Communication method and apparatus, and storage medium

Abstract

Provided in the embodiments of the present application are a communication method and apparatus, and a storage medium. The method comprises: a network device sending to a terminal device information indicating a region or beam where the terminal device executes measurement, and / or cell re-selection, and / or a handover, such that on the basis of a region where the terminal device is located, and the information of the region or beam where the terminal device executes measurement, and / or cell re-selection, and / or a handover, the terminal device can determine whether the terminal device needs to execute measurement, and / or cell re-selection, and / or a handover in different regions.

Description

Communication method, apparatus, and storage medium

[0001] This application claims priority from the Chinese patent application No. 202410253272.6 filed on March 5, 2024, and entitled "Communication method, apparatus, and storage medium", the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] Embodiments of the present application relate to the field of communication technology, in particular to a communication method, apparatus and storage medium. BACKGROUND

[0003] Currently, terminal devices involve cell reselection measurement, cell reselection and / or handover operations in a communication system, and terminal devices involve beam measurement operations in a cell to ensure the quality monitoring of the terminal device to the cell and support the mobility of the terminal device in the cell. However, when the terminal device is located in a satellite communication system, since the satellite service area of the satellite communication system is much larger than the ground base station service area of the ground communication system, and in the satellite communication system, as the satellite position moves continuously, the satellite service area also moves continuously. Therefore, the above-mentioned features of the satellite communication system can cause the terminal device to have difficulty in performing cell reselection measurement, cell reselection and / or handover, beam measurement and the like, and there are problems such as low accuracy of cell reselection measurement, cell reselection and / or handover, and large beam measurement overhead of the terminal device.

[0004] Therefore, how to better support the terminal device to perform cell reselection measurement, cell reselection and / or handover, and / or beam measurement of the terminal device is a problem to be solved. SUMMARY

[0005] Embodiments of the present application provide a communication method, apparatus and storage medium, which can better support the terminal device to perform cell reselection measurement, cell reselection and / or handover, and / or beam measurement of the terminal device.

[0006] In a first aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a communication method, which can be executed by a first apparatus. The first apparatus can be a terminal device or a component (such as a chip or a chip system) inside the terminal device. Hereinafter, the method executed by the terminal device is taken as an example for description.

[0007] The method comprises: receiving, by the terminal device, first information, wherein the first information is used to indicate information of performing measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover by the terminal device, and the information is information corresponding to a service cell area or a service cell beam of the terminal device; and determining, by the terminal device, whether to perform measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover according to the first information.

[0008] According to the above scheme, the terminal device can determine the information corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located according to the method of the terminal device performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the information corresponding to the different areas in the serving cell, and determine whether to start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover according to the information, thereby improving the problem that the accuracy of the terminal device to determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover is low due to the irregularity of the edge of the serving cell. For cell reselection measurement, the method can ensure that the terminal device starts measurement on the neighboring cell only when it reaches the edge of the coverage of the serving cell or the coverage of the neighboring cell is close, avoids the terminal device from measuring on the neighboring cell that is not around, and reduces unnecessary measurement overhead of the terminal device. On the other hand, the method can ensure that the terminal device can start measurement on the neighboring cell in time when the coverage of the neighboring cell is close, to support the subsequent judgment of cell reselection in time and guarantee the mobility performance. For cell reselection and / or handover, the method can ensure that the terminal device considers reselection / handover to the neighboring cell only when it is located in the coverage of the neighboring cell, to avoid the terminal device from performing reselection / handover too early and causing reselection / handover failure. On the other hand, the method can ensure that the terminal device can perform reselection / handover in time to change to a suitable cell when it is far away from the coverage of the serving cell and has reached the coverage of the neighboring cell, to guarantee the mobility performance.

[0009] Optionally, the first information includes a distance threshold; and the determining, according to the first information, whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover includes determining, according to the distance threshold, whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0010] Optionally, the determining, according to the distance threshold, whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover includes: if the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold, determining that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover; or, if the difference between the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell and the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold, determining that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0011] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate the correspondence between the first area or the first beam and the distance threshold, the first area is a part of the area in the serving cell, and the first beam is a beam of the serving cell.

[0012] Optionally, the information corresponding to the beam of the serving cell is the information corresponding to a beam set of the serving cell, and the beam set includes one or more beams.

[0013] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst set).

[0014] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a distance threshold corresponding to a second beam of the serving cell; and the receiving the first information comprises receiving the first information through the second beam.

[0015] Optionally, the distance threshold comprises a first distance threshold for triggering measurement, and / or a second distance threshold for performing cell reselection, and / or a third distance threshold for performing handover.

[0016] According to the above scheme, the terminal device determines the distance threshold corresponding to the region in which the terminal device is located through the method that different regions in the serving cell correspond to different distance thresholds, and determines whether to start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover according to the distance threshold. Through the method that different regions correspond to different distance thresholds, the problem that a single distance threshold affects the accuracy of the determination of the terminal device caused by the irregularity of the edge of the serving cell is improved.

[0017] Optionally, the first information comprises information of a second region or information of a third beam of the serving cell for performing measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0018] The determining whether the terminal device performs measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover according to the first information comprises: if the terminal device is located in the second region or the third beam, determining that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0019] Optionally, if the first information comprises the information of the second region, the information of the second region comprises an identifier of the second region; or, if the first information comprises the information of the third beam, the information of the third beam comprises an identifier of the third beam.

[0020] Optionally, the first information comprises a bitmap, one bit in the bitmap corresponds to one beam of the serving cell; if the bit in the beam bitmap takes a first value, the beam corresponding to the bit is the third beam; if the bit in the beam bitmap takes a second value, the beam corresponding to the bit is not the third beam.

[0021] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate whether a fourth beam in the serving cell is the third beam; and the receiving the first information comprises receiving the first information through the fourth beam.

[0022] According to the scheme, the terminal device can determine whether the region or the beam in which the terminal device is located is a second region or a third beam that needs to perform measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover, by acquiring the information of the second region or the information of the third beam in the serving cell through measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover. If yes, the terminal device performs the measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover. Thus, the problem of low accuracy of the terminal device caused by irregularities at the edge of the serving cell is improved.

[0023] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0024] In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, which can be executed by a second device, which can be a network device or a component (such as a chip or a chip system) in the network device.

[0025] The method comprises: a network device sending first information, the first information being used to indicate information of measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover performed by a terminal device, the information being information corresponding to a region of a serving cell of the terminal device or a beam of the serving cell.

[0026] The beneficial effects of the scheme are the same as those of the corresponding method in the first aspect, which will not be repeated here.

[0027] Optionally, the first information comprises a distance threshold value, the distance threshold value being used to determine whether to perform measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0028] Optionally, if a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold value, it is determined that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover. Alternatively, if a difference between a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell and a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of a neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold value, it is determined that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0029] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a corresponding relationship between a first region or a first beam and the distance threshold value, the first region being a partial region in the serving cell, and the first beam being a beam of the serving cell.

[0030] Optionally, the information corresponding to the beam of the serving cell is information corresponding to a beam set of the serving cell, the beam set comprising one or more beams.

[0031] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst set).

[0032] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a distance threshold corresponding to a second beam of the serving cell; and the sending of the first information comprises: sending the first information through the second beam.

[0033] Optionally, the distance threshold comprises a first distance threshold used to trigger the measurement, and / or a second distance threshold used to perform cell reselection, and / or a third distance threshold used to perform handover.

[0034] The beneficial effects of the above scheme are the same as those of the corresponding method in the first aspect, which will not be repeated here.

[0035] Optionally, the first information comprises information of a second area of the serving cell or information of a third beam used for measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0036] Optionally, if the first information comprises the information of the second area, the information of the second area comprises an identifier of the second area; or, if the first information comprises the information of the third beam, the information of the third beam comprises an identifier of the third beam.

[0037] Optionally, the first information comprises a bitmap, one bit in the bitmap corresponds to one beam of the serving cell; if the bit in the beam bitmap takes a first value, the beam corresponding to the bit is the third beam; if the bit in the beam bitmap takes a second value, the beam corresponding to the bit is not the third beam.

[0038] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate whether a fourth beam in the serving cell is the third beam; and the sending of the first information comprises: sending the first information through the fourth beam.

[0039] The beneficial effects of the above scheme are the same as those of the corresponding method in the first aspect, which will not be repeated here.

[0040] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0041] In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, which can be executed by a first device, which can be a terminal device or a component (for example, a chip or a chip system) in the terminal device. Hereinafter, the method executed by the terminal device is taken as an example for description.

[0042] The method comprises: receiving, by a terminal device, second information, the second information being used to indicate beam arrangement information of a serving cell of the terminal device.

[0043] Optionally, the method further comprises: the terminal device performing measurement according to the beam arrangement information.

[0044] The method provided above enables the terminal device to determine the beams that need to be measured subsequently according to the fifth beam in which the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information, thereby narrowing the range of beams to be measured by the terminal device, reducing the case of redundant measurement, and reducing unnecessary measurement power consumption of the terminal device.

[0045] Optionally, the beam arrangement information comprises at least one of the following: a sorting rule of the beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of the beams of the serving cell.

[0046] Optionally, the sorting rule of the beams of the serving cell comprises an ascending sorting rule of beam identifiers, or a descending sorting rule.

[0047] Optionally, the width information of the beam set comprises a number of columns occupied by the beams in the beam set, or a number of rows occupied by the beams in the beam set.

[0048] Optionally, the measurement according to the beam arrangement information comprises: the terminal device determining a sixth beam according to the fifth beam in which the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information; and the terminal device performing measurement on the fifth beam and / or the sixth beam.

[0049] Optionally, the sixth beam is a neighboring beam of the fifth beam, or the sixth beam is a beam in a beam set adjacent to the fifth beam.

[0050] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst).

[0051] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0052] In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, which can be performed by a second device, which can be a network device or a component (such as a chip or a chip system) in the network device.

[0053] The method comprises: a network device sending second information, the second information being used to indicate beam arrangement information of a serving cell of a terminal device.

[0054] The method provided above has the same beneficial effects as the corresponding method in the third aspect, which will not be described here.

[0055] Optionally, the beam arrangement information comprises at least one of the following: a sorting rule of the beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of the beams of the serving cell.

[0056] Optionally, the sorting rule of the beams of the serving cell comprises an ascending sorting rule of beam identifiers, or a descending sorting rule.

[0057] Optionally, the width information of the beam set comprises a number of columns occupied by the beams in the beam set, or a number of rows occupied by the beams in the beam set.

