Communication method and communication apparatus

Abstract

The present application provides a communication method and a communication apparatus. The method comprises: receiving a first synchronization signal block, wherein the first synchronization signal block comprises a first synchronization signal, and the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals; measuring the signal strengths of the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals to obtain a first measurement result; on the basis of the first measurement result, determining a third beam from among a first beam and M1 second beams; and / or, on the basis of the first measurement result, determining a fourth beam from among at least one beam used by a first communication apparatus. The first beam is a transmission beam for the first synchronization signal, the M1 second beams are transmission beams for the N1 first reference signals, the third beam is a transceiving beam of a second communication apparatus when communicating with the first communication apparatus, and the fourth beam is a transceiving beam of the first communication apparatus when communicating with the second communication apparatus.

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 December 20, 2023, with application number 202311768001.6, and invention name “A Communication Method and Communication Device”, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference into this application. Technical Field

[0002] The present application relates to the field of communications, and in particular to a communication method and a communication device. Background Art

[0003] In a communication system, signal synchronization is particularly important as the starting point for establishing communication between a terminal device and a network device. Among them, signal synchronization includes downlink signal synchronization and / or uplink signal synchronization. Downlink signal synchronization refers to the terminal device searching for the synchronization signal block (synchronization signal / PBCH block, SSB) sent periodically at a specific location by the network device, and uplink signal synchronization is achieved by the terminal device performing a random access process with the network device. For example, the network device can send SSBs via different beams at different times, and the terminal device generally selects the SSB beam with the largest signal strength as the initial beam through beam scanning, and establishes a suitable beam pair between the network device and the terminal device for subsequent access and data transmission. For another example, the terminal device and the network device can perform contention-based random access or non-contention-based random access.

[0004] Research has found that the beam scanning or measurement delay during current signal synchronization is large, severely impairing random access performance. Therefore, improving random access performance is a current issue that needs to be considered.

[0005] Summary of the Invention

[0006] In order to solve the above technical problems, the present application provides a communication method and a communication device, which can improve random access performance.

[0007] In a first aspect, a communication method is provided. This method can be performed by a first communication device, or by another entity, and this application does not limit this. For ease of description, the following description uses the first communication device as an example. The first communication device can be a terminal device, or a chip or circuit in the terminal device, or a functional module in the terminal device that can call and execute programs.

[0008] The method includes: receiving a first synchronization signal block, the first synchronization signal block includes a first synchronization signal, the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, and N1 is a positive integer; measuring the signal strength of the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals to obtain a first measurement result; determining a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams according to the first measurement result, the third beam being the transceiver beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, the first beam being the transmit beam of the first synchronization signal, the M1 second beams being the transmit beams of the N1 first reference signals, and M1 being a positive integer; and / or determining a fourth beam from at least one beam used by the first communication device according to the first measurement result, the fourth beam being the transceiver beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device.

[0009] Exemplarily, the first synchronization signal block may represent a synchronization signal block, and the first synchronization signal may represent a synchronization signal. In the present application, the first synchronization signal may be an SSB, for example, the SSB includes a first primary synchronization signal (PSS), a first secondary synchronization signal (SSS), a first physical broadcast channel (PBCH), and a first demodulation reference signal (DMRS), or the first synchronization signal may also include other signals and / or channels. The present application does not specifically limit the structure or components of the first synchronization signal.

[0010] For ease of description, in this application, the third beam may be referred to as an SSB beam, or a network device-side beam, and the fourth beam may be referred to as a terminal device-side beam. The first communication device may use the third beam to send downlink data to the second communication device and use the third beam to receive uplink data from the second communication device. Correspondingly, the first communication device may use the fourth beam to receive downlink data from the second communication device and use the fourth beam to send uplink data to the second communication device, effectively improving random access and transmission performance.

[0011] According to the solution provided in the present application, by setting the first synchronization signal to be associated with the first reference signal, the first communication device can determine the corresponding first reference signal after receiving the first synchronization signal, and by measuring the signal strength of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, select the beam with the highest (or higher) signal strength as the transceiver beam on the second communication device side (i.e., the third beam), and indicate the third beam to the second communication device during the random access process, so that the second communication device can use the third beam to communicate with the terminal device, thereby obtaining a higher beam gain in subsequent communications, that is, improving the channel transmission quality. Furthermore, the random access performance and transmission performance between the first communication device and the second communication device are improved. The performance can also be improved due to the improvement of channel quality; and / or, after receiving the first synchronization signal, the first communication device can determine the corresponding first reference signal, and by measuring the RSRP measurement values ​​of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, select the receiving beam used by the first communication device with the highest (or higher) signal strength as the subsequent transceiver beam on the first communication device side (i.e., the fourth beam). During the random access process, the fourth beam selected by the first communication device can be used to send the preamble, thereby obtaining a higher beam gain in subsequent communications, i.e., improving the channel transmission quality, so that the random access performance and transmission performance between the first communication device and the second communication device are also improved due to the improvement of channel quality.

[0012] In an embodiment of the present application, a third beam is selected from the first beam that sends the first synchronization signal and the M1 second beams that send N1 first reference signals as the subsequent transceiver beam for the second communication device to communicate with the first communication device, and a fourth beam is selected from at least one beam used by the first communication device as the subsequent transceiver beam for the first communication device to communicate with the second communication device, that is, the third beam and the fourth beam are combined into a beam pair for subsequent communication to obtain a higher beam gain. This is because the first communication device uses at least one beam on the first communication device side to measure the signal strength of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, and can determine one or more beams with higher beam gain on the second communication device side, decoupling the beam gains of multiple beam pairs between the first communication device and the second communication device, so that the first communication device can determine the beam pair with higher beam gain in a shorter measurement time, thereby improving the channel quality of subsequent communication and enhancing transmission performance.

[0013] With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, including: the first synchronization signal block also includes N1 first reference signals. In other words, the first synchronization signal block may include the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, or in other words, the first synchronization signal block may consist of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal.

[0014] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, a third beam is determined from the first beam and M1 second beams based on the first measurement result, including: determining M2 fifth beams from the first beam and M1 second beams based on the first measurement result, selecting a beam from the M2 fifth beams as the third beam, the signal strength of the fifth beam is greater than or equal to a first threshold, the first threshold is preset, and M2 is a positive integer.

[0015] In other words, the third beam may be one beam selected from M2 fifth beams, where the M2 fifth beams are one or more beams selected from the first beam and M1 second beams according to the first measurement result.

[0016] It should be noted that when M2=1, it means that there is one fifth beam with a signal strength greater than the first threshold. At this time, the third beam is equivalent to the fifth beam, that is, the step of selecting a beam from the M2 fifth beams as the third beam can be omitted; when M2 is greater than 1, it means that there are multiple fifth beams with a signal strength greater than the first threshold, that is, the first communication device can randomly select a beam from multiple fifth beams as the third beam, and the randomly selected beam can be the one with the largest signal strength among the M2 fifth beams. This application does not limit this.

[0017] Exemplarily, the first threshold satisfies: {-156dBm to -31dBm}, i.e., the value of the first threshold can be any value between -156dBm and -31dBm. For example, the protocol predefines a correspondence between the RSRP parameter configuration or index and the first threshold, where the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value between 0 and 127. For example, when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 0, the corresponding first threshold has a value of -156dBm; when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 127, the corresponding first threshold has a value of -31dBm, and so on.

[0018] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the method also includes: receiving a second synchronization signal block, the second synchronization signal block including a second synchronization signal, the second synchronization signal being associated with N2 second reference signals, where N2 is a positive integer; measuring the signal strengths of the second synchronization signal and the N2 second reference signals to obtain a second measurement result; determining a third beam from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, the sixth beam being the transmitting beam of the second synchronization signal, the M3 seventh beams being the transmitting beams of the N2 second reference signals, where M3 is a positive integer.

[0019] It should be noted that the present application does not limit the number of synchronization signals sent by the second communication device to the first communication device.

[0020] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, including: the second synchronization signal block also includes N2 second reference signals.

[0021] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, a third beam is determined from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, including: determining M4 eighth beams from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, selecting a beam from the M4 eighth beams and M2 fifth beams as the third beam, the signal strength of the eighth beam is greater than or equal to a second threshold, the second threshold is preset, and M4 is a positive integer.

[0022] In other words, the third beam may be one beam selected from M4 eighth beams and M2 fifth beams, wherein the M4 eighth beams are one or more beams determined from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams according to the second measurement result.

[0023] It should be noted that when M4=1, it means that there is one eighth beam with a signal strength greater than the second threshold, or when M4 is greater than 1, it means that there are multiple eighth beams with a signal strength greater than the second threshold, that is, the first communication device needs to randomly select a beam from the M4 eighth beams and the M2 fifth beams as the third beam. The randomly selected beam can be the one with the largest signal strength among the M2 fifth beams and the M4 eighth beams. This application does not limit this.

[0024] Exemplarily, the second threshold satisfies: {-156dBm to -31dBm}, i.e., the value of the second threshold can be any value between -156dBm and -31dBm. For example, the protocol predefines a correspondence between the RSRP parameter configuration or index and the second threshold, where the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value between 0 and 127. For example, when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 0, the corresponding second threshold has a value of -156dBm; when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 127, the corresponding second threshold has a value of -31dBm, and so on.

[0025] Optionally, the values ​​of the first threshold and the second threshold in the embodiment of the present application may be the same.

[0026] In conjunction with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the third beam is the first beam, or the third beam is one of the M1 second beams, or the third beam is the sixth beam, or the third beam is one of the M3 seventh beams. That is, the third beam can be a beam used to transmit a synchronization signal (e.g., the first synchronization signal or the second synchronization signal), or can be a beam used to transmit a reference signal (e.g., one of the M1 second beams). By increasing the number of selectable beam pairs, a beam with the best or better signal strength is selected and used as the transceiver beam for subsequent communication between the first communication device and the second communication device, thereby obtaining a higher beam gain, i.e., improving channel transmission quality.

[0027] In combination with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the method further includes: sending indication information to the second communication device, where the indication information indicates the third beam.

[0028] It should be understood that “indication” or “used for indication” may include direct indication and indirect indication. For example, the indication information includes an identifier of the third beam, or other information that can be used to determine the third beam.

[0029] In one implementation, the indication information includes a first preamble, and the third beam is determined based on the first preamble and the first mapping relationship; wherein the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple preambles, the multiple beams include the first beam, M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or multiple beams in M3 seventh beams, the multiple preambles include the preamble corresponding to the first beam, the preamble corresponding to each second beam, the preamble corresponding to the sixth beam, or multiple preambles corresponding to each seventh beam, and the first preamble is one of the multiple preambles.

[0030] In another implementation, the indication information includes a first random access channel (RACH occasion, RO), and the third beam is determined based on the first RO and the second mapping relationship; wherein the second mapping relationship is used to indicate the mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple ROs, the multiple beams include the first beam, M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or multiple beams in M3 seventh beams, the multiple ROs include the RO corresponding to the first beam, the RO corresponding to each second beam, the RO corresponding to the sixth beam, or multiple ROs corresponding to each seventh beam, and the first RO is one of the multiple ROs.

[0031] With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the first beam is different from at least one of the M1 second beams.

[0032] In other words, assuming M1=1, the first beam is different from the second beam; assuming M1 is greater than 1, for example, M1=2, the first beam is different from at least one of the two second beams, for example, the first beam is different from the second beam #1 and the second beam #2, wherein the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 may be the same or different, and this application does not limit this; or, the first beam is the same as the second beam #1 but the first beam is different from the second beam #2, that is, the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 are also different.

[0033] In other words, the second beam includes the first beam, or the second beam also includes other beams different from the first beam.

[0034] Optionally, the first beam is identical to at least one of the M1 second beams, that is, the first beam is identical to one or more of the M1 second beams.

[0035] With reference to the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, one or more first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to one second beam among the M1 second beams.

[0036] In other words, one second beam corresponds to one or more first reference signals. For example, the second communication device uses one second beam to transmit one second reference signal, or the second communication device uses one second beam to transmit multiple first reference signals. In other words, there are multiple second beams corresponding to multiple first reference signals. For example, there are two second beams, with second beam #1 used to transmit first reference signal #1, and second beam #2 used to transmit first reference signal #2 and first reference signal #3, and so on.

[0037] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the M1 second beams include a ninth beam and a tenth beam, the ninth beam is used to send N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, and the tenth beam is used to send N4 first reference signals other than the N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, the N3 first reference signals occupy the first resources, and the N4 first reference signals occupy the second resources.

[0038] Exemplarily, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are not completely the same.

[0039] It should be understood that the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are not completely identical, and may include: the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are completely different, or the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are partially identical. For example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #0 and symbol #1, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #0 and symbol #1. For another example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #0 and symbol #1, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #2, as well as frequency domain resource #2 from symbol #0 to symbol #2, i.e., the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource partially overlap.

[0040] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource can be identical. For example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 and frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #0, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #1 and frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #1. For another example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #0 and frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #1, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #0 and frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #1.

[0041] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource occupy all or part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource.

[0042] Exemplarily, the first resource or the second resource includes at least one orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

[0043] Optionally, the time domain resources of the first resource and the time domain resources of the second resource occupy all or part of the time domain resources of the fourth resource. For example, if the fourth resource occupies 4 OFDM symbols, then the first resource or the second resource occupies one or more OFDM symbols in the 4 OFDM symbols.

[0044] In combination with the first aspect, in some implementations of the first aspect, the first synchronization signal occupies the third resource, N1 first reference signals occupy the fourth resource, and the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all.

[0045] It should be understood that the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all, which means that the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource are completely different.

[0046] Exemplarily, assuming that the N1 first reference signals include N3 first reference signals and N4 first reference signals, the fourth resource includes the first resource and the second resource, N3 and N4 are both positive integers, and N3+N4≤N1.

[0047] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource may be completely identical or partially overlapped, which is not limited in this application.

[0048] Exemplarily, the time domain resource of the fourth resource occupies Q OFDM symbols, where Q is one of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8.

[0049] Exemplarily, M1 is equal to Q, that is, the number of second beams is the same as the number of OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal, or, in other words, M1 second beams correspond one-to-one to the OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal, or, each second beam occupies one OFDM symbol, and each first reference signal occupies one OFDM symbol.

[0050] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the time domain resources of the fourth resource are located after the time domain resource unit of the third resource; or, the time domain resources of the fourth resource are the same as the time domain resources of the third resource; or, the time domain resources of the third resource are included in the time domain resources of the fourth resource; or, the time domain resources of the fourth resource are included in the time domain resources of the third resource; or, the starting position of the first time unit occupied by the first synchronization signal set and the starting position of the second time unit occupied by the first reference signal set are 5ms apart, the first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, and the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set; or, the first synchronization signal set occupies the third time unit, the first reference signal set occupies the fourth time unit, the first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set, and the third time unit and the fourth time unit are both 5ms.

