Communication method and apparatus, and terminal device and network device

Abstract

The present application relates to the technical field of communications. Disclosed are a communication method and apparatus, and a terminal device and a network device. In the application, a time-domain window in which PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs are bundled can be determined on the basis of time-domain-window information; time units located in the time-domain window are used as one group, and PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs of the time units in the same group can be bundled together to perform channel estimation; and PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs of time units in different groups are not bundled. In this way, in the present application, downlink channel estimation can be performed on the basis of bundled PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs in a time-domain window, that is, channel estimation is performed by means of jointly using DM-RSs of PDCCHs / PDSCHs of time units in the time-domain window, such that joint downlink channel estimation is realized, and thus more accurate downlink channel information is obtained, thereby improving the downlink transmission quality, and realizing downlink coverage enhancement.

Description

Communication method and device, terminal equipment and network equipment

[0001] This application claims priority to the Chinese patent application filed with the China Patent Office on January 26, 2024, with application number 202410118669.4 and application name “Communication Methods and Apparatus, Terminal Equipment and Network Equipment”, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference into this application. Technical Field

[0002] The present application relates to the field of communication technology, and in particular to a communication method and apparatus, terminal equipment, and network equipment. Background Art

[0003] Some communication systems (such as non-terrestrial networks (NTN) systems) may have limited downlink coverage. In such limited downlink coverage, the downlink signal quality may be poor, the channel estimation accuracy may be low, and the transmission quality may be poor, thereby reducing the downlink transmission quality of the communication system.

[0004] Therefore, further research is needed to obtain more accurate downlink channel information, improve the downlink transmission quality of the communication system, and achieve downlink coverage enhancement. Summary of the Invention

[0005] The first aspect is a communication method of the present application, comprising:

[0006] Receive time domain window information, which is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling;

[0007] The terminal device performs downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window.

[0008] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0009] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform downlink channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0010] Optionally, the time domain window information includes periodic time domain window information or non-periodic time domain window information.

[0011] In this way, the present application can determine the periodic time domain window through the periodic time domain window information, so as to jointly use the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit within the periodic time domain window for channel estimation, thereby realizing periodic joint downlink channel estimation. Alternatively, the present application can determine the non-periodic time domain window through the non-periodic time domain window information, so as to jointly use the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit within the non-periodic time domain window for channel estimation, thereby realizing non-periodic joint downlink channel estimation.

[0012] Optionally, the periodic time domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window; the non-periodic time domain window information includes the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window.

[0013] In this way, the present application can determine a periodic time domain window based on the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window, so as to implement periodic joint downlink channel estimation based on the periodic time domain window. Alternatively, the present application can determine an aperiodic time domain window based on the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window, so as to implement aperiodic joint downlink channel estimation based on the aperiodic time domain window.

[0014] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is in absolute time, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds. Thus, the present application may use absolute time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0015] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is defined in units of relative time, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols.

[0016] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information.

[0017] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the length of the time domain window. In this way, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window according to the network configuration information, thereby realizing the network configuration of the length of the time domain window.

[0018] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate time domain window lengths configured by the network according to network indication information.

[0019] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate time domain window lengths for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, indicating the length of a time domain window from the multiple candidate time domain window lengths. In this way, the terminal device can determine the time domain window length based on the network indication information, enabling the network to configure the time domain window length.

[0020] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is selected by the terminal device from a first value range configured by the network, where the first value range refers to a value range within which the length of the time domain window lies.

[0021] It should be noted that the network device configures the value range of the time domain window length to the terminal device. Then, the terminal device can select a time domain window length from the value range of the master and slave time domain window lengths according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0022] Of course, the terminal device may report the length of the time domain window selected by itself to the network device so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device.

[0023] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH, and the association between the length of the time domain window and the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0024] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the length of the time domain window. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different time domain window lengths. Thus, when a network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the above association, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the time domain window.

[0025] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB, and the association between the length of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0026] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and the length of a time domain window. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different time domain window lengths, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different time domain window lengths. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the time domain window.

[0027] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is in absolute time units, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds. Thus, the present application may use absolute time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0028] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses relative time as a unit, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols. In this way, the present application can use relative time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0029] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information.

[0030] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the period of the time domain window. In this way, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window according to the network configuration information, thereby realizing the network configuration of the period of the time domain window.

[0031] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate time domain window periods configured by the network according to network indication information.

[0032] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate time domain window periods for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, indicating the period of a time domain window from the multiple candidate time domain window periods. In this way, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the network indication information, thereby enabling the network to configure the period of the time domain window.

[0033] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is selected by the terminal device from a second value range configured by the network, and the second value range refers to the value range in which the period of the time domain window lies.

[0034] It should be noted that the network device configures the value range of the time domain window period to the terminal device. Then, the terminal device can select a time domain window period from the value range of the master and slave time domain window periods according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0035] Of course, the terminal device may report the period of the time domain window selected by itself to the network device so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device.

[0036] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH, and the association between the period of the time domain window and the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0037] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the period of the time domain window. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different periods of the time domain window. Thus, when the network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to the terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the above association, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0038] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the length of the time domain window, and the association between the period of the time domain window and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0039] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the length of the time domain window and the period of the time domain window. Specifically, different time domain window lengths can be associated with different time domain window periods. Thus, when a network device configures the length of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the length of the time domain window and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0040] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB, and the association between the period of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0041] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and a time domain window period. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different time domain window periods, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different time domain window periods. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0042] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is an absolute time, and the absolute time is expressed in Universal Coordinated Time UTC, China Standard Time CST, or Greenwich Mean Time GMT. In this way, the present application can use the absolute time to define the starting position of the time domain window.

[0043] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is a relative time, and the relative time is represented by a system frame number, a subframe number, a time slot number, or a symbol number. In this way, the present application can use a relative time to define the starting position of the time domain window.

[0044] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is determined based on an offset, where the offset represents the interval between the first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window in the time domain, and the first time domain position uses a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

[0045] In this way, the terminal device of the present application can determine the starting position of the periodic time domain window or the non-periodic time domain window according to the offset and the first time domain position.

[0046] Optionally, the first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the starting position of the first system frame and the offset.

[0047] Optionally, the first time domain location is a reception location of a signaling message for configuring the offset. It will be appreciated that the network device will send a signaling message for configuring the offset to the terminal device, and the terminal device will receive the signaling message in response. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting location of the time domain window based on the reception location of the signaling message and the offset.

[0048] Optionally, the first time domain location is the location where signaling indicating the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window is received. It will be appreciated that the network device will send signaling indicating the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window to the terminal device, and the terminal device will receive the signaling in response. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window based on the location of the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured via other signaling or specified in a communication standard protocol.

[0049] Optionally, the first time domain position is the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window. It is understandable that the network device will send signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window to the terminal device; correspondingly, the terminal device will feedback the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling to the network device. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window based on the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured through other signaling or specified by the communication standard protocol.

[0050] Optionally, the starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula: (N·n f +n s -Toffset )mod T=0;

[0051] Where N represents the number of time units in the system frame, n f Indicates the system frame number, n s Indicates the time unit number in the system frame, T indicates the period of the time domain window, mod indicates modulo, T offset Indicates the offset.

[0052] In this way, the terminal device of the present application can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the offset and the period of the time domain window.

[0053] Optionally, the offset is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information.

[0054] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the offset. In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the network configuration information to implement the network configuration offset.

[0055] Optionally, the offset is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate offsets configured in the network according to network indication information.

[0056] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate offsets for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, where the network indication information indicates an offset from the multiple candidate offsets. In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the network indication information, thereby implementing network configuration of the offset.

[0057] Optionally, the offset is selected by the terminal device from a third value range of the network configuration, and the third value range refers to the value range in which the offset is located.

[0058] It should be noted that the network device will configure the value range of the offset to the terminal device. Then, the terminal device can select an offset from the value range of the master and slave offsets according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0059] Of course, the terminal device may report the offset selected by itself to the network device so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device.

[0060] Optionally, the offset is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of the PDCCH / PDSCH, and the association between the offset and the number of repeated transmissions of the PDCCH / PDSCH is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0061] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and an offset. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0062] Optionally, the offset is associated with the length of the time domain window, and the association between the offset and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0063] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the length of the time domain window and the offset. Different time domain window lengths can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the length of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the time domain window length and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0064] Optionally, the offset is associated with the period of the time domain window, and the association between the offset and the period of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0065] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the period of the time domain window and the offset. Specifically, different time domain window periods can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the period of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the period of the time domain window and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0066] Optionally, the offset is associated with the beam or SSB, and the association between the offset and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0067] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and an offset. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different offsets, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different offsets. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0068] Optionally, the carrier used to carry the PDCCH / PDSCH within the time domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0069] It should be noted that the carrier sent by the network device within the time domain window for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity, or the terminal device can assume that the carrier sent by the network device within the time domain window for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0070] Optionally, downlink channel estimation is performed based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, including: when the quality of the received signal is less than a preset threshold, downlink channel estimation is performed based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window.

[0071] It should be noted that some terminal devices may need to perform joint downlink channel estimation, while other terminal devices may not need to perform joint downlink channel estimation. This is because, for terminal devices with poor channel quality between them and network devices (such as the quality of the terminal device's received signal (such as RSRP, RSRQ or SINR, etc.) is less than a preset threshold), these terminal devices cannot obtain accurate downlink channel information due to the poor channel quality, so these terminal devices may need to perform joint downlink channel estimation; however, for terminal devices with good channel quality between them and network devices (such as the quality of the terminal device's received signal is greater than a preset threshold), these terminal devices can obtain accurate downlink channel information due to the good channel quality, so these terminal devices may not need to perform joint downlink channel estimation.

[0072] In this way, when the received signal quality is less than the preset threshold, this indicates that there is poor channel quality between the terminal device and the network device, so that the terminal device can perform joint downlink channel estimation based on the time domain window information to obtain more accurate downlink channel information.

[0073] Optionally, before receiving the time domain window information, it also includes: sending information for indicating the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability, the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability including at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device.

[0074] In this way, this information is used to inform the network device of the length of the TDW supported by itself, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, so as to assist the network device in configuring the length of the TDW, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the domain window.

[0075] The second aspect is a communication method of the present application, comprising:

[0076] The time domain window information is sent, and the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0077] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0078] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0079] Optionally, the time domain window information includes periodic time domain window information or non-periodic time domain window information.

[0080] In this way, the present application can determine the periodic time domain window through the periodic time domain window information, so as to jointly use the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit within the periodic time domain window for channel estimation, thereby realizing periodic joint downlink channel estimation. Alternatively, the present application can determine the non-periodic time domain window through the non-periodic time domain window information, so as to jointly use the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit within the non-periodic time domain window for channel estimation, thereby realizing non-periodic joint downlink channel estimation.

[0081] Optionally, the periodic time domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window; the non-periodic time domain window information includes the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window.

[0082] In this way, the present application can determine a periodic time domain window based on the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window, so as to implement periodic joint downlink channel estimation based on the periodic time domain window. Alternatively, the present application can determine an aperiodic time domain window based on the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window, so as to implement aperiodic joint downlink channel estimation based on the aperiodic time domain window.

[0083] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is in absolute time, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds. Thus, the present application may use absolute time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0084] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is defined in units of relative time, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols.

[0085] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is configured by the network device.

[0086] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the length of the time domain window. In this way, the network configuration of the length of the time domain window is achieved through the network configuration information.

[0087] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is indicated by the network device from among a plurality of configured candidate time domain window lengths.

[0088] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate time domain window lengths for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, indicating the length of a time domain window from the multiple candidate time domain window lengths. In this way, the terminal device can determine the time domain window length based on the network indication information, enabling the network to configure the time domain window length.

[0089] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH, and the association between the length of the time domain window and the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0090] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the length of the time domain window. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different time domain window lengths. Thus, when a network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the above association, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the time domain window.

[0091] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB, and the association between the length of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0092] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and the length of a time domain window. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different time domain window lengths, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different time domain window lengths. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the time domain window.

[0093] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is in absolute time units, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds. Thus, the present application may use absolute time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0094] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses relative time as a unit, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols. In this way, the present application can use relative time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0095] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is configured by the network device.

