the frequency bands in the frequency band combination.

[0644] For example, the network device may determine a shorter switching time for a frequency band pair with a higher priority. The priorities of different frequency bands in the frequency band combination may be determined based on the order of the different frequency bands in the frequency band combination. For details, please refer to the relevant content in S1203, which will not be repeated here for the sake of brevity.

[0645] In some examples, information about the switching time of the frequency band pair used by the network device can be included in the second configuration information and sent to the terminal device.

[0646] The second configuration information may indicate the switching time of at least one frequency band pair selected by the network device. For example, the second configuration information may indicate that the switching time of the frequency band pair (A, B) is 35 μs and the switching time of the frequency band pair (A, C) is 140 μs.

[0647] In some examples, the second configuration information may be used to indicate a set of switching times selected by the network device.

[0648] Taking the first group switching time and the second component switching time in Table 8 as an example, the second configuration information may include an identifier of the first group switching time or an identifier of the second group switching time. For example, if the identifier of the first group switching time is 1 and the identifier of the second group switching time is 2, the second configuration information may include the identifier 1 or the identifier 2 to indicate the first group switching time or the second group switching time.

[0649] Explicitly indicating the switching time applied by the network device through the second configuration information is conducive to ensuring that the terminal device and the network device have an aligned understanding of the switching time, thereby helping to avoid bit errors or packet losses caused by misaligned understanding.

[0650] In some examples, the second configuration information may not include information about the switching time of the frequency band pair used by the network device. In this case, after receiving the second configuration information, the terminal device may apply the switching time of the frequency band pair based on the priority of the frequency bands in the frequency band combination. For example, the terminal device may preferentially use a set of switching times with a shorter switching time for a frequency band pair with a higher priority.

[0651] In some examples, the second configuration information may be included in an RRC reconfiguration message and / or an RRC recovery message.

[0652] By receiving the second configuration information, the terminal device can determine whether the network device is using the switching time indicated in the fourth capability information or the switching time indicated in the fourth information, which is conducive to the terminal device better determining the allocation of hardware resources based on the switching time configured by the network device, and is conducive to ensuring that the terminal device and the network device have aligned understandings of the switching time, thereby helping to avoid bit errors or packet loss caused by misaligned understanding.

[0653] In one possible implementation, when the uplink transmission switching capability of the fallback frequency band combination supported by the terminal device is stronger than the uplink transmission switching capability of the same frequency band pair in its parent frequency band combination, this solution can be used to indicate to the network device in the fourth information the stronger uplink transmission capability in the fallback frequency band combination, that is, the shorter uplink transmission switching time.

[0654] In one possible implementation, when the uplink transmission switching capability of the fallback band combination supported by the terminal device is weaker than the uplink transmission switching capability of the same band pair in its parent band combination, that is, when the fallback band combination has a longer switching time for the same band pair, a weaker capability (longer switching time) can be reported for the parent band combination in the fourth capability information. When the network device is configured with the parent band combination, this solution indicates to the network device in the fourth information that the parent band combination has a stronger uplink transmission capability, that is, a shorter uplink transmission switching time. In this way, it can be ensured that the rules of capability fallback in the prior art are followed, the protocol impact is small, and the complexity of network implementation is reduced. This embodiment can also avoid the problem of switching time ambiguity. When the terminal device has different switching times for the same fallback band combination ABC in the band combination ABCD and the band combination ABCE (for example, the switching times of the three band pairs in ABC are 35us, 140us, 140us and 140us, 35us, 140us respectively), the terminal device can report in the capability information that ABC in ABCD and ABCE has the same weaker switching time (for example, the switching time of the three band pairs in ABC is reported to be 140us). When the network device is configured with a combination of ABC, if the terminal device supports a shorter switching time (for example, 35us, 140us, 140us and / or 140us, 35us, 140us), it can be reported to the network device through the fourth information. On the one hand, the network device can accurately know the stronger capability supported by the terminal device, and on the other hand, it can avoid transmission errors caused by the misalignment of the switching time between the terminal device and the network device.

