Method and apparatus for a time domain adaptive SSB signal configuration

Abstract

The disclosure relates to a 5G or 6G communication system for supporting higher data rates. A method for configuring time adaptive SSB transmission is provided. The method includes receiving, from a base station, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period; transmitting, to the base station, the preamble; and receiving, from the base station, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received, based on the RNTI.

Description

[Rectified under Rule 91, 28.04.2025]METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A TIME DOMAIN ADAPTIVE SSB SIGNAL CONFIGURATION

[0001] The disclosure relates to operations of a user equipment (UE) and a base station (BS) in a wireless communication system. More particularly, the disclosure related to a method and an apparatus for a time domain adaptive SSB signal configuration.

[0002]

[0003] In order to meet the increasing demand for wireless data communication services since the deployment of fourth generation (4G) communication systems, efforts have been made to develop improved fifth generation (5G) or pre-5G communication systems. Therefore, 5G or pre-5G communication systems are also called "Beyond 4G networks" or "Post-LTE systems".

[0004] Fifth generation (5G) mobile communication technologies define broad frequency bands such that high transmission rates and new services are possible, and may be implemented not only in "Sub 6 GHz" bands such as 3.5 GHz, but also in "Above 6 GHz" bands referred to as millimeter wave (mmWave) including 28 GHz and 39 GHz. In addition, it has been considered to implement sixth generation (6G) mobile communication technologies (referred to as Beyond 5G systems) in terahertz bands (for example, 95 GHz to 3 THz bands) in order to accomplish transmission rates fifty times faster than 5G mobile communication technologies and ultra-low latencies one-tenth of 5G mobile communication technologies.

[0005] Initially, at the beginning of the development of 5G mobile communication technologies, in order to support services and to satisfy performance requirements in connection with an enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB), an Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), and a massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC), there has been ongoing standardization regarding beamforming and a massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) for mitigating radio-wave path loss and increasing radio-wave transmission distances in mmWave, supporting numerologies (for example, operating multiple subcarrier spacings) for efficiently utilizing mmWave resources and dynamic operation of slot formats, initial access technologies for supporting multi-beam transmission and broadbands, definition and operation of Bandwidth Part (BWP), new channel coding methods such as a Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code for large amount of data transmission and a polar code for highly reliable transmission of control information, L2 pre-processing, and network slicing for providing a dedicated network specialized to a specific service.

[0006] There are ongoing discussions regarding improvement and performance enhancement of initial 5G mobile communication technologies in view of services to be supported by 5G mobile communication technologies, and there has been physical layer standardization regarding technologies such as a Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) for aiding driving determination by autonomous vehicles based on information regarding positions and states of vehicles transmitted by the vehicles and for enhancing user convenience, New Radio Unlicensed (NR-U) aimed at system operations conforming to various regulation-related requirements in unlicensed bands, NR UE Power Saving, a Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) which is a UE-satellite direct communication system for providing coverage in an area in which communication with terrestrial networks is unavailable, and positioning.

[0007] Further, there has been ongoing standardization in air interface architecture / protocol regarding technologies such as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) for supporting new services through interworking and convergence with other industries, an Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) for providing a node for network service area expansion by supporting a wireless backhaul link and an access link in an integrated manner, mobility enhancement including conditional handover and Dual Active Protocol Stack (DAPS) handover, and two-step random access for simplifying random access procedures (2-step random-access channel (RACH) for NR). There also has been ongoing standardization in system architecture / service regarding a 5G baseline architecture (for example, service based architecture or service based interface) for combining Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) for receiving services based on the UE positions.

[0008] As the 5G mobile communication systems are commercialized, connected devices that have been exponentially increasing will be connected to communication networks, and it is accordingly expected that enhanced functions and performances of 5G mobile communication systems and integrated operations of connected devices will be necessary. To this end, new research may be scheduled in connection with eXtended Reality (XR) for efficiently supporting Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR) and the like, 5G performance improvement and complexity reduction by utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), AI service support, metaverse service support, and drone communication.

[0009] Such development of 5G mobile communication systems will serve as a basis for developing not only new waveforms for providing coverage in terahertz bands of 6G mobile communication technologies, multi-antenna transmission technologies such as Full Dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antennas and large-scale antennas, metamaterial-based lenses and antennas for improving coverage of terahertz band signals, high-dimensional space multiplexing technology using Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM), and Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS), but also full-duplex technology for increasing frequency efficiency of 6G mobile communication technologies and improving system networks, AI-based communication technology for implementing system optimization by utilizing satellites and Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the design stage and internalizing end-to-end AI support functions, and next-generation distributed computing technology for implementing services at levels of complexity exceeding the limit of the UE operation capability by utilizing ultra-high-performance communication and computing resources.