[0096] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the period of the time domain window. In this way, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window according to the network configuration information, thereby realizing the network configuration of the period of the time domain window.

[0097] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is indicated by the network device from a plurality of configured candidate time domain window periods.

[0098] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate time domain window periods for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, indicating the period of a time domain window from the multiple candidate time domain window periods. In this way, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the network indication information, thereby enabling the network to configure the period of the time domain window.

[0099] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH, and the association between the period of the time domain window and the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0100] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the period of the time domain window. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different periods of the time domain window. Thus, when the network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to the terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the above association, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0101] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the length of the time domain window, and the association between the period of the time domain window and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0102] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the length of the time domain window and the period of the time domain window. Specifically, different time domain window lengths can be associated with different time domain window periods. Thus, when a network device configures the length of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the length of the time domain window and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0103] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB, and the association between the period of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0104] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and a time domain window period. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different time domain window periods, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different time domain window periods. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0105] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is an absolute time, and the absolute time is expressed in Universal Coordinated Time UTC, China Standard Time CST, or Greenwich Mean Time GMT. In this way, the present application can use the absolute time to define the starting position of the time domain window.

[0106] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is a relative time, and the relative time is represented by a system frame number, a subframe number, a time slot number, or a symbol number. In this way, the present application can use a relative time to define the starting position of the time domain window.

[0107] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is determined based on an offset, where the offset represents the interval between the first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window in the time domain, and the first time domain position uses a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

[0108] In this way, the terminal device of the present application can determine the starting position of the periodic time domain window or the non-periodic time domain window according to the offset and the first time domain position.

[0109] Optionally, the first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the starting position of the first system frame and the offset.

[0110] Optionally, the first time domain location is a reception location of a signaling message for configuring the offset. It will be appreciated that the network device will send a signaling message for configuring the offset to the terminal device, and the terminal device will receive the signaling message in response. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting location of the time domain window based on the reception location of the signaling message and the offset.

[0111] Optionally, the first time domain location is the location where signaling indicating the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window is received. It will be appreciated that the network device will send signaling indicating the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window to the terminal device, and the terminal device will receive the signaling in response. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window based on the location of the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured via other signaling or specified in a communication standard protocol.

[0112] Optionally, the first time domain position is the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window. It is understandable that the network device will send signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window to the terminal device; correspondingly, the terminal device will feedback the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling to the network device. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window based on the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured through other signaling or specified by the communication standard protocol.

[0113] Optionally, the starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula: (N·n f +n s -T offset )mod T=0;

[0114] Where N represents the number of time units in the system frame, n f Indicates the system frame number, n sIndicates the time unit number in the system frame, T indicates the period of the time domain window, mod indicates modulo, T offset Indicates the offset.

[0115] In this way, the terminal device of the present application can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the offset and the period of the time domain window.

[0116] Optionally, the offset is configured by the network device.

[0117] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the offset. In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the network configuration information to implement the network configuration offset.

[0118] Optionally, the offset is indicated by the network device from among a plurality of configured candidate offsets.

[0119] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate offsets for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, where the network indication information indicates an offset from the multiple candidate offsets. In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the network indication information, thereby implementing network configuration of the offset.

[0120] Optionally, the offset is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of the PDCCH / PDSCH, and the association between the offset and the number of repeated transmissions of the PDCCH / PDSCH is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0121] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and an offset. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0122] Optionally, the offset is associated with the length of the time domain window, and the association between the offset and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0123] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the length of the time domain window and the offset. Different time domain window lengths can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the length of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the time domain window length and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0124] Optionally, the offset is associated with the period of the time domain window, and the association between the offset and the period of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0125] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the period of the time domain window and the offset. Specifically, different time domain window periods can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the period of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the period of the time domain window and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0126] Optionally, the offset is associated with the beam or SSB, and the association between the offset and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration or communication standard protocol.

[0127] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and an offset. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different offsets, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different offsets. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0128] Optionally, the carrier used to carry the PDCCH / PDSCH within the time domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0129] It should be noted that the carrier sent by the network device within the time domain window for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity, or the terminal device can assume that the carrier sent by the network device within the time domain window for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0130] Optionally, before sending the time domain window information, it also includes: receiving information for indicating PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability, the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability including at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device.

[0131] In this way, this information is used to inform the network device of the length of the TDW supported by itself, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, so as to assist the network device in configuring the length of the TDW, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the domain window.

[0132] A third aspect is a communication device of the present application, comprising:

[0133] A receiving unit, configured to receive time domain window information, where the time domain window information is used to determine a time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling;

[0134] An estimation unit is configured to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled within the time domain window.

[0135] A fourth aspect is a communication device of the present application, comprising:

[0136] The sending unit is used to send time domain window information, where the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0137] In a fifth aspect, the steps in the method designed in the first aspect are applied to a terminal device.

[0138] In a sixth aspect, the steps in the method designed in the second aspect are applied to network equipment.

[0139] The seventh aspect is a terminal device of the present application, comprising a processor, a memory, and a computer program or instructions stored on the memory, wherein the processor executes the computer program or instructions to implement the steps in the method designed in the above-mentioned first aspect.

[0140] The eighth aspect is a network device of the present application, comprising a processor, a memory, and a computer program or instructions stored on the memory, wherein the processor executes the computer program or instructions to implement the steps in the method designed in the second aspect above.

[0141] The ninth aspect is a chip of the present application, comprising a processor, wherein the processor executes the steps in the method designed in the first aspect or the second aspect above.

[0142] The tenth aspect is a chip module of the present application, comprising a transceiver component and a chip, wherein the chip comprises a processor, wherein the processor executes the steps in the method designed in the above-mentioned first aspect or second aspect.

[0143] The eleventh aspect is a computer-readable storage medium of the present application, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores a computer program or instructions, and when the computer program or instructions are executed, the steps in the method designed in the first aspect or the second aspect are implemented.

[0144] A twelfth aspect is a computer program product of the present application, comprising a computer program or instructions, wherein when the computer program or instructions are executed, the steps of the method designed in the first or second aspect are performed. Exemplarily, the computer program product can be a software installation package.

[0145] The beneficial effects brought about by the technical solutions of the third to twelfth aspects can be referred to the technical effects brought about by the technical solution of the first aspect, and will not be repeated here. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0146] FIG1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0147] FIG2 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of an NTN communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0148] 3 to 9 are flowcharts of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0149] FIG10 is a schematic diagram of a TDW distribution structure in the time domain according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0150] FIG11 is a flow chart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0151] FIG12 is a flow chart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0152] FIG13 is a flow chart of another communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0153] FIG14 is a block diagram of functional units of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0154] FIG15 is a block diagram of functional units of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0155] FIG16 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0156] Figure 17 is a structural diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0157] It should be understood that the terms "first," "second," and the like in the embodiments of the present application are used to distinguish between different objects, rather than to describe a specific order. In addition, the terms "including," "having," and any variations thereof, are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusions. For example, a process, method, software, product, or device comprising a series of steps or units is not limited to the listed steps or units, but may also include steps or units not listed, or may also include other steps or units inherent to these processes, methods, products, or devices.

[0158] The term "embodiment" as used in the embodiments of this application means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in conjunction with the embodiment may be included in at least one embodiment of this application. The appearance of this phrase in various locations in the specification does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, nor does it refer to independent or alternative embodiments that are mutually exclusive with other embodiments. It is understood, both explicitly and implicitly, by those skilled in the art that the embodiments described herein may be combined with other embodiments.

[0159] In the embodiments of the present application, "at least one" or "at least one item" refers to one or more, and "a plurality" refers to two or more.

[0160] The term "and / or" in the embodiments of the present application describes the association relationship between associated objects, indicating that three relationships may exist. For example, A and / or B can represent the following three situations: A exists alone, A and B exist at the same time, and B exists alone. A and B can be singular or plural. The character " / " can indicate that the associated objects are in an "or" relationship. In addition, the character " / " can represent a division sign, such as A / B, which means A divided by B.

[0161] In the embodiments of the present application, "at least one of the following" or similar expressions refers to any combination of these items, including any combination of single items or multiple items. For example, at least one of a, b, or c can represent the following seven situations: a, b, c, a and b, a and c, b and c, a, b, and c. Each of a, b, and c can be an element or a set containing one or more elements.

[0162] In the embodiments of the present application, the terms "of," "corresponding," "relevant," "corresponding," "associated," "related," and "mapped" may sometimes be used interchangeably. It should be noted that when no distinction is emphasized, the concepts or meanings to be expressed are consistent.

[0163] The “network” in the embodiments of the present application can be expressed as the same concept as the “system”, and the communication system is the communication network.

[0164] The "connection" in the embodiments of the present application refers to various connection methods such as direct connection or indirect connection to achieve communication between devices, and is not specifically limited to this.

[0165] The following is a detailed introduction to the relevant contents involved in the technical solutions of the embodiments of this application.

[0166] The communication system of this embodiment is described in detail below.

[0167] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various wireless communication systems, such as: long term evolution (LTE) system, advanced long term evolution (LTE-A) system, new radio (NR) system, NR system evolution system, LTE on unlicensed spectrum (LTE-based access to unlicensed spectrum, LTE-U) system, NR on unlicensed spectrum (NR-based access to unlicensed spectrum, NR-U) system, non-terrestrial communication network (NTN) system, universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS), 6th generation (6G) communication system or other future communication systems.

[0168] It should be noted that the number of user connections supported by traditional communication systems is limited and easy to implement. With the development of communication technology, the communication system of the present application can not only support traditional communication systems, but also support device-to-device (D2D) communication, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, machine type communication (MTC), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) communication, etc. Therefore, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can also be applied to the above-mentioned communication systems.

[0169] For example, the embodiments of the present application can be applied to beamforming (beamforming), carrier aggregation (CA), dual connectivity (DC) or standalone (SA) deployment scenarios, etc.

[0170] As another example, embodiments of the present application can be applied to communication scenarios using unlicensed spectrum. In embodiments of the present application, unlicensed spectrum can also be considered shared spectrum. Alternatively, embodiments of the present application can also be applied to licensed spectrum. Licensed spectrum can also be considered unshared spectrum.

[0171] To meet the challenges of wireless broadband technology and maintain the leading edge of 3GPP networks, the 3GPP standards group has developed a next-generation mobile communications network architecture, known as the 5G network architecture. This architecture not only supports 3GPP-defined wireless technologies (such as LTE) accessing the 5G core network (5GC), but also supports non-3GPP access technologies accessing the 5GC through the non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF), the trusted non-3GPP gateway function (TNGF), the trusted WLAN interworking function (TWIF), or the next-generation packet data gateway (NG-PDG). The core network functions are divided into user plane function (UPF) and control plane function (CPF). The UPF is primarily responsible for packet forwarding, quality of service (QoS) control, and billing information statistics. CPF is mainly responsible for user registration and authentication, mobility management, and sending data packet forwarding policies and QoS control policies to UPF. It can be further divided into access and mobility management function (AMF) and session management function (SMF).

[0172] Core network equipment includes, for example, a mobility management entity (MME), a broadcast multicast service center (BMSC), etc., or may also include corresponding functional entities in the 5G system, such as core network control plane (CP) or user plane (UP) network functions, such as SMF, AMF, etc. The core network control plane can also be understood as a core network control plane function (CPF) entity.

[0173] For example, Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a communication system applicable to an embodiment of the present application, wherein the functions of the terminal device and each network entity are as described below.

[0174] Radio access network (RAN): A network composed of multiple 5G-RAN nodes that implements wireless physical layer functions, resource scheduling and wireless resource management, wireless access control, and mobility management. 5G-RAN is connected to the UPF via the user plane interface N3 to transmit data from terminal devices. 5G-RAN establishes a control plane signaling connection with the AMF via the control plane interface N2 to implement functions such as radio access bearer control. RAN can be any device with wireless transceiver capabilities, including but not limited to 5G base stations (5G node base, gNB), evolutionary node base (eNB), wireless access points (WiFi AP), world interoperability for microwave access base stations (WiMAX BS), transmission receiving points (TRP), wireless relay nodes, wireless backhaul nodes, etc.