[0655] FIG13 shows another communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application. A terminal device may send fifth information to a network device so that the network device can determine whether the terminal device supports an uplink transmission channel switching capability that is different from the one already configured by the network device. The network device may determine to configure a stronger uplink transmission channel switching capability for the terminal device based on the fifth information. The implementation of this technical solution is conducive to ensuring that the terminal device and the network device have an aligned understanding of the switching time, thereby helping to avoid bit errors or packet loss caused by misaligned understanding. In addition, the fifth information may include multiple sets of switching times for the same frequency band pair. The network device may determine the switching time used to configure and schedule the uplink transmission switching based on one of them, thereby helping to improve the flexibility of the network device.

[0656] S1310, the network device sends third configuration information, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the third configuration information.

[0657] The third configuration information may be used to configure uplink transmission channel switching of at least one frequency band pair in a fifth frequency band combination. The fifth frequency band combination may be a frequency band combination supported by the terminal device.

[0658] For ease of explanation, at least one frequency band pair in the fifth frequency band combination is referred to as a second frequency band pair set hereinafter. It should be understood that the second frequency band pair set may include one or more frequency band pairs.

[0659] Exemplarily, the fifth frequency band combination may include multiple frequency bands, and the third configuration information may be used to configure uplink transmission channel switching of one or more frequency band pairs consisting of the multiple frequency bands.

[0660] In some examples, the third configuration information may also be used to indicate a switching time for uplink transmission switching of one or more frequency band pairs included in the fifth frequency band combination.

[0661] In some examples, the third configuration information may be determined based on the capability information of the terminal device. The capability information of the terminal device may indicate the wireless access capability of the terminal device, and the capability information of the terminal device may include the switching time for uplink transmit channel switching for at least one set of frequency band pairs in the aforementioned fifth frequency band combination supported by the terminal device. In other words, the network device may indicate the switching time for uplink switching for one or more frequency band pairs in the fifth frequency band combination based on the capability information of the terminal device.

[0662] In some examples, the capability information of the terminal device can be determined based on one or more of the first capability information, the second capability information, or the third capability information in the aforementioned embodiments.

[0663] In some examples, the third configuration information may be included in an RRC reconfiguration message and / or an RRC recovery message.

[0664] S1320, the terminal device sends the fifth information, and correspondingly, the network device receives the fifth information.

[0665] In response to the third configuration information, the terminal device may send the fifth information to the network device, or in other words, the terminal device may send the fifth information to the network device according to the third configuration information.

[0666] In some examples, the fifth information is used to indicate a switching time for uplink transmission switching of a fourth frequency band pair in a fifth frequency band combination supported by the terminal device, where the fourth frequency band pair is included in the aforementioned second frequency band pair set, and the number of the fourth frequency band pairs may be multiple. In other words, the fourth frequency band pair is one or more of the one or more frequency band pairs included in the aforementioned second frequency band pair set.

[0667] In the case that there are multiple fourth frequency band pairs, the fifth information may be used to indicate the switching time of uplink transmission switching of the multiple frequency band pairs respectively.

[0668] In some examples, the switching time for uplink transmission switching of the fourth frequency band pair indicated in the fifth information may be less than (shorter than) the switching time for uplink transmission switching of the corresponding frequency band pair included in the aforementioned terminal device capability information.

[0669] In this case, the terminal device may select the shorter switching time indicated in the fifth information as the switching time for switching the uplink transmission channel, and use it to send uplink data.

[0670] In some examples, the fifth information may be used to indicate multiple sets of switching times for the same frequency band pair.

[0671] The network device can determine the switching time used for configuring and scheduling uplink transmission switching according to one of the multiple switching times of the same frequency band pair included in the fifth information, thereby facilitating improving the flexibility of the network device.