[0051] Based on the above solution, by setting the time domain interval to 5m, firstly, the delay can be reduced, and there is no need to perform beam scanning within the entire 20ms period. Secondly, it can be applied to a variety of SSB burst configurations, that is, the position of the first reference signal and the position of the first synchronization signal will not overlap, and there will be no transmission and reception conflict. Thirdly, it is convenient for network equipment to schedule PUSCH resources. This is because the scheduling of PUSCH resources and the resources of the first synchronization signal belong to the relationship between the front and back half frames within a frame (half-frame offset). The fixed position of the two can reduce spectrum fragmentation.

[0052] In conjunction with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the M1 second beams include the 11th beam and the 12th beam, N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to the 11th beam, and the remaining N4 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, excluding the N3 first reference signals, correspond to the 12th beam, where N3 and N4 are both positive integers. In other words, multiple second beams are associated with the first reference signal, i.e., the second communication device can use the 11th beam and the 12th beam to transmit the first reference signal. For example, when N3 = N4 = 1, one first reference signal is associated with one second beam.

[0053] In conjunction with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, the M1 second beams include the 13th and 14th beams, which correspond to N1 first reference signals; the M3 seventh beams include the 15th and 16th beams, which correspond to N2 second reference signals; wherein the N1 first reference signals occupy the first portion of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource, and the N2 second reference signals occupy the second portion of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource. In other words, multiple second beams are associated with the first reference signal, meaning that the second communication device can use the 13th and 14th beams to transmit the first reference signal; and multiple seventh beams are associated with the second reference signal, meaning that the second communication device can use the 15th and 16th beams to transmit the second reference signal. For example, when N1 = N2 = 1, this indicates that one first reference signal is associated with multiple second beams, and one second reference signal is associated with multiple second beams.

[0054] Optionally, the first part and the second part are the same; or, the first part and the second part are continuous; or, the first part and the second part include a first frequency interval between them.

[0055] In combination with the first aspect, in certain implementations of the first aspect, N1 first reference signals or N2 second reference signals are used to carry a first sequence, where the first sequence includes any one of the following: a ZC sequence, an m sequence, or a gold sequence; wherein the length of the first sequence is any one of the following: 240, 120, 60, 40, or 30 resource elements (RE).

[0056] In a second aspect, a communication method is provided. The method can be performed by a second communication device, or can also be performed by other entities, and this application does not limit this. For the sake of convenience of description, the following is an example of execution by a second communication device. The second communication device can be a network device, or a chip or circuit in a network device, or a central unit (CU) or distributed unit (DU) in a network device, or a functional module in a network device that can call and execute a program. Exemplarily, the network device includes a base station.

[0057] The method includes: sending a first synchronization signal block, the first synchronization signal block includes a first synchronization signal, the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals are used to determine a first measurement result, N1 is a positive integer; the first measurement result is used to determine a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams, the third beam is the transceiver beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, the first beam is the transmission beam of the first synchronization signal, the M1 second beams are the transmission beams of the N1 first reference signals, M1 is a positive integer; and / or, the first measurement result is used to determine a fourth beam from at least one beam used by the first communication device, the fourth beam is the transceiver beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device.

[0058] Exemplarily, N1 may be one or more, for example, 1, 2, 3, or 4, etc. M1 may be one of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8, or M1 may be a multiple of 2, for example, one of 2, 4, 6, or 8.

[0059] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, including: the first synchronization signal block also includes N1 first reference signals.

[0060] With reference to the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the third beam may be one beam selected from M2 fifth beams, where the M2 fifth beams are one or more beams selected from the first beam and M1 second beams based on the first measurement result, and M2 is a positive integer. The signal strength of the fifth beam is greater than or equal to a first threshold, where the first threshold is preset.

[0061] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the method also includes: sending a second synchronization signal block, the second synchronization signal block includes a second synchronization signal, the second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, and N2 is a positive integer; the second synchronization signal and the N2 second reference signals are used to measure to obtain a second measurement result, and the second measurement result is used to determine the third beam from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams, the sixth beam is the transmitting beam of the second synchronization signal, the M3 seventh beams are the transmitting beams of the N2 second reference signals, and M3 is a positive integer.

[0062] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, including: the second synchronization signal block also includes N2 second reference signals.

[0063] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, a third beam is determined from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, including: determining M4 eighth beams from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, selecting a beam from the M4 eighth beams and M2 fifth beams as the third beam, the signal strength of the eighth beam is greater than or equal to a second threshold, the second threshold is preset, and M4 is a positive integer.

[0064] In other words, the third beam may be one beam selected from M4 eighth beams and M2 fifth beams, wherein the M4 eighth beams are one or more beams determined from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams according to the second measurement result.

[0065] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the third beam is the first beam, or the third beam is one of M1 second beams, or the third beam is the sixth beam, or the third beam is one of M3 seventh beams.

[0066] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the method further includes: receiving indication information from the first communication device, where the indication information indicates the third beam.

[0067] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the indication information includes a first preamble code, and the third beam is determined based on the first preamble code and the first mapping relationship; wherein the first mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple preamble codes, the multiple beams include the first beam, M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or multiple beams in M3 seventh beams, the multiple preamble codes include the preamble code corresponding to the first beam, the preamble code corresponding to each second beam, the preamble code corresponding to the sixth beam, or multiple preamble codes corresponding to each seventh beam, and the first preamble code is one of the multiple preamble codes.

[0068] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the indication information includes a first RO, and the third beam is determined based on the first RO and the second mapping relationship; wherein the second mapping relationship is used to indicate the mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple ROs, the multiple beams include the first beam, M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or multiple beams in M3 seventh beams, the multiple ROs include the RO corresponding to the first beam, the RO corresponding to each second beam, the RO corresponding to the sixth beam, or multiple ROs corresponding to each seventh beam, and the first RO is one of the multiple ROs.

[0069] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the first beam is different from at least one of the M1 second beams.

[0070] In other words, assuming M1=1, the first beam is different from the second beam; assuming M1 is greater than 1, for example, M1=2, the first beam is different from at least one of the two second beams, for example, the first beam is different from the second beam #1 and the second beam #2, wherein the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 may be the same or different, and this application does not limit this; or, the first beam is the same as the second beam #1 but the first beam is different from the second beam #2, that is, the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 are also different.

[0071] In other words, the second beam includes the first beam, or the second beam also includes other beams different from the first beam.

[0072] Optionally, the first beam is identical to at least one of the M1 second beams, that is, the first beam is identical to one or more of the M1 second beams.

[0073] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, one or more first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to one second beam among the M1 second beams.

[0074] In other words, one second beam corresponds to one or more first reference signals. For example, the second communication device uses one second beam to transmit one second reference signal, or the second communication device uses one second beam to transmit multiple first reference signals. In other words, there are multiple second beams corresponding to multiple first reference signals. For example, there are two second beams, with second beam #1 used to transmit first reference signal #1, and second beam #2 used to transmit first reference signal #2 and first reference signal #3, and so on.

[0075] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the M1 second beams include a ninth beam and a tenth beam, the ninth beam is used to send N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, and the tenth beam is used to send N4 first reference signals other than the N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, the N3 first reference signals occupy the first resources, and the N4 first reference signals occupy the second resources.

[0076] Exemplarily, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are not completely the same.

[0077] It should be understood that the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are not exactly the same, which may include: the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are completely different, or the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are partially the same.

[0078] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource may be completely identical.

[0079] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource occupy all or part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource.

[0080] Exemplarily, the first resource or the second resource includes at least one OFDM symbol, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

[0081] Optionally, the time domain resources of the first resource and the time domain resources of the second resource occupy all or part of the time domain resources of the fourth resource.

[0082] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the first synchronization signal occupies the third resource, N1 first reference signals occupy the fourth resource, and the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all.

[0083] It should be understood that the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all, which means that the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource are completely different.

[0084] Exemplarily, assuming that the N1 first reference signals include N3 first reference signals and N4 first reference signals, the fourth resource includes the first resource and the second resource, N3 and N4 are both positive integers, and N3+N4≤N1.

[0085] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource may be completely identical or partially overlapped, which is not limited in this application.

[0086] Exemplarily, the time domain resource of the fourth resource occupies Q OFDM symbols, where Q is one of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8.

[0087] Exemplarily, M1 is equal to Q, that is, the number of second beams is the same as the number of OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal, or, in other words, M1 second beams correspond one-to-one to the OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal, or, each second beam occupies one OFDM symbol, and each first reference signal occupies one OFDM symbol.

[0088] In combination with the second aspect, in some implementations of the second aspect, the time domain resources of the fourth resource are located after the time domain resource unit of the third resource; or, the time domain resources of the fourth resource are the same as the time domain resources of the third resource; or, the time domain resources of the third resource are included in the time domain resources of the fourth resource; or, the time domain resources of the fourth resource are included in the time domain resources of the third resource; or, the starting position of the first time unit occupied by the first synchronization signal set and the starting position of the second time unit occupied by the first reference signal set are 5ms apart, the first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, and the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set; or, the first synchronization signal set occupies the third time unit, the first reference signal set occupies the fourth time unit, the first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set, and the third time unit and the fourth time unit are both 5ms.

[0089] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the M1 second beams include the 11th beam and the 12th beam, N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to the 11th beam, and the other N4 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals except the N3 first reference signals correspond to the 12th beam, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

[0090] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, the M1 second beams include the 13th beam and the 14th beam, and the 13th beam and the 14th beam correspond to the N1 first reference signals; the M3 seventh beams include the 15th beam and the 16th beam, and the 15th beam and the 16th beam correspond to the N2 second reference signals; wherein, the N1 first reference signals occupy the first part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource, and the N2 second reference signals occupy the second part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource.

[0091] Optionally, the first part and the second part are the same; or, the first part and the second part are continuous; or, the first part and the second part include a first frequency interval between them.

[0092] In combination with the second aspect, in certain implementations of the second aspect, N1 first reference signals or N2 second reference signals are used to carry a first sequence, and the first sequence includes any one of the following: a ZC sequence, an m sequence, or a gold sequence; wherein the length of the first sequence is any one of the following: 240, 120, 60, 40, or 30 REs.

[0093] The beneficial effects of the above-mentioned second aspect and certain implementation methods of the second aspect can be referred to the description of the first aspect and related implementation methods of the first aspect, and will not be repeated here.

[0094] According to a third aspect, a first communication device is provided. The first communication device includes: a transceiver unit configured to receive a first synchronization signal block, the first synchronization signal block including a first synchronization signal, the first synchronization signal being associated with N1 first reference signals, where N1 is a positive integer; a processing unit configured to measure the signal strengths of the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals to obtain a first measurement result; the processing unit further configured to determine, based on the first measurement result, a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams, where the third beam is a transceiver beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, where the first beam is a transmit beam of the first synchronization signal, and the M1 second beams are transmit beams of the N1 first reference signals, where M1 is a positive integer; and / or, the processing unit configured to determine, based on the first measurement result, a fourth beam from at least one beam used by the first communication device, where the fourth beam is a transceiver beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device.

[0095] The transceiver unit can perform the reception and transmission processing in the aforementioned first aspect, and the processing unit can perform other processing except reception and transmission in the aforementioned first aspect.

[0096] In a fourth aspect, a second communication device is provided. The second communication device includes: a transceiver unit, configured to send a first synchronization signal block, the first synchronization signal block including a first synchronization signal, the first synchronization signal being associated with N1 first reference signals, the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals being used to determine a first measurement result, where N1 is a positive integer; the first measurement result being used to determine a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams, the third beam being the transceiver beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, the first beam being the beam for transmitting the first synchronization signal, the M1 second beams being the beams for transmitting the N1 first reference signals, where M1 is a positive integer; and / or the first measurement result being used to determine a fourth beam from at least one beam used by the first communication device, the fourth beam being the transceiver beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device.

[0097] The transceiver unit can perform the reception and transmission processing in the aforementioned second aspect, and the processing unit can perform other processing except reception and transmission in the aforementioned second aspect.

[0098] In a fifth aspect, a communication device is provided. The communication device may be the first communication device or the second communication device described above. The communication device includes a transceiver, a processor, and a memory. The processor is configured to control the transceiver to transmit and receive signals. The memory is configured to store a computer program. The processor is configured to retrieve and execute the computer program from the memory, so that the communication device performs the method of any possible implementation of the first or second aspect described above.

[0099] Optionally, there are one or more processors and one or more memories.

[0100] Optionally, the memory may be integrated with the processor, or the memory may be provided separately from the processor.

[0101] Optionally, the communication device further includes a transmitter (transmitter) and a receiver (receiver).

[0102] In a sixth aspect, a communication system is provided. The communication system includes a first communication device and a second communication device, wherein the first communication device is configured to execute the method in any possible implementation of the first aspect, and the second communication device is configured to execute the method in any possible implementation of the second aspect.

[0103] Exemplarily, the first communication device may be a terminal device, or a chip or circuit in the terminal device, or a functional module in the terminal device that can call and execute a program.

[0104] Exemplarily, the second communication device may be a network device, or a chip or circuit in the network device, or a CU or DU in the network device, or a functional module in the network device that can call and execute a program.

[0105] In a seventh aspect, a computer-readable storage medium is provided, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores computer program code or instructions, and when the computer program code or instructions are executed, the method in any possible implementation of the first aspect or the second aspect is implemented.

[0106] In an eighth aspect, a chip is provided. The chip includes at least one processor coupled to a memory, the memory being configured to store a computer program. When the computer program is executed, the method of any possible implementation of the first or second aspect is implemented.

[0107] Illustratively, the chip may include an input circuit or interface for sending information or data, and an output circuit or interface for receiving information or data.

[0108] In a ninth aspect, a computer program product is provided, comprising computer program code or instructions, which, when executed, implement the method in any possible implementation of the first or second aspect.

[0109] In a tenth aspect, a computer program is provided, which, when executed, implements the method in any possible implementation of the first or second aspect. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0110] FIG1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system applicable to the present application;

[0111] FIG2 is a schematic diagram of a time-frequency structure of SSB;

[0112] FIG3 is a schematic diagram of an SSB beam scanning process;

[0113] FIG4 is an interactive flow chart of a contention-based random access method;

[0114] FIG5 is an interactive flow chart of a communication method provided by the present application;

[0115] 6 to 9 are schematic structural diagrams of time-frequency resources of a first synchronization signal and a first reference signal provided in embodiments of the present application;

[0116] FIG10 and FIG11 are schematic diagrams of the structures of the first reference signal and the second beam provided in an embodiment of the present application;

[0117] FIG12 is a schematic diagram of the structure of a first reference signal, a second reference signal, and a second beam provided in an embodiment of the present application;

[0118] FIG13 is a schematic block diagram of a communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application;

[0119] FIG14 is a schematic block diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0120] The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0121] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: long term evolution (LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (TDD) system, universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) communication system, fifth generation (5G) system or new radio (NR) and future communication systems, vehicle-to-other devices (V2X), where V2X may include vehicle to network (V2N), vehicle to vehicle (V2V), vehicle to infrastructure (V2I), vehicle to pedestrian (V2P), etc., long term evolution-vehicle (LTE-V), Internet of Vehicles, machine type communication (MTC), Internet of Things (IoT), etc. things, IoT), long term evolution-machine (LTE-M), machine to machine (M2M), etc.