[0058] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst).

[0059] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0060] In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, including modules for performing the method in any of the first aspect.

[0061] In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, including modules for performing the method in any of the second aspect.

[0062] In a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, including modules for performing the method in any of the third aspect.

[0063] In an eighth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, including modules for performing the method in any of the fourth aspect.

[0064] In a ninth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication apparatus, including a processor configured to implement a method in any of the first aspect, or any of the second aspect, or any of the third aspect, or any of the fourth aspect.

[0065] Optionally, the communication apparatus further includes a memory, and the processor is coupled to the memory; and the memory stores computer-executable instructions; and the processor executes the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory to implement the method in any of the first aspect, or any of the second aspect, or any of the third aspect, or any of the fourth aspect.

[0066] Optionally, the communication apparatus further includes a transceiver, and the processor is coupled to the transceiver; and the transceiver communicates with external devices.

[0067] In a tenth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a chip, wherein the chip stores a computer program, and when the computer program is executed by the chip, the method in any one of the first aspect or any one of the second aspect or any one of the third aspect or any one of the fourth aspect is implemented.

[0068] In an eleventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer readable storage medium, wherein the computer readable storage medium stores a computer program, and when the computer program is executed by a processor, the method in any one of the first aspect or any one of the second aspect or any one of the third aspect or any one of the fourth aspect is implemented.

[0069] In a twelfth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer program product, wherein the computer program product comprises a computer program, and when the computer program is executed, the method in any one of the first aspect or any one of the second aspect or any one of the third aspect or any one of the fourth aspect is implemented.

[0070] In a thirteenth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication system, wherein the communication system comprises a first device and a second device, the first device is the terminal device as described above, and the second device is the network device as described above. The first device can implement the method in any one of the first aspect or any one of the third aspect, and the second device can implement the method in any one of the second aspect or any one of the fourth aspect. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0071] FIG. 1 is a communication system to which an embodiment of the present application is applied;

[0072] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a pass-through architecture scenario provided by the present application;

[0073] FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a regenerative architecture scenario provided by the present application;

[0074] FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a ground quasi-stationary NTN cell scenario provided by the present application;

[0075] FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a ground mobile NTN cell scenario provided by the present application;

[0076] FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a cell reselection measurement, cell reselection / handover scenario provided by the present application;

[0077] FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a beam of an NTN cell provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0078] FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0079] FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a region division provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0080] FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of another communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0081] FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram of a bitmap according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0082] FIG. 12 is a flow diagram of another communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0083] FIG. 13 is a flow diagram of another communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0084] FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram of a beam arrangement according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0085] FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0086] FIG. 16 is a schematic diagram of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0087] FIG. 17 is a schematic diagram of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0088] FIG. 18 is a schematic diagram of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0089] FIG. 19 is a schematic diagram of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0090] For the purpose of clarity, in the embodiments of the present application, the word "exemplary" or "for example" is used to mean "an example of" or "an example, only. Any implementation or design solution described as "exemplary" or "for example" in the present application should not be construed as being more preferred or advantageous than other implementation or design solutions. In fact, the use of the word "exemplary" or "for example" is intended to present concepts in a concrete manner.

[0091] In the embodiments of this application, "at least one" means one or more, and "multiple" means two or more. The "and / or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, which means that there can be three kinds of relationships, for example, A and / or B can represent: A exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone, where A and B can be singular or plural. The character " / " generally represents an "or" relationship between the associated objects before and after it. "At least one of the following" or similar expressions refer to any combination of these items, including any combination of single or multiple items. For example, at least one of a, b, or c can represent: a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, where a, b, and c can be single or multiple.

[0092] It should be noted that "at the time of" in the embodiments of this application can be at the moment when a certain condition occurs, or within a period of time after a certain condition occurs, which is not limited in the embodiments of this application. In addition, the display interface provided by the embodiments of this application is only an example, and the display interface can also include more or less content.

[0093] The technical solutions of the embodiments of this application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: long term evolution (LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (TDD), universal mobile communication system (UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) communication system, 5th generation (5G) system or new radio (NR), new system that may appear in the future, etc.

[0094] In order to understand the embodiments of the present application, first, the communication system suitable for the embodiments of the present application is described in detail.

[0095] FIG. 1 is a communication system to which the embodiments of the present application are applied. As shown in FIG. 1, the communication system is a Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) architecture, and the communication system includes a network device and a terminal device.

[0096] The network device and the terminal device can communicate through a wireless link. When the network device is a communication sender, the terminal device can be a communication receiver. When the network device is a communication receiver, the terminal device can be a communication sender. Embodiments of the present application do not limit the number of network devices and terminal devices included in the communication system. In addition, it should be understood that FIG. 1 is only a schematic diagram, and the communication system can further include other network devices, which are not limited in the present application and are not shown in FIG. 1.

[0097] The terminal device in the embodiments of the present application can also be referred to as a user equipment (UE), a mobile station (MS), a mobile terminal (MT), an access terminal, a subscriber unit, a subscriber station, a mobile station, a mobile terminal, a remote station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent, or a user equipment, etc.

[0098] The terminal device can be a device that provides voice / data connectivity to a user, for example, a handheld device with wireless connection function, a vehicle-mounted device, etc. At present, some examples of terminal devices include: a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a notebook computer, a palm computer, a mobile internet device (MID), a wearable device, a virtual reality (VR) device, an augmented reality (AR) device, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in self driving, a wireless terminal in remote medical surgery, a wireless terminal in smart grid, a wireless terminal in transportation safety, a wireless terminal in smart city, a wireless terminal in smart home, 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 function, a computing device or other processing device connected to a wireless modem, a vehicle-mounted device, a wearable device, a terminal device in a 5G network, or a terminal device in a future evolved public land mobile network (PLMN), etc., which are not limited in the present application.

[0099] By way of example and not limitation, in this application, the terminal device can be a terminal device in an internet of things (IoT) system. The internet of things is an important part of future information technology development, and its main technical feature is to connect objects through communication technology and network, so as to realize the intelligent network of man-machine interconnection and object-object interconnection. Illustratively, the terminal device in the embodiments of the present application can be a wearable device. The wearable device can also be called a wearable smart device, which is a general term for wearable devices that are designed and developed by applying wearable technology to daily wear, such as glasses, gloves, watches, clothing, and shoes. The wearable device is a portable device that can be directly worn on the body or integrated into the user's clothes or accessories. The wearable device is not only a hardware device, but also can realize powerful functions through software support and data interaction, cloud interaction. The general wearable smart device includes a full function, large size, and can realize complete or partial functions without relying on a smart phone, such as a smart watch or smart glasses, and only focuses on a certain application function, and needs to cooperate with other devices such as a smart phone, such as various smart wristbands, smart jewelry, and the like for monitoring vital signs.

[0100] By way of example and not limitation, in the embodiments of the present application, the terminal device can also be a terminal device in machine type communication (MTC). In addition, the terminal device can also be a vehicle-mounted module, a vehicle-mounted module, a vehicle-mounted component, a vehicle-mounted chip, or a vehicle-mounted unit, etc. built-in as one or more components or units in a vehicle. The vehicle can implement the method provided in the present application by built-in vehicle-mounted module, vehicle-mounted module, vehicle-mounted component, vehicle-mounted chip or vehicle-mounted unit, etc. Therefore, the embodiments of the present application can also be applied to the Internet of Vehicles, such as vehicle to everything (V2X), long term evolution-vehicle (LTE-V), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technology, etc.

[0101] The network device involved in the present application can be a device communicating with a terminal device, for example, including a radio access network (RAN) device. The radio access network device can be a base station, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), a transmission reception point (TRP), a transmission point (TP), a next generation NodeB (gNB) in a 5th generation (5G) mobile communication system, a next generation NodeB in a 6th generation (6G) mobile communication system, a base station in a future mobile communication system, or an access node in a WiFi system, etc.; it can also be a module or unit completing part of the functions of a base station, for example, it can be a central unit (CU), it can also be a distributed unit (DU), and it can also be a radio unit (RU). The CU here completes the functions of the radio resource control protocol and the packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) of the base station, and can also complete the function of the service data adaptation protocol (SDAP); the DU completes the functions of the radio link control layer and the medium access control (MAC) layer of the base station, and can also complete part of the physical layer or the entire physical layer; the specific description of the above-mentioned various protocol layers can refer to the relevant technical specifications of the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP). The CU and the DU can be separately arranged, or can also be included in the same network element, for example, in a baseband unit (BBU). The RU can be included in a radio frequency device or a radio frequency unit, for example, included in a remote radio unit (RRU), an active antenna processing unit (AAU), or a remote radio head (RRH). In different systems, the CU, the DU or the RU can also have different names, but those skilled in the art can understand their meanings. For example, in an ORAN system, the CU can also be referred to as an open-CU (O-CU), the DU can also be referred to as an open-DU (O-DU), and the RU can also be referred to as an open-RU (O-RU).Any of the CUs (or CU control plane (CU-CP), CU user plane (CU-UP), DUs and RUs in this application can be implemented by a software module, a hardware module, or a combination of a software module and a hardware module.

[0102] The NTN is a general term for a network involving flying objects, including satellite communication networks, high-altitude platform systems (HAPS) and air-to-ground networks. The application scenarios of the NTN mainly include regions with poor terrestrial coverage, marine communication, public safety needs, inter-aircraft communication, railways, etc., aiming to provide mobile broadband services for users.

[0103] In the NTN scenario, when the network device is a base station, the network device involved in this application can be a base station under a transparent architecture, or a base station under a regenerative architecture.

[0104] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a scenario of a transparent architecture provided by the present application. As shown in FIG. 2, when the network device is a base station under a transparent architecture, the satellite is only responsible for signal forwarding and has no data processing capability. The base station is located on the ground, and the satellite is connected to the base station through a gateway on the ground. The signals between the terminal device and the base station are transmitted through the satellite, and the data processing function is still located at the base station. At this time, the link between the satellite and the terminal device is called a service link, and the link between the satellite and the base station is called a feeder link.

[0105] FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a scenario of a regenerative architecture provided by the present application. As shown in FIG. 3, when the network device is a base station under a regenerative architecture, the satellite has all or part of the functions of the base station, i.e. the satellite can perform data processing. Specifically, the complete base station is located in the satellite and the distributed unit (DU) of the base station is located in the satellite. At this time, the link between the satellite / base station and the terminal device is called a service link. The satellite mentioned here can be a low earth orbiting (LEO) satellite, a medium earth orbiting (MEO) satellite and a geostationary earth orbiting (GEO) satellite, etc.