[0672] In some examples, when the terminal device supports multiple sets of switching times, the network device can determine the switching time of the frequency band pair according to the frequency band priority in the fifth frequency band combination.

[0673] For example, the network device can determine a shorter switching time for a higher-priority band pair. The priorities of different bands in a band combination can be determined based on their order within the band combination. For example, bands with higher priorities are ranked higher, while bands with lower priorities are ranked lower. Alternatively, the band with the highest priority is ranked first within the band combination, while the band with the lowest priority is ranked last.

[0674] For example, the aforementioned third configuration information can indicate the frequency bands included in the fifth frequency band combination. The multiple frequency bands in the fifth frequency band combination are arranged in descending order of priority. The frequency band ranked in the first position has the highest priority, the frequency band ranked in the second position has the second highest priority, and so on.

[0675] Configuring and scheduling the switching time used for uplink transmission switching according to the priority of different frequency bands in the frequency band combination is conducive to improving the utilization efficiency of communication resources, reducing the switching time of frequency band pairs with higher priority, and thus improving system performance.

[0676] In some examples, the fourth information may be included in one or more of the following messages: an RRC reconfiguration complete message, an RRC recovery complete message, or terminal device assistance information.

[0677] In some examples, the network device may send fourth configuration information to the terminal device, where the fourth configuration information may be used to configure uplink transmission switching of at least one frequency band pair in the fourth frequency band combination.

[0678] In some examples, the fourth configuration information can be determined based on the aforementioned fifth information.

[0679] In some examples, the fourth configuration information can be used to indicate a set of switching times selected by the network device, and this set of switching times can determine the switching time of the application according to the priority of the frequency bands in the frequency band combination.

[0680] The communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application is described in detail above with reference to Figures 3 to 13. The apparatus provided by the embodiment of the present application is described in detail below with reference to Figures 14 and 16.

[0681] Figure 14 is a schematic block diagram of an example communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 14, the communication device 1400 includes a transceiver unit 1410 and a processing unit 1420. The transceiver unit 1410 can implement corresponding communication functions, and the processing unit 1420 is used to perform data processing to enable the communication device to implement the aforementioned method embodiment. The transceiver unit 1410 can also be referred to as a communication interface or a communication unit.

[0682] Optionally, the communication device 1400 may further include a storage unit, which may be used to store instructions and / or data. The processing unit 1420 may read the instructions and / or data in the storage unit so that the communication device implements the aforementioned method embodiment.

[0683] The communication device 1400 can be used to execute the actions performed by the terminal device in the above method embodiment. In this case, the communication device 1400 can be a terminal device, or a component that can be configured on the terminal device. The transceiver unit 1410 is used to execute the transceiver-related operations on the terminal device side in the above method embodiment. The storage unit is used to execute the data or instruction storage-related operations on the terminal device side in the above method embodiment. The processing unit 1420 is used to execute the processing-related operations on the terminal device side in the above method embodiment.

[0684] Alternatively, the communication device 1400 can be used to execute the actions performed by the network device in the above method embodiment. In this case, the communication device 1400 can be a network device, or a component that can be configured on the network device. The transceiver unit 1410 is used to execute the transceiver-related operations on the network device side in the above method embodiment, the storage unit is used to execute the data or instruction storage-related operations on the network device side in the above method embodiment, and the processing unit 1420 is used to execute the processing-related operations on the network device side in the above method embodiment.

[0685] It should be understood that the specific process of each unit executing the above corresponding steps has been described in detail in the above method embodiment, and for the sake of brevity, it will not be repeated here.

[0686] The processing unit 1420 in the above embodiment can be implemented by at least one processor or processor-related circuits. The transceiver unit 1410 can be implemented by a transceiver or transceiver-related circuits. The transceiver unit 1410 can also be referred to as a communication unit or communication interface. The storage unit can be implemented by at least one memory.