[0122] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication system provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 1 , the communication system 100 includes at least one network device, such as the network device 110 shown in Figure 1 ; the communication system 100 may also include at least one terminal device, such as the terminal device 120 and / or the terminal device 130 shown in Figure 1 . The network device 110 and the terminal device 120 or the terminal device 130 may communicate via a wireless link, thereby exchanging information. It will be understood that network devices and terminal devices may also be referred to as communication devices or communication apparatuses.

[0123] A network device is a network-side device with wireless transceiver functions. A network device may be a device in a radio access network (RAN) that provides wireless communication functions for terminal devices, and is called a RAN device. For example, the network device may be a base station, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), a next-generation NodeB (gNB) in a 5G mobile communication system, a base station that has been subsequently evolved by 3GPP, a transmission reception point (TRP), an access node in a WiFi system, a wireless relay node, a wireless backhaul node, etc. In communication systems using different radio access technologies (RAT), the names of devices with base station functions may be different. For example, in an LTE system, it may be called an eNB or eNodeB, and in a 5G system or NR system, it may be called a gNB. This application does not limit the specific name of the base station. The network device may include one or more co-located or non-co-located transmission and reception points. For another example, the network device may include at least one of the following items: one or more centralized units (CU), one or more distributed units (DU), and one or more radio units (RU). In different systems, CU (or CU-CP and CU-UP), DU or RU may also have different names, but those skilled in the art can understand their meanings. For example, the radio access network may also be an open radio access network (O-RAN) architecture. In the ORAN system, CU may also be called O-CU (open CU), DU may also be called O-DU, CU-CP may also be called O-CU-CP, CU-UP may also be called O-CU-UP, and RU may also be called O-RU. Any of the CU (or CU-CP, CU-UP), DU and RU in this application may be implemented by a software module, a hardware module, or a combination of a software module and a hardware module. Exemplarily, the functions of the CU may be implemented by one entity or different entities. For example, the functions of the CU are further divided, that is, the control plane and the user plane are separated and implemented through different entities, namely the control plane CU entity (i.e., CU-CP entity) and the user plane CU entity (i.e., CU-UP entity). The CU-CP entity and the CU-UP entity can be coupled with the DU to jointly complete the functions of the access network device.For example, the CU is responsible for processing non-real-time protocols and services, implementing the functions of the radio resource control (RRC) and packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layers. The DU is responsible for processing physical layer protocols and real-time services, implementing the functions of the radio link control (RLC), media access control (MAC), and physical (PHY) layers. In this way, some functions of the wireless access network device can be implemented through multiple network function entities. These network function entities can be network elements in hardware devices, software functions running on dedicated hardware, or virtualized functions instantiated on a platform (for example, a cloud platform). The network device may also include an active antenna unit (AAU). The AAU implements some physical layer processing functions, RF processing, and related functions of the active antenna. Since RRC layer information will eventually become PHY layer information, or be converted from PHY layer information, in this architecture, high-layer signaling, such as RRC layer signaling, can also be considered to be sent by the DU, or by the DU+AAU. It can be understood that the network device can be a device including one or more of a CU node, a DU node, and an AAU node. In addition, the CU can be divided into a network device in the access network (radio access network, RAN), or the CU can be divided into a network device in the core network (core network, CN), and this application does not limit this. For example, in the vehicle to everything (V2X) technology, the access network device can be a road side unit (RSU). The multiple access network devices in the communication system can be base stations of the same type or different types. The base station can communicate with the terminal device or communicate with the terminal device through a relay station. In an embodiment of the present application, the device for realizing the function of the network device can be the network device itself, or it can be a device that can support the network device to realize the function, such as a chip system or a combination device or component that can realize the function of the access network device, and the device can be installed in the network device. In an embodiment of the present application, the chip system can be composed of chips, or it can include chips and other discrete devices.

[0124] A terminal device is a user-side device with wireless transceiver capabilities. It can be a fixed device, mobile device, handheld device (such as a mobile phone), wearable device, in-vehicle device, or a wireless device built into any of the above devices (such as a communication module, modem, or chip system). Terminal devices are used to connect people, objects, and machines, and can be used in a wide range of scenarios, such as cellular communications, device-to-device (D2D) communications, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications, machine-to-machine / machine-type communications (M2M / MTC) communications, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), industrial control, self-driving, remote medical care, smart grids, smart furniture, smart offices, smart wearables, smart transportation, smart cities, drones, robots, and other scenarios. Exemplarily, the terminal device can be a handheld terminal in cellular communication, a communication device in D2D, an Internet of Things device in MTC, a surveillance camera in intelligent transportation and smart cities, or a communication device on a drone, etc. The terminal device may sometimes be referred to as user equipment (UE), user terminal, user device, user unit, user station, terminal, access terminal, access station, UE station, remote station, mobile device or wireless communication device, etc. The terminal device may also be a terminal device in an IoT system. IoT is an important part of the future development of information technology. Its main technical feature is to connect objects to the network through communication technology, thereby realizing an intelligent network of human-machine interconnection and object-to-object interconnection. In an embodiment of the present application, IoT technology can achieve massive connections, deep coverage, and terminal power saving through, for example, narrowband (NB) technology. In an embodiment of the present application, the device for realizing the function of the terminal device may be a terminal device, or a device that can support the terminal device to realize the function, such as a chip system or a combination device or component that can realize the function of the terminal device. The device can be installed in the terminal device.

[0125] The network equipment and terminal devices can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, handheld or vehicle-mounted; they can also be deployed on water; they can also be deployed in the air on aircraft, balloons, and satellites. The embodiments of this application do not limit the scenarios in which the network equipment and terminal devices are located.

[0126] For example, the communication system 100 may further include an application function (AF) network element, which is a control plane network function provided by the operator network and is used to provide application layer information; the communication system 100 may further include a session management function (SMF) network element, which is a control plane network function provided by the operator network. In the embodiment of the present application, when the communication system 100 includes the AF network element and the SMF network element, the AF can send service-related information to the network device via the SMF.

[0127] To facilitate understanding of the embodiments of the present application, the concepts and related processes involved in the present application are first introduced.

[0128] (1) beam;

[0129] The embodiment of a beam in the NR protocol can be a spatial domain filter, also known as a spatial filter or spatial parameter. The beam used to transmit signals can be called a transmission beam (Tx beam), which can be called a spatial domain transmission filter or spatial transmission parameter; the beam used to receive signals can be called a reception beam (Rx beam), which can be called a spatial domain receive filter or spatial RX parameter.

[0130] The transmit beam may refer to the distribution of signal strength in different directions in space after the signal is transmitted through the antenna, and the receive beam may refer to the signal strength distribution of the wireless signal received from the antenna in different directions in space. In addition, the beam may be a wide beam, or a narrow beam (or a thin beam), or other types of beams. It should be understood that wide beams and narrow beams are relative. A wide beam may refer to a beam with a larger transmission direction or transmission angle, and a narrow beam may refer to a beam with a smaller transmission direction or transmission angle. The technology for forming the beam may be beamforming technology or other technologies. The beamforming technology may specifically be digital beamforming technology, analog beamforming technology, or hybrid digital / analog beamforming technology.

[0131] Beams generally correspond to resources. For example, during beam measurement, network equipment uses different resources to measure different beams. The terminal device then measures different beams on a given resource and provides feedback on the measured channel quality or received signal strength for the given resource. This allows the network equipment to determine the quality of the corresponding beam. During data transmission, beam information is also indicated by its corresponding resource. For example, the network device uses the resource in the TCI of the DCI to indicate PDSCH beam information.

[0132] Optionally, multiple beams with the same or similar communication characteristics can be considered a single beam. A beam can include one or more antenna ports for transmitting data channels, control channels, and sounding signals. The one or more antenna ports forming a beam can also be considered an antenna port set.

[0133] (2) Resources;

[0134] In beam measurement, each beam of a network device corresponds to a resource, so the beam corresponding to the resource can be uniquely identified by the resource index. The resource can be an uplink signal resource or a downlink signal resource. Uplink signals include but are not limited to sounding reference signals (SRS) and demodulation reference signals (DMRS). Downlink signals include but are not limited to: channel state information reference signals (CSIRS), cell specific reference signals (CS-RS), user equipment specific reference signals (US-RS), DMRS, and synchronization system / physical broadcast channel blocks (SS / PBCH blocks). Among them, SS / PBCH blocks can be referred to as synchronization signal blocks (SSBs). Resources are configured through radio resource control (RRC) signaling. In terms of configuration structure, a resource is a data structure that includes parameters related to its corresponding uplink / downlink signal, such as the uplink / downlink signal type, the resource granularity carrying the uplink / downlink signal, the uplink / downlink signal transmission time and period, and the number of ports used to transmit the uplink / downlink signal. Each uplink / downlink signal resource has a unique index to identify the downlink signal resource. It is understood that the resource index can also be referred to as the resource identifier, and this embodiment of the application does not impose any limitation on this.

[0135] (3) Time-frequency resources;

[0136] In the embodiment of the present application, data or information may be carried by time-frequency resources, wherein the time-frequency resources may include resources in the time domain (i.e., time-domain resources) and resources in the frequency domain (i.e., frequency-domain resources).

[0137] In the time domain, the time domain resources may include one or more time domain units (or, may also be referred to as time units), and a time unit may include several time domain resources. A time domain unit is, for example, a radio frame (RF), and the time domain resources included in the time domain unit are, for example, a subframe, a frame, a half subframe or a half frame, a slot, a mini-slot, a partial slot, or an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing OFDM symbol, etc. Alternatively, a time domain unit may also be a collection of one or more time domain resources, for example, a time domain unit is one or more OFDM symbols in a time slot, for example, the number of the one or more is 6, 7, 12 or 14, etc. One or more time units may be continuous or discrete in time. In addition, the duration of a time slot may be related to a sub-carrier space (SCS) interval. For example, when the subcarrier spacing is 15kHz, the duration of a time slot is 1 millisecond (ms); when the subcarrier spacing is 30kHz, the duration of a time slot is 0.5ms; when the subcarrier spacing is 60kHz, the duration of a time slot is 0.25ms. Similarly, when the subcarrier spacing is 15*2 μ kHz, the length of a time slot is 2 -μ ms, μ = 0, 1, 2, .... μ is a non-negative integer.

[0138] In the frequency domain, frequency domain resources can include one or more frequency domain units. A frequency domain unit can be a resource element (RE), a resource block (RB), a subchannel, a resource pool, a bandwidth, a bandwidth part (BWP), a carrier (CC), a channel, or an interlace RB, etc.

[0139] (4) NR cell search and downlink synchronization;

[0140] Downlink synchronization refers to the frequency, frame, and symbol synchronization between a terminal device and a base station through a synchronization signal sequence periodically sent by the base station at a specific location. Only after downlink synchronization can the terminal device demodulate the master information block (MIB) and system information block (SIB) broadcast by the cell. Therefore, synchronization is the starting point for establishing communication between the terminal device and the base station. Specifically, downlink synchronization has the following functions:

[0141] a) The terminal device searches for the center frequency of the cell carrier and achieves frequency synchronization with the carrier signal;

[0142] b) The terminal device obtains the bandwidth of the cell.

[0143] c) Time synchronization of the terminal device with the 10ms frame of the cell.

[0144] d) The terminal device obtains the cell information for communication.

[0145] In NR, downlink synchronization is achieved by the UE searching for the SSB.

[0146] Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the time-frequency structure of an SSB. The network device periodically sends an SSB, and the terminal device completes downlink synchronization with the base station by receiving the SSB and obtains system information. The SSB includes a primary synchronization signal PSS, a secondary synchronization signal SSS, a physical broadcast channel PBCH, and a DMRS for demodulating the PBCH. The SSB period can be 5ms, 10ms, 20ms, 40ms, 80ms, or 160ms, etc. An SSB period can include multiple SSB signals (with different SSB indexes, such as SSB 0 to SSB 7, or SSB 1 to SSB 8), which is called an SSB burst, located in the first 5ms of a 10ms frame, where each SSB uses a different transmit beam but contains the same cell information. As shown in Figure 2, an SSB can occupy 4 OFDM symbols (for example, symbol 0 to symbol 3) in the time domain and 240 subcarriers or 240 REs in the frequency domain, that is, 20 resource blocks (RBs). The time-frequency resources occupied by PSS or SSS are 1 symbol and 127 subcarriers (or 127 REs), and the time-frequency resources occupied by PBCH are 3 symbols and 240 subcarriers (or 240 REs), and one of the symbols (for example, symbol 2) is shared with SSS.

[0147] In one example, the PSS sequence is located in the middle 127 REs of the first symbol of the SSB (e.g., symbol 0) and can be generated by the following formula (1). The SSS sequence is located in the middle 127 REs of the third symbol of the SSB (e.g., symbol 2) and can be generated by the Gold sequence (i.e., the result of modulo-2 addition of two m sequences) in the following formula (2).

[0148] d pss (n) = 1-2x(m); (1)

[0149] d sss(n)=[1-2x0(n+m0)mod127][1-2x1(n+m1)mod127]; (2)

[0150] Among them, 0≤n<127,

[0151] The offsets of the two m-sequences are:

[0152] It should be noted that x(m) is an m-sequence, which can be represented or generated by a linear feedback shift register, and an SSS sequence can be represented or generated by a linear feedback shift register.

[0153] (5)SSB beam scanning;

[0154] The purpose of initial beam scanning is to establish a suitable beam pair between the network device and the terminal device. The selected beam pair is used for subsequent access and data transmission. Selecting an appropriate beam pair helps improve the channel quality of these communications. Network devices can use time division to transmit SSBs via different beams at different times. During beam scanning, the terminal device generally selects the SSB beam with the strongest signal strength as the initial beam direction for subsequent physical random access channel (PRACH) access.