[0175] The access network device (i.e., the network device of the access network) in the embodiment of the present application can also be a device for communicating with a terminal device. The access network device can be a base station (base transceiver station, BTS) in a global system of mobile communication (GSM) system or code division multiple access (CDMA), or a base station (nodeB, NB) in a wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system, or an evolutionary node base (eNB) in an LTE system, or a wireless controller in a cloud radio access network (CRAN) scenario, or the access network device can be a relay station, an access point, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, and an access network device in a future 5G network or an access network device in a future evolved PLMN network, etc., and the embodiment of the present application is not limited.

[0176] In NR, the functions of the base station are divided into two parts, called centralized unit (CU)-distributed unit (DU) separation. From the perspective of the protocol stack, the CU includes the RRC layer and PDCP layer of the LTE base station, and the DU includes the radio link control (RLC) layer, media access control (MAC) layer and physical (PHY) layer of the LTE base station. In ordinary 5G base station deployments, the CU and DU can be physically connected through optical fiber, and logically there is a specially defined F1 interface for communication between the CU and the DU. From a functional perspective, the CU is mainly responsible for wireless resource control and configuration, cross-cell mobility management, bearer management, etc. The DU is mainly responsible for scheduling, physical signal generation and transmission.

[0177] Among them, the above-mentioned base stations can be macro base stations, micro base stations, pico base stations, small stations, relay stations, balloon stations, etc.

[0178] SMF: Mainly responsible for the control plane functions of terminal device session management, including selection and control of user plane functions (UPF), Internet protocol (IP) address allocation, session QoS management, and obtaining policy and charging control (PCC) policies (from PCF).

[0179] UPF: As the anchor point for protocol data unit (PDU) session connections, it is responsible for filtering data packets for terminal devices, data transmission / forwarding, rate control, generating billing information, etc., and providing connections to the data network (DN).

[0180] PCF: Provides configuration policy information for terminal devices and policy information for controlling terminal devices to network control plane elements (such as SMF); generates terminal device access policies and QoS flow control policies.

[0181] AF: interacts with network elements in the core network to provide some services. For example, it interacts with PCF to perform service policy control, interacts with NEF to obtain some network capability information or provide some application information to the network, and provides some data network access point information to PCF to generate routing information for corresponding data services.

[0182] In the embodiments of the present application, the terminal device is wirelessly connected to the RAN device, and the RAN network element is wirelessly or wiredly connected to the 5GC device. The 5GC device and the RAN network element can be independent and distinct physical devices, or the functions of the 5GC device and the logical functions of the RAN network element can be integrated into the same physical device, or a single physical device can integrate some of the functions of the 5GC device and some of the functions of the RAN network element. The terminal device can be fixed or mobile.

[0183] 5GC equipment mainly includes the above-mentioned PCF network elements, SMF network elements and UPF network elements.

[0184] It should be noted that the aforementioned "network element" may also be referred to as an entity, device, apparatus, or module, etc., and this application does not specifically limit this. Furthermore, in this application, for ease of understanding and explanation, the term "network element" is omitted in some descriptions. For example, an NEF network element is referred to as NEF. In this case, the "NEF" should be understood as an NEF network element or NEF entity. The following descriptions of identical or similar situations are omitted.

[0185] It should be noted that the naming of each network element included in Figure 1 is only a name, and the name does not limit the function of the network element itself. In 5G networks and other future networks, the above-mentioned network elements may also have other names, and the embodiments of this application do not specifically limit this. For example, in a 6G network, some or all of the above-mentioned network elements may continue to use the terminology used in 5G, or may have other names, etc., which are uniformly explained here and will not be repeated below.

[0186] It should be noted that the network elements in Figure 1 do not have to exist simultaneously, and the network elements required can be determined according to needs. The connection relationship between the network elements in Figure 1 is not unique and can be adjusted according to needs.

[0187] It is understandable that the above-mentioned network elements or functions 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).

[0188] Of course, FIG1 is merely an example of a network architecture of a communication system and does not constitute a limitation on the network architecture of the communication system in the embodiment of the present application.

[0189]

Terminal equipment

[0190] A terminal device can be a device with transceiver functions and can also be called a terminal, user equipment (UE), remote terminal equipment (remote UE), relay UE, access terminal equipment, user unit, user station, mobile station, mobile station, remote station, mobile device, user terminal equipment, intelligent terminal equipment, wireless communication equipment, user agent, or user device. It should be noted that a relay device is a terminal device that can provide relay forwarding services for other terminal devices (including remote terminal devices).

[0191] For example, the terminal device can be a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a computer with wireless transceiver function, a virtual reality (VR) terminal device, an augmented reality (AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal device in industrial control, a wireless terminal device in unmanned autonomous driving, a wireless terminal device in remote medical, a wireless terminal device in a smart grid, a wireless terminal device in transportation safety, a wireless terminal device in a smart city, or a wireless terminal device in a smart home, etc.

[0192] For another example, the terminal device can be a cellular phone, a cordless phone, a session initiation protocol (SIP) phone, a wireless local loop (WLL) station, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a handheld device with wireless communication capabilities, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a terminal device in a next-generation communication system (such as an NR communication system, a 6G communication system), or a terminal device in a future evolved public land mobile communication network (PLMN), etc., without specific limitation.

[0193] Optionally, the terminal device can be deployed on land, including indoors or outdoors, handheld, wearable or vehicle-mounted; can be deployed on the water surface (such as ships, etc.); can be deployed in the air (such as airplanes, balloons and satellites, etc.).

[0194] Optionally, the terminal device may include a device with wireless communication function, such as a chip system, a chip, or a chip module. For example, the chip system may include a chip and may also include other discrete devices.

[0195] Optionally, the terminal device of the embodiment of the present application can be a chip, a chip module, a device, a unit, etc., and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0196] Network equipment

[0197] A network device may be a device with transceiver functions and may be used to communicate with a terminal device.

[0198] Optionally, the network device may be responsible for radio resource management (RRM), quality of service (QoS) management, data compression and encryption, data transmission and reception, etc. on the air interface side.

[0199] Optionally, the network device may include a base station (BS) in a communication system or a device deployed in a radio access network (RAN) for providing wireless communication functions, that is, the network device may include a device in the RAN.

[0200] For example, the devices in the RAN may include an evolved node B (eNB or eNodeB) in an LTE communication system, a next generation evolved node B (ng-eNB) in an NR communication system, a next generation node B (gNB) in an NR communication system, a master node (MN) in a dual-connection architecture, a second node or secondary node (SN) in a dual-connection architecture, etc., without specific limitation.

[0201] Optionally, the network device may include a device in a core network (CN).

[0202] For example, the devices in CN may include AMF), UPF), SMF), etc.

[0203] Optionally, the network device may also be an access point (AP) in a WLAN, a relay station, a communication device in a future evolved PLMN network, a communication device in an NTN network, etc.

[0204] Optionally, the network device may include a device that provides wireless communication functionality for the terminal device, such as a chip system, a chip, or a chip module. For example, the chip system may include a chip, or may include other discrete devices.

[0205] Optionally, the network device may be a transmission and reception point (TRP).

[0206] Optionally, the network device can communicate with an Internet Protocol (IP) network, such as the Internet, a private IP network, or other data networks.

[0207] Optionally, the network device may include an independent node to implement the functions of the above-mentioned base station, or may include two or more independent nodes to implement the functions of the above-mentioned base station. For example, the network device includes a centralized unit (CU) and a distributed unit (DU), such as a gNB-CU and a gNB-DU. Furthermore, in other embodiments, the network device may also include an active antenna unit (AAU). The CU implements part of the functions of the network device, and the DU implements other parts of the functions of the 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) layer, the service data adaptation protocol (SDAP) layer, and the packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer. The DU is responsible for processing physical layer protocols and real-time services, implementing the functions of the radio link control (RLC) layer, the media access control (MAC) layer, and the physical (PHY) layer. In addition, the AAU can implement some physical layer processing functions, RF processing, and related functions of the active antenna. Because RRC layer information ultimately becomes PHY layer information, or is converted from PHY layer information, in this network deployment, high-layer signaling (such as RRC signaling) can be considered to be generated by the CU and sent by the DU, or sent jointly by the DU and AAU. It is understood that network devices may include at least one of the CU, DU, and AAU. Furthermore, the CU may be classified as a RAN device, or as a core network device, without specific limitation.

[0208] Optionally, the network device may be any one of the multiple sites that perform coherent joint transmission (CJT) with the terminal device, or another site outside the multiple sites, or another network device that performs network communication with the terminal device, and there is no specific limitation on this. Multi-site coherent cooperative transmission may be multiple sites jointly coherent transmission, or different data belonging to the same physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) is sent from different sites to the terminal device, or multiple sites are virtualized into one site for transmission, or other forms of cooperative transmission. The sites in multi-site coherent cooperative transmission may be remote radio heads (RRHs), transmission and reception points (TRPs), network devices, etc., and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0209] Optionally, the network device may be any one of multiple sites that perform non-coherent joint transmission (NCJT) with the terminal device, or another site outside the multiple sites, or another network device that performs network communication with the terminal device, and there is no specific limitation on this. Multi-site non-coherent cooperative transmission may be multiple sites jointly performing non-coherent transmission, or different data belonging to the same PDSCH is sent from different sites to the terminal device, or different data belonging to the same PDSCH is sent from different sites to the terminal device, or other forms of non-cooperative transmission. The sites in multi-site non-coherent cooperative transmission may be RRHs, TRPs, network devices, etc., and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0210] Optionally, the network device can provide services for a cell, and the terminal device in the cell can communicate with the network device using transmission resources (such as spectrum resources). The cell can be a macro cell, a small cell, a metro cell, a micro cell, a pico cell, or a femto cell.

[0211] Optionally, the network device described in the embodiments of the present application may be a chip, a chip module, a device, a unit, etc., and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0212]

NTN system

[0213] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to NTN systems, for example, satellite communication systems. In satellite communication systems, network devices usually communicate with ground terminal devices via satellites.

[0214] Currently, 5G NR has entered the commercial deployment phase after moving from standardization. The NR standard was designed based on the characteristics of terrestrial communications and provides high-speed, high-reliability, and low-latency communications for user terminals. Compared to terrestrial communication systems, NTN systems offer a wider coverage area and flexible networking.

[0215] The NTN system utilizes equipment such as drones, high-altitude platforms (HAPS), and satellites to form a network, providing data transmission, voice communication, and other services to terminal devices. High-altitude platform equipment typically operates at an altitude of 8 to 50 km above the ground. Satellite communication systems can be categorized into three types based on the satellite's orbital altitude: geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite communication systems, also known as synchronous orbit satellite systems; medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite communication systems; and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication systems.

[0216] A satellite may be a spacecraft that is a transmitter of a transparent payload (also known as a bent pipe payload) or a regenerative payload signal, that is, a transparent satellite or a regenerative satellite.

[0217] Satellites can be divided into transparent (also known as bent pipe payload) mode and regenerative mode according to their operating mode or payload.

[0218] When the satellite works in transparent transmission mode, it is a spacecraft that is a transmitter of transparent transmission payload signals and has the function of relaying and forwarding.

[0219] When the satellite operates in regeneration mode, it has data processing capabilities, base station (such as gNB) functions or partial base station functions. At this time, the satellite can be regarded as a base station.

[0220] It should be noted that satellites can be divided into GEO satellites, MEO satellites, LEO satellites and high elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites according to the different orbital altitudes.

[0221] The orbital altitude of GEO satellites is 35786km. Its main advantage is that it can remain stationary relative to the ground and provide a large coverage area. However, GEO satellite communications also have obvious disadvantages:

[0222] 1) GEO satellite orbits are far from the Earth, resulting in high free-space propagation losses, which limits the communication link budget. To increase transmit / receive gain, satellites need to be equipped with larger antennas.

[0223] 2) The communication transmission delay is large, reaching a round-trip delay of around 500ms, which cannot meet the needs of real-time services;

[0224] 3) GEO orbital resources are relatively limited, launch costs are high, and it cannot provide coverage for the Earth's polar regions.