[0687] Figure 15 is a schematic block diagram of another example communication device 1500 provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in the figure, the device 1500 includes: at least one processor 1510 and a transceiver 1520. The processor 1510 is coupled to a memory and is configured to execute instructions stored in the memory to send and / or receive signals. Optionally, the device 1500 also includes a memory 1530 for storing instructions. Optionally, the device 1500 also includes a transceiver 1520, and the processor 1510 controls the transceiver 1520 to send and / or receive signals.

[0688] It should be understood that the processor 1510 and memory 1530 may be combined into a processing device, and the processor 1510 is used to execute the program code stored in the memory 1530 to implement the above functions. In specific implementations, the memory 1530 may also be integrated into the processor 1510 or independent of the processor 1510.

[0689] It should also be understood that the transceiver 1520 may include a transceiver (or receiver) and a transmitter (or transmitter). The transceiver may further include an antenna, and the number of antennas may be one or more. The transceiver 1520 may also be a communication interface or interface circuit.

[0690] For example, the transceiver 1520 in the apparatus 1500 may correspond to the transceiver unit in the above-mentioned embodiment, and the processor 1510 in the apparatus 1500 may correspond to the processing unit in the above-mentioned embodiment. It should be understood that the specific process of each transceiver and processor executing the above-mentioned corresponding steps has been described in detail in the above-mentioned method embodiment, and for the sake of brevity, it will not be repeated here.

[0691] 16 is a schematic block diagram of a chip system 1600 according to an embodiment of the present application. The chip system 1600 (or also referred to as a processing system) includes a logic circuit 1610 and an input / output interface 1620 .

[0692] Logic circuit 1610 may be a processing circuit within chip system 1600. Logic circuit 1610 may be coupled to a storage unit and invoke instructions within the storage unit, enabling chip system 1600 to implement the methods and functions of various embodiments of the present application. Input / output interface 1620 may be an input / output circuit within chip system 1600, outputting information processed by chip system 1600 or inputting data or signaling information to be processed into chip system 1600 for processing.

[0693] As a solution, the chip system 1600 is used to implement the operations performed by the terminal device in the above various method embodiments.

[0694] For example, the logic circuit 1610 is used to implement the processing-related operations performed by the terminal device in the above method embodiment; the input / output interface 1620 is used to implement the sending and / or receiving-related operations performed by the terminal device in the above method embodiment.

[0695] As another solution, the chip system 1600 is used to implement the operations performed by the network device in the above various method embodiments.

[0696] For example, the logic circuit 1610 is used to implement the processing-related operations performed by the network device in the above method embodiment; the input / output interface 1620 is used to implement the sending and / or receiving-related operations performed by the network device in the above method embodiment.

[0697] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium on which computer instructions are stored for implementing the methods executed by a communication device (such as a terminal device or a network device) in the above-mentioned method embodiments.

[0698] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer program product comprising instructions, which, when executed by a computer, implement the methods performed by a communication device (such as a terminal device or a network device) in the above-mentioned method embodiments.

[0699] An embodiment of the present application also provides a communication system, which includes the terminal device and network device in the above embodiments.

[0700] Those skilled in the art will clearly understand that, for the convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the systems, devices and units described above can refer to the corresponding processes in the aforementioned method embodiments and will not be repeated here.

[0701] In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed devices and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are only schematic. For example, the division of the above-mentioned units is only a logical function division. There may be other division methods in actual implementation. For example, multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. In addition, 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.

[0702] The units described above 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 according to actual needs to implement the solutions provided in this application.

[0703] In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated into one unit, each unit may exist physically separately, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit.

[0704] Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the units and algorithm steps of each example described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are performed in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Professional and technical personnel can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered beyond the scope of this application.

[0705] When software is used for implementation, 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 devices. For example, the computer can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc. 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 a website, computer, server or data center to another website, computer, server or data center by wired (such as coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital subscriber line (DSL)) or wireless (such as infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) mode.