[0155] Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the SSB beam scanning process. As shown in Figure 3, the time domain resources are divided into 1 frame every 10ms. For example, the network device sends an SSB burst every 20ms. An SSB burst includes 8 SSBs. Each SSB is sent using a beam (which can be called an SSB beam). The corresponding SSB index is recorded as {SSB0, SSB1,…, SSB7}. Usually, an SSB burst needs to be sent within the first half of each frame, that is, within 5ms. The network device sends SSB0 to SSB7 at different times within 5ms. For example, when the subcarrier spacing (SCS) is 15kHz, 5ms contains 70 OFDM symbols, and the starting OFDM symbols occupied by sending SSB0 to SSB7 can be {2, 8, 16, 22, 30, 36, 44, 50}. In addition, the network device can use different beamforming weights to send SSB0~SSB7, so that the transmission directions of SSB0~SSB7 are different, forming full coverage of the cell. Accordingly, the terminal device detects the signal strength of SSB0~SSB7 (such as RSRP value) and selects an SSB beam with the strongest signal for communication. For example, UE1 determines that the signal strength received from SSB1 is the largest, and UE2 determines that the signal strength received from SSB6 is the largest. Furthermore, the terminal device will send a PRACH signal on the time-frequency resource corresponding to the selected SSB index for random access. By receiving and parsing the PRACH signal, the network device can determine the beam on the network device side selected by the terminal device and establish an initial beam pair (Beam pair). During the data transmission process after the access is completed, the network device and the terminal device can manage and switch the beam through the channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS).

[0156] (6) Random access;

[0157] Terminal devices use random access to acquire uplink synchronization and access the network for communication. Random access includes contention-based random access (also known as four-step random access) and non-contention-based random access (also known as two-step random access). Non-contention-based access is typically used when the terminal device has successfully received Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling.

[0158] The random access process refers to the process from the time the terminal device sends a random access preamble (preamble) to try to access the network to the time the basic signaling connection is established with the network. It should be noted that before the terminal device selects the random access channel occasion (RACH occasion, RO) to send the preamble, the terminal device needs to select an uplink carrier. For example, when the supplementary uplink (SUL) or normal uplink (NUL) is configured, the terminal device can choose to work on SUL or NUL. After selecting the uplink carrier, the terminal device (such as a terminal device in an RRC connected state) may need to perform a bandwidth partial BWP operation. For example, when the RO is not configured on the active uplink BWP of the terminal device, the terminal device needs to switch the active uplink BWP to the initial uplink BWP. After selecting the uplink carrier or BWP operation, the terminal device needs to select the random access (RA) type, which can be understood as the terminal device needs to choose whether to perform two-step random access or four-step random access. Furthermore, after determining the RA type, the terminal device needs to select RACH resources: the terminal device can select an RO based on the selected synchronization signal block (SSB) and the mapping relationship between the SSB and the RO. For example, one SSB can correspond to multiple ROs, or multiple SSBs can be mapped to one RO.

[0159] Figure 4 is a schematic flow chart of a contention-based random access method. Figure 4 illustrates a method for contention-based random access using a first communication device as a terminal device and a second communication device as a network device. The first communication device in Figure 4 may also be a chip or circuit of a terminal device, and the second communication device may also be a chip or circuit of a network device. As shown in Figure 4 , the method includes the following steps:

[0160] S410, the terminal device sends a random access preamble to the network device.

[0161] Correspondingly, the network device receives the random access preamble code sent by the terminal device.

[0162] Exemplarily, the terminal device sends a random access preamble, i.e., Msg1, to the network device on a PRACH resource. The PRACH resource can be understood as a random access channel occasion (RACH occasion, RO). It should be understood that before step S410, the terminal device can obtain the resource configuration for sending the PRACH by reading the system broadcast information, mainly including configuration information such as the time-frequency resource location and the mapping relationship between the SSB and RO, and the mapping relationship between the preamble and the SSB.

[0163] S420: The network device sends a random access response (RAR) to the terminal device.

[0164] Accordingly, the terminal device receives the RAR from the network device.

[0165] Exemplarily, the network device sends a random access response RAR, i.e., Msg2, to the terminal device based on the random access preamble. The RAR may include indication information indicating the uplink resources for sending message 3 (Msg3). It can be understood that after the terminal device receives the RAR, it can obtain the uplink resources for sending Msg3.

[0166] It should be understood that before executing step S420, or in other words, after sending Msg1, the terminal device initiates the random access response window and monitors the RAR sent by the network device within the window. If the terminal device successfully detects its own RAR, the random access is successful, and the terminal device can continue to send Msg3 according to the RAR instruction, that is, execute step S430. If the UE does not receive its own RAR, the random access fails, and the terminal device re-initiates the random access process according to the fallback parameters indicated by the network device until the maximum number of random access attempts is reached.

[0167] S430, the terminal device sends Msg3 to the network device.

[0168] Accordingly, the network device receives Msg3 from the terminal device.

[0169] Exemplarily, the terminal device sends Msg3 based on the RAR. The main function of Msg3 is to send an RRC connection establishment request. Msg3 may include layer 2 (L2) information and / or layer 3 (L3) information, such as an RRC connection establishment request message; and also, for example, a beam failure recovery (BFR) MAC control element (CE).

[0170] S440: The network device sends a contention resolution message to the terminal device.

[0171] Accordingly, the terminal device receives a contention resolution message from the network device.

[0172] The contention resolution message includes an identifier (ID) of the terminal device. Optionally, the contention resolution message may also be referred to as message 4 (Msg4), which carries the contention resolution identifier and air interface parameter configuration for the terminal device.

[0173] For example, if the terminal device successfully resolves contention, the network device sends a contention resolution message to the terminal device. If the terminal device successfully receives Msg4, and Msg4 carries its own conflict resolution identifier, random access is successful; otherwise, random access fails. If successful, the terminal device can continue to send Msg5, the main function of which is to send the RRC establishment completion command. If unsuccessful, the terminal device re-initiates the random access process according to the fallback parameters indicated by the network device until the maximum number of random access attempts is reached.

[0174] Optionally, in response to the physical downlink share channel (PDSCH) carrying Msg4, the terminal device may send corresponding hybrid automatic retransmission request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) information through the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH).

[0175] Furthermore, when the network device determines from Msg3 that the random access is contention-based random access, it saves information of terminal devices that need to compete, and when resolving contention through Msg4, it performs contention resolution on these competing terminal devices.

[0176] It should be noted that FIG4 is only a schematic diagram provided for the convenience of explaining the four-step random access process and does not constitute any limitation on the protection scope of this application. For a specific description of the four-step random access process, reference can be made to the introduction in the current related art.

[0177] (7) Beam management;

[0178] In one implementation, network devices and terminal devices manage and switch beams by sending and receiving SSB and CSI-RS, including the process of selecting a service beam from the initial access of the terminal device to the data transmission phase after the connection is established.

[0179] Beam management includes three beam scanning processes (such as P1, P2 and P3). These three scans are introduced in detail below.

[0180] (a) Coarse alignment in P1 process: network equipment uses SSB beam scanning, and terminal equipment uses wide beam scanning;

[0181] The network equipment uses beam scanning within the cell coverage area to send SSB beams in different directions in a time-sharing manner.

[0182] When receiving signals, the terminal device uses beam scanning to receive signals according to the SSB time-frequency resource location notified in the system message (in the idle state initial access phase) or the RRC reconfiguration message (in the connected state data transmission phase), and measures the SSB beams sent by the network device. The number of times the terminal device measures all SSB beams of the network device is related to the number of SSB beams of the network device, the number of beams of the terminal device, and the beam scanning algorithm of the terminal device.

[0183] After scanning both the terminal device and the network device, the rough alignment result of the P1 process is obtained.

[0184] (b) Network device fine-tuning during P2: Network device CSI-RS for BM beam scanning;

[0185] The network device scans again using a narrower CSI-RS for BM beam near the optimal (i.e., with the highest signal strength) SSB beam (the network device can map the CSI-RS for BM beam to the optimal SSB beam using the beam ID). The narrower CSI-RS for BM beam here can be understood as a CSI-RS for BM beam with a narrower beam or a different beam direction. Compared to the beam used in the P1 process, the direction or width of the beam used in the P2 process changes. After scanning using the CSI-RS for BM beam, the terminal device feeds back the CSI-RS for BM measurement results to the network device via a measurement report. The network device then confirms the CSI-RS for BM beam that transmits the downlink signal. The network device can directly reuse this beam when receiving uplink signals.

[0186] (c) P3 process terminal equipment fine tuning: terminal equipment narrow beam scanning;

[0187] The network device's CSI-RS for BM beam is fixed. When receiving signals, the terminal device uses beam scanning according to the CSI-RS for BM time-frequency resource location informed by the network device's RRC reconfiguration message to determine the narrow beam used by the terminal device to receive downlink signals. The terminal device can directly reuse this beam when sending uplink signals.

[0188] After the P3 process is completed, the service beams of the terminal device and the network device are aligned.

[0189] In summary, in downlink synchronization, the terminal device can complete the beam selection in the P1 stage (the terminal device uses a wide beam to measure SSB). In this implementation, the terminal device uses a wide beam for random access (the beam gain is small), which will cause the RACH detection performance of the terminal device at the edge to be impaired; alternatively, the terminal device can use multiple SSB bursts to complete beam selection. In this implementation, the measurement delay of the terminal device in the process of executing beam selection is increased, which will result in a larger delay in random access.

[0190] In addition to the beam management process introduced above, the terminal device can use different narrow beams on the terminal device side to repeatedly send preambles on different ROs in RACH repetition (RACH repetition means that in one PRACH transmission, the terminal device sends the same preamble on at least two ROs, the network device receives at least two preambles, and detects the preamble). The network device receives and measures the RSRP of the preamble and feeds back the measurement results, thereby realizing beam selection on the terminal device side. It should be noted that the use of different narrow beams on the terminal device side to repeatedly send preambles can be understood as: the terminal device uses different beams to repeatedly send preambles, and the two different beams refer to two beams with different sending directions and / or sending angles (or widths). In other words, the beam here refers to the beam on the terminal device side used to scan the SSB signal. Among them, in the SSB and terminal device wide beam alignment stage, the terminal device can use the wide beam to scan the SSB burst, and determine the optimal beam pair of the SSB beam on the network device side and the wide beam on the terminal device side based on the RSRP measurement value comparison result; in the wide beam selection stage on the terminal device side, the terminal device can repeatedly send PRACH with different narrow beams on the RO corresponding to the selected SSB beam, the network device receives and measures RSRP, determines the narrow beam on the terminal device side based on the comparison result of the RSRP measurement value, and carries the narrow beam on the terminal device side in the RAR sent in step S420. It should be understood that the beam signal strength (or RSRP) of the narrow beam here is the largest, or in other words, the beam signal strength of the narrow beam here is greater than a preset threshold.

[0191] In summary, the above implementation method only implements the beam selection on the terminal device side, but because during the beam scanning process, the beam used on the terminal device side (i.e., the UE side beam) does not match the beam sending SSB on the network device side (i.e., the SSB beam); that is, the link communication quality between the SSB beam and the UE side beam is unknown, which makes the SSB beam scanning or measurement delay large, and the random access performance of the terminal device is limited by the joint beam gain of the beam pairs adopted on the terminal device side and the network device side, resulting in a decrease in RACH performance. In addition, the above implementation method does not implement SSB beam selection on the network device side. In short, the existing solution cannot effectively implement beam selection on the network device side and / or beam selection on the terminal device side, that is, it is not possible to use a beam with a larger beam gain for communication, which impairs the random access performance. Therefore, how to improve random access performance is an urgent problem to be solved.

[0192] In order to solve the above technical problems, the present application provides a communication method and a communication device, which can effectively realize beam selection on the network device side and / or beam selection on the terminal device side, thereby improving random access performance.

[0193] The communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The embodiment provided in the present application can be applied to the communication system shown in Figure 1 above. The technical solution of the present application is specifically described in conjunction with Figure 5. The execution subject may be a first communication device or a second communication device, or a chip or circuit for the first communication device or the second communication device, or a functional module in the first communication device or the second communication device that can call and execute a program. Among them, the first communication device may be a terminal device, and the second communication device may be a network device, or a CU or distributed unit DU in the network device.

[0194] FIG5 is a flow chart of a communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG5 , the method 500 includes the following steps.

[0195] S510: The second communication device sends a first synchronization signal block to the first communication device.

[0196] Accordingly, the first communication device receives the first synchronization signal block from the second communication device.

[0197] The first synchronization signal block includes a first synchronization signal, and the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, where N1 is a positive integer.

[0198] Exemplarily, the first synchronization signal block may represent a synchronization signal block, and the first synchronization signal may represent a synchronization signal. In the present application, the first synchronization signal may be an SSB, for example, the SSB includes a first primary synchronization signal PSS, a first secondary synchronization signal SSS, a first physical broadcast channel PBCH, and a first demodulation reference signal DMRS, or the first synchronization signal may also include other signals and / or channels. The present application does not specifically limit the structure or components of the first synchronization signal.

[0199] In the present application, N1 first reference signals are used to carry a first sequence, where the first sequence includes any one of the following: a ZC sequence, an m-sequence, or a gold sequence. Optionally, the length of the first sequence can be any one of: 240 REs, 120 REs, 60 REs, 40 REs, or 30 REs.

[0200] Exemplarily, when the first sequence is a ZC sequence, the first sequence may be a cyclically extended ZC sequence with a length of 240, 120, 60, 40, or 30 REs, for example, 239 is cyclically extended to 240, 113 is cyclically extended to 120, 59 is cyclically extended to 60, 37 is cyclically extended to 40, and 29 is cyclically extended to 30; alternatively, the length of the first sequence may be a prime number closest to the above value (240, 120, 60, 40, or 30), for example, the first sequence may be a ZC sequence with a length of 239, 113, 59, 37, or 29 REs; alternatively, the first sequence may be a ZC sequence obtained by truncating a ZC sequence with a length that is a prime number closest to the above value, for example, the first sequence may be a truncated ZC sequence obtained by truncating 241 to 240, 127 to 120, 61 to 60, 41 to 40, or 31 to 30.

[0201] Exemplarily, when the first sequence is an m-sequence or a gold sequence, the first sequence may be a cyclically extended m-sequence or a gold sequence having a length of 240, 120, 60, 40, or 30 REs, for example, 239 cyclically extended to 240, 113 cyclically extended to 120, 59 cyclically extended to 60, 37 cyclically extended to 40, and 29 cyclically extended to 30; or, the length of the first sequence may be the closest to the above value (2 m -1), for example, the first sequence can be an m-sequence or gold sequence with a length of 127, 63, 31, 17, or 7 REs; or, the first sequence can be a length closest to the above value (2 m -1) is obtained by truncating the sequence, for example, the first sequence can be an m-sequence truncated sequence or a gold sequence truncated sequence, wherein 255 is truncated to 240, 127 is truncated to 120, 63 is truncated to 60, 63 is truncated to 40, and 31 is truncated to 30.

[0202] Optionally, N1 may be an integer greater than or equal to 1, for example, 1, 2, 3 or 4.

[0203] Alternatively, N1 may be a multiple of 2, such as one of 2, 4, 6 or 8.

[0204] In the present application, the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, which may include: the first synchronization signal also includes N1 first reference signals. In other words, the first synchronization signal block may include the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, or in other words, the first synchronization signal block may consist of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal.