[0106] The network device serves a cell, and a terminal device communicates with the cell through a transmission resource (for example, a frequency domain resource, or a spectrum resource) allocated by the network device. The cell can belong to a macro base station (for example, a macro eNB or a macro gNB, etc.) or a base station corresponding to a small cell. The small cell can include a metro cell, a micro cell, a pico cell, a femto cell, etc. The small cell has a small coverage range and low transmission power, and is suitable for providing a high-rate data transmission service.

[0107] The NTN cell involved in the present application can be an earth-fixed NTN cell, or a quasi-earth-fixed NTN cell, or an earth-moving NTN cell, etc. The NTN cell provided by the GEO satellite is an earth-fixed NTN cell, that is, the coverage area of the NTN cell is fixed to a certain area on the ground. The LEO satellite and the MEO satellite can provide a quasi-earth-fixed NTN cell, that is, the coverage area of the NTN cell is fixed to a certain area on the ground for a period of time, and will be changed to another area on the ground after a period of time. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a quasi-earth-fixed NTN cell provided by the present application. As shown in FIG. 4, the coverage area of the satellite at time 1 (t1) and time 2 (t2) is area 1, and the coverage area at time 3 (t3) is area 2. The LEO satellite and the MEO satellite can also provide an earth-moving NTN cell, that is, the coverage area of the NTN cell slides on the ground. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an earth-moving NTN cell provided by the present application. As shown in FIG. 5, the coverage area of the satellite at time 1 (t1), time 2 (t2), and time 3 (t3) slides with time.

[0108] When the terminal device is in the service cell, the terminal device needs to select the best service cell through cell reselection measurement, cell reselection or handover operation, so as to optimize the wireless connection performance of the terminal device, improve the network coverage and capacity, and reduce the power consumption and delay of the terminal device.

[0109] The cell reselection measurement is a process in which a terminal device measures a cell (e.g., a serving cell, a neighboring cell) in a radio resource control idle state (RRC Idle, hereinafter referred to as an idle state) or a radio resource control inactive state (RRC inactive, hereinafter referred to as an inactive state). The terminal device can evaluate the signal quality of different cells. During the measurement process, the terminal device considers various factors, such as the reference signal received power (RSRP) and the reference signal received quality (RSRQ) of the cell, the location of the terminal device in the serving cell, the distance between the terminal device and the serving cell and / or the neighboring cell, and the like. The neighboring cell can also be referred to as a neighbor cell or a neighboring cell.

[0110] The cell reselection is a process in which a terminal device selects a serving cell in an idle state or an inactive state. Based on the results of the measurement, when a neighboring cell meets certain reselection conditions, the terminal device will select the cell for camping.

[0111] The handover is a process in which a terminal device changes a serving cell in an RRC connected state (hereinafter referred to as a connected state). When a neighboring cell of the terminal device meets certain handover conditions, the network device can hand over the terminal device to the neighboring cell, or the terminal device can hand over to the neighboring cell by itself.

[0112] In the context of the beamforming technology, the measurement described above can be a measurement of a plurality of beams of a cell by a terminal device, such as a measurement of a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block (SS / Physical Broadcast Channel Block, SSB) or a channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS), to obtain a beam-level measurement result, and to derive a cell-level measurement result of the cell using the beam-level measurement result. For example, the terminal device measures the quality of each beam in the cell, and averages the quality of the beams to obtain the cell-level quality of the cell.

[0113] In addition, the terminal device determines one or more beams with the best quality for receiving downlink information or signals transmitted by the cell according to the measurement results of each beam, which can be referred to as a best beam or a serving beam. It should be understood that the best beam / serving beam can also be determined by other means or based on other conditions, which are not limited in the present application.

[0114] For cell reselection measurement in NTN scenario, the terminal device can control whether it needs to measure the surrounding neighbor cells based on some conditions, so that the terminal device only starts measurement when needed, avoiding unnecessary measurement operation wasting UE power consumption. Currently, the terminal device can control whether to start cell reselection measurement according to cell signal quality and distance factors. For example, the network can configure a quality threshold and a distance threshold, based on the quality threshold, the terminal device evaluates whether the distance between its own position and the reference point of the NTN cell (for example, it can be the subsatellite point of the satellite of the NTN cell) satisfies the distance threshold, and then determines whether to start cell reselection measurement. Alternatively, the terminal device can also control whether to start cell reselection measurement based on distance factors only. Similarly, for cell reselection and handover in NTN scenario, the terminal device can also control the terminal device to reselect or handover to a neighbor cell based on conditions similar to the above-mentioned cell reselection measurement. The subsatellite point of the satellite mentioned above can refer to the point where the projection of the satellite on the earth's surface, that is, the intersection of the line connecting the instantaneous position of the satellite and the center of the earth and the earth's surface.

[0115] For example, for the distance factor, the terminal device can determine whether to start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection in the following way:

[0116] Method 1: If the difference between the distance of the terminal device from the reference point of the serving cell and the distance of the terminal device from the reference point of the neighbor cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold, start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection. If not, do not start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection.

[0117] Method 2: If the distance of the terminal device from the reference point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold, start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection. If not, do not start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection.

[0118] Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a scenario of cell reselection measurement, cell reselection / handover provided by the present application. As shown in Fig. 6, by the above two methods, it is determined whether the terminal device satisfies the preset distance threshold, that is, the relative position of the terminal device to the NTN cell is determined. When the terminal device is located in the central region of the NTN cell it is located in (i.e. the region obtained according to the distance threshold), it does not start cell reselection measurement; when the terminal device is located in the edge region of the NTN cell it is located in, it starts cell reselection measurement. Correspondingly, in cell reselection / handover, it can also be determined which target cell can be reselected / handover to according to the distance of the terminal device from the reference point of the NTN serving cell and / or the distance of the terminal device from the reference point of the NTN neighbor cell.

[0119] Based on the coverage requirement and planning, when a satellite of an NTN covers a certain area, the boundary of its coverage can be an irregular boundary. For example, FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of beams of an NTN cell provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 7, the satellite coverage area is a rectangle, and each number in FIG. 7 represents a beam. The boundary of the rectangle covered by the NTN cell can be irregular, for example, the beams at the long side and / or the short side of the rectangle are not aligned. In this case, the distance between the terminal device and the satellite of the serving cell and the satellite of the neighboring cell is different when the terminal device is in different areas of the boundary. For example, the terminal device located in beam #88 and the terminal device located in beam #96 are both at the edge of the NTN cell in FIG. 7, but the distance between the two and the reference point differs by about the size of one beam.

[0120] However, in the current method of determining whether to start and stop cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection, the distance threshold used in the distance factor is a unified distance threshold. The irregularity of the boundary of the coverage area of the NTN cell in FIG. 7 can affect the accuracy of the determination of the terminal device using the unified distance threshold, causing misjudgment. For example, continuing to refer to FIG. 7, assuming that the distance between the terminal device located in beam #88 and the satellite subsatellite point of the NTN cell is d1, and the distance between the terminal device located in beam #96 and the satellite subsatellite point of the NTN cell is d2, d1 and d2 will differ by about the size of one beam. If a same distance threshold is used to determine whether d1 and d2 are greater than the threshold, the following two cases can occur:

[0121] Case 1: d1 does not satisfy the distance condition, but d2 can satisfy it, so that the terminal device located in beam #88 incorrectly determines that it is not located at the edge of the cell, and the terminal device can start neighboring cell measurement or perform reselection too late, causing the terminal device to possibly lose the resident serving cell and affecting mobility performance.

[0122] Case 2: d1 and d2 can both satisfy the distance condition, but the terminal device located in beam #94 can also satisfy the distance condition, so that the terminal device located in beam #94 incorrectly determines that it is at the edge of the cell and starts neighboring cell measurement or performs reselection too early when it has not actually reached the edge of the cell, causing the terminal device to have unnecessary measurement power consumption overhead or to reselect and reside in an inappropriate cell too early.

[0123] Therefore, the current method can affect the accuracy of the terminal device starting cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection, cause unnecessary power consumption overhead, and affect mobility performance.

[0124] Therefore, the application provides a communication method, which enables the terminal device to determine the distance threshold corresponding to the region in which the terminal device is located according to the region, and to determine whether to start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover according to the distance threshold. By corresponding different distance thresholds to different regions, the problem that a single distance threshold affects the accuracy of the judgment of the terminal device caused by the irregularity of the edge of the serving cell is improved, thereby improving the accuracy of the operation of the terminal device, such as starting cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover, reducing unnecessary power consumption, and improving mobility performance.

[0125] The communication method of the application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The embodiments shown in the application take the terminal device or the network device as an example of the execution subject, and the specific form and number of each device shown are only examples and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation of the method provided by the application.

[0126] The terminal device in the embodiments of the application can be the terminal device itself, or can be replaced by a chip, a chip system or a processor supporting the terminal device to implement the data transmission method, or can be replaced by a logic module or software capable of implementing all or part of the functions of the terminal device. The network device in the embodiments of the application can be the network device itself, or can be replaced by a chip, a chip system or a processor supporting the network device to implement the data transmission method, or can be replaced by a logic module or software capable of implementing all or part of the functions of the network device. The application does not make specific limitations in this regard.

[0127] FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a communication method provided by an embodiment of the application. As shown in FIG. 8, the method can include:

[0128] S801, the terminal device receives first information.

[0129] The first information is used to indicate information for the terminal device to perform measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover, and the information is the information corresponding to the region of the serving cell or the beam of the serving cell of the terminal device. The serving cell can be an NTN cell or a ground serving cell, etc.

[0130] When the terminal device is located at the edge region of the serving cell, the terminal device performs measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover. The measurement can be the aforementioned cell reselection measurement, the cell reselection is the behavior of the terminal device in the idle state to reselect to a new serving cell for camping, and the handover is the behavior of the terminal device in the connected state to switch to another serving cell. The edge region of the serving cell, for example, can be the aforementioned beam #0, beam #8, beam #16, etc. The definition of the edge region can be set according to actual needs, and the application does not make any limitation in this regard.

[0131] The first information can directly indicate an edge region of the serving cell or a beam in the serving cell located at an edge of the serving cell, or indirectly indicate the edge region of the serving cell or the beam in the serving cell located at the edge of the serving cell.