[0706] If the functions are implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as independent products, they can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present application, or the part that contributes to the prior art, or the part of the technical solution, can be embodied in the form of a software product. The computer software product is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions for enabling a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the method described in each embodiment of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media that can store program codes, such as a USB flash drive, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk.

[0707] 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 communication method, characterized in that: The method comprises: Obtain configuration information of a first configuration authorization CG, where the configuration information of the first CG includes information about a period of the first CG; If the period of the first CG or the first CG is associated with an extended period or an extended period related to SDT, determine the information of the first CG timing based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG; The first value is associated with a superframe period.

2. The communication method according to claim 1, characterized in that: The first value is associated with a superframe period, including: The first value = first coefficient × second coefficient × numberOfSlotsPerFrame × numberOfSymbolsPerSlot; or, The first value is the number of symbols contained in a superframe period; Among them, the first coefficient is 1024 or the number of superframes included in a superframe period, the second coefficient is 1024 or the number of frames included in a superframe, the numberOfSlotsPerFrame is the number of time slots included in a frame, and the numberOfSymbolsPerSlot is the number of symbols included in a time slot.

3. The communication method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The one superframe period includes 1024 superframes.

4. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that: The first offset is associated with a superframe with H-SFN=0, including: The first offset is: an offset relative to a frame in which SFN=the first SFN in a superframe in which H-SFN=0.

5. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that: The configuration information of the first CG also includes: information of the first H-SFN and information of the first SFN.

6. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that: The terminal device determines the information of the first H-SFN based on the information of the first SFN, including any one or more of the following: If the information of the first SFN indicates 512, and the time when the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG is in the first half of a superframe, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN1; or, If the terminal device acquires the configuration information of the first CG in the second half of a superframe, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN2; or, If the information of the first SFN indicates 0, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN2; Among them, H-SFN1 is the H-SFN of the superframe before the superframe in which the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG; H-SFN2 is the H-SFN of the superframe in which the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG.

7. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that: The determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG includes: determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the following formula: [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=((timeReferenceH-SFN×1024+timeReferenceSFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), Among them, the H-SFN is the super frame number of the super frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame, the symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot, the timeReferenceH-SFN is the first H-SFN, the timeReferenceSFN is the first SFN, timeDomainOffset is the offset relative to the frame where SFN = the timeReferenceSFN, S is the index of the starting symbol, periodicity is the period of the first CG, and N≥0.

8. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that: The determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first offset, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG includes: determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the following formula: [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceSFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot); Among them, the H-SFN is the super frame number of the super frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame, the symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot, the timeReferenceSFN is the first SFN, timeDomainOffset is the first offset, S is the index of the starting symbol, periodicity is the period of the first CG, and N≥0.

9. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 8, characterized in that: The information of the first CG opportunity includes one or more of the following information: superframe, frame, time slot, symbol, and subframe.

10. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that: The first CG opportunity is the Nth CG opportunity, where N≥0.

11. The communication method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that: The method further comprises: If the period of the first CG or the first CG is not associated with an extended period or an extended period associated with SDT, the information of the Nth CG opportunity is determined based on the following formula: [(SFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceSFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot) Among them, the SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame, the symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot, the timeReferenceSFN represents the SFN used to determine the offset of the resource in the time domain, timeDomainOffset is the offset relative to the frame where SFN = the timeReferenceSFN, S is the index of the starting symbol, periodicity is the period of the first CG, and N≥0.

12. A communication method, characterized in that: The method comprises: Sending configuration information of a first configuration authorization CG, where the configuration information of the first CG includes information about the period of the first CG; Determine the information of the first CG timing based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG; or, Determine the information of the first CG timing based on the first value, the information of the first offset, the information of the first SFN, and the information of the period of the first CG; The first value is associated with a superframe period, and the first offset is associated with a superframe with H-SFN=0 and the first SFN.