[0225] MEO satellites orbit at altitudes between 2,000 and 35,786 km. Their advantage is that they can achieve global coverage with a relatively small number of satellites. However, their orbital altitude is higher than that of LEO satellites, and transmission latency is still greater than that of LEO satellite communications. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of MEO satellite communications, MEO satellites are primarily used for positioning and navigation.

[0226] LEO satellites operate at orbital altitudes between 300 and 2000 km. These altitudes are lower than those of MEO and GEO satellites, offering advantages such as reduced data transmission latency, minimal transmission loss, and relatively low launch costs. Consequently, LEO satellite communications have garnered widespread attention in recent years.

[0227] The orbital altitude of HEO satellites ranges from 400km to 50,000km.

[0228] A non-terrestrial network gateway (NTN gateway), which can be an earth station or gateway located on the ground, provides sufficient radio frequency (RF) power and RF sensitivity to connect ground-based equipment (such as network equipment) with satellites. The NTN gateway is a node in the transport network layer (TNL).

[0229] For example, an NTN system according to an embodiment of the present application is shown in FIG2 . The NTN communication system 20 may include a terminal device 210, a satellite 220, a non-terrestrial network gateway 230, and a core network device 240. The communication link between the terminal device 210 and the satellite 220 is called a service link. The communication link between the satellite 220 and the non-terrestrial network gateway 230 is called a feeder link. The satellite 220 and the non-terrestrial network gateway 230 may constitute an access network device (e.g., a gNB), and the core network device 240 may be an AMF / UPF.

[0230] The communication system has been described above. Now, the joint downlink channel estimation of this embodiment will be described in detail.

[0231] Some communication systems (such as NTN systems) may experience limited downlink coverage, which can lead to poor downlink signal quality, low channel estimation accuracy, and poor transmission quality. To improve the downlink transmission quality of the communication system, this embodiment considers performing joint downlink channel estimation on the communication system. This allows for more accurate downlink channel information to be obtained, resulting in better detection performance and enhanced downlink coverage.

[0232] Joint downlink channel estimation can be a method of jointly utilizing the demodulation reference signals (DM-RS) of the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) / physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) of multiple time units to perform channel estimation in order to obtain more accurate downlink channel information, improve the accuracy of downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, and enhance the coverage performance of the downlink channel. Among them, the joint use of the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of multiple time units for channel estimation can be called PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0233] It should be noted that a time unit can refer to the communication granularity in the time domain. Thus, a terminal device and a network device can communicate in the time domain using time units. For example, a time unit can be a subframe, a time slot, an OFDM symbol, or a mini-time slot, without specific limitation.

[0234] Taking a time slot as an example, joint downlink channel estimation can be a method of jointly utilizing the DM-RSs of PDCCHs / PDSCHs of multiple time slots for channel estimation. In this case, PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling is a method of jointly utilizing the DM-RSs of PDCCHs / PDSCHs of multiple time slots for channel estimation.

[0235] In joint downlink channel estimation, the network device may indicate to the terminal device via signaling the enable or disable status of PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling during downlink transmission. Enabling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling may mean that the network device allows / expects PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling; disabling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling may mean that the network device does not allow / expects PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0236] Of course, the terminal device can also report to the network device whether it supports PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0237] When supporting joint downlink channel estimation, this embodiment may introduce the duration of PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0238] It should be noted that the duration can be used to group time units to determine which time units' PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs can be bundled together. Time units within the same duration can be grouped together, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs of time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RSs of time units between groups are not bundled.

[0239] In this way, the terminal device can perform joint downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of multiple time units within the duration.

[0240] It should be noted that some terminal devices may need to perform joint downlink channel estimation, while other terminal devices may not need to perform joint downlink channel estimation. This is because, for terminal devices with poor channel quality between them and network devices (such as the quality of the terminal device's received signal (such as RSRP, RSRQ or SINR, etc.) is less than a preset threshold), these terminal devices cannot obtain accurate downlink channel information due to the poor channel quality, so these terminal devices may need to perform joint downlink channel estimation; however, for terminal devices with good channel quality between them and network devices (such as the quality of the terminal device's received signal is greater than a preset threshold), these terminal devices can obtain accurate downlink channel information due to the good channel quality, so these terminal devices may not need to perform joint downlink channel estimation.

[0241] In addition, the carrier sent by the network device during this duration for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity, or the terminal device can assume that the carrier sent by the network device during this duration for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0242] The carrier used to carry PDCCH / PDSCH meets power consistency, which can be understood as that the maximum allowed power difference between any two time units of the carrier within the time unit of PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling cannot exceed a certain threshold.

[0243] The carrier used to carry PDCCH / PDSCH satisfies phase continuity, which can be understood as that the maximum allowed phase difference between any two time units of the carrier within the time unit bundled with PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS cannot exceed a certain threshold.

[0244] In addition, the duration of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling can be represented by the length of the time domain window (TDW). That is, the carrier sent by the network device within the TDW for carrying the PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity, or the terminal device can assume that the carrier sent by the network device within the TDW for carrying the PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity. Of course, the duration can also be represented by other parameters (such as the running length of the timer, etc.), and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0245] For ease of description, this embodiment takes PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled TDW as an example to illustrate periodic TDW and aperiodic TDW respectively.

[0246] [Scheme 1]

[0247] In "Solution 1", this embodiment introduces periodic TDW, wherein the network device can configure the periodic TDW to the terminal device through signaling.

[0248] For example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG3 is a flow chart of a communication method according to this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0249] S310: The network device sends configuration information, where the configuration information is used to configure a periodic TDW.

[0250] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the configuration information.

[0251] In this way, the periodic TDW is configured through the configuration information. The configuration information can be carried by system information (such as system information block (SIB)), radio resource control (RRC) signaling, medium access control (MAC) signaling (such as MAC control element (MAC CE)) or downlink control information (DCI). In addition, the above configuration process can be completed in the process of cell search, cell camp, cell synchronization, random access, cell handover, cell reselection, or resource scheduling.

[0252] It should be noted that Solution 1 can be applied to the NTN system. At the same time, the network equipment mentioned in Solution 1 can include access network equipment in the NTN (including non-terrestrial network gateways and satellites).

[0253] In a specific implementation, during the configuration of a periodic TDW, the network device may configure at least one of the TDW length, the TDW period, or the TDW starting position to the terminal device via signaling / signal / information / channel. The TDW length, TDW period, and TDW starting position may be configured together via the same signaling / signal / information / channel, or separately via different signaling / signal / information / channels. Each of these configurations is described in detail below.

[0254] "The Length of TDW"

[0255] The length of TDW can be understood as the length / duration / duration of TDW in the time domain.

[0256] It should be noted that in “Solution 1”, the length of TDW may refer to the length of the periodic TDW.

[0257] Optionally, the length of the TDW may be in absolute time units, where the absolute time units may be seconds (s), milliseconds (ms), or microseconds, for example, the length of the time domain window may be 1 ms or 1 s.

[0258] Optionally, the length of the TDW can be expressed in units of relative time. Relative time can refer to the number of system / radio frames, subframes, slots, or symbols (such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols). For example, the length of the time domain window is a number of slots or a number of symbols. The following describes the lengths of system frames, subframes, slots, and OFDM symbols, taking 5G NR as an example.

[0259] The transmission numerologies supported by 5G NR are shown in Table 1. In Table 1, μ represents the subcarrier spacing configuration of the downlink bandwidth part (DL BWP), and Δf represents the subcarrier spacing.

[0260] Table 1

[0261] In 5G NR, the length of a system frame can be 10ms. A system frame includes 10 subframes, and the length of each subframe is 1ms. For the normal cyclic prefix (NCP), the number of time slots in each system frame, the number of OFDM symbols in each time slot, and the number of time slots in each subframe are shown in Table 2. In Table 2, Indicates the number of OFDM symbols in each time slot, represents the number of time slots in each system frame under the subcarrier spacing configuration μ, represents the number of time slots in each subframe under the subcarrier spacing configuration μ. Thus, for μ=0, the length of each time slot is 1 ms, and the length of each OFDM symbol is 66.67 ms. The rest can be understood similarly.

[0262] Table 2

[0263] Optionally, the length of the TDW is pre-agreed upon by a protocol.

[0264] Optionally, the length of the TDW is explicitly configured.

[0265] For example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG4 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0266] S410: The network device sends information indicating the length of the TDW.

[0267] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0268] In this way, the length of the TDW is explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0269] For another example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG5 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0270] S510. The terminal device sends information indicating PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability.

[0271] Correspondingly, the network device receives the information.

[0272] Among them, the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes the length of the TDW supported by the terminal device.

[0273] In this way, the network device is informed of the length of the TDW supported by the network device through this information, so as to assist the network device in configuring the length of the TDW.

[0274] S520: The network device sends information indicating the lengths of multiple candidate TDWs.

[0275] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0276] In this way, the lengths of multiple candidate TDWs can be explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0277] S530: The network device sends information indicating the length of a TDW from among the lengths of a plurality of candidate TDWs.

[0278] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0279] The information may be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0280] In this way, the length of TDW can be explicitly configured through this information.

[0281] For another example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG6 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0282] S610. The terminal device sends information indicating PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability.

[0283] Correspondingly, the network device receives the information.

[0284] Among them, the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes the length of the TDW supported by the terminal device.

[0285] In this way, the network device is informed of the length of the TDW supported by the network device through this information, so as to assist the network device in configuring the length of the TDW.

[0286] S620: The network device sends information indicating a value range of the length of the TDW.

[0287] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0288] In this way, the value range of the TDW length can be explicitly configured through this information. The information can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0289] S630: The terminal device selects a TDW length from a range of values ​​for the TDW length.

[0290] In this way, the terminal device can independently select a TDW length according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0291] Optionally, the length of the TDW selected by the terminal device does not exceed the length of the TDW configured or indicated by the network.

[0292] Optionally, after S630 , the terminal device sends information indicating the length of the selected TDW, and the network device receives the information accordingly.

[0293] In this way, the length of the TDW selected by the terminal device is reported to the network device through this information, so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device. Among them, this information can be carried by MAC CE or UCI, etc.

[0294] The above description of an example of explicitly configuring the length of the TDW in conjunction with FIG4 to FIG6 describes an example of explicitly configuring the length of the TDW. This embodiment is not limited thereto. In other examples, the length of the TDW is implicitly configured.

[0295] Table 3

[0296] For example, this embodiment can establish an association / mapping relationship between the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH and the length of TDW. Among them, different numbers of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH can be associated with different lengths of TDW. As shown in Table 3, in Table 3, when the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH is 2 or 4, the length of TDW is 2 time slots, and the rest are similar. It can be seen that when the network device configures the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH to the terminal device through signaling, the terminal device can determine the length of TDW based on the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH and the above-mentioned association / mapping relationship, thereby realizing implicit configuration of the length of TDW.

[0297] For another example, this embodiment can establish an association / mapping relationship between beam / SSB and TDW length. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different TDW lengths, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different TDW lengths. Such an association / mapping relationship can be configured by the network device to the terminal device through signaling, or specified by a communication standard protocol and pre-set in the terminal device and network device.

[0298] It should be noted that in the NTN system, a satellite cell can contain multiple beams, different beams are associated with different SSB indexes, and different beams have different coverage areas. For this reason, this embodiment can establish an association relationship between the number of beams / SSBs and the length of the TDW. Assume that a cell corresponds to 8 beams (i.e., 8 SSBs), and each beam is associated with an SSB index. The association relationship / mapping relationship between the SSB index and the length of the TDW is shown in Table 4. In Table 4, the length of the TDW associated with SSB1 and SSB2 is 2 time slots, the length of the TDW associated with SSB3 and SSB4 is 4 time slots, the length of the TDW associated with SSB5 and SSB6 is 6 time slots, and the length of the TDW associated with SSB7 and SSB8 is 8 time slots. In this way, when the beam used by the terminal device is associated with SSB3, the terminal device can determine the length of the TDW based on the above association relationship / mapping association, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the TDW.

[0299] Table 4

[0300] "TDW Cycle"

[0301] The TDW period can be understood as the interval between TDWs in the time domain.

[0302] It should be noted that in “Scheme 1”, the period of TDW refers to the period of periodic TDW.

[0303] Optionally, the TDW period may be in absolute time units, where the absolute time units may be seconds (s) or milliseconds (ms), for example, the TDW period may be 10 ms or 10 s.