[0132] In a possible implementation, the first information can indicate a correspondence between a first region of the serving cell and a distance threshold, the first region being a partial region in the serving cell, or the first information can indicate a correspondence between a first beam of the serving cell and a distance threshold, the first beam being a beam in the serving cell. For example, the first information can indicate a correspondence between at least two regions and distance thresholds, the two distance thresholds corresponding to different regions or beams in the serving cell, any one region can be the first region, or any multiple regions can be the first region; any one beam can be the first beam, or any multiple beams can be the first beam. Taking regions as an example, for example, region 1 corresponds to distance threshold 1, region 2 corresponds to distance threshold 2, and region 3 corresponds to distance threshold 3. For another example, region 1 and region 3 correspond to distance threshold 1, and region 2 corresponds to distance threshold 2. The first region can be a region located at an edge of the serving cell, and the first beam can be a beam located at an edge of the serving cell. Through the distance threshold and the correspondence, it can be determined whether the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0133] In another possible implementation, the first information can indicate that at least one region in the serving cell is a second region, or can indicate that at least one beam in the serving cell is a third beam. Through the first information, it can be determined whether the terminal device is located in the second region or the third beam. If the terminal device is in the second region, the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover. Alternatively, if the terminal device is in the third beam, the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover. Optionally, the second region may, for example, be an edge region of the serving cell, or the third beam may, for example, be an edge beam in the beams of the serving cell.

[0134] Optionally, the regions of the serving cell can be divided according to actual needs, for example, one or more regions can be divided according to geographical conditions, fixed region size, and the like. Alternatively, the regions of the serving cell can be divided according to beams in the serving cell, for example, one beam is one region. Alternatively, the regions of the serving cell can be divided according to a beam set of beams in the serving cell, for example, one beam set is one region. The beam set can be an SSB burst, or one or more beams can be divided into a beam set according to actual needs, which is not limited in the present application.

[0135] Optionally, the terminal device can receive the first information from the network device, or receive the first information from other devices. In subsequent embodiments, the terminal device receives the first information from the network device as an example.

[0136] S802, the terminal device determines whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the first information.

[0137] The terminal device determines whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the information of the terminal device performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover indicated by the first information. For example, the terminal device can determine whether the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell according to the information of the terminal device performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover indicated by the first information, if the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell, the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover; or, if the terminal device is not located at the edge area of the serving cell, the terminal device does not perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0138] When the first information indicates the distance threshold of the serving cell, the terminal device can determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell, and the distance threshold corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located. For example, the terminal device can determine whether the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell according to the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell, and the distance threshold corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located, and determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to whether the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell. Alternatively, the terminal device can determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell, the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the neighboring cell, and the distance threshold corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located. For example, the terminal device can determine whether the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell according to the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell, the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the neighboring cell, and the distance threshold corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located, and determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to whether the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell. The reference point can be the subsatellite point of the satellite of the cell (which can be referred to as the subsatellite point of the cell), or any other position as the reference point, which is not limited in the present application.

[0139] For example, if the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located, it indicates that the terminal device is located at the edge area of the serving cell, and needs to perform measurement.

[0140] Or, if the difference between the distance between the terminal device and the serving cell zenith point and the distance between the terminal device and the adjacent cell zenith point is greater than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the region where the terminal device is located, it is indicated that the terminal device is located at the edge region of the serving cell, and measurement needs to be performed.

[0141] Or, if the distance between the terminal device and the adjacent cell zenith point is less than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the region where the terminal device is located, it is indicated that the terminal device is close to the adjacent cell, and subsequent cell reselection or handover to the adjacent cell can be needed, so measurement needs to be performed to provide a basis for subsequent cell reselection or handover.

[0142] For example, if the distance between the terminal device and the adjacent cell zenith point is less than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the region where the terminal device is located, it is indicated that the terminal device is close to the adjacent cell, and the terminal device can perform cell reselection or handover to the adjacent cell.

[0143] Or, if the difference between the distance between the terminal device and the serving cell zenith point and the distance between the terminal device and the adjacent cell zenith point is greater than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the region where the terminal device is located, the terminal device can perform cell reselection or handover to the adjacent cell.

[0144] The method provided by the embodiments of the present application enables the terminal device to determine the distance threshold corresponding to the region where the terminal device is located according to the region, and to determine whether to start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover according to the distance threshold, by the method that different regions correspond to different distance thresholds. By different regions corresponding to different distance thresholds, the problem that a single distance threshold affects the accuracy of the judgment of the terminal device caused by the irregularity of the edge of the serving cell is improved. For cell reselection measurement, it can be ensured that the terminal device starts measurement on the adjacent cell only when it reaches the edge of the coverage of the serving cell or the coverage of the adjacent cell is close, so as to avoid the terminal device measuring on the adjacent cell that is not around, and to reduce unnecessary measurement overhead of the terminal device. On the other hand, it can be ensured that the terminal device can start measurement on the adjacent cell in time when the coverage of the adjacent cell is close, to support the judgment of subsequent cell reselection in time, and to guarantee the mobility performance. For cell reselection and / or handover, it can be ensured that the terminal device considers reselection / handover to the adjacent cell only when it is located in the coverage of the adjacent cell, to avoid the terminal device performing reselection / handover too early and causing reselection / handover failure. On the other hand, it can be ensured that the terminal device can perform reselection / handover in time when it is far away from the coverage of the serving cell and has reached the coverage of the adjacent cell, to change to a suitable cell, and to guarantee the mobility performance.

[0145] Next, taking the distance threshold included in the first information as an example, the conditions of several regions corresponding to the distance threshold provided by the embodiments of the present application are introduced.

[0146] Method 1: the distance threshold corresponds to a region of the serving cell.

[0147] The region of the serving cell can be predefined or sent by the network device to the terminal device. For example, the network device sends the relevant information of the region of the serving cell to the terminal device, and the terminal device determines the region of the serving cell according to the relevant information. The region of the serving cell can be divided according to one or more of the following factors, such as geographical features (for example, geographical position, terrain, topography, administrative region, etc.), population characteristics (for example, population density), network service demand, network resources, etc.

[0148] FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a region division provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 9, the serving cell includes at least region 1, region 2, and region 3. In this case, the first information can include the distance threshold corresponding to each region. For example, region 1 corresponds to distance threshold 1, region 2 corresponds to distance threshold 2, and region 3 corresponds to distance threshold 3. Alternatively, region 1 and region 3 correspond to distance threshold 1, and region 2 corresponds to distance threshold 2. Alternatively, region 1 corresponds to distance threshold 1, and region 2 and region 3 correspond to distance threshold 2. The distance threshold can be used by the terminal device to determine whether to perform cell reselection measurement, cell reselection, and handover.

[0149] Alternatively, the distance threshold can also correspond to the operation to be performed by the terminal device. For example, the distance threshold includes a first distance threshold for triggering measurement, a second distance threshold for triggering cell reselection, and / or a third distance threshold for triggering handover. For example, distance threshold 1 corresponding to region 1 includes at least one of the first distance threshold for triggering measurement, the second distance threshold for triggering cell reselection, and the third distance threshold for triggering handover.

[0150] In a possible implementation, the region included in the serving cell can be the result of dividing all regions in the serving cell, that is, the sum of all regions is the coverage area of the serving cell. The region included in the serving cell can also be the result of dividing part of the regions in the serving cell, that is, the sum of all regions is less than the coverage area of the serving cell.

[0151] Alternatively, the distance threshold included in the first information can be the distance threshold corresponding to each of all regions, or the distance threshold corresponding to each of part of the regions. For example, the distance threshold included in the first information can be the distance threshold corresponding to each of the edge regions in the serving cell, which can be used by the terminal device to determine whether to perform cell reselection measurement, cell reselection, and / or handover when the terminal device is located in the edge region.

[0152] For the method 1, after the terminal device obtains the distance threshold information provided by the network device, the terminal device can determine the distance threshold corresponding to the area where the terminal device is located according to the area where the terminal device is located, and determine whether to perform cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover according to the distance threshold. Wherein, the terminal device can determine the area where the terminal device is located according to its own positioning information (such as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning) and the area division situation.

[0153] Method 2: The distance threshold has a corresponding relationship with the beam of the serving cell.

[0154] Wherein, one beam corresponds to its own distance threshold. The distance thresholds corresponding to different beams can be the same or different.

[0155] Continuing to refer to FIG. 7, the beam #0 in the serving cell can correspond to the distance threshold 1, the beam #8 can correspond to the distance threshold 2, and the beam #24 can correspond to the distance threshold 3. As shown in FIG. 7, the beam #16 has the same or similar edge as the beam #0, and the distance threshold corresponding to the beam #16 can also be the distance threshold 1, or a distance threshold 4 different from the distance threshold 1, etc. The distance threshold can be used to determine whether the terminal device performs cell reselection measurement, cell reselection, and handover.

[0156] Optionally, the distance threshold can also correspond to the operation to be performed by the terminal device. For example, the distance threshold includes a first distance threshold for triggering measurement, and / or a second distance threshold for performing cell reselection, and / or a third distance threshold for performing handover. For example, the distance threshold 1 corresponding to the beam #0 includes at least one distance threshold among the first distance threshold for triggering measurement, the second distance threshold for performing cell reselection, and the third distance threshold for performing handover.

[0157] Optionally, the distance threshold included in the first information can be the distance threshold corresponding to each of all the beams, or the distance threshold corresponding to each of part of the beams. For example, the distance threshold included in the first information can be the distance threshold corresponding to the beam of the edge area in the serving cell, and when the terminal device is located in the edge area, the distance threshold can be used to determine whether the terminal device performs cell reselection measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0158] For the method 2, after the terminal device obtains the distance threshold information provided by the network device, the terminal device can determine the distance threshold corresponding to the serving beam (or referred to as the best beam) in which the terminal device is located, and determine whether to perform the cell reselection measurement and / or the cell reselection and / or the handover according to the distance threshold. The serving beam can be determined by the terminal device through beam quality measurement or other manners, for example, the terminal device can determine the beam with a beam quality greater than or equal to a preset quality threshold as the serving beam.

[0159] Method 3: The distance threshold has a corresponding relationship with a beam set of the serving cell.

[0160] In which, one beam set corresponds to its own distance threshold. The distance thresholds corresponding to different beams can be the same or different. The beam set can be divided according to actual needs, and when the reference signal of the beam is SSB, the beam set can also be SSB burst.

[0161] For example, continuing to refer to FIG. 7, beams #0 to #7 in the serving cell can be a beam set, beams #8 to #15 can be another beam set, and so on. Alternatively, beams #0, #8, #16, #24, etc. in the serving cell can be a beam set. Alternatively, beams #0, #9, #26 in the serving cell can be a beam set (i.e. a beam set defined according to actual needs).