13. The communication method according to claim 12, characterized in that: The first value is associated with a superframe period, including: The first value = first coefficient × second coefficient × numberOfSlotsPerFrame × numberOfSymbolsPerSlot; or, The first value is the number of symbols contained in a superframe period; Among them, the first coefficient is 1024 or the number of superframes included in a superframe period, the second coefficient is 1024 or the number of frames included in a superframe, the numberOfSlotsPerFrame is the number of time slots included in a frame, and the numberOfSymbolsPerSlot is the number of symbols included in a time slot.

14. The communication method according to claim 12 or 13, characterized in that: The one superframe period includes 1024 superframes.

15. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 14, characterized in that: The first offset is associated with a superframe with H-SFN=0, including: The first offset is: an offset relative to a frame in which SFN=the first SFN in a superframe in which H-SFN=0.

16. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 15, characterized in that: The configuration information of the first CG also includes: information of the first H-SFN and information of the first SFN.

17. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 16, characterized in that: The terminal device determines the information of the first H-SFN based on the information of the first SFN, including any one or more of the following: If the information of the first SFN indicates 512, and the time when the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG is in the first half of a superframe, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN1; or, If the terminal device acquires the configuration information of the first CG in the second half of a superframe, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN2; or, If the information of the first SFN indicates 0, the terminal device determines that the first H-SFN is H-SFN2; Among them, H-SFN1 is the H-SFN of the superframe before the superframe in which the terminal device obtains the configuration information of the first CG; H- SFN2 is the H-SFN of the superframe for the terminal device to obtain the configuration information of the first CG.

18. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 17, characterized in that: The determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first H-SFN, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG includes: determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the following formula: [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=((timeReferenceH-SFN×1024+timeReferenceSFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot), Among them, the H-SFN is the super frame number of the super frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame, the symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot, the timeReferenceH-SFN is the first H-SFN, the timeReferenceSFN is the first SFN, timeDomainOffset is the offset relative to the frame where SFN = the timeReferenceSFN, S is the index of the starting symbol, periodicity is the period of the first CG, and N≥0.

19. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 18, characterized in that: The determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the first value, the information of the first offset, the information of the first SFN and the information of the period of the first CG includes: determining the information of the first CG opportunity based on the following formula: [((H-SFN×1024+SFN)×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceSFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot); Among them, the H-SFN is the super frame number of the super frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame, the symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot, the timeReferenceSFN is the first SFN, timeDomainOffset is the first offset, S is the index of the starting symbol, periodicity is the period of the first CG, and N≥0.

20. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 19, characterized in that: The information of the first CG opportunity includes one or more of the following information: superframe, frame, time slot, symbol, and subframe.

21. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 20, characterized in that: The first CG opportunity is the Nth CG opportunity, where N≥0.

22. The communication method according to any one of claims 12 to 21, characterized in that: The method further comprises: If the period of the first CG or the first CG is not associated with an extended period or an extended period associated with SDT, the information of the Nth CG opportunity is determined based on the following formula: [(SFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+(slot number in the frame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot)+symbol number in the slot]=(timeReferenceSFN×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+timeDomainOffset×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot+S+N×periodicity)modulo(1024×numberOfSlotsPerFrame×numberOfSymbolsPerSlot) Among them, the SFN is the frame number of the frame where the first CG opportunity is located, the slot number in the frame is the index of the time slot where the first CG opportunity is located in a frame, the symbol number in the slot is the index of the symbol where the first CG opportunity is located in a time slot, the timeReferenceSFN represents the SFN used to determine the offset of the resource in the time domain, timeDomainOffset is the offset relative to the frame where SFN = the timeReferenceSFN, S is the index of the starting symbol, periodicity is the period of the first CG, and N≥0.

23. A communication method, using a terminal device, characterized in that: include: Receive capability query message; Send capability information, where the capability information includes first information, where the first information is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability.