[0205] Below, the positional relationship between the time-frequency resources of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, the relationship between the beam of the first synchronization signal (i.e., the first beam) and the beam of the first reference signal (i.e., the second beam), and the relationship between the first reference signal, the second reference signal and the second beam are explained.

[0206] In one implementation, the first beam is different from at least one of the M1 second beams.

[0207] In other words, the second beam includes the first beam, or the second beam also includes other beams different from the first beam.

[0208] Exemplarily, assuming that M1=1, the first beam is different from the second beam; assuming that M1 is greater than 1, for example, M1=2, the first beam is different from at least one of the two second beams, for example, the first beam is different from both the second beam #1 and the second beam #2, wherein the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 may be the same or different, and this application does not limit this; or, the first beam is the same as the second beam #1, but the first beam is different from the second beam #2, that is, the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 are also different.

[0209] In another implementation, the first beam is the same as at least one of the M1 second beams.

[0210] In other words, the first beam is identical to one or more of the M1 second beams.

[0211] Exemplarily, assuming that M1=1, the first beam is the same as the second beam; assuming that M1 is greater than 1, for example, M1=2, the first beam is the same as at least one of the two second beams, for example, the first beam is the same as the second beam #1 and the second beam #2, that is, the second beam #1 is also the same as the second beam #2; or, the first beam is the same as the second beam #1, but the first beam is different from the second beam #2, that is, the second beam #1 is also different from the second beam #2.

[0212] In one implementation, one or more first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to one second beam among the M1 second beams.

[0213] In other words, one second beam corresponds to one or more first reference signals.

[0214] Exemplarily, the second communication device uses one second beam to transmit one second reference signal, or the second communication device uses one second beam to transmit multiple first reference signals. That is, there are multiple second beams corresponding to multiple first reference signals. For example, there are two second beams, second beam #1 is used to transmit first reference signal #1, and second beam #2 is used to transmit first reference signal #2; or second beam #1 is used to transmit first reference signal #1, and second beam #2 is used to transmit first reference signal #2 and first reference signal #3; or second beam #1 is used to transmit first reference signal #1 and first reference signal #2, and second beam #2 is used to transmit first reference signal #2 and first reference signal #3, and so on.

[0215] In one implementation, the M1 second beams include a ninth beam and a tenth beam, the ninth beam is used to send N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, and the tenth beam is used to send N4 first reference signals other than the N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, the N3 first reference signals occupy the first resources, the N4 first reference signals occupy the second resources, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

[0216] Exemplarily, the time domain resource of the first resource or the time domain resource of the second resource includes at least one OFDM symbol, for example, 4 symbols.

[0217] Exemplarily, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are not completely the same.

[0218] It should be understood that the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are not completely identical. This can be understood as follows: the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are completely different, or the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource are partially identical. For example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #0 and symbol #1, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #0 and symbol #1. For another example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #0 and symbol #1, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #2, as well as frequency domain resource #2 from symbol #0 to symbol #2, that is, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource partially overlap.

[0219] Exemplarily, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource can be identical. For example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 and frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #0, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #1 and frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #1. For another example, the first resource includes frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #0 and frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #1, and the second resource includes frequency domain resource #2 on symbol #0 and frequency domain resource #1 on symbol #1.

[0220] Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource can occupy all or part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource (i.e., the frequency domain resources occupied by N1 first reference signals). For example, the fourth resource occupies frequency domain resource #1, the first resource can occupy frequency domain resource #2 in frequency domain resource #1, and the second resource can occupy all other frequency domain resources #3 in frequency domain resource #1 except frequency domain resource #2; or, the first resource can occupy frequency domain resource #2 in frequency domain resource #1, and the second resource can occupy frequency domain resource #3 in frequency domain resource #1, in which case frequency domain resource #1 also includes frequency domain resource #4. Optionally, the frequency domain resources of the first resource and the frequency domain resources of the second resource can also be completely different from the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource, and this application does not limit this.

[0221] Optionally, the time domain resources of the first resource and the time domain resources of the second resource may occupy all or part of the time domain resources of the fourth resource. For example, the fourth resource occupies 4 OFDM symbols (e.g., symbol 0 to symbol 3), the first resource may occupy symbol 0 and symbol 2, and the second resource may occupy symbol 1 and symbol 3; or, both the first resource and the second resource occupy symbol 0 to symbol 3; or, the first resource may occupy symbol 0 and symbol 1, and the second resource may occupy symbol 2 and symbol 3; or, the first resource may occupy symbol 0 and symbol 1, and the second resource may occupy symbol 1 to symbol 3. Optionally, the time domain resources of the first resource and the time domain resources of the second resource may also be completely different from the time domain resources of the fourth resource, and this application does not limit this.

[0222] In one implementation, the first synchronization signal occupies the third resource, N1 first reference signals occupy the fourth resource, and the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all.

[0223] It should be understood that the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all, which means that the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource are completely different.

[0224] Exemplarily, assuming that the N1 first reference signals include N3 first reference signals and N4 first reference signals, the fourth resource includes the first resource and the second resource, N3 and N4 are both positive integers, and N3+N4≤N1.

[0225] In another implementation, the first synchronization signal occupies the third resource, and N1 first reference signals occupy the fourth resource. The frequency-domain resources of the third resource and the fourth resource may be exactly the same or partially overlapped. This application does not limit this.

[0226] Exemplarily, the time-domain resources of the fourth resource occupy Q OFDM symbols, and Q is one of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8.

[0227] Optionally, M1 = Q, that is, the number of the second beams is the same as the number of OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal. Or, M1 second beams correspond one-to-one to the OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal. Or, each second beam occupies one OFDM symbol, and each first reference signal occupies one OFDM symbol.

[0228] Optionally, M1 > Q, that is, the number of the second beams is greater than the number of OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal. Or, M1 < Q, that is, the number of the second beams is less than the number of OFDM symbols occupied by the first reference signal. This application does not limit this.

[0229] In one implementation, the first synchronization signal occupies the third resource, and N1 first reference signals occupy the fourth resource. Among them, the time-domain resources of the fourth resource are located after the time-domain resource unit of the third resource; or, the time-domain resources of the fourth resource are the same as the time-domain resources of the third resource; or, the time-domain resources of the third resource are included in the time-domain resources of the fourth resource; or, the time-domain resources of the fourth resource are included in the time-domain resources of the third resource; or, the start position of the first time unit occupied by the first synchronization signal set and the start position of the second time unit occupied by the first reference signal set are separated by 5 ms. The first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, and the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set; or, the first synchronization signal set occupies the third time unit, and the first reference signal set occupies the fourth time unit. The first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, and the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set. Both the third time unit and the fourth time unit are 5 ms.

[0230] Next, the position relationship between the time-frequency resources of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal will be described in conjunction with FIGS. 6 to 9.

[0231] It should be noted that the first synchronization signal block in Figures 6 and 7 includes a first synchronization signal and a first reference signal. The first synchronization signal and the first reference signal can be regarded as a whole. The first synchronization signal in Figures 8 and 9 is associated with the first reference signal. The first synchronization signal and the first reference signal are located on different time-frequency resources. The structure and components of the first synchronization signal here can refer to the relevant description of Figure 2. The present application assists in completing beam selection on the network device side and / or beam selection on the terminal device side by adding a first reference signal to the existing SSB structure or associating a first reference signal with the existing SS, thereby improving random access performance and communication efficiency.

[0232] Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the time-frequency resources between the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal provided in an embodiment of the present application, wherein the horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 6, the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal occupy different time domain resources in the time domain and occupy the same frequency domain resources in the frequency domain. Among them, the first synchronization signal occupies symbol 0, symbol 1, symbol 2 and symbol 3 in the time domain, a total of 4 symbols, and occupies 20 RBs in the frequency domain. The first reference signal is located after the first synchronization signal in the time domain, occupies symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6 and symbol 7, a total of 4 symbols, and occupies 20 RBs in the frequency domain.

[0233] As shown in (a) of Figure 6, the first reference signal includes four types of reference signals, such as S1, S2, S3 and S4, wherein S1, S2, S3 and S4 respectively occupy different frequency domain resources and do not overlap with each other, and S1, S2, S3 and S4 occupy all frequency domain resources where the first synchronization signal is located. Optionally, the frequency domain resources occupied by S1, S2, S3 and S4 can be equally spaced or unequally spaced, which is not limited in this application. In addition, S1, S2, S3 and S4 can occupy the same symbol (for example, symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6 or symbol 7) in a frequency division manner, and S1, S2, S3 and S4 can be repeatedly sent on symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6 or symbol 7.

[0234] As shown in Figure 6(b), the first reference signal includes two types of reference signals, such as S1 and S2, where S1 and S2 occupy different frequency domain resources and do not overlap with each other, and S1 and S2 occupy all frequency domain resources where the first synchronization signal is located. Optionally, the frequency domain resources occupied by S1 and S2 can be equally spaced or unequally spaced. In addition, S1 and S2 can occupy the same symbol (e.g., symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6, or symbol 7) in a frequency division manner, and S1 and S2 can be repeatedly transmitted on symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6, or symbol 7.

[0235] As shown in FIG6(c), the first reference signal includes four types of reference signals, such as S1, S2, S3, and S4, wherein S1, S2, S3, and S4 occupy the same time-frequency resources. For example, S1, S2, S3, and S4 all occupy all frequency domain resources of the first synchronization signal, and S1, S2, S3, and S4 all occupy symbols 4, 5, 6, and 7. That is, S1, S2, S3, and S4 are cyclically shifted and distributed on the same frequency domain resources. Optionally, the frequency domain resources occupied by S1, S2, S3, and S4 can be equally spaced or unequally spaced. In addition, S1, S2, S3, and S4 can occupy the same symbol (e.g., symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6, or symbol 7) in a frequency division manner, and S1, S2, S3, and S4 can be repeatedly transmitted on symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6, or symbol 7. This implementation method can measure the signal quality of the beam used for the entire frequency domain resource; it can measure the signal quality of the beam used for all symbols.

[0236] It should be noted that the above time-frequency resources occupied by S1, S2, S3, and S4 are only examples given for ease of understanding. Optionally, this application does not specifically limit the location of the time-frequency resources occupied by S1, S2, S3, and S4. For example, S1, S2, S3, and S4 shown in Figure 6 above can occupy different symbols and / or bandwidths, as long as one or more of S1, S2, S3, and S4 occupy symbol 4, symbol 5, symbol 6, and symbol 7, and one or more of S1, S2, S3, and S4 occupy part or all of the frequency domain resources where the first synchronization signal is located.

[0237] Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the time-frequency resources between the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal provided in an embodiment of the present application. The horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 7, the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal occupy the same time domain resources in the time domain and occupy different frequency domain resources in the frequency domain. The first synchronization signal simultaneously occupies symbol 0, symbol 1, symbol 2, and symbol 3 in the time domain, a total of 4 symbols, and occupies 20 RBs in the frequency domain.

[0238] As shown in (a) of Figure 7, the first reference signal occupies symbol 0, symbol 1, symbol 2, and symbol 3 simultaneously in the time domain, for a total of 4 symbols, and occupies 20 RBs in the frequency domain that are different from the frequency domain resources of the first synchronization signal. The first reference signal includes two types of reference signals, such as S1 and S2, wherein S1 and S2 occupy different frequency domain resources respectively and do not overlap with each other, and S1 and S2 occupy all frequency domain resources where the first synchronization signal is located. Optionally, the frequency domain resources occupied by S1 and S2 can be equally spaced or unequally spaced. In addition, S1 and S2 can occupy the same symbol (e.g., symbol 0, symbol 1, symbol 2, or symbol 3) in a frequency division manner, and S1 and S2 can be repeatedly transmitted on symbol 0, symbol 1, symbol 2, or symbol 3.

[0239] As shown in Figure 7(b), the first reference signal occupies symbol 2 and symbol 3 simultaneously in the time domain, for a total of 2 symbols, and occupies 10 RBs in the frequency domain that are different from the frequency domain resources of the first synchronization signal. The first reference signal includes two types of reference signals, such as S1 and S2, wherein S1 and S2 occupy different frequency domain resources respectively and do not overlap with each other, and S1 and S2 occupy part of the frequency domain resources where the first synchronization signal is located. Optionally, the frequency domain resources occupied by S1 and S2 can be equally spaced or unequally spaced. In addition, S1 and S2 can occupy the same symbol (such as symbol 2 or symbol 3) in a frequency division manner, and S1 and S2 can be repeatedly transmitted in symbol 2 and symbol 3.

[0240] Figure 8 is a structural diagram of the time-frequency resources between the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal provided in an embodiment of the present application. The horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 8, an SSB period (called an SSB burst) can be 20ms, including 8 SSB signals (for example, one SSB signal is a first synchronization signal, and 8 SSB signals are a first synchronization signal set), with different SSB indexes (index), such as SSB 0 to SSB 7, and the SSB signal is located in the first 5ms of the 10ms frame. The transmit beam used by each SSB is different but the cell information contained is the same. The first reference signal set includes 8 first reference signals (i.e., N1=8), which are located in the last 5ms of the 10ms frame to ensure that the measurement delay is less than 10ms. Each first reference signal occupies 2 to 4 OFDM symbols, and the 8 first reference signals can correspond one-to-one with the 8 SSB signals. In the time domain, the starting point of the first synchronization signal set differs from the starting point of the first reference signal set by 5 ms, and the first synchronization signal set is located after the first reference signal set. In the frequency domain, the frequency domain resources of the first synchronization signal set are the same as the frequency domain resources of the first reference signal set.

[0241] Figure 9 is a structural diagram of the time-frequency resources between the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal provided in an embodiment of the present application, wherein the horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 9, an SSB period can be 10ms, including 8 SSB signals (for example, one SSB signal is a first synchronization signal, and 8 SSB signals are a first synchronization signal set), and the SSB signal is located in the first 5ms of the 10ms frame. The first reference signal set includes 8 first reference signals (ie, N1=8), which are located in the first 5ms of the 10ms frame to ensure that the measurement delay is less than 10ms. Each first reference signal occupies 2 to 4 OFDM symbols, and the 8 first reference signals can correspond one-to-one to 8 SSB signals. In the time domain, the starting point of the first synchronization signal set is the same as the starting point of the first reference signal set, or in other words, the time domain resources of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal are the same and occupy the same symbols. In the frequency domain, the frequency domain resources of the first synchronization signal set are different from the frequency domain resources of the first reference signal set, or in other words, the frequency domain resources of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal do not overlap.

[0242] In a first implementation, the M1 second beams include the 11th beam and the 12th beam, N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to the 11th beam, and the other N4 first reference signals except the N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to the 12th beam, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

[0243] The N3 first reference signals occupy the first portion of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource, and the N4 first reference signals occupy the second portion of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource. Optionally, the first portion and the second portion are the same; or, the first portion and the second portion are different. The first portion and the second portion being different can be understood as: the first portion and the second portion are continuous, or the first frequency interval is included between the first portion and the second portion. In other words, the first portion and the second portion may overlap or may not overlap.