[0162] For example, taking a column in FIG. 7 as a beam set, beams #0 to #7 in the serving cell corresponding to the beam set can correspond to distance threshold 1, and beams #8 to #15 corresponding to the beam set can correspond to distance threshold 2. Alternatively, for at least two beam sets with similar edges, the distance thresholds corresponding to the beam sets can be the same or different. The distance threshold can be used to determine whether the terminal device performs the cell reselection measurement, the cell reselection, and the handover.

[0163] Alternatively, the distance threshold can also correspond to the operation to be performed by the terminal device. For example, the distance threshold includes a first distance threshold for triggering measurement, and / or a second distance threshold for performing cell reselection, and / or a third distance threshold for performing handover. For example, distance threshold 1 corresponding to beam set 1 includes at least one distance threshold of the first distance threshold for triggering measurement, the second distance threshold for performing cell reselection, and the third distance threshold for performing handover.

[0164] Alternatively, the distance threshold included in the first information can be the distance threshold corresponding to each of all the beam sets, or the distance threshold corresponding to each of part of the beam sets.

[0165] For the method 3, after the terminal device obtains the distance threshold information provided by the network device, the terminal device can determine the distance threshold corresponding to the beam set in which the serving beam (or referred to as the best beam) of the terminal device is located, and determine whether to perform the cell reselection measurement and / or the cell reselection and / or the handover according to the distance threshold.

[0166] In the case of the above method 1 to method 3, when the first information is sent to the terminal device by the network device through broadcast signaling, the network device can send the correspondence between all regions / beams / beam sets in the service cell and the distance threshold to the terminal device, or can send the correspondence between part of the regions / beams / beam sets and the distance threshold to the terminal device.

[0167] When the first information is sent to the terminal device by the network device through a beam, the first information is used to indicate the distance threshold corresponding to the second beam of the service cell, and the network device sends the first information to the terminal device through the first beam. Wherein, the second beam can be any beam in the service cell. For example, when the first information includes the correspondence between the first region and the distance threshold, the beams in the first region can all send the correspondence between the first region and the distance threshold (i.e. the beams in the first region are all the second beams). For another example, when the first information includes the correspondence between the beam and the distance threshold, the second beam can all send the correspondence between the second beam and the distance threshold. For another example, when the first information includes the correspondence between the beam set and the distance threshold, the beams in the beam set can all send the correspondence between the beam set and the distance threshold (i.e. the beams in the beam set are all the second beams).

[0168] Exemplarily, another flow of the embodiment of the present application is exemplarily described below. FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of another communication method provided by the embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 10, the method can include:

[0169] S1001, the network device sends first information to the terminal device.

[0170] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the first information sent by the network device.

[0171] Wherein, the first information includes the distance threshold, and the network device sends the first information to the terminal device in the following ways: the network device sends the correspondence between all regions / beams / beam sets in the service cell and the distance threshold to the terminal device through broadcast signaling, or the network device sends the distance threshold corresponding to the beam to the terminal device through the beam, which will not be described herein.

[0172] S1002, the terminal device determines the distance threshold for performing the cell reselection measurement and / or the cell reselection and / or the handover according to the first information.

[0173] The terminal device determines a distance threshold corresponding to the area or the beam set in which the terminal device is located or the service beam / best beam of the terminal device according to the distance threshold indicated by the first information, and determines whether to perform the cell reselection measurement and / or the cell reselection and / or the handover according to the distance threshold. The content can be referred to the content in the above method 1 to method 3, and will not be described here.

[0174] S1003, in a case where the terminal device meets the distance threshold for performing the cell reselection measurement, the terminal device performs the cell reselection measurement.

[0175] The method for determining whether the terminal device meets the distance threshold for performing the cell reselection measurement can refer to the method for determining the terminal device to perform the measurement and / or the cell reselection and / or the handover according to the first information in the foregoing step S802. For example, if the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the area in which the terminal device is located, it indicates that the terminal device is located in the edge area of the serving cell, and the cell reselection measurement needs to be performed. Alternatively, if the difference between the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the serving cell and the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the area in which the terminal device is located, it indicates that the terminal device is located in the edge area of the serving cell, and the cell reselection measurement needs to be performed. The content will not be described here.

[0176] S1004, the terminal device determines the target cell for cell reselection / handover using the distance threshold for determining the target cell for cell reselection / handover.

[0177] The method can be implemented by the method similar to the method described in the foregoing step S1003. For example, if the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the neighboring cell is less than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the area in which the terminal device is located, it indicates that the distance between the terminal device and the neighboring cell is close, and the terminal device can perform cell reselection or handover to the neighboring cell. Alternatively, if the difference between the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the serving cell and the distance between the terminal device and the subsatellite point of the neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold corresponding to the area in which the terminal device is located, the terminal device can perform cell reselection or handover to the neighboring cell.

[0178] The distance threshold used for cell reselection / handover can be the same as the distance threshold for determining whether to perform the cell reselection measurement in the foregoing step S1003, or can be different.

[0179] In a possible implementation, the method can further include the following steps:

[0180] S1005, the network device updates the distance threshold information when the coverage of the serving cell changes.

[0181] The distance threshold can be updated according to the coverage of the serving cell. For example, if the coverage shape of the serving cell changes, or the edge beam in the serving cell changes, or the like, the network device can update the distance threshold.

[0182] The network device can update the distance threshold information in the following manner: using system information to update. For example, in a system information modification period (SI modification period), the terminal device is notified by a system information modification indication (SI change notification) that the system information or, specifically, the distance threshold information will change (for example, the correspondence between the area and the distance threshold changes, or the mapping relationship between the beam and the distance threshold changes, or the mapping relationship between the beam set and the distance threshold changes, or the like), and then the updated system information / distance threshold information is sent in the next system information modification period.

[0183] It should be understood that the order of the distance threshold information process and steps S1001 to S1004 is not limited, and the network device can update the distance threshold information at any time when there is a need to update the distance threshold information.

[0184] The method provided by the embodiments of the present application provides different distance thresholds for different areas in the serving cell, and according to the boundary conditions of the cell, the terminal device is adapted to use different distance thresholds to control whether to start cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover, so as to accurately determine whether the terminal device is located in the edge area of the serving cell according to the actual coverage of the serving cell, and then reasonably control the start and stop of the terminal device to perform cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover. For cell reselection measurement, it can be ensured that the terminal device starts measurement on the adjacent cell only when it reaches the edge of the coverage of the serving cell or the coverage of the adjacent cell is close, avoiding unnecessary measurement of the terminal device on the adjacent cell, and reducing the unnecessary measurement overhead of the terminal device. On the other hand, it can be ensured that the terminal device can start measurement on the adjacent cell in time when the coverage of the adjacent cell is close, to support the subsequent cell reselection judgment in time and guarantee the mobility performance. For cell reselection and / or handover, it can be ensured that the terminal device considers reselection / handover to the adjacent cell only when it is located in the coverage of the adjacent cell, avoiding the terminal device from performing reselection / handover too early and causing reselection / handover failure. On the other hand, it can be ensured that the terminal device can perform reselection / handover in time when it is far away from the coverage of the serving cell and has reached the coverage of the adjacent cell, so as to change to a suitable cell for camping, and guarantee the mobility performance.

[0185] The following takes the second area information or the third beam information in the first information including performing cell reselection measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover as an example to introduce the method provided by the embodiments of the present application.

[0186] Method 4: The second area information includes the identification of the second area.

[0187] The second area is the area where the terminal device needs to perform cell reselection measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, that is, if the terminal device is located in the second area, it is determined that the terminal device needs to perform cell reselection measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover. For example, the area can be the edge area of the serving cell. Therefore, the second area information can also be called edge area information.

[0188] In this implementation, the second area information can include the identification of the second area. For example, continuing the foregoing example of FIG. 9, the first information can include the identification of the area 1, the area 2, the area 3, and the like located at the edge of the serving cell.

[0189] In this method 4, the terminal device can determine whether the location thereof is in the second area according to the location thereof and the identification of the second area. If the location of the terminal device is in the second area, it indicates that the terminal device is located in the second area where cell reselection measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover needs to be performed.

[0190] Optionally, the area where cell reselection measurement is performed, the area where cell reselection is performed, and the area where handover is performed can be the same or different. Therefore, the third beam corresponding to the area where cell reselection measurement is performed, the area where cell reselection is performed, and the area where handover is performed can be the same or different.

[0191] Method 5: The third beam information includes the identification of the third beam.

[0192] The third beam is the beam where the terminal device needs to perform cell reselection measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, that is, if the terminal device is in the beam (that is, the beam is the serving beam / best beam of the terminal device, the determination method of the serving beam / best beam can be based on beam quality or other conditions, which will not be described hereinafter), it is determined that the terminal device needs to perform cell reselection measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover. For example, the third beam can be the edge beam of the serving cell.

[0193] In this implementation, the information of the third beam includes the identifier of the third beam. This third beam can be, for example, a single beam or multiple beams, depending on the number of edge beams in the serving cell. In this case, the information of the third beam can also be referred to as edge beam information (i.e., information about beams located at the edge of the serving cell within the serving cell).

[0194] For example, continuing with Figure 7 above, the first information may include the identifiers of beams located at the edge of the serving cell, such as beam #0, beam #8, beam #16, and beam #24.

[0195] Under method 5, the terminal device can determine whether its current beam is a third beam based on its own current beam and the identifier of the third beam. If the terminal device is in a third beam, it indicates that the terminal device is located in an area where cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover needs to be performed.

[0196] Optionally, the area for performing cell reselection measurement, the area for performing cell reselection, and the area for performing handover can be the same or different. Therefore, the third beam corresponding to the area for performing cell reselection measurement, the area for performing cell reselection, and the area for performing handover can be the same or different.

[0197] Method 6: The first piece of information includes a bitmap.

[0198] In this bitmap, each bit corresponds to a beam of the serving cell. If the bit in the bitmap takes the first value, the beam corresponding to that bit is the third beam; if the bit in the beam bitmap takes the second value, the beam corresponding to that bit is not the third beam.

[0199] For example, Figure 11 is a schematic diagram of a bitmap provided in an embodiment of this application. As shown in Figure 11, the number of bits in the bitmap can be the same as the number of beams in the serving cell, and one bit in the bitmap corresponds to one beam of the serving cell. If the bit in the bitmap takes a first value (the first value is, for example, 1, that is, the bits corresponding to edge beams such as beam #0, beam #8, beam #16, and beam #24 in Figure 11 take a value of 1), it indicates that the beam corresponding to that bit is the third beam; if the bit in the bitmap takes a second value (for example, 0), it indicates that the beam corresponding to that bit is not the third beam.