[0010] In addition, in 5G communication systems, developments of system network improvement are underway based on advanced small cell, cloud radio access network (RAN), ultra-dense network, device-to-device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, mobile network, cooperative communication, coordinated multi-points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation, etc.

[0011] In 5G systems, hybrid FSK and QAM modulation (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC) as advanced coding modulation (ACM), and filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) as advanced access technologies have been developed.

[0012] The base station typically transmits synchronization signal block (SSB) to the UE at a fixed period (e.g., every 20 ms), and the UE monitors it for synchronization and network access. However, if unnecessary SSBs are transmitted, it can casue a waste of energy and resources, increase UE power consumption and delay the random access. To address these issues, time-domain adaptive SSB transmission has been proposed. In time-domain adaptive SSB transmission, it is necessary to support fast access and power saving of the UE by dynamically adjusting a transmission of additional SSBs and the SSB transmission interval.

[0013] The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the disclosure.

[0014]

[0015] The disclosure relates to operations of a user equipment (UE) and a base station (BS) in a wireless communication system. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a method and an apparatus for configuring time-adaptive SSB transmission.

[0016] Accordingly, an aspect of the disclosure is to provide a method and apparatus for receiving the　SSB related　configuration with specific RNTI.

[0017] In additon, an aspect of the disclosure is to provide a method and an apparatus for receiving at least one of additional SSBs along with legacy SSBs.

[0018] Furthermore, an aspect of the disclosure is to provide a method and an apparatus for supporting non-uniform SSB transmission and flexible SSB transmission cycle adjustment signaling notifications.

[0019] Additional aspects will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the presented embodiments.

[0020] Aspects of the disclosure are to address at least the above-mentioned problems and / or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described below.

[0021]

[0022] In accordance with an aspect of the disclosure, a method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system is provided. The method includes receiving, from a base station, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period; transmitting, to the base station, the preamble; and receiving, from the base station, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received, based on the RNTI.

[0023] In accordance with another aspect of the disclosure, a method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system is provided. The method includes transmitting, to a terminal, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period; receiving, from the terminal, the preamble; and transmitting, to the terminal, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received by the terminal, based on the RNTI.

[0024] In accordance with another aspect of the disclosure, a terminal in a wireless communication system is provided. The terminal includes a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: receive, from a base station, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period, transmit, to the base station, the preamble, and receive, from the base station, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received, based on the RNTI.

[0025] In accordance with another aspect of the disclosure, a base station in a wireless communication system is provided. The base station includes a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: transmit, to a terminal, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period, receive, from the terminal, the preamble, and transmit, to the terminal, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received by the terminal, based on the RNTI.

[0026] According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method performed by user equipment (UE) in a communication system, comprising: receiving first information, wherein the first information includes at least one of the following: information related to a first preamble associated with the activation of a first system information block (SIB) transmission and / or first random access occasion (RO) related information, wherein the first SIB is a non-broadcast SIB; receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) scheduled based on a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), wherein the first RNTI is determined based on the first information and / or a sixth indication; receiving a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) including the first SIB, wherein the first SIB includes first configuration information and / or second configuration information, wherein the first configuration information includes information related to a first downlink signal and the second configuration information includes information related to a second downlink signal.

[0027] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the method further comprises: receiving a first downlink signal or a second downlink signal, wherein the downlink signal includes the sixth indication, wherein the sixth indication is used to indicate whether a received downlink signal is the first downlink signal or the second downlink signal.

[0028] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the first information further includes at least one of the following: first RNTI; a mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI; a mapping of the first SIB to first system information (SI); a length of a first SI window; a period of a first SI transmission; a time domain position of a first SI window.

[0029] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein determining the first RNTI based on the first information and / or the sixth indication includes at least one of the followingat least one of the following: based on the first RNTI included in the first information; based on at least one of an index of the first preamble, a type of the first preamble, a format of the first preamble and a root sequence index of the first preamble; based on one or more of an index of the first preamble, the first RO related information, a feature index or a feature group index, and the sixth indication; based on the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI, wherein the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI includes a one-to-one mapping or a many-to-one mapping.

[0030] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the method further comprises: determining a number and / or time domain candidate positions of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information and / or the sixth indication.