[0244] That is, multiple second beams are associated with the first reference signal, that is, the second communication device can use beams 11 and 12 to send the first reference signal. For example, when N3=N4=1, it means that one first reference signal is associated with one second beam.

[0245] Figure 10 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the first reference signal and the second beam provided in an embodiment of the present application. The horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 10, the left side represents the resources occupying 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 127 REs in the frequency domain. The resources on the right are obtained by intercepting (or truncating), occupying 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 10 RBs in the frequency domain. That is, the second communication device can use the 4 OFDM symbols and 10 RBs on the right side of the figure to send the first reference signal to the first communication device. Specifically, the second communication device can use the second beam #1 (i.e., the 11th beam) to send the first reference signal on resource #1 (e.g., occupying 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 5 RBs in the frequency domain), and use the second beam #2 (i.e., the 12th beam) to send the first reference signal on resource #2 (e.g., occupying 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 5 RBs in the frequency domain). It can be seen that the frequency domain resources of resource #1 and resource #2 have the same size and the frequency domain resource positions do not overlap.

[0246] Figure 11 is a structural diagram of the first reference signal and the second beam provided by an embodiment of the present application. The horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 11, 4 OFDM symbols are occupied in the time domain, and 10 or 20 RBs are occupied in the frequency domain. That is, the second communication device can use the 4 OFDM symbols and 10 RBs in the figure to send the first reference signal to the first communication device. Specifically, the second communication device can use the second beam #1 to send the first reference signal on resource #1, and use the second beam #2 to send the first reference signal on resource #2. It can be seen that the frequency domain resources of resource #1 and resource #2 are the same size, and the frequency domain resource positions do not overlap. For example, resource #1 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 5 RBs in the frequency domain, and resource #2 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 5 RBs in the frequency domain; for another example, resource #1 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 10 RBs in the frequency domain, and resource #2 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 10 RBs in the frequency domain. This application does not limit this. The difference from Figure 10 is that resource #1 and resource #2 in this implementation are staggered, which can also be called a comb distribution, where the REs occupied by the same reference signal are discontinuous and can be equally spaced.

[0247] In the second implementation, the M1 second beams include the 13th beam and the 14th beam, and the 13th beam and the 14th beam correspond to the N1 first reference signals; the M3 seventh beams include the 15th beam and the 16th beam, and the 15th beam and the 16th beam correspond to the N2 second reference signals, and N1, N2, M1 and M2 are all positive integers.

[0248] The N1 first reference signals occupy the first portion of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource, and the N2 second reference signals occupy the second portion of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource. Optionally, the first portion and the second portion are the same; or, the first portion and the second portion are different. The first portion and the second portion being different can be understood as: the first portion and the second portion are continuous, or the first frequency interval is included between the first portion and the second portion. That is, the first portion and the second portion may overlap or may not overlap.

[0249] In other words, multiple second beams are associated with the first reference signal, meaning the second communication device can use the 13th and 14th beams to transmit the first reference signal. Multiple seventh beams are associated with the second reference signal, meaning the second communication device can use the 15th and 16th beams to transmit the second reference signal. For example, when N1 = N2 = 1, one first reference signal is associated with multiple second beams, and one second reference signal is associated with multiple second beams.

[0250] Figure 12 is a structural diagram of the first reference signal, the second reference signal, and the second beam provided in an embodiment of the present application. The horizontal axis represents the time domain resources, for example, with OFDM symbols as the granularity, and the vertical axis represents the frequency domain resources, for example, with RE or RB as the granularity. As shown in Figure 12, 4 OFDM symbols are occupied in the time domain and 10 or 20 RBs are occupied in the frequency domain, that is, the second communication device can use the 4 OFDM symbols and 10 RBs in the figure to send the first reference signal and the second reference signal to the first communication device. Specifically, the second communication device can use the second beam #1 and the second beam #2 (i.e., the 13th beam and the 14th beam) to send the first reference signal on resource #1, and use the second beam #3 and the second beam #4 (i.e., the 15th beam and the 16th beam) to send the second reference signal on resource #2. It can be seen that the frequency domain resources of resource #1 and resource #2 are the same size, and the frequency domain resource positions do not overlap. For example, resource #1 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 5 RBs in the frequency domain, and resource #2 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 5 RBs in the frequency domain; for another example, resource #1 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 10 RBs in the frequency domain, and resource #2 occupies 4 OFDM symbols in the time domain and 10 RBs in the frequency domain, that is, each reference signal occupies 10 RBs. The first reference signal or the second reference signal can be a reference signal obtained by truncating an existing PSS signal or SSS signal, for example, the PSS signal or SSS signal occupies 127 REs (i.e., 10 RBs + 7 REs), which can be obtained by truncating the first or last 7 REs of the PSS signal or SSS signal. This application is not limited to this.

[0251] Optionally, the frequency domain resources occupied by the first reference signal and the second reference signal may be continuous, or the frequency domain resources occupied by the first reference signal and the second reference signal may be comb-distributed, wherein the REs occupied by the same reference signal are discontinuous and may be equally spaced, which is not limited in this application.

[0252] S520: The first communication device measures the signal strengths of the first synchronization signal and N1 first reference signals to obtain a first measurement result.

[0253] In the present application, the signal strength may be represented by a power measurement value, wherein the power parameter corresponding to the power measurement value includes one or more of the following: reference signal received power (RSRP), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), received signal strength indication (RSSI, or signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)).

[0254] Exemplarily, the first communication device measures the RSRP of the first reference signal to determine the reception quality of the first reference signal. Then, based on the RSRP measurement values ​​of the SSS signal and the first reference signal in the first synchronization signal, the first communication device can determine the optimal transceiver beam on the network device side and the optimal transceiver beam on the terminal device side. Subsequently, RACH resources (such as RO and preamble) are selected based on the selected optimal transceiver beam, and the beam selection result is sent to the second communication device in the RACH resource. Accordingly, the second communication device can communicate with the first communication device based on the selected optimal beam.

[0255] In the first example, the network device side uses two first beams (referred to as SSB beams, such as SSB beam 1 and SSB beam 2) to send a first synchronization signal, and each SSB beam is associated with two second beams (such as reference signal beam 1, reference signal beam 2, reference signal beam 3 and reference signal beam 4). For example, SSB beam 1 is associated with reference signal beam 1 and reference signal beam 2, and SSB beam 2 is associated with reference signal beam 3 and reference signal beam 4. There are two beams on the terminal device side, such as UE beam 1 and UE beam 2 (that is, the fourth beam is one of UE beam 1 and UE beam 2), that is, the terminal device can use UE beam 1 or UE beam 2 to receive SSB. Among them, the preamble set or RO set corresponding to each SSB is divided into three non-overlapping subsets, corresponding to the SSB and two reference signals respectively. For example, if SSB beam 1 is used to transmit SSB1, then the three non-overlapping subsets correspond one-to-one to SSB beam 1, reference signal beam 1, and reference signal beam 2. For another example, if SSB beam 2 is used to transmit SSB2, then the three non-overlapping subsets correspond one-to-one to SSB beam 2, reference signal beam 3, and reference signal beam 4. The steps are as follows:

[0256] S1: The network device can use two SSB beams (SSB beam 1 and SSB beam 2) to transmit two SSBs (SSB1 and SSB2) respectively, and use four reference signal beams (reference signal beam 1, reference signal beam 2, reference signal beam 3, and reference signal beam 4) to transmit reference signals;

[0257] S2: The terminal device can use two beams (UE beam 1 and UE beam 2) to receive two SSBs (SSB1 and SSB2) and corresponding reference signals respectively. Then, the beam strength of SSB1 and SSB2 and their corresponding reference signals, such as RSRP, is measured. 2*(2+2*2)=12 measurement results can be obtained. By comparing the measurement results, a suitable beam pair (which can be called the optimal beam pair) is selected from the 12 beam pairs. The optimal beam pair includes the terminal device side beam and the network device side beam, such as UE beam 1 and SSB beam 1, or UE beam 2 and reference signal beam 3.

[0258] S3: The terminal device may select a corresponding RACH resource (e.g., RO and / or preamble) based on the determined network device-side beam, and send the preamble to the network device on the RACH resource to complete random access. Accordingly, the network device determines the network device-side beam selected by the terminal device based on the RACH resource selected by the terminal device or the time-frequency position of the preamble.

[0259] S4: The network device communicates with the terminal device using the network device side beam selected by the terminal device.

[0260] In the second example, the network device side uses two first beams (referred to as SSB beams, such as SSB beam 1 and SSB beam 2) to send a first synchronization signal, and each SSB beam is associated with two second beams (such as reference signal beam 1, reference signal beam 2, reference signal beam 3 and reference signal beam 4). For example, SSB beam 1 is associated with reference signal beam 1 and reference signal beam 2, and SSB beam 2 is associated with reference signal beam 3 and reference signal beam 4. There are two beams on the terminal device side, such as UE beam 1 and UE beam 2 (that is, the fourth beam is one of UE beam 1 and UE beam 2), that is, the terminal device can use UE beam 1 or UE beam 2 to receive SSB. Among them, the preamble set or RO set corresponding to each SSB is divided into two non-overlapping subsets, corresponding to two reference signals respectively. For example, if SSB beam 1 is used to transmit SSB1, then the two non-overlapping subsets correspond one-to-one to reference signal beam 1 and reference signal beam 2. For another example, if SSB beam 2 is used to transmit SSB2, then the two non-overlapping subsets correspond one-to-one to reference signal beam 3 and reference signal beam 4, including the following steps:

[0261] S1: The network device can use two SSB beams (SSB beam 1 and SSB beam 2) to transmit two SSBs (SSB1 and SSB2) respectively, and use four reference signal beams (reference signal beam 1, reference signal beam 2, reference signal beam 3, and reference signal beam 4) to transmit reference signals;

[0262] S2: The terminal device can use two beams (UE beam 1 and UE beam 2) to receive two SSBs (SSB1 and SSB2) and corresponding reference signals respectively. Then, the beam strength of SSB1 and SSB2, such as RSRP, can be measured to obtain four measurement results, and the selected SSB beam is determined. Then, the reference signal beam strength of the corresponding SSB is measured to obtain 2*2=4 measurement results. By comparing the measurement results, a suitable beam pair (which can be called the optimal beam pair) is selected from the four beam pairs. The optimal beam pair includes the terminal device side beam and the network device side beam, such as UE beam 1 and reference signal beam 1, or UE beam 2 and reference signal beam 3.

[0263] S3: The terminal device may select a corresponding RACH resource (e.g., RO and / or preamble) based on the determined network device-side beam, and send the preamble to the network device on the RACH resource to complete random access. Accordingly, the network device determines the network device-side beam selected by the terminal device based on the RACH resource selected by the terminal device or the time-frequency position of the preamble.

[0264] S4: The network device communicates with the terminal device using the network device side beam selected by the terminal device.

[0265] S530: The first communication device determines a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams according to the first measurement result, and / or the first communication device determines a fourth beam from at least one beam used by the first communication device according to the first measurement result.

[0266] The third beam is the transmit / receive beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, and the fourth beam is the transmit / receive beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device. The first beam is the transmit beam of the first synchronization signal, and the M1 second beams are the transmit beams of N1 first reference signals, where M1 is a positive integer.

[0267] In other words, the third beam, as a beam on the network device side, can be used to send downlink data to the terminal device side, and can also be used to receive uplink data from the terminal device side. The fourth beam, as a beam on the terminal device side, can be used to send uplink data to the network device side, and can also be used to receive downlink data from the network device side. For ease of expression, in this application, the third beam can be referred to as an SSB beam, or a network device side beam, and the fourth beam can be referred to as a terminal device side beam.

[0268] It should be noted that the at least one beam used by the first communication device can be predefined or preconfigured, or can be configured by the network device through signaling. The at least one beam used by the first communication device can be a wide beam or a narrow beam, which is not limited in this application.

[0269] Illustratively, M1 may be one of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8.

[0270] Exemplarily, M1 may be a multiple of 2, such as one of 2, 4, 6 or 8.

[0271] Next, an implementation method for the first communication device to determine the third beam is described.

[0272] In a first implementation, the first communication device determines M2 fifth beams from the first beam and M1 second beams based on the first measurement result, and selects a beam from the M2 fifth beams as the third beam, wherein the signal strength of the fifth beam is greater than or equal to a first threshold, the first threshold is preset, and M2 is a positive integer.

[0273] In other words, the third beam may be one beam selected from M2 fifth beams, where the M2 fifth beams are one or more beams selected from the first beam and M1 second beams according to the first measurement result.

[0274] It should be noted that when M2=1, it means that there is only one fifth beam with a signal strength greater than the first threshold. At this time, the third beam is equivalent to the fifth beam, that is, the step of selecting a beam from the M2 fifth beams as the third beam can be omitted; when M2 is greater than 1, it means that there are multiple fifth beams with a signal strength greater than the first threshold, that is, the first communication device can randomly select a beam from multiple fifth beams as the third beam, and the randomly selected beam can be the one with the largest signal strength among the M2 fifth beams. This application does not limit this.

[0275] Exemplarily, the first threshold satisfies: {-156dBm to -31dBm}, that is, the value of the first threshold can be any value between -156 decibels relative to one milliwatt (dBm) and -31dBm. For example, the protocol predefines a correspondence between the RSRP parameter configuration or index and the first threshold, where the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value between 0 and 127. For example, when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 0, the corresponding first threshold has a value of -156dBm; when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 127, the corresponding first threshold has a value of -31dBm, and so on.

[0276] It should be noted that the present application does not limit the number of synchronization signal blocks. Optionally, in addition to sending the first synchronization signal block, other synchronization signal blocks may be sent between the first communication device and the second communication device. That is, the method 500 further includes the following steps S501-S503 (not shown in the figure).

[0277] S501: The second communication device sends a second synchronization signal block to the first communication device.

[0278] Accordingly, the first communication device receives the second synchronization signal block from the second communication device.

[0279] The second synchronization signal block includes a second synchronization signal, and the second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, where N2 is a positive integer.

[0280] Optionally, N2 may be an integer greater than or equal to 1, for example, 1, 2, 3 or 4.

[0281] Alternatively, N2 may be a multiple of 2, such as one of 2, 4, 6 or 8.

[0282] In the present application, the second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, which may include: the second synchronization signal also includes N2 second reference signals. That is, the second synchronization signal block may include the second synchronization signal and the second reference signal, or in other words, the second synchronization signal block may be composed of the second synchronization signal and the second reference signal. The structure of the second synchronization signal block and the structure of the time-frequency resources of the second synchronization signal and the second reference signal can refer to the relevant description of the structure of the first synchronization signal block and the structure of the time-frequency resources of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, and will not be repeated here.