[0200] Under method 6, the terminal device can determine whether its current beam is the third beam based on its current beam and the bit values ​​in the bitmap. If the terminal device is in the third beam, it indicates that the terminal device needs to perform cell reselection measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0201] Optionally, the area in which the cell reselection measurement is performed, the area in which the cell reselection is performed, and the area in which the handover is performed can be the same or different. Therefore, the bitmap used to determine the cell reselection measurement, the bitmap used to determine the cell reselection, and the bitmap used to determine the handover can be the same or different. For example, different bitmaps can correspond to different operations (cell reselection measurement, cell reselection, handover, and the like).

[0202] In the case of the above-mentioned method 4 to method 6, the first information can be information including the second area or the third beam sent by the network device to the terminal device through broadcast signaling (for example, system information).

[0203] Optionally, the network device can also send information to the terminal device through a beam to indicate whether the beam is the third beam. For example, the first information is used to indicate whether the fourth beam in the serving cell is the third beam, where the fourth beam is the beam in which the terminal device is located, that is, the beam through which the terminal device receives the first information from the network device. The first information transmitted through the fourth beam can indicate whether the fourth beam is the third beam. For example, the first information can indicate whether it is the third beam by indicating different values, or whether it is the third beam by whether there is indication information, and the like. For example, the first information sent through beam #0 contains indication information, if the indication information takes value A, it indicates that beam #0 is the third beam, and if the indication information takes value B, it indicates that beam #0 is not the third beam. Alternatively, the first information sent through beam #0 contains indication information, which indicates that beam #0 is the third beam, and if there is no indication information, it indicates that beam #0 is not the third beam.

[0204] For example, the complete flow of the embodiments of the present application is exemplarily illustrated below. FIG. 12 is a flowchart of another communication method provided by the embodiments of the present application. As shown in FIG. 12, the method can include:

[0205] S1201, the network device sends first information to the terminal device.

[0206] Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the first information sent by the network device.

[0207] The first information includes information of a second area or a third beam in which cell reselection measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover is performed. The network device can send the first information to the terminal device through broadcast signaling (for example, system information) including information of the second area or the third beam included in the serving cell. Alternatively, the network device can send information to the terminal device through a beam to indicate whether the beam is the third beam, which is not described herein again.

[0208] S1202, the terminal device determines a second area or a third beam for performing cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover according to the first information.

[0209] The terminal device determines the second area (i.e., the area located at the edge of the serving cell) of the serving cell according to the identification of the second area in the first information. Alternatively, the terminal device determines the third beam (i.e., the beam located at the edge of the serving cell) of the serving cell according to the identification of the third beam in the first information, or the bitmap.

[0210] S1203, the terminal device performs cell reselection measurement in a case where the terminal device is located in the second area or the third beam for performing cell reselection measurement.

[0211] The terminal device determines whether the location of the terminal device belongs to the second area according to the second area indicated by the first information and the location of the terminal device. If yes, the terminal device performs cell reselection measurement.

[0212] Alternatively, the terminal device determines whether the terminal device is located in the third beam according to the third beam indicated by the first information and the beam in which the terminal device is located. If the terminal device is located in the third beam (i.e., the area for performing cell reselection measurement), the terminal device performs cell reselection measurement.

[0213] S1204, the terminal device determines a target cell for cell reselection / handover in a case where the terminal device is located in the second area or the third beam of the target cell for cell reselection / handover.

[0214] The terminal device determines whether the location of the terminal device belongs to the second area according to the second area for determining the target cell for cell reselection / handover indicated by the first information and the location of the terminal device. If yes, the terminal device determines the target cell for cell reselection / handover.

[0215] Alternatively, the terminal device determines whether the terminal device is located in the third beam according to the third beam for determining the target cell for cell reselection / handover indicated by the first information and the beam in which the terminal device is located. If the terminal device is located in the third beam (i.e., the area for performing cell reselection / handover), the terminal device determines the target cell for cell reselection / handover.

[0216] Optionally, the second area or the third beam for determining the target cell for cell reselection / handover can be the same as or different from the second area or the third beam for performing cell reselection measurement.

[0217] In a possible implementation, the method can further include the following steps:

[0218] S1205, the network device updates the beam information when the service cell coverage changes.

[0219] The beam can be updated according to the service cell coverage. For example, if the edge beam in the service cell changes, etc., the network device can update the beam information.

[0220] The network device can update the beam information in the following manner: using system information to update. For example, in a system information modification period (SI modification period), the terminal device is notified by a system information modification indication (SI change notification) that the system information or the specific beam information will change, and then the updated system information / beam information is sent in the next system information modification period.

[0221] It should be understood that the order of the beam information process and steps S1201-S1204 is not limited, and the network device can update the beam information at any time when there is a need to update the beam information.

[0222] The method provided by the embodiments of the present application can accurately determine whether the terminal device is located in the edge area of the service cell by sending the terminal device the area in which the cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover is performed in the service cell, and the terminal device determines whether it is located in these areas, thereby reasonably controlling the start and stop of the terminal device performing cell reselection measurement and / or cell reselection and / or handover. For cell reselection measurement, it can be ensured that the terminal device starts measurement on the adjacent cell only when it reaches the edge of the service cell coverage or the coverage of the adjacent cell is close, avoiding the terminal device measuring the adjacent cell that is not around, reducing unnecessary measurement overhead of the terminal device. On the other hand, it can ensure that the terminal device can start measurement on the adjacent cell in time when the coverage of the adjacent cell is close, supporting the subsequent cell reselection judgment in time and guaranteeing the mobility performance. For cell reselection and / or handover, it can be ensured that the terminal device considers reselection / handover to the adjacent cell only when it is located in the coverage of the adjacent cell, avoiding the terminal device performing reselection / handover too early and causing reselection / handover failure. On the other hand, it can ensure that the terminal device can perform reselection / handover in time when it is far away from the service cell coverage and has reached the coverage of the adjacent cell, so as to change to a suitable cell for camping, guaranteeing the mobility performance.

[0223] In addition, in the NTN system, the terminal device also needs to measure the best beam and the adjacent beams around the terminal device to guarantee the quality monitoring of the terminal device to the NTN cell and support the mobility of the terminal device in the serving cell. At present, the terminal device mainly measures as many beams in the NTN cell as possible, and determines the adjacent beams around the terminal device according to the beam quality in the measurement result (that is, the higher the beam quality, the closer the distance between the beam and the terminal device).

[0224] However, by measuring the beams in this way to support the mobility of the terminal device in the serving cell, the terminal device performs too much redundant measurement. For example, the terminal device measures as many beams in the NTN cell as possible, and part of the beams are not adjacent beams of the terminal device. In the case that the coverage area of the NTN cell may need to reach the order of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, the number of beams in the NTN cell is much larger than that in a ground cell. Therefore, the terminal device will cause a large measurement overhead due to too much redundant measurement behavior, which affects the power consumption of the terminal device.

[0225] Therefore, the present application provides a communication method, which sends the beam arrangement information of the serving cell to the terminal device, so that the terminal device determines the adjacent beams of the terminal device according to the area where the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information, and measures the adjacent beams, thereby reducing the redundant measurement behavior of the terminal device and reducing the measurement overhead and power consumption.

[0226] FIG. 13 is a flowchart of another communication method provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 13, the method can include:

[0227] S1301, the terminal device receives second information.

[0228] The second information is used to indicate the beam arrangement information of the serving cell of the terminal device. The serving cell can be an NTN cell, or a ground serving cell, etc. The second information can be sent by the network device to the terminal device, or sent by other devices to the terminal device.

[0229] In one possible implementation, the beam arrangement information is a beam arrangement diagram in the serving cell. For example, the beam arrangement diagram shown in FIG. 7.

[0230] In another possible implementation, the beam arrangement information includes at least one of the following: a sorting rule of the beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of the beams of the serving cell. The beam set can be an SSB burst, or a beam set defined according to actual needs.

[0231] In this implementation, the ordering rule of the beams of the serving cell can be an ascending ordering rule of the beam identifiers, or a descending ordering rule. Taking the ascending ordering rule of the beam identifiers as an example, and continuing to refer to FIG. 7, the ascending ordering rule of the beam identifiers is ascending from bottom to top and from left to right. Alternatively, taking north as the top direction as an example, the ascending ordering rule of the beam identifiers is ascending from south to north and from west to east.

[0232] The width information of the beam set of the beams of the serving cell can be the number of columns occupied by the beams in the beam set, or the number of rows occupied by the beams in the beam set. Taking the number of columns occupied by the beams in the beam set as an example, and continuing to refer to FIG. 7, the width information of the beam set is 1. FIG. 14 is a structural schematic diagram of a beam arrangement provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 14, beams #0 to #7 form a beam set, beams #8 to #15 form a second beam set, and so on. Taking the number of columns occupied by the beams in the beam set as an example, the width information of the beam set is 2.

[0233] Optionally, the second information can include only the ordering rule of the beams of the serving cell, or only the width information of the beam set of the beams of the serving cell, in which case the other information not included can be predefined. Alternatively, the second information can include the ordering rule of the beams of the serving cell and the width information of the beam set of the beams of the serving cell.

[0234] In S1302, the terminal device performs measurement according to the beam arrangement information.

[0235] The terminal device can determine a sixth beam according to a fifth beam in which the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information. The fifth beam is a serving beam of the terminal device (i.e., the beam in which the terminal device is located), and the sixth beam is a neighboring beam of the terminal device. Taking FIG. 7 as an example, if the terminal device is located in beam #27, beam #35 adjacent to beam #27 can be taken as the sixth beam.

[0236] Optionally, the terminal device can take the fifth beam and / or the sixth beam as a to-be-measured beam to perform measurement on the to-be-measured beam. For example, the terminal device can only measure the sixth beam to prepare for subsequent switching to the sixth beam. Alternatively, the terminal device continuously measures the fifth beam while measuring the sixth beam to ensure that the currently used beam is the better choice, and switches to the sixth beam to work if the measurement result of the sixth beam is better than that of the fifth beam. Similarly, the terminal device can also take the beams in the beam set in which the fifth beam is located as part of the to-be-measured beams, which will not be described herein again.