[0304] Optionally, the TDW period may be in units of relative time, where the relative time may refer to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols (such as OFDM symbols). For example, the TDW period may be a plurality of time slots or a plurality of symbols.

[0305] Optionally, the period of TDW is pre-agreed upon through a protocol.

[0306] Optionally, the period of TDW is explicitly configured.

[0307] For example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG7 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0308] S710: The network device sends information indicating a TDW period.

[0309] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0310] In this way, the TDW period is explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, DCI, etc.

[0311] For another example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG8 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0312] S810: The network device sends information indicating periods of multiple candidate TDWs.

[0313] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0314] In this way, the periods of multiple candidate TDWs can be explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0315] In addition, to assist the network in configuration, before the network device sends this information, the terminal device can report its own PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability to the network device. The PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes the TDW period supported by the terminal device.

[0316] S820: The network device sends information indicating a period of a TDW from among a plurality of candidate TDW periods.

[0317] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0318] In this way, the TDW period is explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0319] For another example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG9 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0320] S910: The network device sends information indicating a value range of a TDW period.

[0321] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0322] In this way, the value range of the TDW period can be explicitly configured through this information. The information can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0323] S920: The terminal device selects a TDW period from a value range of the TDW period.

[0324] In this way, the terminal device can independently select a TDW cycle according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0325] Optionally, after S920, the terminal device sends information indicating the selected TDW period, and the network device receives the information accordingly.

[0326] In this way, the period of the TDW selected by the terminal device is reported to the network device through this information, so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device. Among them, this information can be carried by MAC CE or UCI.

[0327] The above description of an example of configuring the TDW period in an explicit manner in conjunction with FIG7 to FIG9 describes this embodiment. This embodiment is not limited thereto. In other examples, the TDW period is implicitly configured.

[0328] For example, this embodiment may establish an association / mapping relationship between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH repetition transmissions, the length of the TDW, or the period of the beam and the TDW. This association / mapping relationship may be similar to Table 3 or Table 4 above and will not be described in detail.

[0329] In this way, the terminal device can determine the TDW period based on the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH, the length of TDW, or the beam and the above-mentioned association / mapping relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the TDW period.

[0330] "The starting point of TDW"

[0331] The starting position of TDW can be understood as the starting resource position of TDW in the time domain.

[0332] It should be noted that, in “Solution 1”, the starting position of TDW may refer to the starting position of the periodic TDW.

[0333] Optionally, the starting position of the TDW may be an absolute time, wherein the absolute time may be represented by universal time coordinated (UTC), China standard time (CST), or Greenwich mean time (GMT).

[0334] For example, the network device may send a signaling (such as SIB / RRC signaling / MAC CE / DCI, etc.) to the terminal device, indicating that the starting position of the TDW is 9:30:15 on January 8, 2024. In this way, the network configures the starting position of the TDW at an absolute time through signaling.

[0335] Optionally, the starting position of the TDW may be a relative time. The relative time may be a system frame number (SFN), a subframe number, a time slot number, or a symbol number. The following uses 5G NR as an example to illustrate the system frame number, subframe number, time slot number, and OFDM symbol number.

[0336] In 5G NR, system frames are numbered from 0 to 1023, one system frame consists of 10 subframes, and the subframes are numbered from 0 to 9. For a normal cyclic prefix, when μ = 0, one system frame consists of 10 time slots, and the time slots are numbered from 0 to 9, one time slot consists of 14 OFDM symbols, and the OFDM symbols are numbered from 0 to 13.

[0337] For example, the network device may send signaling (such as SIB / RRC signaling / MAC CE / DCI, etc.) to the terminal device, which indicates that the starting position of the TDW is time slot number 2 in system frame number 1. In this way, the network configures the starting position of the TDW relative to the time through signaling.

[0338] Optionally, the starting position of the TDW can be determined based on an offset, where the offset can represent the interval between a certain time domain position and the starting position of the TDW. The time domain position can be a specifically numbered system frame, a specifically numbered subframe, a specifically numbered time slot, or a specifically numbered OFDM symbol. Thus, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the TDW based on the time domain position and the offset.

[0339] It should be noted that this time domain position can satisfy one of the following conditions:

[0340] Case 1: The time domain position may be the start position of the first system frame. In this way, the terminal device may determine the start position of the TDW based on the start position of the first system frame and the offset.

[0341] Scenario 2: The time domain location can be the location where the signaling used to configure the offset is received. It is understood that the network device will send the signaling used to configure the offset to the terminal device; in return, the terminal device will receive the signaling. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting location of the TDW based on the signaling location and the offset.

[0342] Optionally, the starting position of the periodic TDW is determined according to the following formula:

[0343] (N·n f +n s -T offset )mod T TDW =0;

[0344] Where N represents the number of time units in the system frame, n f Indicates the system frame number, n s Indicates the time unit number in the system frame, T TDW represents the period of TDW, mod represents modulo, T offset Indicates the offset. Among them, n that satisfies the above formula s The time unit where the start position of the periodic TDW is located can be numbered. In this way, during the configuration process of the periodic TDW, the terminal device can determine the start position of each TDW according to the period and offset of the TDW.

[0345] It should be noted that a time unit can refer to a communication granularity in the time domain. Thus, a terminal device and a network device can communicate in the time domain using time units. For example, a time unit can be a subframe, a time slot, an OFDM symbol, or a mini-time slot, without specific limitation.

[0346] For example, taking the time unit as a time slot, when the length of a TDW is in time slots, the time slot where the starting position of each TDW is located satisfies the following formula:

[0347] in, Represents the time slot number in the system frame. The time slot number where the starting position of the TDW is located may be specified.

[0348] The following example illustrates the distribution of periodic TDWs in the time domain, using time slots as the unit of TDW length, as shown in Figure 10. In Figure 10, the offset is 2 time slots, the TDW length is 2 time slots, and the TDW period is 6 time slots. The first TDW consists of time slots 2 and 3 of system frame N, the second TDW consists of time slots 8 and 9 of system frame N, and the third TDW consists of time slots 4 and 5 of system frame N+1.

[0349] Optionally, the offset is pre-agreed upon by the protocol.

[0350] Optionally, the offset is configured explicitly.

[0351] For example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG11 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0352] S1110. The network device sends information indicating an offset.

[0353] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0354] In this way, the offset can be explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MACCE, DCI, etc.

[0355] For another example, taking the interaction between a network device and a terminal device as an example, FIG12 is a flow chart of another communication method of this embodiment, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0356] S1210. The network device sends information indicating multiple candidate offsets.

[0357] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0358] In this way, multiple candidate offsets can be explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0359] S1220. The network device sends information for indicating an offset from a plurality of candidate offsets.

[0360] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the information.

[0361] In this way, the TDW period is explicitly configured through this information, which can be carried by SIB, RRC signaling, MAC CE, or DCI.

[0362] The above description in conjunction with FIG11 or FIG12 describes an example of configuring the offset in an explicit manner. This embodiment is not limited thereto. In other examples, the offset is implicitly configured.

[0363] For example, this embodiment may establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH repetitions, the TDW length, the beam, or the TDW period and the offset. This association / mapping relationship may be similar to Table 3 or Table 4 above and will not be described in detail.

[0364] In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the number of repeated transmissions of PDCCH / PDSCH, the length of TDW, the beam, or the period of TDW and the above-mentioned association / mapping relationship, thereby realizing implicit configuration of the offset.

[0365] “Failure of Periodic TDW”

[0366] It should be noted that after the network device configures the periodic TDW for the terminal device, the network device may also indicate the invalidation of the periodic TDW to the terminal device through signaling, so that the network device and the terminal device can stop using the periodic TDW.

[0367] [Scheme 2]

[0368] In "Solution 2", this embodiment introduces aperiodic TDW, wherein the network device can configure the aperiodic TDW to the terminal device through signaling.

[0369] For example, the network device may configure the aperiodic TDW to the terminal device through system information (such as SIB), RRC signaling, MAC signaling (such as MAC CE) or DCI. In addition, the above configuration process may be completed in a process such as cell search, cell residence, cell synchronization, random access, cell handover, cell reselection, or resource scheduling.

[0370] It should be noted that Solution 2 can be applied to the NTN system. At the same time, the network equipment mentioned in Solution 2 can include access network equipment in the NTN (including non-terrestrial network gateways and satellites).

[0371] In specific implementations, during the aperiodic TDW configuration process, the network device can configure the TDW length and / or the TDW starting position to the terminal device via signaling. The TDW length and TDW starting position can be configured together via the same signaling or separately via different signaling. Details are provided below.

[0372] "The Length of TDW"

[0373] It should be noted that the details of the "TDW length" here can be found in the "TDW length" in the above "Solution 1", which will not be repeated here. In addition, the TDW length in "Solution 2" may refer to the length of the non-periodic TDW.

[0374] "The starting point of TDW"

[0375] It should be noted that, similar to the "starting position of TDW" in the above "Solution 1", the starting position of TDW can be an absolute time or a relative time, which will not be repeated here. In addition, the starting position of TDW in "Solution 2" can refer to the starting position of a non-periodic TDW.

[0376] Optionally, the starting position of the TDW can be determined based on an offset, which can represent the distance between a certain time domain position and the starting position of the TDW. The offset can be network-configured, pre-configured, or specified by a communication standard protocol. The time domain position can be a specifically numbered system frame, a specifically numbered subframe, a specifically numbered time slot, or a specifically numbered OFDM symbol. Thus, a terminal device can determine the starting position of the TDW based on the time domain position and the offset.

[0377] It should be noted that this time domain position can satisfy one of the following conditions:

[0378] Scenario 1: The time domain location may be the location where the signaling used to configure the offset is received. It is understood that the network device sends the signaling used to configure the offset to the terminal device, and the terminal device receives the signaling. The terminal device can then determine the starting location of the TDW based on the signaling location and the offset.

[0379] Scenario 2: This time domain location may be the location where the signaling indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic TDW is received. It is understood that the network device will send signaling indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic TDW to the terminal device; in return, the terminal device will receive this signaling. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting location of the TDW based on the location of the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured through other signaling or specified by the communication standard protocol.

[0380] For example, with an offset of K1 time slots, a network device sends a DCI to a terminal device indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic TDW. Correspondingly, the terminal device receives this DCI in the nth time slot. Thus, the terminal device can determine that the start position of the TDW is the n+K1th time slot.

[0381] Scenario 3: This time domain position can be the feedback position of the hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) corresponding to the signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic TDW. It can be understood that the network device will send a signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic TDW to the terminal device; correspondingly, the terminal device will feedback the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling to the network device. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the TDW based on the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured through other signaling or specified by the communication standard protocol.

[0382] For example, taking an offset of K2 time slots as an example, the network device sends a MAC CE to the terminal device, indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic TDW. In response, the terminal device feeds back the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the MAC CE in the nth time slot. In this way, the terminal device can determine that the start position of the TDW is the n+K2th time slot.

[0383] A communication method

[0384] In combination with the above content, another communication method of the embodiment of the present application is introduced as an example below. It should be noted that the terminal device can be a chip, chip module or communication module, etc., and the network device can be a chip, chip module or communication module, etc.

[0385] FIG13 is a flow chart of another communication method according to an embodiment of the present application, which specifically includes the following steps:

[0386] S1310: The network device sends time domain window information, where the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0387] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives time domain window information.

[0388] S1320: The terminal device performs downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled within the time domain window.

[0389] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0390] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform downlink channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0391] Optionally, the time domain window information includes periodic time domain window information or non-periodic time domain window information.

[0392] In this way, the present application can determine the periodic time domain window through the periodic time domain window information, so as to jointly use the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit within the periodic time domain window for channel estimation, thereby realizing periodic joint downlink channel estimation. Alternatively, the present application can determine the non-periodic time domain window through the non-periodic time domain window information, so as to jointly use the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit within the non-periodic time domain window for channel estimation, thereby realizing non-periodic joint downlink channel estimation.

[0393] Optionally, the periodic time domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window; the non-periodic time domain window information includes the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window.