[0283] S502: The first communication device measures the signal strengths of the second synchronization signal and N2 second reference signals to obtain a second measurement result. For specific implementation, please refer to the relevant description of the above step S520.

[0284] S503: The first communication device determines a third beam from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, where the sixth beam is a beam for transmitting the second synchronization signal, the M3 seventh beams are beams for transmitting N2 second reference signals, and M3 is a positive integer.

[0285] In a first implementation, the first communication device determines M4 eighth beams from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams based on the second measurement result, selects a beam from the M4 eighth beams and M2 fifth beams as the third beam, and the signal strength of the eighth beam is greater than or equal to a second threshold, the second threshold is preset, and M4 is a positive integer.

[0286] In other words, the third beam may be one beam selected from M4 eighth beams and M2 fifth beams, wherein the M4 eighth beams are one or more beams determined from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams according to the second measurement result.

[0287] It should be noted that when M4=1, it means that there is one eighth beam with a signal strength greater than the second threshold, or when M4 is greater than 1, it means that there are multiple eighth beams with a signal strength greater than the second threshold, that is, the first communication device needs to randomly select a beam from the M4 eighth beams and the M2 fifth beams as the third beam. The randomly selected beam can be the one with the largest signal strength among the M2 fifth beams and the M4 eighth beams. This application does not limit this.

[0288] Exemplarily, the second threshold satisfies: {-156dBm to -31dBm}, i.e., the value of the second threshold can be any value between -156dBm and -31dBm. For example, the protocol predefines a correspondence between the RSRP parameter configuration or index and the second threshold, where the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value between 0 and 127. For example, when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 0, the corresponding second threshold has a value of -156dBm; when the RSRP parameter configuration or index has a value of 127, the corresponding second threshold has a value of -31dBm, and so on.

[0289] Optionally, the values ​​of the first threshold and the second threshold in the embodiment of the present application may be the same.

[0290] It should be understood that the specific implementation method of the above-mentioned step S503 can be regarded as a further refinement of the above-mentioned step S530, that is, when the first communication device receives multiple synchronization signal blocks (for example, the first synchronization signal block and the second synchronization signal block) from the second communication device, the first communication device can receive and measure the first synchronization signal block and the second synchronization signal block, and select a beam as the third beam from multiple beams that meet the conditions (for example, the signal strength of the beam is greater than or equal to the first threshold or the second threshold) based on the first measurement result and the second measurement result obtained by measurement. Alternatively, the first communication device can also first receive and measure the first synchronization signal block, and select a beam as the third beam from one or more beams that meet the conditions (for example, the signal strength of the beam is greater than or equal to the first threshold) based on the first measurement result obtained by measurement. At this time, the first communication device may not receive and measure the second synchronization signal block.

[0291] To sum up, the third beam can be the first beam that sends the first synchronization signal, or the third beam can be one of the second beams among M1 second beams that send N1 first reference signals, or the third beam can be the sixth beam that sends the second synchronization signal, or the third beam can be one of the seventh beams among M3 seventh beams that send N2 second reference signals.

[0292] Furthermore, after determining the third beam, the first communication device may use different RACH resources to notify the second communication device, so as to enhance the communication performance between the first communication device and the second communication device.

[0293] In one implementation, a first communication device sends instruction information to a second communication device. In response, the second communication device receives the instruction information from the first communication device. The instruction information indicates a third beam. That is, the second communication device can determine the third beam based on the instruction information and subsequently use the third beam for data communication with the first communication device, thereby improving transmission performance.

[0294] Optionally, the indication information may be carried on a physical random access channel PRACH.

[0295] Exemplarily, the indication information includes the first preamble code, and the third beam can be determined according to the first preamble code and the first mapping relationship.

[0296] The first mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple preamble codes, where the multiple beams include multiple beams from the first beam, M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or M3 seventh beams; the multiple preamble codes include multiple preamble codes from the preamble code corresponding to the first beam, the preamble code corresponding to each second beam, the preamble code corresponding to the sixth beam, or the preamble code corresponding to each seventh beam; and the first preamble code is one of the multiple preamble codes. Therefore, based on the received first preamble code and the first mapping relationship, the second communication device can determine the beam corresponding to the first preamble code, i.e., the third beam, and can subsequently use the third beam to communicate with the first communication device.

[0297] Exemplarily, the indication information includes the first RO, and the third beam can be determined according to the first RO and the second mapping relationship.

[0298] The second mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple ROs, where the multiple beams include multiple beams from the first beam, M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or M3 seventh beams; the multiple ROs include multiple ROs from the RO corresponding to the first beam, the RO corresponding to each second beam, the RO corresponding to the sixth beam, or the RO corresponding to each seventh beam; and the first RO is one of the multiple ROs. Therefore, based on the received first RO and the second mapping relationship, the second communication device can determine the beam corresponding to the first RO, i.e., the third beam, and can subsequently communicate with the first communication device using the third beam.

[0299] It should be understood that the first mapping relationship or the second mapping relationship described above may be predefined or preconfigured, or may be configured by the network device side through signaling, and this application does not limit this. Predefinition may include predefinition, such as protocol definition, and preconfiguration may be implemented by pre-saving corresponding codes, tables, or other methods that can be used to indicate relevant information in the device, and this application does not limit the specific implementation method.

[0300] Optionally, the first mapping relationship or the second mapping relationship may exist in the form of a table, a function, a text, or a character string, such as for storage or transmission.

[0301] Below, the first mapping relationship or the second mapping relationship is exemplified in the form of a table, wherein the first mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple preamble codes is shown in Table 1, and the second mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple ROs is shown in Table 2.

[0302] Table 1

[0303] For example, when the indication information sent by the first communication device carries preamble #2 (i.e., the first preamble), the indication information indicates second beam #1 (i.e., the third beam). Accordingly, the second communication device can determine second beam #1 based on Table 1 and preamble #2, and subsequently use second beam #1 to send downlink data to the first communication device and / or use second beam #1 to receive uplink data from the first communication device.

[0304] Optionally, one or more rows in Table 1 may be separately embodied in a single table. For example, the one or more rows containing the first and second beams in Table 1 may be independently incorporated into a new table, and the one or more rows containing the sixth and seventh beams in Table 1 may be independently incorporated into a new table. Optionally, the one or more rows containing the sixth and seventh beams in Table 1 may be omitted, i.e., this application does not limit the number of synchronization signals sent by the second communication device to the first communication device.

[0305] It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the third beam can be a beam selected from a first beam and M1 second beams. Optionally, the third beam can also be a beam selected only from M1 second beams, that is, the first beam sending the first synchronization signal is not considered. At this time, the row where the first beam in the above Table 1 is located can also be omitted, and this application does not limit this.

[0306] Table 2

[0307] For example, when the indication information sent by the first communication device includes RO#5 (i.e., the first RO), the indication information indicates the seventh beam #1 (i.e., the third beam). Accordingly, the second communication device can determine the seventh beam #1 based on Table 2 and RO#5, and subsequently use the seventh beam #1 to send downlink data to the first communication device and / or use the seventh beam #1 to receive uplink data from the first communication device.

[0308] Optionally, one or more rows in Table 2 above may be separately embodied in a single table. For example, the one or more rows containing the first and second beams in Table 2 may be independently formed into a new table, and the one or more rows containing the sixth and seventh beams in Table 2 may be independently formed into a new table. Optionally, the one or more rows containing the sixth and seventh beams in Table 1 may be omitted, that is, this application does not limit the number of synchronization signals sent by the second communication device to the first communication device.

[0309] It should be noted that, in the embodiment of the present application, the third beam can be a beam selected from a first beam and M1 second beams. Optionally, the third beam can also be a beam selected only from M1 second beams, that is, the first beam sending the first synchronization signal is not considered. At this time, the row where the first beam in the above Table 1 is located can also be omitted, and this application does not limit this.

[0310] It should be noted that the number of beams, the number of preamble codes, and the number of ROs in Table 1 and Table 2 above are not limited in this application.

[0311] It should be understood that the first mapping relationship between the multiple beams and the multiple preamble codes shown in Table 1 above, and the second mapping relationship between the multiple beams and the multiple ROs shown in Table 2 can be implemented independently or in combination, that is, Table 1 and Table 2 can be combined into one table, and this application does not limit this. For example, for a specific beam, one or more rows in Table 1 can be reflected in one table with one or more rows corresponding to Table 2, such as the first mapping relationship of the first three rows in Table 1 and the second mapping relationship of the first three rows in Table 2 can be combined into one table, or the first mapping relationship of the last four rows in Table 1 and the second mapping relationship of the last four rows in Table 2 can be combined into one table, or all rows in Table 1 and all rows in Table 2 can be combined into one table.

[0312] It should also be understood that Table 1 and Table 2 above are merely examples provided for ease of understanding and should not constitute any limitation on the technical solution of the present application.

[0313] Based on the above scheme, the first synchronization signal is associated with the first reference signal, so that the first communication device can determine the corresponding first reference signal after receiving the first synchronization signal, and select the beam with the highest (or higher) signal strength as the transceiver beam on the second communication device side (i.e., the third beam) by measuring the RSRP measurement values ​​of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal. During the msg1 sending phase of the random access process, the measurement results (i.e., indicating the third beam) obtained by the first communication device measuring the first beam and the second beam are transmitted to the second communication device by using different preambles or ROs, so that the second communication device can use the third beam to communicate with the terminal device, thereby obtaining a higher beam gain in subsequent communications, i.e., improving the channel transmission quality, so that the random access performance and transmission performance between the first communication device and the second communication device are also improved due to the improvement of the channel quality (for example, the communication performance of msg2, msg3, msg4, and msg5 will be improved). And / or, after receiving the first synchronization signal, the first communication device can determine the corresponding first reference signal, and by measuring the signal strength of the first synchronization signal and the first reference signal, select the receiving beam used by the first communication device with the highest (or higher) signal strength as the subsequent transceiver beam on the first communication device side (i.e., the fourth beam). During the random access process, the fourth beam selected by the first communication device can be used to send the preamble, thereby obtaining a higher beam gain in subsequent communications, i.e., improving the channel transmission quality, so that the random access performance and transmission performance between the first communication device and the second communication device are also improved due to the improvement of the channel quality.

[0314] The communication method embodiment of the present application is described in detail above in conjunction with Figures 1 to 12. The communication device embodiment of the present application will be described in detail below in conjunction with Figures 13 and 14. It should be understood that the description of the device embodiment corresponds to the description of the method embodiment. Therefore, for portions not described in detail, reference can be made to the above method embodiment.

[0315] Figure 13 is a schematic diagram of a communication device provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 13, a communication device 1300 includes a processing module 1310 and a communication module 1320. The communication device 1300 may be a first communication device, which may be a terminal device, or a communication device applied to a terminal device or used in conjunction with a terminal device and capable of implementing a method executed by the terminal device, such as a chip, a chip system or circuit, etc.; or, the communication device 1300 may be a second communication device, which may be a network device, or a communication device applied to a network device or used in conjunction with a network device and capable of implementing a method executed by the network device, such as a chip, a chip system or circuit, a DU or a CU, etc.

[0316] The communication module 1320 may also be referred to as a transceiver module, transceiver, transceiver unit, or transceiver device. The processing module 1310 may also be referred to as a processor, processing board, processing unit, or processing device. Optionally, the communication module 1320 is configured to perform the sending and receiving operations of the first or second communication device in the above-described method. The device in the communication module 1320 that implements the receiving function may be considered a receiving unit, and the device in the communication module 1320 that implements the sending function may be considered a sending unit. That is, the communication module 1320 includes a receiving unit and / or a sending unit. Optionally, the processing module 1310 is configured to implement the processing functions of the first or second communication device in the above-described method.

[0317] In addition, it should be noted that the aforementioned communication module and / or processing module can be implemented by a virtual module, for example, the processing module can be implemented by a software functional unit or a virtual device, and the communication module can be implemented by a software function or a virtual device. Alternatively, the processing module or the communication module can also be implemented by a physical device, for example, if the device is implemented using a chip / circuit (such as an integrated circuit or a logic circuit, etc.). The communication module can be an input and output circuit and / or a communication interface, performing input operations (corresponding to the aforementioned receiving operations) and output operations (corresponding to the aforementioned sending operations); the processing module is an integrated processor or microprocessor or circuit (such as an integrated circuit or a logic circuit, etc.).

[0318] The division of modules in this application is illustrative and represents only a logical functional division. In actual implementation, other division methods may be used. Furthermore, the functional modules in the examples of this application may be integrated into a single processor, exist physically as separate modules, or two or more modules may be integrated into a single module. The aforementioned integrated modules may be implemented in either hardware or software functional modules.

[0319] Figure 14 is a schematic diagram of another communication device provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in Figure 14, optionally, the communication device 1400 can be the aforementioned first communication device or the second communication device, or a chip or chip system or circuit for the aforementioned first communication device or the second communication device. Optionally, in the present application, the chip system can be composed of chips, or can include chips and other discrete devices. Among them, the first communication device can be a terminal device, and the second communication device can be a network device, etc.

[0320] The communication device 1400 can be used to implement the functions of any device (e.g., terminal device, network device) in the communication system described in the above examples. The communication device 1400 may include at least one processing circuit 1410. Optionally, the processing circuit 1410 is coupled to a memory, and the memory may be located within the device, or the memory may be integrated with the processor, or the memory may be located outside the device. For example, the communication device 1400 may also include at least one memory 1420. The memory 1420 stores the necessary computer programs, computer programs or instructions and / or data for implementing any of the above examples; the processing circuit 1410 may execute the computer program stored in the memory 1420 to complete the method in any of the above examples.

[0321] The communication device 1400 may also include a transceiver circuit 1430, and the communication device 1400 can exchange information with other devices through the transceiver circuit 1430. Exemplarily, the transceiver circuit 1430 can be a transceiver, circuit, bus, module, pin or other type of communication interface. When the communication device 1400 is a chip-type device or circuit, the transceiver circuit 1430 in the device 1400 can also be an input-output circuit, or an interface circuit, which can input information (or receive information) and output information (or send information). When the communication device 1400 is a network device or a terminal device, the transceiver circuit 1430 can be a transmitter, a receiver or a transceiver, or a communication interface, which is not limited here.

[0322] The processing circuit 1410 may be one or more processors, or all or part of the processing circuits in one or more processors. The processing circuit 1410 may be an integrated processor, microprocessor, integrated circuit, or logic circuit, and the processor may determine output information based on input information.

[0323] Coupling in this application refers to an indirect coupling or communication connection between devices, units, or modules, which can be electrical, mechanical, or other forms, and is used for information exchange between devices, units, or modules. Processing circuit 1410 may operate in conjunction with memory 1420 and transceiver circuit 1430. This application does not limit the specific connection medium between the processing circuit 1410, memory 1420, and transceiver circuit 1430.