[0237] Optionally, the sixth beam in the embodiments of the present application can be an adjacent beam of the fifth beam. For example, when the fifth beam is beam #27 in FIG. 7, beam #35 is the sixth beam, or beam #35, beam #43, and beam #44 are all the sixth beams adjacent to beam #27. The range of the adjacent beam can be set according to actual needs, which is not limited in the present application. For another example, referring to FIG. 14, if the fifth beam is beam #27, the sixth beam can also be beam #30 in the same beam set.

[0238] Optionally, the sixth beam in the embodiments of the present application can also be a beam in a beam set adjacent to the fifth beam. For example, when the fifth beam is beam #27 in FIG. 7, the sixth beam can be a beam in a beam set composed of beam #32 to beam #39, or can also include a beam in a beam set composed of beam #40 to beam #47. The range of the adjacent beam set can be set according to actual needs (i.e., it can be the next adjacent beam set, the next two adjacent beam sets, etc.), which is not limited in the present application.

[0239] The method provided by the embodiments of the present application can transmit the beam arrangement information in the serving cell to the terminal device, so that the terminal device can determine the beams to be measured subsequently according to the fifth beam in which the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information, thereby narrowing the beam range to be measured by the terminal device, reducing the case of redundant measurement, and reducing unnecessary measurement power consumption of the terminal device.

[0240] It should be understood that in the embodiments of the present application, the terminal device and / or the network device can perform part or all of the steps in the embodiments. These steps or operations are only examples, and the embodiments of the present application can also perform other operations or variations of various operations. In addition, each step can be performed in a different order from the order presented in the embodiments, and it is possible that not all operations in the embodiments of the present application are performed. Moreover, the magnitude of the serial number of each step does not mean the order of execution, and the execution order of each process should be determined according to its function and inherent logic, and should not constitute any limitation on the implementation process of the embodiments of the present application.

[0241] FIG. 15 is a structural schematic diagram of another communication apparatus provided by the embodiments of the present application. It can be understood that the communication apparatus can correspond to the operation or steps of the terminal device in the foregoing various method embodiments. The communication apparatus can be a terminal device or can be a component, such as a chip, a chip module, etc., which can be configured to the terminal device. As shown in FIG. 15, the communication apparatus can include a receiving module 1501 and a processing module 1502.

[0242] The receiving module 1501 is configured to receive first information, where the first information is used to indicate information of performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover of the terminal device, and the information corresponds to an area of a serving cell or a beam of the serving cell of the terminal device.

[0243] The processing module 1502 is configured to determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the first information.

[0244] Optionally, the first information comprises a distance threshold. The processing module 1502 is specifically configured to determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover according to the distance threshold.

[0245] Optionally, the processing module 1502 is specifically configured to determine that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover if a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold. Alternatively, the processing module 1502 is specifically configured to determine that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover if a distance difference between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell and the terminal device and a reference point of a neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold.

[0246] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a correspondence between a first area or a first beam and the distance threshold, where the first area is a partial area in the serving cell, and the first beam is a beam of the serving cell.

[0247] Optionally, the information corresponding to the beam of the serving cell is information corresponding to a beam set of the serving cell, and the beam set comprises one or more beams.

[0248] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst).

[0249] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a distance threshold corresponding to a second beam of the serving cell. The receiving module 1501 is specifically configured to receive the first information through the second beam.

[0250] Optionally, the distance threshold comprises a first distance threshold used to trigger measurement, and / or, a second distance threshold used to perform cell reselection, and / or, a third distance threshold used to perform handover.

[0251] Optionally, the first information comprises information of a second area or information of a third beam of the serving cell performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover. The processing module 1502 is specifically configured to determine that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover if the terminal device is located in the second area or the third beam.

[0252] Optionally, if the first information comprises the information of the second area, the information of the second area comprises an identifier of the second area. Alternatively, if the first information comprises the information of the third beam, the information of the third beam comprises an identifier of the third beam.

[0253] Optionally, the first information comprises a bitmap, and a bit in the bitmap corresponds to a beam of the serving cell. If the bit in the bitmap takes a first value, the beam corresponding to the bit is the third beam. If the bit in the bitmap takes a second value, the beam corresponding to the bit is not the third beam.

[0254] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate whether a fourth beam in the serving cell is the third beam. The receiving module 1501 is specifically configured to receive the first information through the fourth beam.

[0255] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0256] The communication apparatus provided in this embodiment can perform the actions of the terminal device in the foregoing method embodiments, and has similar implementation principles and technical effects, which will not be described here again.

[0257] FIG. 16 is a structural schematic diagram of a communication apparatus provided in this embodiment. It can be understood that the communication apparatus can correspondingly implement the operations or steps of the corresponding network device in the foregoing various method embodiments. The communication apparatus can be a network device or can be a component (for example, a chip, a chip module, etc.) configurable to the network device. As shown in FIG. 16, the communication apparatus can comprise a sending module 1601.

[0258] The sending module 1601 is configured to send first information, the first information being used to indicate information corresponding to an area of a serving cell or a beam of the serving cell of a terminal device, the information being used for the terminal device to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0259] Optionally, the first information comprises a distance threshold value, the distance threshold value being used to determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0260] Optionally, if a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold value, it is determined that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover. Alternatively, if a difference between a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell and a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of a neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold value, it is determined that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

[0261] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a correspondence between the first region or the first beam and the distance threshold, the first region being a partial region in the serving cell, and the first beam being a beam of the serving cell.

[0262] Optionally, the information corresponding to the beam of the serving cell is information corresponding to a beam set of the serving cell, the beam set including one or more beams.

[0263] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst).

[0264] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate a distance threshold corresponding to a second beam of the serving cell. The sending module 1601 is specifically configured to send the first information through the second beam.

[0265] Optionally, the distance threshold includes a first distance threshold used to trigger measurement, and / or a second distance threshold used to perform cell reselection, and / or a third distance threshold used to perform handover.

[0266] Optionally, the first information includes information of a second region or information of a third beam of the serving cell, the second region being used to perform measurement, and / or cell reselection, and / or handover.

[0267] Optionally, if the first information includes the information of the second region, the information of the second region includes an identifier of the second region. Alternatively, if the first information includes the information of the third beam, the information of the third beam includes an identifier of the third beam.

[0268] Optionally, the first information includes a bitmap, one bit in the bitmap corresponding to one beam of the serving cell. If a bit in the beam bitmap takes a first value, the beam corresponding to the bit is the third beam. If the bit in the beam bitmap takes a second value, the beam corresponding to the bit is not the third beam.

[0269] Optionally, the first information is used to indicate whether a fourth beam in the serving cell is the third beam. The sending module 1601 is specifically configured to send the first information through the fourth beam.

[0270] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0271] The communication apparatus provided in the embodiment can perform the actions of the network device in the foregoing method embodiments, and has similar implementation principles and technical effects, which will not be described here again.

[0272] FIG. 17 is a structural schematic diagram of another communication apparatus provided by the embodiment of the present application. It can be understood that the communication apparatus can correspond to the operation or step of the terminal device in the foregoing various method embodiments. The communication apparatus can be a terminal device or can be a component, such as a chip, a chip module, etc., which can be configured to the terminal device. As shown in FIG. 17, the communication apparatus can include a receiving module 1701. In a possible implementation, the communication apparatus further includes a processing module 1702.

[0273] The receiving module 1701 is configured to receive second information, where the second information is used to indicate beam arrangement information of a serving cell of the terminal device.

[0274] Optionally, the processing module 1702 is configured to perform measurement according to the beam arrangement information.

[0275] Optionally, the beam arrangement information includes at least one of the following: a sorting rule of beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of beams of the serving cell.

[0276] Optionally, the sorting rule of beams of the serving cell includes an ascending sorting rule of beam identifiers, or a descending sorting rule of beam identifiers.

[0277] Optionally, the width information of the beam set includes a number of columns occupied by beams in the beam set, or a number of rows occupied by beams in the beam set.

[0278] Optionally, the processing module 1702 is specifically configured to determine a sixth beam according to a fifth beam in which the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information, and perform measurement on the fifth beam and / or the sixth beam.

[0279] Optionally, the sixth beam is a neighboring beam of the fifth beam, or the sixth beam is a beam in a beam set adjacent to the fifth beam.

[0280] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst).

[0281] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0282] The communication apparatus provided by the embodiment of the present application can perform the actions of the terminal device in the foregoing method embodiments, and the implementation principles and technical effects are similar, which will not be described herein.

[0283] FIG. 18 is a structural schematic diagram of a communication apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present application. It can be understood that the communication apparatus can correspond to the operation or steps of the network device in the foregoing method embodiments. The communication apparatus can be a network device or a component (for example, a chip, a chip module, etc.) configurable to the network device. As shown in FIG. 18, the communication apparatus can include a sending module 1801.

[0284] The sending module 1801 is configured to send second information, where the second information is used to indicate beam arrangement information of a serving cell of a terminal device.

[0285] Optionally, the beam arrangement information includes at least one of the following: a sorting rule of beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of beams of the serving cell.

[0286] Optionally, the sorting rule of beams of the serving cell includes an ascending sorting rule of beam identifiers, or a descending sorting rule of beam identifiers.

[0287] Optionally, the width information of the beam set includes a number of columns occupied by beams in the beam set, or a number of rows occupied by beams in the beam set.

[0288] Optionally, the beam set is a synchronization signal / physical broadcast channel block burst set (SSB burst).

[0289] Optionally, the serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

[0290] The communication apparatus provided in the embodiment can perform the actions of the network device in the foregoing method embodiments, and the implementation principles and technical effects are similar, which will not be described herein.

[0291] Optionally, the communication apparatus can further include at least one storage module, which can include data and / or instructions. Other modules (for example, a receiving module, a sending module, a processing module, etc.) in the communication apparatus can read the data and / or instructions in the storage module to implement corresponding methods.

[0292] It should be noted that the sending module in each of the above embodiments can be a transmitter in actual implementation, the receiving module can be a receiver in actual implementation, or the sending module and the receiving module are implemented through a transceiver, or the sending module and the receiving module are implemented through a communication port. The processing module can be implemented in the form of software invoked by a processing element, or can be implemented in the form of hardware. For example, the processing module can be at least one separately established processing element, or can be integrated in a chip of the apparatus, in addition, the processing module can be stored in the form of program code in a memory of the apparatus, and the function of the processing module is invoked and executed by a processing element of the apparatus. In addition, all or part of the modules can be integrated together, or can be independently implemented. The processing element mentioned herein can be an integrated circuit having a signal processing capability. In the implementation process, each step of the above method or each of the above modules can be completed by an integrated logic circuit of hardware in the processing element or an instruction in the form of software.