[0394] In this way, the present application can determine a periodic time domain window based on the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window, so as to implement periodic joint downlink channel estimation based on the periodic time domain window. Alternatively, the present application can determine an aperiodic time domain window based on the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window, so as to implement aperiodic joint downlink channel estimation based on the aperiodic time domain window.

[0395] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is in absolute time, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds. Thus, the present application may use absolute time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0396] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is defined in units of relative time, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols.

[0397] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information.

[0398] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the length of the time domain window. In this way, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window according to the network configuration information, thereby realizing the network configuration of the length of the time domain window.

[0399] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate time domain window lengths configured by the network according to network indication information.

[0400] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate time domain window lengths for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, indicating the length of a time domain window from the multiple candidate time domain window lengths. In this way, the terminal device can determine the time domain window length based on the network indication information, enabling the network to configure the time domain window length.

[0401] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is selected by the terminal device from a first value range configured by the network, where the first value range refers to a value range within which the length of the time domain window lies.

[0402] It should be noted that the network device configures the value range of the time domain window length to the terminal device. Then, the terminal device can select a time domain window length from the value range of the master and slave time domain window lengths according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0403] Of course, the terminal device may report the length of the time domain window selected by itself to the network device so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device.

[0404] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeatedly transmitted.

[0405] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the length of the time domain window. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different time domain window lengths. Thus, when a network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the above association, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the time domain window.

[0406] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0407] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and the length of a time domain window. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different time domain window lengths, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different time domain window lengths. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the length of the time domain window based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the length of the time domain window.

[0408] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is in absolute time units, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds. Thus, the present application may use absolute time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0409] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses relative time as a unit, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols. In this way, the present application can use relative time to define the length of the time domain window.

[0410] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information.

[0411] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the period of the time domain window. In this way, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window according to the network configuration information, thereby realizing the network configuration of the period of the time domain window.

[0412] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate time domain window periods configured by the network according to network indication information.

[0413] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate time domain window periods for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, indicating the period of a time domain window from the multiple candidate time domain window periods. In this way, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the network indication information, thereby enabling the network to configure the period of the time domain window.

[0414] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is selected by the terminal device from a second value range configured by the network, and the second value range refers to the value range in which the period of the time domain window lies.

[0415] It should be noted that the network device configures the value range of the time domain window period to the terminal device. Then, the terminal device can select a time domain window period from the value range of the master and slave time domain window periods according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0416] Of course, the terminal device may report the period of the time domain window selected by itself to the network device so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device.

[0417] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeatedly transmitted.

[0418] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the period of the time domain window. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different periods of the time domain window. Thus, when the network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to the terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the above association, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0419] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the length of the time domain window.

[0420] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the length of the time domain window and the period of the time domain window. Specifically, different time domain window lengths can be associated with different time domain window periods. Thus, when a network device configures the length of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the length of the time domain window and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0421] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0422] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and a time domain window period. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different time domain window periods, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different time domain window periods. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the period of the time domain window based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the period of the time domain window.

[0423] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is an absolute time, and the absolute time is expressed in Universal Coordinated Time UTC, China Standard Time CST, or Greenwich Mean Time GMT. In this way, the present application can use the absolute time to define the starting position of the time domain window.

[0424] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is a relative time, and the relative time is represented by a system frame number, a subframe number, a time slot number, or a symbol number. In this way, the present application can use a relative time to define the starting position of the time domain window.

[0425] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is determined based on an offset, where the offset represents the interval between the first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window in the time domain, and the first time domain position uses a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

[0426] In this way, the terminal device of the present application can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the offset and the first time domain position.

[0427] Optionally, the first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the starting position of the first system frame and the offset.

[0428] Optionally, the first time domain location is a reception location of a signaling message for configuring the offset. It will be appreciated that the network device will send a signaling message for configuring the offset to the terminal device, and the terminal device will receive the signaling message in response. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting location of the time domain window based on the reception location of the signaling message and the offset.

[0429] Optionally, the first time domain location is the location where signaling indicating the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window is received. It will be appreciated that the network device will send signaling indicating the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window to the terminal device, and the terminal device will receive the signaling in response. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window based on the location of the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured via other signaling or specified in a communication standard protocol.

[0430] Optionally, the first time domain position is the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window. It is understandable that the network device will send signaling for indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window to the terminal device; correspondingly, the terminal device will feedback the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling to the network device. In this way, the terminal device can determine the starting position of the time domain window based on the feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling and the offset. The offset is configured through other signaling or specified by the communication standard protocol.

[0431] Optionally, the starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula:

[0432] (N·n f +n s -T offset )mod T=0;

[0433] Where N represents the number of time units in the system frame, n f Indicates the system frame number, ns Indicates the time unit number in the system frame, T indicates the period of the time domain window, mod indicates modulo, T offset Indicates the offset.

[0434] In this way, the terminal device of the present application can determine the starting position of the time domain window according to the offset and the period of the time domain window.

[0435] Optionally, the offset is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information.

[0436] It should be noted that the network device can send network configuration information to the terminal device, and the network configuration information is used to configure the offset. In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the network configuration information to implement the network configuration offset.

[0437] Optionally, the offset is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate offsets configured in the network according to network indication information.

[0438] It should be noted that the network device configures multiple candidate offsets for the terminal device and then sends network indication information to the terminal device, where the network indication information indicates an offset from the multiple candidate offsets. In this way, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the network indication information, thereby implementing network configuration of the offset.

[0439] Optionally, the offset is selected by the terminal device from a third value range of the network configuration, and the third value range refers to the value range in which the offset is located.

[0440] It should be noted that the network device will configure the value range of the offset to the terminal device. Then, the terminal device can select an offset from the value range of the master and slave offsets according to its own capabilities or needs.

[0441] Of course, the terminal device may report the offset selected by itself to the network device so that the network device can learn the selection result of the terminal device.

[0442] Optionally, the offset is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeatedly transmitted.

[0443] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and an offset. Different numbers of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the number of PDCCH / PDSCH retransmissions and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0444] Optionally, the offset is associated with the length of the time domain window.

[0445] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the length of the time domain window and the offset. Different time domain window lengths can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the length of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the time domain window length and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0446] Optionally, the offset is associated with a period of the time domain window.

[0447] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association between the period of the time domain window and the offset. Specifically, different time domain window periods can be associated with different offsets. Thus, when a network device configures the period of the time domain window to a terminal device via signaling, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the period of the time domain window and the aforementioned association, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0448] Optionally, the offset is associated with a beam or SSB.

[0449] It should be noted that the present application can establish an association relationship between a beam / SSB and an offset. Different beams / SSBs can be associated with different offsets, or different beam groups / SSB groups can be associated with different offsets. In this way, when a terminal device uses a certain beam or SSB, the terminal device can determine the offset based on the beam or SSB and the above association relationship, thereby implicitly configuring the offset.

[0450] Optionally, the carrier used to carry the PDCCH / PDSCH within the time domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0451] It should be noted that the carrier sent by the network device within the time domain window for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity, or the terminal device can assume that the carrier sent by the network device within the time domain window for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0452] Optionally, in S1320, downlink channel estimation is performed based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, including: when the quality of the received signal of the terminal device is less than a preset threshold, downlink channel estimation is performed based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window.

[0453] It should be noted that some terminal devices may need to perform joint downlink channel estimation, while other terminal devices may not need to perform joint downlink channel estimation. This is because, for terminal devices with poor channel quality between them and network devices (such as the quality of the terminal device's received signal (such as RSRP, RSRQ or SINR, etc.) is less than a preset threshold), these terminal devices cannot obtain accurate downlink channel information due to the poor channel quality, so these terminal devices may need to perform joint downlink channel estimation; however, for terminal devices with good channel quality between them and network devices (such as the quality of the terminal device's received signal is greater than a preset threshold), these terminal devices can obtain accurate downlink channel information due to the good channel quality, so these terminal devices may not need to perform joint downlink channel estimation.

[0454] In this way, when the received signal quality is less than the preset threshold, this indicates that there is poor channel quality between the terminal device and the network device, so that the terminal device can perform joint downlink channel estimation based on the time domain window information to obtain more accurate downlink channel information.

[0455] Optionally, before S1310, the terminal device sends information indicating PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability, where the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device.

[0456] Correspondingly, the network device receives the information.

[0457] In this way, this information is used to inform the network device of the length of the TDW supported by itself, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, so as to assist the network device in configuring the length of the TDW, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the domain window.

[0458] The above mainly introduces the solution of the embodiment of the present application from the perspective of the method side. The following is an example of the functional unit of a communication device of this embodiment. It can be understood that in order to implement the above functions, the terminal device includes a hardware structure and / or software module corresponding to the execution of each function. It should be easy for those skilled in the art to realize that, in combination with the units and algorithm steps of each example described in the embodiment disclosed in this document, this embodiment can be implemented in the form of hardware or a combination of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is executed in the form of hardware or computer software driving hardware depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered to be beyond the scope of this embodiment.

[0459] The embodiments of the present application can divide the terminal device into functional units according to the above method examples. For example, each functional unit can be divided according to each function, or two or more functions can be integrated into one processing unit. The above integrated unit can be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of a software program module. It should be noted that the division of units in the embodiments of the present application is schematic and is only a logical functional division. In actual implementation, other division methods can be used.

[0460] In the case of using integrated units, FIG14 is a block diagram of functional units of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application, wherein the communication device 1400 includes a receiving unit 1401 and an estimating unit 1402 .

[0461] Optionally, the receiving unit 1401 may be a module unit for receiving and processing signals, information, etc., and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0462] Optionally, the estimation unit 1402 may be a module unit for performing joint downlink channel estimation, which is not specifically limited.

[0463] Optionally, the communication device 1400 may further include a storage unit for storing computer program codes or instructions executed by the communication device 1400. The storage unit may be a memory.

[0464] Optionally, the communication device 1400 may be a chip or a chip module.

[0465] Optionally, the receiving unit 1401 and the estimating unit 1402 may be integrated into the same unit or into different units.

[0466] For example, the receiving unit 1401 may be integrated into a communication unit, and the estimating unit 1402 may be integrated into a processing unit. The communication unit may be a communication interface, a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, or the like.

[0467] For another example, the receiving unit 1401 and the estimating unit 1402 may be integrated into a processing unit.

[0468] It should be noted that the processing unit can be a processor or controller, for example, a baseband processor, a baseband chip, a central processing unit (CPU), a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, a transistor logic device, a hardware component or any combination thereof. It can implement or execute the various exemplary logic blocks, modules and circuits described in conjunction with the disclosure of this embodiment. The processing unit can also be a combination that implements computing functions, such as a combination of one or more microprocessors, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, etc.

[0469] Optionally, the communication device 1400 is used to execute any step performed by the terminal device / chip / chip module, etc. in the above method embodiment.

[0470] In specific implementation, the receiving unit 1401 and the estimating unit 1402 are used to execute any step in the above method embodiment, and when executing an action such as sending, other units may be selectively called to complete the corresponding operation.

[0471] The receiving unit 1401 is configured to receive time domain window information, where the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling;

[0472] The estimation unit 1402 is configured to perform downlink channel estimation according to the bundled PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS within the time domain window.

[0473] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0474] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform downlink channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0475] It should be noted that the specific implementation of each operation in the embodiment described in FIG14 can be found in the description of the method embodiment shown above, and will not be described in detail here.

[0476] Optionally, the time domain window information includes periodic time domain window information or non-periodic time domain window information.

[0477] Optionally, the periodic time domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window; the non-periodic time domain window information includes the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window.

[0478] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is expressed in absolute time units, where the absolute time is seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds.

[0479] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is expressed in units of relative time, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols.

[0480] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information, or is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate time domain window lengths configured in the network based on network indication information, or is selected by the terminal device from a first value range configured in the network, where the first value range refers to the value range of the length of the time domain window.

[0481] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeatedly transmitted; or,

[0482] The length of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0483] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses absolute time as a unit, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds.

[0484] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses relative time as a unit, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, the number of subframes, the number of time slots, or the number of symbols.

[0485] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information, or is determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate time domain window periods configured in the network based on network indication information, or is selected by the terminal device from a second value range configured in the network, where the second value range refers to the value range in which the period of the time domain window is located.