24. The communication method according to claim 23, characterized in that: The first information is also used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, the uplink transmission channel switching capability includes the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching, and the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

25. The communication method according to claim 24, characterized in that: The capability information also includes the second frequency band combination and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

26. The communication method according to claim 24 or 25, characterized in that: The first information also includes index information, where the index information is used to indicate a position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

27. The communication method according to any one of claims 23 to 26, characterized in that: The capability information includes capability information of a first frequency band combination, where the capability information of the first frequency band combination is used to indicate an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes the first information.

28. The communication method according to claim 23, characterized in that: The first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, The capability information includes capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes second information and third information, the second information is used to indicate an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the third information is used to indicate an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination; The second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

29. The communication method according to claim 23, characterized in that: The first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, The first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the target switching time, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the target switching time is the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination or the second frequency band combination.

30. The communication method according to any one of claims 24 to 29, characterized in that: The number of frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination is less than the number of frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination.

31. A communication method, applied to a network device, characterized in that: include: Send capability query message; Capability information is received, where the capability information includes first information, where the first information is used to indicate whether the first frequency band combination supports fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability.

32. The communication method according to claim 31, characterized in that: The first information is also used to indicate whether the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination is the same as the uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, the uplink transmission channel switching capability includes the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching, and the second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination.

33. The communication method according to claim 32, characterized in that: The capability information also includes the second frequency band combination and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

34. The communication method according to claim 32 or 33, characterized in that: The first information also includes index information, where the index information is used to indicate a position of the second frequency band combination in at least one frequency band combination for uplink transmission channel switching supported by the terminal device.

35. The communication method according to any one of claims 31 to 34, characterized in that: The capability information includes capability information of a first frequency band combination, where the capability information of the first frequency band combination is used to indicate an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes the first information.

36. The communication method according to claim 31, characterized in that: The first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, The capability information includes capability information of the first frequency band combination, the capability information of the first frequency band combination includes second information and third information, the second information is used to indicate an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination, and the third information is used to indicate an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination; The second frequency band combination is a fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the first frequency band combination is different from an uplink transmission channel switching capability of the second frequency band combination.

37. The communication method according to claim 31, characterized in that: The first information indicates that the first frequency band combination does not support fallback of uplink transmission channel switching capability, The first information is also used to indicate that the switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching of the second frequency band combination is the target switching time, the second frequency band combination is the fallback frequency band combination of the first frequency band combination, and the target switching time is the longest switching time of the uplink transmission channel switching among all frequency band pairs included in the first frequency band combination or the second frequency band combination.

38. The communication method according to any one of claims 32 to 36, characterized in that: The number of frequency bands included in the second frequency band combination is less than the number of frequency bands included in the first frequency band combination.

39. A communication device, characterized in that: The apparatus comprises a unit for executing the method of any one of claims 1 to 11, or a unit for executing the method of any one of claims 12 to 22, or a unit for executing the method of any one of claims 23 to 30, or a unit for executing the method of any one of claims 31 to 38.

40. A communication device, characterized in that: include: A processor, the processor is coupled to a memory, the memory stores instructions, and when the instructions are executed by the processor, the device performs the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 11, or performs the method as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 22, or performs the method as claimed in any one of claims 23 to 30, or performs the method as claimed in any one of claims 31 to 38.

41. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that The computer-readable storage medium is used to store a computer program, and when the computer program is run on a computer, the computer executes the method as described in any one of claims 1 to 11, or executes the method as described in any one of claims 12 to 22, or executes the method as described in any one of claims 23 to 30, or executes the method as described in any one of claims 31 to 38.

42. A computer program product, characterized in that The computer program product includes a computer program code, which, when executed by a communication device, implements the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 11, or executes the method as claimed in any one of claims 12 to 22, or executes the method as claimed in any one of claims 23 to 30, or executes the method as claimed in any one of claims 31 to 38.

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