[0293] For example, the modules can be one or more integrated circuits configured to implement the above method, for example, one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or one or more digital signal processors (DSPs), or one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), etc. For another example, when a certain module is implemented in the form of program code invoked by a processing element, the processing element can be a general purpose processor, for example, a central processing unit (CPU) or other processor capable of invoking program code. For another example, the modules can be integrated together to implement a system-on-a-chip (SOC).

[0294] FIG. 19 is a structural schematic diagram of another communication apparatus provided by an embodiment of the present application. As shown in FIG. 19, the communication apparatus 1900 can include at least one processor 1901. The processor 1901 is configured to implement the method performed by the terminal device or the network device.

[0295] Optionally, the communication apparatus 1900 can further include a memory 1902. The processor 1901 is coupled to the memory 1902, and the memory 1902 is configured to store instructions, and the processor 1901 is configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory 1902.

[0296] Optionally, the communication apparatus 1900 further includes a transceiver 1903. The processor 1901, the transceiver 1903 and the memory 1902 communicate with each other through an internal connection path. The memory 1902 is configured to store instructions, and the processor 1901 is configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory 1902 to control the transceiver 1903 to send and / or receive indication information.

[0297] The communication apparatus can be the network device or the terminal device.

[0298] It should be understood that the communication apparatus can correspond to the terminal device in the method embodiments, or can correspond to the network device in the method embodiments. The communication apparatus can be used to execute the steps and / or procedures performed by the terminal device or the network device in the method embodiments. Optionally, the memory 1902 can include a read-only memory and a random access memory, and provide instructions and data for the processor 1901. A part of the memory 1902 can also include a non-volatile random access memory. The memory 1902 can be a separate device, or integrated in the processor 1901. The processor 1901 can be configured to execute the instructions stored in the memory 1902, and when the processor 1901 executes the instructions stored in the memory, the processor 1901 is configured to execute the steps and / or procedures of the method embodiments.

[0299] The transceiver 1903 can include a transmitter and a receiver. The transceiver 1903 can further include an antenna, and the number of antennas can be one or more. The processor 1901 and the memory 1902 and the transceiver 1903 can be devices integrated on different chips. For example, the processor 1901 and the memory 1902 can be integrated in a baseband chip, and the transceiver 1903 can be integrated in a radio frequency chip. The processor 1901 and the memory 1902 and the transceiver 1903 can also be devices integrated on the same chip. The present application does not make any limitation in this regard.

[0300] Optionally, the communication apparatus is a component, such as a chip, a chip system, etc., configured in the terminal device or the network device.

[0301] The transceiver 1903 can also be a communication interface, such as an input interface and / or an output interface, a circuit, etc. The transceiver 1903, the processor 1901 and the memory 1902 can be integrated in the same chip, such as a baseband chip.

[0302] It should be understood that the communication device described above can be one or more chips. For example, the communication device can be a field programmable gate array (FPGA), can be an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), can also be a system on chip (SoC), can also be a central processor unit (CPU), can also be a network processor (NP), can also be a digital signal processor (DSP), can also be a micro controller unit (MCU), can also be a programmable logic device (PLD) or other integrated chip.

[0303] In the implementation process, each step of the above method can be completed by the integrated logic circuit of the hardware in the processor or the instructions in the form of software. The steps of the method disclosed in combination with the embodiments of the present application can be directly embodied as hardware processor execution completion, or executed by hardware and software modules in the processor. The software module can be located in a mature storage medium in the field, such as random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory, electrically erasable programmable memory, register, etc. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory, and combines the hardware to complete the steps of the above method. To avoid repetition, it will not be described in detail here.

[0304] It should be noted that the processor in the embodiments of the present application can be an integrated circuit chip with a signal processing capability. In the implementation process, the steps of the method embodiments described above can be completed by an integrated logic circuit or an instruction in the form of software in the processor. The processor described above can be 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 devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components. The disclosed methods, steps and logic block diagrams in the embodiments of the present application can be implemented or executed. The general-purpose processor can be a microprocessor or the processor can also be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in conjunction with the embodiments of the present application can be directly embodied as a hardware code processor for execution, or a combination of hardware and software modules in the code processor for execution. The software module can be located in a random access memory, a flash memory, a read-only memory, a programmable read-only memory or an electrically erasable programmable memory, a register or other mature storage medium in the art. The storage medium is located in the storage, and the processor reads the information in the storage, and combines the hardware to complete the steps of the above method.

[0305] It can be understood that the memory in the embodiments of the present application can be a volatile memory or a non-volatile memory, or can include both volatile and non-volatile memories. Among them, the non-volatile memory can be a read-only memory (ROM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), an electrically EPROM (EEPROM) or a flash memory. The volatile memory can be a random access memory (RAM) used as an external cache. By way of example but not limitation, many forms of RAM are available, such as static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synchlink DRAM (SLDRAM) and direct rambus RAM (DR RAM). It should be noted that the memory described herein is intended to include but not limited to these and any other suitable types of memory.

[0306] The embodiments of the present application further provide a communication system, which comprises a first device and a second device, the first device is a terminal device as described in the foregoing embodiments, and the second device is a network device as described in the foregoing embodiments. The first device can implement the method performed by the terminal device as described in the foregoing embodiments, and the second device can implement the method performed by the network device as described in the foregoing embodiments.

[0307] The embodiments of the present application further provide a chip, which stores a computer program, and when the computer program is executed by the chip, the method in the foregoing embodiments is implemented.

[0308] The embodiments of the present application further provide a computer readable storage medium, which can include: a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and various media that can store program codes. Specifically, the computer readable storage medium stores program instructions, and when the program instructions are executed, the method in the foregoing embodiments is implemented.

[0309] The embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product, which comprises execution instructions stored in a readable storage medium. At least one processor of a communication device can read the execution instructions from the readable storage medium, and the at least one processor executes the execution instructions to enable the communication device to implement the communication method provided by the various embodiments.

[0310] Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solutions of the present application, and not to limit them; although the present application has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, those skilled in the art should understand that: it can still modify the technical solutions recorded in the foregoing embodiments, or make equivalent replacement for part or all of the technical features; and these modifications or replacements do not make the essence of the corresponding technical solutions deviate from the scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application.

Claims

1. A communication method characterized by comprising: Comprising: receiving first information, the first information being used for indicating information of performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, by a terminal device, the information being corresponding to an area of a serving cell or a beam of the serving cell of the terminal device; determining whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, according to the first information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, The first information comprises a distance threshold value; The determining whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, according to the first information, comprises: determining whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, according to the distance threshold value.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein, The determining whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, according to the distance threshold value, comprises: if a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of the serving cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold value, determining that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover; or, if a difference between the distance between the terminal device and the reference point of the serving cell and a distance between the terminal device and a reference point of a neighboring cell is greater than or equal to the distance threshold value, determining that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

4. The method according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that, The first information is used for indicating a correspondence between a first area or a first beam and the distance threshold value, the first area being a partial area within the serving cell, and the first beam being a beam of the serving cell.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that, The information corresponding to the beam of the serving cell is information corresponding to a beam set of the serving cell, the beam set comprising one or more beams.

6. The method according to any one of claims 2-5, characterized in that, The first information is used for indicating a distance threshold value corresponding to a second beam of the serving cell; The receiving first information comprises: receiving the first information through the second beam.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein, The first information comprises information of a second area or information of a third beam of the serving cell, the second area being used for performing measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover; The determining whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover, according to the first information, comprises: if the terminal device is located in the second area or the third beam, determining that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein, If the first information comprises the information of the second area, the information of the second area comprises an identifier of the second area; or, if the first information comprises the information of the third beam, the information of the third beam comprises an identifier of the third beam.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein, The first information comprises a bitmap, one bit in the bitmap corresponding to one beam of the serving cell; if a value of a bit in the bitmap is a first value, the beam corresponding to the bit is the third beam; if the value of the bit in the bitmap is a second value, the beam corresponding to the bit is not the third beam.

10. The method according to any one of claims 7-9, characterized in that, The first information is used for indicating whether a fourth beam within the serving cell is the third beam; The receiving first information comprises: receiving the first information through the fourth beam.

11. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that, The serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

12. A communication method characterized by comprising: Comprising: The first information is used to indicate that the terminal device performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein, The first information includes a distance threshold used to determine whether to perform measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein, The first information is used to indicate a correspondence relationship between a first area or a first beam and the distance threshold, the first area being a partial area within the serving cell, and the first beam being a beam of the serving cell.

15. The method according to claim 13 or 14, characterized in that, The first information is used to indicate a distance threshold corresponding to a second beam of the serving cell. The first information is transmitted by the second beam. The first information includes information of a second area or information of a third beam of the serving cell, which performs measurement, and / or, cell reselection, and / or, handover.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein, The second information includes:

17. A method of communication, comprising: The second information is used to indicate beam arrangement information of a serving cell of a terminal device. The measurement is performed according to the beam arrangement information.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein, The beam arrangement information includes at least one of the following: an ordering rule of beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of beams of the serving cell. The ordering rule of beams of the serving cell includes an ascending ordering rule of beam identifiers, or a descending ordering rule of beam identifiers.

19. The method of claim 17 or 18, wherein, The width information of the beam set includes a number of columns occupied by beams in the beam set, or a number of rows occupied by beams in the beam set.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein, The measurement includes:

21. The method of claim 19 or 20, wherein, A sixth beam is determined according to a fifth beam in which the terminal device is located and the beam arrangement information.

22. The method according to any one of claims 17-21, characterized by, The fifth beam and / or the sixth beam is measured. The sixth beam is a neighboring beam of the fifth beam, or the sixth beam is a beam in a beam set adjacent to the fifth beam. The serving cell is a non-terrestrial network (NTN) cell.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein, The second information is transmitted, and the second information is used to indicate beam arrangement information of a serving cell of a terminal device.

24. The method according to any one of claims 17-23, characterized by, The beam arrangement information includes at least one of the following: an ordering rule of beams of the serving cell, and width information of a beam set of beams of the serving cell.

25. A method of communication, comprising: The ordering rule of beams of the serving cell includes an ascending ordering rule of beam identifiers, or a descending ordering rule of beam identifiers. The width information of the beam set includes a number of columns occupied by beams in the beam set, or a number of rows occupied by beams in the beam set.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein, A module for performing the method of any one of claims 1-28.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein, A computer program for storing instructions for implementing the method of any one of claims 1-28.

28. The method of claim 26 or 27, wherein, ​ 29. A communications device, characterized by ​ 30. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, ​

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