[0486] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of the PDCCH / PDSCH; or,

[0487] The period of the time domain window is related to the length of the time domain window; or,

[0488] The period of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0489] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is an absolute time, and the absolute time is expressed in Universal Coordinated Time UTC, China Standard Time CST, or Greenwich Mean Time GMT.

[0490] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is a relative time, and the relative time is represented by a system frame number, a subframe number, a time slot number, or a symbol number.

[0491] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is determined based on an offset, where the offset represents the interval between the first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window in the time domain, and the first time domain position uses a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

[0492] Optionally, the first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame; or,

[0493] The first time domain position is a receiving position of a signaling for configuring an offset; or,

[0494] The first time domain position is a reception position of a signaling indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window; or,

[0495] The first time domain position is a feedback position of the HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window.

[0496] Optionally, the offset is determined by the terminal device based on network configuration information, or determined by the terminal device from multiple candidate offsets of the network configuration based on network indication information, or selected by the terminal device from a third value range of the network configuration, where the third value range refers to the value range of the offset.

[0497] Optionally, the starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula:

[0498] (N·n f+n s -T offset )mod T=0;

[0499] Where N represents the number of time units in the system frame, n f Indicates the system frame number, n s Indicates the time unit number in the system frame, T indicates the period of the time domain window, mod indicates modulo, T offset Indicates the offset. Optionally, the offset is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeated; or,

[0500] The offset is related to the length of the time domain window; or,

[0501] The offset is related to the period of the time domain window; or,

[0502] The offset is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0503] Optionally, the carrier used to carry the PDCCH / PDSCH within the time domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0504] Optionally, in performing joint downlink channel estimation based on time domain window information, the estimating unit 1402 is configured to:

[0505] When the quality of the received signal is less than a preset threshold, downlink channel estimation is performed based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled within the time domain window.

[0506] Optionally, the communication device 1400 further includes a sending unit;

[0507] A sending unit is used to send information indicating PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability, where the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device.

[0508] The above mainly introduces the solution of the embodiment of the present application from the perspective of the method side. The following is an example of the functional unit of another communication device of this embodiment. It can be understood that in order to implement the above functions, the network device includes a hardware structure and / or software module corresponding to the execution of each function. It should be easily appreciated by those skilled in the art that, in combination with the units and algorithm steps of each example described in the embodiment disclosed herein, this embodiment can be implemented in the form of hardware or a combination of hardware and computer software. Whether a function is executed in the form of hardware or computer software driving hardware depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered to be beyond the scope of this embodiment.

[0509] The embodiments of the present application can divide the network device into functional units according to the above-mentioned method examples. For example, each functional unit can be divided according to each function, or two or more functions can be integrated into a processing unit. The above-mentioned integrated unit can be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of a software program module. It should be noted that the division of units in the embodiments of the present application is schematic and is only a logical functional division. In actual implementation, other division methods can be used.

[0510] In the case of using integrated units, FIG15 is a block diagram of functional units of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application, wherein the communication device 1500 includes a sending unit 1501 .

[0511] Optionally, the sending unit 1501 may be a module unit for sending and processing signals, information, etc., and there is no specific limitation on this.

[0512] Optionally, the communication device 1500 may further include a storage unit for storing computer program codes or instructions executed by the communication device 1500. The storage unit may be a memory.

[0513] Optionally, the communication device 1500 may be a chip or a chip module.

[0514] Optionally, the sending unit 1501 may be integrated into a communication unit, wherein the communication unit may be a communication interface, a transceiver, a transceiver circuit, etc.

[0515] Optionally, the sending unit 1501 may be integrated into the processing unit.

[0516] It should be noted that the processing unit can be a processor or controller, for example, a baseband processor, a baseband chip, a central processing unit (CPU), a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, a transistor logic device, a hardware component or any combination thereof. It can implement or execute the various exemplary logic blocks, modules and circuits described in conjunction with the disclosure of this embodiment. The processing unit can also be a combination that implements computing functions, such as a combination of one or more microprocessors, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, etc.

[0517] Optionally, the communication device 1500 is used to execute any step executed by the chip / chip module / network device, etc. in the above method embodiment.

[0518] In specific implementation, the sending unit 1501 is used to execute any step in the above method embodiment, and when executing an action such as sending, it can selectively call other units to complete the corresponding operation. Detailed description is given below.

[0519] The sending unit 1501 is configured to send time domain window information, where the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0520] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0521] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform downlink channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0522] It should be noted that the specific implementation of each operation in the embodiment described in Figure 15 can be found in the description of the method embodiment shown above, and will not be detailed here.

[0523] Optionally, the time domain window information includes periodic time domain window information or non-periodic time domain window information.

[0524] Optionally, the periodic time domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window; the non-periodic time domain window information includes the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window.

[0525] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is expressed in absolute time units, where the absolute time is seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds.

[0526] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is expressed in units of relative time, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, subframes, time slots, or symbols.

[0527] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is configured by the network device, or is indicated by the network device from a plurality of configured candidate time domain window lengths.

[0528] Optionally, the length of the time domain window is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeatedly transmitted; or,

[0529] The length of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0530] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses absolute time as a unit, where absolute time refers to seconds, milliseconds, or microseconds.

[0531] Optionally, the period of the time domain window uses relative time as a unit, where relative time refers to the number of system frames, the number of subframes, the number of time slots, or the number of symbols.

[0532] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is configured by the network device, or is indicated by the network device from among multiple configured candidate time domain window periods.

[0533] Optionally, the period of the time domain window is associated with the number of repeated transmissions of the PDCCH / PDSCH; or,

[0534] The period of the time domain window is related to the length of the time domain window; or,

[0535] The period of the time domain window is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0536] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is an absolute time, and the absolute time is expressed in Universal Coordinated Time UTC, China Standard Time CST, or Greenwich Mean Time GMT.

[0537] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is a relative time, and the relative time is represented by a system frame number, a subframe number, a time slot number, or a symbol number.

[0538] Optionally, the starting position of the time domain window is determined based on an offset, where the offset represents the interval between the first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window in the time domain, and the first time domain position uses a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

[0539] Optionally, the first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame; or,

[0540] The first time domain position is a receiving position of a signaling for configuring an offset; or,

[0541] The first time domain position is a reception position of a signaling indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window; or,

[0542] The first time domain position is a feedback position of a hybrid automatic repeat request acknowledgement HARQ-ACK corresponding to the signaling indicating the start or restart of the non-periodic time domain window.

[0543] Optionally, the starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula:

[0544] (N·n f +n s -T offset )mod T=0;

[0545] Where N represents the number of time units in the system frame, n f Indicates the system frame number, n s Indicates the time unit number in the system frame, T indicates the period of the time domain window, mod indicates modulo, T offset Indicates an offset. Optionally, the offset is configured by the network device, or the network device indicates it from multiple configured candidate offsets.

[0546] Optionally, the offset is associated with the number of times the PDCCH / PDSCH is repeatedly transmitted; or,

[0547] The offset is related to the length of the time domain window; or,

[0548] The offset is related to the period of the time domain window; or,

[0549] The offset is associated with the beam or SSB.

[0550] Optionally, the carrier used to carry the PDCCH / PDSCH within the time domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

[0551] Optionally, the communication device 1500 further includes a receiving unit;

[0552] A receiving unit is used to receive information indicating PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability, where the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device.

[0553] The following is an example of the structure of a terminal device in this embodiment.

[0554] Please refer to Figure 16, which is a schematic diagram of the structure of a terminal device according to an embodiment of the present application. The terminal device 1600 may include a processor 1610, a memory 1620, and a communication bus for connecting the processor 1610 and the memory 1620.

[0555] Optionally, the memory 1620 includes but is not limited to random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) or portable read-only memory (CD-ROM), and the memory 1620 is used to store the program code executed by the terminal device 1600 and the transmitted data.

[0556] Optionally, the terminal device 1600 further includes a communication interface for receiving and sending data.

[0557] Optionally, the terminal device 1600 may be the first terminal device mentioned above.

[0558] Optionally, the processor 1610 may be one or more CPUs. When the processor 1610 is a CPU, the CPU may be a single-core CPU or a multi-core CPU.

[0559] Optionally, the processor 1610 may be a baseband chip, a chip, a CPU, a general-purpose processor, a DSP, an ASIC, an FPGA or other programmable logic device, a transistor logic device, a hardware component or any combination thereof.

[0560] In a specific implementation, the processor 1610 in the terminal device 1600 is configured to execute the computer program or instruction 1621 stored in the memory 1620 to perform the following operations:

[0561] Receive time domain window information, which is used to determine the time domain window for PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling;

[0562] Downlink channel estimation is performed based on the bundled PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS within the time domain window.

[0563] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0564] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform downlink channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0565] It should be noted that the specific implementation of each operation can adopt the corresponding description of the method embodiment shown above, and the terminal device 1600 can be used to execute the above method embodiment of this embodiment, which will not be repeated here.

[0566] The following is an example of the structure of a network device in this embodiment.

[0567] Please refer to Figure 17, which is a schematic diagram of the structure of a network device provided in an embodiment of the present application. In particular, the network device 1700 includes a processor 1710, a memory 1720, and a communication bus for connecting the processor 1710 and the memory 1720.

[0568] Optionally, the memory 1720 includes but is not limited to RAM, ROM, EPROM or CD-ROM, and the memory 1720 is used to store relevant instructions and data.

[0569] Optionally, the network device 1700 further includes a communication interface for receiving and sending data.

[0570] Optionally, the processor 1710 may be one or more CPUs. In the case where the processor 1710 is a CPU, the CPU may be a single-core CPU or a multi-core CPU.

[0571] Optionally, the processor 1710 may be a baseband chip, a chip, a CPU, a general-purpose processor, a DSP, an ASIC, an FPGA or other programmable logic device, a transistor logic device, a hardware component or any combination thereof.

[0572] Optionally, the processor 1710 in the network device 1700 is configured to execute a computer program or instruction 1721 stored in the memory 1720 to perform the following operations:

[0573] The time domain window information is sent, and the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window information of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling.

[0574] It can be seen that since some communication systems may have limited downlink coverage, the present application can introduce a time domain window for bundling PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS, and treat the time units within the time domain window as the same group, and the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units within the same group can be bundled together for channel estimation, while the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS of the time units between groups are not bundled.

[0575] In this way, the present application can determine the time domain window of the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundle through the time domain window information, so as to perform downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled in the time domain window, that is, jointly utilize the DM-RS of the PDCCH / PDSCH of the time unit in the time domain window to perform downlink channel estimation, thereby realizing joint downlink channel estimation, so as to obtain more accurate downlink channel information through joint downlink channel estimation, improve the demodulation performance of the downlink signal, improve the downlink transmission quality, and ultimately achieve downlink coverage enhancement.

[0576] It should be noted that the specific implementation of each operation can adopt the corresponding description of the method embodiment shown above, and the network device 1700 can be used to execute the above method embodiment of this embodiment, which will not be repeated here.

[0577] Other relevant contents of this embodiment are described below with examples.

[0578] Optionally, the above method embodiments may be applied to or within a terminal device. In other words, the execution subject of the above method embodiments may be a terminal device, a chip, a chip module, or a module, etc., without any specific limitation.

[0579] Optionally, the above method embodiment can be applied to or in a network device. In other words, the execution subject of the above method embodiment can be a network device, a chip, a chip module or a module, etc., without specific limitation.

[0580] An embodiment of the present application also provides a chip, including a processor, a memory, and a computer program or instructions stored in the memory, wherein the processor executes the computer program or instructions to implement the steps described in the above method embodiment.

[0581] An embodiment of the present application also provides a chip module, including a transceiver component and a chip, wherein the chip includes a processor, a memory, and a computer program or instructions stored on the memory, wherein the processor executes the computer program or instructions to implement the steps described in the above method embodiment.

[0582] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program or instructions, which implements the steps described in the above method embodiment when executed.

[0583] An embodiment of the present application further provides a computer program product, including a computer program or instructions, which implement the steps described in the above method embodiment when executed.

[0584] An embodiment of the present application also provides a communication system, including the above-mentioned terminal device and the above-mentioned network device.