[0031] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the information related to the first downlink signal includes at least one of the following: a first period for indicating a transmission period of the first downlink signal; a first indication, including information related to determining a sub-signal actually transmitted in the first downlink signal.

[0032] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the information related to the second downlink signal includes at least one of the following: a second period for indicating a transmission period of the second downlink signal; a first interval between two adjacent second downlink signals in one first period; a second indication, including information related to determining a sub-signal actually transmitted in the second downlink signal; a third indication, including information related to determining second downlink signal actually transmitted; a fourth indication, including information related to determining an index of a received second downlink signal; a first window length, including information related to determining a time domain range in which the second downlink signal appears; a first offset, which is an offset of a position of a starting symbol of a first second downlink signal relative to a position of a starting symbol of a first downlink signal, in one first period; a second offset, which is an offset of a position of a starting symbol of a last second downlink signal relative to a position of a starting symbol of a first downlink signal in the next first period, in one first period; a fifth indication, including information related to determining a silenced second downlink signal; a period scaling factor, including information related to whether the second downlink signal is configured and / or information related to determining the first offset; a first number, including information associated with determining a number of second downlink signals included in one first period.

[0033] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the determining the number and / or the time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information and / or the sixth indication comprises at least one of the following: determining the number and / or the time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on at least one of a time domain position of a received first downlink signal or the second downlink signal, the sixth indication, a number of the second downlink signals, the first period, the first interval, the fourth indication, the first offset and / or the second offset.

[0034] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the determining the number and / or the time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal comprises at least one of the following: determining the number and / or the time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on at least one of the time domain position of the received first downlink signal or the second downlink signal, the sixth indication and the number of the second downlink signals; determining the number and / or the time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on at least one of the time domain position of the received first downlink signal or the second downlink signal, the sixth indication, the first period, the first interval and the fourth indication; or determining the number and / or the time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on at least one of the time domain position of the received first downlink signal or the second downlink signal, the sixth indication, the first period, the first interval, the fourth indication, the first offset and / or the second offset.

[0035] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein the method further comprises: determining whether the second downlink signal is transmitted at the time domain candidate position based on the third indication in the second configuration information or based on a measurement result at the time domain candidate position of the second downlink signal.

[0036] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein an indication mode of the third indication includes at least one of the following: the third indication being indicated in a bitmap mode; the third indication including information related to a number of second downlink signals actually transmitted in one first period; or the third indication including a first parameter, wherein when an index corresponding to the candidate position and the first parameter meet a preset rule, it is determined that the second downlink signal is transmitted at the time domain candidate position.

[0037] According to the method performed by the user equipment (UE) in the communication system provided by the present disclosure, wherein determining whether the second downlink signal is transmitted at the time domain candidate position based on the measurement result at the time domain candidate position of the second downlink signal comprises: measuring a received signal power and / or a signal-to-interference-noise ratio at the time domain candidate position of the second downlink signal; if the measurement result is greater than a preset threshold, determining that the second downlink signal is transmitted at the time domain candidate position.

[0038] According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method performed by a base station in a communication system, the method comprising: transmitting first information, wherein the first information includes at least one of the following: information related to a first preamble associated with the activation of a first system information block (SIB) transmission and / or first random access occasion (RO) related information, wherein the first SIB is a non-broadcast SIB; transmitting a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) scheduled based on a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), wherein the first RNTI is determined based on the first information and / or a sixth indication; transmitting a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) including the first SIB, wherein the first SIB includes first configuration information and / or second configuration information, wherein the first configuration information includes information related to a first downlink signal and the second configuration information includes information related to a second downlink signal.

[0039] According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a user equipment UE comprising: a transceiver configured to transmit and receive signals with the outside; and a controller configured to control the transceiver to perform the above method performed by the UE.

[0040] According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a base station comprising: a transceiver configured to transmit and receive signals with the outside; and a controller configured to control the transceiver to perform the above method performed by the base station.

[0041] According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored thereon a program which, when being executed by a computer, performs any of the above methods.

[0042]

[0043] According to an embodiment of the disclosure, the UE alleviates delays of random access caused by long period of legacy SSB transmissions, by receiving at least one of additional SSBs along with legacy SSBs.

[0044] Furthermore, according to an embodiment of the disclosure, the UE may prevent time overlap between transmission of the additional SSBs and the legacy SSBs.

[0045] The effects obtainable in the disclosure are not limited to the above-mentioned effects, and other effects not mentioned herein will be clearly understood from the following description by those skilled in the art to which the disclosure belongs.