[0324] Optionally, as shown in FIG14 , the processing circuit 1410, the memory 1420, and the transceiver circuit 1430 are interconnected via a bus 1440. Optionally, the bus may include an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, or other types of buses. Furthermore, for ease of illustration, FIG14 shows one bus 1440, but this does not mean that there is only one bus or only one type of bus.

[0325] It should be understood that the processors mentioned in the embodiments of the present application may be the following devices or the circuit portions of the following devices used for processing functions: a central processing unit (CPU), other general-purpose processors, digital signal processors (DSP), application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components, etc. The general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor or any conventional processor.

[0326] It should also be understood that the memory mentioned in the embodiments of the present application may be a volatile memory and / or a non-volatile memory. Among them, the non-volatile memory may be a read-only memory (ROM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), or a flash memory. The volatile memory may be a random access memory (RAM). For example, RAM can be used as an external cache. By way of example and not limitation, RAM includes the following forms: static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM), enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory (ESDRAM), synchronous link dynamic random access memory (SLDRAM), and direct rambus RAM (DR RAM).

[0327] It should be noted that when the processor is a general-purpose processor, DSP, ASIC, FPGA or other programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic device, discrete hardware component, the memory (storage module) can be integrated into the processor.

[0328] It should also be noted that the memory described herein is intended to include, but is not limited to, these and any other suitable types of memory.

[0329] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions for implementing the method executed by the first communication device or the second communication device in the above embodiment.

[0330] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer program product, which includes: computer program code or instructions, which, when executed by a computer, implements the method performed by the first communication device or the second communication device in the above embodiment.

[0331] An embodiment of the present application further provides a communication system, which includes the first communication device or the second communication device in the above embodiment.

[0332] The explanation of the relevant contents and beneficial effects of any of the above-mentioned devices can be referred to the corresponding method embodiments provided above and will not be described again here.

[0333] To facilitate understanding of the above embodiments provided in this application, the following points are explained:

[0334] 1) In this application, unless otherwise specified or there is a logical conflict, the terms and / or descriptions between different embodiments are consistent and can be referenced by each other. The technical features in different embodiments can be combined to form new embodiments according to their inherent logical relationships.

[0335] 2) In this application, "at least one" means one or more, and "more" means two or more. "And / or" describes the association relationship of associated objects, indicating that three relationships may exist. For example, A and / or B can mean: A exists alone, A and B exist at the same time, and B exists alone, where A and B can be singular or plural. In the text description of this application, the character " / " generally indicates that the previous and next associated objects are in an "or" relationship. "At least one of the following items" or similar expressions refers to any combination of these items, including any combination of single items or plural items. For example, at least one of a, b and c can mean: a, or b, or c, or a and b, or a and c, or b and c, or a, b and c. Where a, b and c can be single or multiple, respectively.

[0336] 3) Throughout this application, the terms "first," "second," and various numerical references (e.g., #1, #2, etc.) are used to distinguish between different messages for ease of description and are not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments of this application. For example, they are used to distinguish between different messages, rather than to describe a specific order or precedence. It should be understood that such references are interchangeable, where appropriate, to allow for the description of scenarios beyond the embodiments of this application.

[0337] 4) In this application, descriptions such as "when...", "in the case of...", and "if" all mean that the device will perform corresponding processing under certain objective circumstances. They do not limit the time, nor do they require the device to perform judgment actions when implementing them, nor do they mean that there are other limitations.

[0338] 5) In this application, "indicate" or "used to indicate" can include being used for direct indication and being used for indirect indication. When describing that a certain indication information is used to indicate A, it can include that the indication information directly indicates A or indirectly indicates A, and does not necessarily mean that the indication information carries A.

[0339] The indication methods involved in the embodiments of this application should be understood to encompass various methods that enable the party to be indicated to obtain information about the information to be indicated. The information to be indicated can be sent as a whole or divided into multiple sub-information and sent separately. The transmission period and / or timing of these sub-information can be the same or different. This application does not limit the transmission method, for example.

[0340] In the embodiments of the present application, the "indication information" may be an explicit indication, i.e., a direct indication via signaling, or may be obtained based on parameters indicated by the signaling, in combination with other rules, other parameters, or by deduction. It may also be an implicit indication, i.e., based on a rule or relationship, or based on other parameters, or by deduction. This application does not impose specific limitations on this.

[0341] 6) In this application, "protocol" may refer to a standard protocol in the field of communications, such as 5G protocol, NR protocol, and related protocols used in future communication systems, which is not limited in this application. "Predefined" may include pre-definition. For example, protocol definition. "Preconfiguration" can be implemented by pre-saving corresponding codes, tables, or other methods that can be used to indicate relevant information in the device, and this application does not limit its implementation method.

[0342] 7) In this application, "communication" may also be described as "data transmission", "information transmission", "data processing", etc. "Transmission" includes "sending" and "receiving".

[0343] 8) In this application, "sending information to XX (device)" can be understood as the destination of the information being the device. This can include sending information directly or indirectly to the device. "Receiving information from XX (device)" can be understood as the source of the information being the device, which can include receiving information directly or indirectly from the device. The information may undergo necessary processing between the source and destination, such as format changes, but the destination can still understand the valid information from the source.

[0344] In various embodiments of the present application, the size of the serial numbers of the above-mentioned processes does not mean the order of execution. The execution order of each process should be determined by its function and internal logic, and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

[0345] In this application, under the premise of no logical contradiction, the examples can reference each other, for example, the methods and / or terms between method embodiments can reference each other, for example, the functions and / or terms between device embodiments can reference each other, for example, the functions and / or terms between device examples and method examples can reference each other.

[0346] It should be understood that in some of the above embodiments, the devices in the existing network architecture are mainly used as examples for illustrative description, and the specific form of the devices is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. For example, devices that can achieve the same functions in the future are applicable to the embodiments of the present application.

[0347] 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.

[0348] 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 described again here.

[0349] In the several embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed systems, devices and methods can be implemented in other ways. For example, the device embodiments described above are merely schematic. For example, the division of the units is merely a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods, such as multiple units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. Another point is that the mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection shown or discussed can be through some interfaces, indirect coupling or communication connection of devices or units, which can be electrical, mechanical or other forms.

[0350] The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separate, and the components shown as units may or may not be physical units, that is, they may be located in one place or distributed across multiple network units. Some or all of these units may be selected to achieve the purpose of this embodiment according to actual needs.

[0351] In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist physically separately, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit.

[0352] 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, server, or 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 ROM, a RAM, a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

[0353] 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: include: receiving a first synchronization signal block, where the first synchronization signal block includes a first synchronization signal, where the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, where N1 is a positive integer; measuring signal strengths of the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals to obtain a first measurement result; Determine, according to the first measurement result, a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams, where the third beam is a transceiver beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, the first beam is a transmit beam of the first synchronization signal, the M1 second beams are transmit beams of the N1 first reference signals, and M1 is a positive integer; and / or, A fourth beam is determined from at least one beam used by the first communication device according to the first measurement result, where the fourth beam is a transceiver beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that The first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, including: the first synchronization signal block also includes the N1 first reference signals.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The determining, according to the first measurement result, a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams includes: According to the first measurement result, M2 fifth beams are determined from the first beam and the M1 second beams, and a beam is selected from the M2 fifth beams as the third beam. The signal strength of the fifth beam is greater than or equal to a first threshold, the first threshold is preset, and M2 is a positive integer.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that The method further comprises: receiving a second synchronization signal block, where the second synchronization signal block includes a second synchronization signal, where the second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, where N2 is a positive integer; measuring signal strengths of the second synchronization signal and the N2 second reference signals to obtain a second measurement result; The third beam is determined from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams according to the second measurement result, the sixth beam is the transmitting beam of the second synchronization signal, the M3 seventh beams are the transmitting beams of the N2 second reference signals, and M3 is a positive integer.

5. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that The second synchronization signal is associated with N2 second reference signals, including: the second synchronization signal block also includes the N2 second reference signals.

6. The method according to claim 4 or 5, characterized in that: The determining the third beam from the sixth beam and M3 seventh beams according to the second measurement result includes: According to the second measurement result, M4 eighth beams are determined from the sixth beam and the M3 seventh beams, and a beam is selected from the M4 eighth beams and the M2 fifth beams as the third beam. The signal strength of the eighth beam is greater than or equal to a second threshold, and the second threshold is preset. M4 is a positive integer.

7. The method according to any one of claims 4 to 6, characterized in that The third beam is the first beam, or the third beam is one of the M1 second beams, or the third beam is the sixth beam, or the third beam is one of the M3 seventh beams.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that The method further comprises: Send indication information to the second communication device, where the indication information indicates the third beam.

9. The method according to claim 8, characterized in that The indication information includes a first preamble code, and the third beam is determined according to the first preamble code and a first mapping relationship; The first mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple preamble codes, the multiple beams include the first beam, the M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or multiple beams of the M3 seventh beams, the multiple preamble codes include a preamble code corresponding to the first beam, a preamble code corresponding to each of the second beams, a preamble code corresponding to the sixth beam, or multiple preamble codes corresponding to each of the seventh beams, and the first preamble code is one of the multiple preamble codes.

10. The method according to claim 8 or 9, characterized in that: The indication information includes a first random access channel opportunity RO, and the third beam is determined according to the first RO and the second mapping relationship; The second mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple ROs, the multiple beams include the first beam, the M1 second beams, the sixth beam, or multiple beams of the M3 seventh beams, and the multiple ROs include the RO corresponding to the first beam, the RO corresponding to each of the second beams, the RO corresponding to the sixth beam, or each of the seventh beams corresponding to the RO. The first RO is one of the plurality of ROs.

11. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that The first beam is different from at least one of the M1 second beams.

12. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 11, characterized in that One or more first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to one second beam among the M1 second beams.

13. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 12, characterized in that The M1 second beams include a ninth beam and a tenth beam, the ninth beam is used to send N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals, and the tenth beam is used to send other N4 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals except the N3 first reference signals, the N3 first reference signals occupy first resources, and the N4 first reference signals occupy second resources, the first resources or the second resources include at least one orthogonal frequency division multiplexing OFDM symbol, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

14. The method according to claim 13, characterized in that The frequency domain resources of the first resources and the frequency domain resources of the second resources are not completely the same.

15. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 14, characterized in that The first synchronization signal occupies a third resource, the N1 first reference signals occupy a fourth resource, and the frequency domain resources of the third resource and the frequency domain resources of the fourth resource do not overlap at all.

16. The method according to claim 15, characterized in that The time domain resource of the fourth resource is located after the time domain resource unit of the third resource; or, The time domain resource of the fourth resource is the same as the time domain resource of the third resource; or, The time domain resources of the third resource are included in the time domain resources of the fourth resource; or, The time domain resources of the fourth resources are included in the time domain resources of the third resources; or, The interval between the starting position of the first time unit occupied by the first synchronization signal set and the starting position of the second time unit occupied by the first reference signal set is 5 ms, the first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, and the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set; or, The first synchronization signal set occupies the third time unit, the first reference signal set occupies the fourth time unit, the first synchronization signal is included in the first synchronization signal set, the first reference signal is included in the first reference signal set, and the third time unit and the fourth time unit are both 5ms.

17. The method according to claim 15 or 16, characterized in that The M1 second beams include the 11th beam and the 12th beam, N3 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to the 11th beam, and the other N4 first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals except the N3 first reference signals correspond to the 12th beam, and N3 and N4 are both positive integers.

18. The method according to claim 15 or 16, characterized in that The M1 second beams include a 13th beam and a 14th beam, and the 13th beam and the 14th beam correspond to the N1 first reference signals; The M3 seventh beams include a 15th beam and a 16th beam, and the 15th beam and the 16th beam correspond to the N2 second reference signals; The N1 first reference signals occupy a first part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resources, and the N2 second reference signals occupy a second part of the frequency domain resources of the fourth resources.

19. The method according to any one of claims 4 to 18, characterized in that The N1 first reference signals or the N2 second reference signals are used to carry a first sequence, where the first sequence includes any one of the following: a ZC sequence, an m sequence, or a gold sequence; The length of the first sequence is any one of the following: 240, 120, 60, 40 or 30 resource elements RE.

20. A communication method, characterized in that: include: Sending a first synchronization signal block, where the first synchronization signal block includes a first synchronization signal, where the first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, where the first synchronization signal and the N1 first reference signals are used to determine a first measurement result, where N1 is a positive integer; The first measurement result is used to determine a third beam from the first beam and M1 second beams, where the third beam is a transceiver beam of the second communication device when communicating with the first communication device, the first beam is a transmit beam of the first synchronization signal, the M1 second beams are transmit beams of the N1 first reference signals, and M1 is a positive integer; and / or, The first measurement result is used to determine a fourth beam from at least one beam used by the first communication device, where the fourth beam is a transceiver beam of the first communication device when communicating with the second communication device.

21. The method according to claim 20, characterized in that The first synchronization signal is associated with N1 first reference signals, including: the first synchronization signal block also includes the N1 first reference signals.

22. The method according to claim 21, characterized in that The third beam is the first beam, or the third beam is one of the M1 second beams.

23. The method according to claim 21 or 22, characterized in that The method further comprises: Indication information is received from the first communication device, where the indication information indicates the third beam.

24. The method according to claim 23, characterized in that The indication information includes a first preamble code, and the third beam is determined according to the first preamble code and a first mapping relationship; The first mapping relationship is used to indicate a mapping relationship between multiple beams and multiple preamble codes, the multiple beams include the first beam and multiple beams among the M1 second beams, the multiple preamble codes include a preamble code corresponding to the first beam and multiple preamble codes among the preamble codes corresponding to each of the second beams, and the first preamble code is one of the multiple preamble codes.

25. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 24, characterized in that The first beam is different from at least one of the M1 second beams.

26. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 25, characterized in that One or more first reference signals among the N1 first reference signals correspond to one second beam among the M1 second beams.

27. A communication device, characterized in that: The communication device is a first communication device, configured to implement the method according to any one of claims 1 to 19.

28. The communication device according to claim 27, characterized in that The first communication device includes any one of the following: a terminal device or a chip.

29. A communication device, characterized in that: The communication device is a second communication device, configured to implement the method as described in any one of claims 20-25.

30. The communication device according to claim 29, characterized in that The second communication device includes any one of the following: a network device, a chip, a central unit CU or a distributed unit DU.

31. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that: A computer program is stored, and when the computer program is run on a computer, the method according to any one of claims 1 to 19 is executed, or the method according to any one of claims 20 to 26 is executed.

32. A computer program product, characterized in that Contains instructions, which, when executed, cause the method according to any one of claims 1 to 19 to be executed, or cause the method according to any one of claims 20 to 26 to be executed.

Images