[0585] It should be noted that, for the above-mentioned various embodiments, for the sake of simplicity of description, they are all expressed as a series of action combinations. Those skilled in the art should know that this application is not limited by the order of the actions described, because some steps in the embodiments of the present application can be performed in other orders or simultaneously. In addition, those skilled in the art should also know that the embodiments described in the specification are all preferred embodiments, and the actions, steps, modules or units involved are not necessarily required by the embodiments of the present application.

[0586] In the above embodiments, the embodiments of the present application have different focuses on the description of each embodiment. For parts that are not described in detail in a certain embodiment, please refer to the relevant description of other embodiments.

[0587] The steps of the method or algorithm described in the embodiments of the present application can be implemented in hardware or by a processor executing software instructions. The software instructions can be composed of corresponding software modules, which can be stored in RAM, flash memory, ROM, EPROM, electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), registers, hard disks, mobile hard disks, CD-ROMs, or any other form of storage medium well known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor so that the processor can read information from the storage medium and write information to the storage medium. Of course, the storage medium can also be an integral part of the processor. The processor and storage medium can be located in an ASIC. In addition, the ASIC can be located in a terminal device or a management device. Of course, the processor and storage medium can also be present in a terminal device or a management device as discrete components.

[0588] Those skilled in the art will appreciate that in one or more of the above examples, the functions described in the embodiments of the present application can be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented using software, they can be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer program instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, the processes or functions described in the embodiments of the present application are generated in whole or in part. The computer can be a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable device. The computer instructions can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium. For example, the computer instructions can be transmitted from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center via a wired (e.g., coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital subscriber line (DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) method. The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server or data center that includes one or more available media integrated therein. The available medium may be a magnetic medium (eg, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a magnetic tape), an optical medium (eg, a digital video disc (DVD)), or a semiconductor medium (eg, a solid state disk (SSD)).

[0589] The modules / units included in the devices and products described in the above embodiments may be software modules / units, hardware modules / units, or partly software modules / units and partly hardware modules / units. For example, for the devices and products applied to or integrated in the chip, the modules / units included therein may all be implemented in the form of hardware such as circuits, or at least part of the modules / units may be implemented in the form of software programs, which run on the processor integrated inside the chip, and the remaining (if any) modules / units may be implemented in the form of hardware such as circuits; for the devices and products applied to or integrated in the chip module, the modules / units included therein may all be implemented in the form of hardware such as circuits, and different modules / units may be located in the same component (such as chip, circuit module, etc.) or different components of the chip module, or at least part of the modules / units may be It is implemented in the form of a software program, which runs on the processor integrated inside the chip module, and the remaining (if any) modules / units can be implemented in the form of hardware such as circuits; for various devices and products applied to or integrated in the terminal equipment, the various modules / units contained therein can be implemented in the form of hardware such as circuits, and different modules / units can be located in the same component (for example, chip, circuit module, etc.) or different components in the terminal equipment, or, at least some modules / units can be implemented in the form of a software program, which runs on the processor integrated inside the terminal equipment, and the remaining (if any) modules / units can be implemented in the form of hardware such as circuits.

[0590] The specific implementation methods described above further illustrate the purpose, technical solutions and beneficial effects of the embodiments of the present application. It should be understood that the above description is only a specific implementation method of the embodiments of the present application and is not intended to limit the scope of protection of the embodiments of the present application. Any modifications, equivalent replacements, improvements, etc. made on the basis of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application should be included in the scope of protection of the embodiments of the present application.

Claims

1. A communication method, characterized in that, Applied to a non-terrestrial communication network system, the non-terrestrial communication network system includes a terminal device and a network device, and the method is executed by the terminal device. The method includes: The terminal device receives time domain window information from the network device, and the time domain window information is used to determine the time domain window in which the demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) of the physical downlink control channel / physical downlink shared channel (PDCCH / PDSCH) is bundled; The terminal device performs downlink channel estimation based on the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundled within the time domain window.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein The time domain window information includes periodic time domain window information or aperiodic time domain window information.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein The periodic time domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window, the period of the time domain window, or the starting position of the time domain window; The aperiodic time domain window information includes the length of the time domain window and / or the starting position of the time domain window.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein The length of the time domain window is selected by the terminal device from a first value range configured by the network, and the first value range refers to the value range in which the length of the time domain window is located.

5. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that, The length of the time domain window has an associated relationship with the number of times of PDCCH / PDSCH repeated transmission, and the associated relationship between the length of the time domain window and the number of times of PDCCH / PDSCH repeated transmission is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocol; or, The length of the time domain window has an associated relationship with a beam or a synchronization signal block (SSB), and the associated relationship between the length of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocol.

6. The method according to claim 3, wherein The period of the time domain window is selected by the terminal device from a second value range configured by the network, and the second value range refers to the value range in which the period of the time domain window is located.

7. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that, The period of the time domain window has an associated relationship with the number of times of PDCCH / PDSCH repeated transmission, and the associated relationship between the period of the time domain window and the number of times of PDCCH / PDSCH repeated transmission is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocol; or, The period of the time domain window has an associated relationship with the length of the time domain window, and the associated relationship between the period of the time domain window and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocol; or, The period of the time domain window has an associated relationship with a beam or an SSB, and the associated relationship between the period of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocol.

8. The method according to claim 3, wherein The starting position of the time domain window is determined according to an offset, and the offset represents the interval between a first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window in the time domain. The first time domain position is represented by a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein The first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame; or, The first time domain position is the receiving position of the signaling used to configure the offset; or, The first time domain position is the receiving position of the signaling used to indicate the start or restart of the aperiodic time domain window; or, The first time-domain position is the feedback position of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) corresponding to a signaling for indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic time-domain window.

10. The method according to claim 3, characterized in that The starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula: (N·n f +n s -T offset ) mod T = 0; Wherein, N represents the number of time units in a system frame, and n f represents the system frame number, and n s represents the time unit number in the system frame, T represents the period of the time domain window, mod represents taking the modulus, and T offset represents the offset.

11. The method according to claim 8 or 10, characterized in that, The offset is selected by the terminal device from a third value range configured by the network, where the third value range refers to the value range in which the offset is located.

12. The method according to claim 8 or 10, characterized in that, The offset has an associated relationship with the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission, and the associated relationship between the offset and the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission is configured by the network, pre-configured, or specified by a protocol; or, The offset has an associated relationship with the length of the time-domain window, and the associated relationship between the offset and the length of the time-domain window is configured by the network, pre-configured, or specified by a communication standard protocol; or, The offset has an associated relationship with the period of the time-domain window, and the associated relationship between the offset and the period of the time-domain window is configured by the network, pre-configured, or specified by a communication standard protocol; or, The offset has an associated relationship with a beam or Synchronization Signal Block (SSB), and the associated relationship between the offset and the beam or SSB is configured by the network, pre-configured, or specified by a communication standard protocol.

13. The method according to any one of claims 1-12, characterized in that, The carrier for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH within the time-domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

14. The method according to any one of claims 1-13, characterized in that, The terminal device receives time-domain window information from the network device, including: The terminal device receives the time-domain window information when the quality of the signal received from the network device is less than a preset threshold.

15. The method according to any one of claims 1-14, characterized in that, The terminal device performs downlink channel estimation based on the Demodulation Reference Signal (DM-RS) of PDCCH / PDSCH bundled within the time-domain window, including: The terminal device performs downlink channel estimation based on the DM-RS of PDCCH / PDSCH bundled within the time-domain window when the quality of the signal received from the network device is less than a preset threshold.

16. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 15, characterized in that, Before the terminal device receives the time-domain window information from the network device, it further includes: The terminal device sends information for indicating the bundling capability of PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS to the network device, and the bundling capability of PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS includes at least one of the following: the length of the time-domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time-domain window supported by the terminal device, or the start position of the time-domain window supported by the terminal device.

17. A communication method, characterized in that, Applied to a non-terrestrial communication network system, the non-terrestrial communication network system includes a terminal device and a network device, and the method is executed by the network device; the method includes: The network device sends time-domain window information to the terminal device, and the time-domain window information is used to determine the time-domain window in which the Demodulation Reference Signal (DM-RS) of the Physical Downlink Control Channel / Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDCCH / PDSCH) is bundled.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein The time-domain window information includes periodic time-domain window information or aperiodic time-domain window information.

19. The method according to claim 18, characterized in that, The periodic time-domain window information includes at least one of the following: the length of the time-domain window, the period of the time-domain window, or the start position of the time-domain window; The aperiodic time-domain window information includes the length of the time-domain window and / or the start position of the time-domain window.

20. The method according to claim 19, wherein The length of the time domain window is configured by the network device, or is indicated by the network device from among the lengths of multiple candidate time domain windows configured.

21. The method according to claim 19, wherein The length of the time domain window has an associated relationship with the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission. The associated relationship between the length of the time domain window and the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols; or, The length of the time domain window has an associated relationship with a beam or a Synchronization Signal Block (SSB). The associated relationship between the length of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols.

22. The method according to claim 19, wherein The period of the time domain window is configured by the network device, or is indicated by the network device from among the periods of multiple candidate time domain windows configured.

23. The method according to claim 19, wherein The period of the time domain window has an associated relationship with the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission. The associated relationship between the period of the time domain window and the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols; or, The period of the time domain window has an associated relationship with the length of the time domain window. The associated relationship between the period of the time domain window and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols; or, The period of the time domain window has an associated relationship with a beam or SSB. The associated relationship between the period of the time domain window and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols.

24. The method according to claim 19, wherein The starting position of the time domain window is determined according to an offset. The offset represents the interval in the time domain between a first time domain position and the starting position of the time domain window. The first time domain position is represented by a system frame with a specific number, a subframe with a specific number, a time slot with a specific number, or an OFDM symbol with a specific number.

25. The method according to claim 24, characterized in that The first time domain position is the starting position of the first system frame; or, The first time domain position is the receiving position of a signaling for indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic time domain window; or, The first time domain position is the feedback position of a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) corresponding to a signaling for indicating the start or restart of an aperiodic time domain window.

26. The method according to claim 19, wherein The starting position of the periodic time domain window is determined according to the following formula: (N·n f +n s -T offset ) mod T = 0; where N represents the number of time units in a system frame, n f represents the system frame number, n s represents the time unit number in the system frame, T represents the period of the time domain window, mod represents taking the modulus, T offset represents the offset.

27. The method according to claim 24 or 26, characterized in that The offset is configured by the network device, or is indicated by the network device from among multiple candidate offsets configured.

28. The method according to claim 24 or 26, characterized in that, The offset has an associated relationship with the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission. The associated relationship between the offset and the number of repetitions of PDCCH / PDSCH transmission is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols; or, The offset has an associated relationship with the length of the time domain window. The associated relationship between the offset and the length of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols; or, The offset has an associated relationship with the period of the time domain window. The associated relationship between the offset and the period of the time domain window is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocols; or, The offset has an association relationship with the beam or SSB, and the association relationship between the offset and the beam or SSB is specified by network configuration, pre-configuration, or communication standard protocol.

29. The method according to any one of claims 17-28, characterized in that, The carrier for carrying PDCCH / PDSCH within the time domain window meets the requirements of power consistency and phase continuity.

30. The method according to any one of claims 17-29, characterized in that, Before the network device sends the time domain window information to the terminal device, it further includes: The network device receives, from the terminal device, information for indicating the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability, where the PDCCH / PDSCH DM-RS bundling capability includes at least one of the following: the length of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, the period of the time domain window supported by the terminal device, or the starting position of the time domain window supported by the terminal device.

31. A terminal device, comprising a processor, a memory, and a computer program or instruction stored on the memory, characterized in that, The processor executes the computer program or instruction to implement the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1-16.

32. A network device, comprising a processor, a memory, and a computer program or instruction stored on the memory, characterized in that, The processor executes the computer program or instruction to implement the steps of the method according to any one of claims 17-30.

33. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, It stores a computer program or instruction, and when the computer program or instruction is executed, the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1-30 are executed.

34. A computer program product comprising a computer program or instructions, characterized in that, When the computer program or instruction is executed, the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1-30 are executed.

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