[0046]

[0047] The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain embodiments of the disclosure will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

[0048] Figure 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the composition structure of various radio networks according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0049] Figures 2a and 2b are schematic diagrams illustrating wireless transmission and reception paths according to embodiments of the disclosure;

[0050] Figure 3a is a block diagram illustrating a constituent structure of a UE according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0051] Figure 3b is a block diagram illustrating the composition structure of a base station according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0052] Figure 3c is a schematic diagram of a 4-step random access procedure according to some example embodiments of the disclosure;

[0053] Figure 4 illustrates an example of a flowchart of a method performed by a UE in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0054] Figure 5 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram of a detection window length of a second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0055] Figure 6 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram about a front time domain offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0056] Figure 7 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram about a post-time domain offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0057] Figure 8 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram about a periodic scale factor according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0058] Figure 9 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram regarding the number of second downlink signals according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0059] Figure 10 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram for determining the number of first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of a candidate second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0060] Figure 11 illustrates an example of another schematic diagram for determining the number of first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of a candidate second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0061] Figure 12 illustrates an example of another schematic diagram for determining the number of first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of a candidate second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

[0062] Figure 13 illustrates an example of another method for determining whether the candidate position is based on the third indication according to the embodiment of the disclosure;

[0063] Figure 14 illustrates an exemplary structure of a UE according to the disclosure; and

[0064] Figure 15 illustrates an exemplary structure of a base station according to the disclosure.

[0065]

[0066] The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of various embodiments of the disclosure as defined by the claims and their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the various embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions may be omitted for clarity and conciseness.

[0067] In order to make the objectives, technical schemes and advantages of the embodiments of the disclosure, a clearly and complete description will be made with respect to the technical schemes of the embodiments of the disclosure, in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of the embodiments of the disclosure. Apparently, the described embodiments are a part of the embodiments of the disclosure, not all of the embodiments. Based on the described embodiments of the disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by common skilled in the art without creative labor belong to the protection scope of the disclosure.

[0068] The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of various embodiments of the disclosure is provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the disclosure as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

[0069] It is to be understood that the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to "a component surface" includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.

[0070] Before undertaking the DETAILED DESCRIPTION below, it may be advantageous to set forth definitions of certain words and phrases used throughout this patent document. The term "couple" and its derivatives refer to any direct or indirect communication between two or more elements, whether those elements are in physical contact with one another. The terms "transmit," "receive," and "communicate," as well as derivatives thereof, encompass both direct and indirect communication. The terms "include" and "comprise," as well as derivatives thereof, mean inclusion without limitation. The term "or" is inclusive, meaning and / or. The phrase "associated with," as well as derivatives thereof, means to include, be included within, interconnect to or with, contain, be contained within, connect to or with, couple to or with, be communicable with, cooperate with, interleave, juxtapose, be proximate to, be bound to or with, have, have a property of, have a relationship to or with, or the like. The term "controller" means any device, system or part thereof that controls at least one operation. Such a controller may be implemented in hardware or a combination of hardware and software and / or firmware. The function associated with any particular controller may be centralized or distributed, whether locally or remotely. The phrase "at least one of," when used with a list of items, means that different combinations of one or more of the listed items may be used, and only one item in the list may be needed. For example, "at least one of the following: A, B, and C" includes any of the following combinations: A, B, C, A and B, A and C, B and C, and A and B and C. For example, "at least one of A, B, or C " includes any of the following combinations: A, B, C, A and B, A and C, B and C, and A and B and C.

[0071] In addition, various functions described below can be implemented or supported by one or more computer programs, each of which is formed by computer-readable program code and embodied in a computer-readable medium. The terms "application" and "program" refer to one or more computer programs, software components, instruction sets, procedures, functions, objects, classes, instances, related data or parts thereof appropriate for implementation in suitable computer-readable program code. The phrase "computer readable program code" includes any type of computer code, including source code, objective code and executable code. The phrase "computer readable medium" includes any type of medium that can be accessed by a computer, such as Read-Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), hard disk drive, compact disk (CD), digital video disk (DVD) or any other type of memory. A "non-transitory" computer-readable medium excludes wired, wireless, optical or other communication links that transfer transitory electrical or other signals. A non-transitory computer-readable medium includes a medium in which data can be stored permanently and a medium in which data can be stored and rewritten later, such as rewritable optical disks or erasable memory devices.

[0072] The terms used herein to describe the embodiments of the present application is not intended to limit and / or define the scope of the present application. For example, unless otherwise defined, the technical or scientific terms used in the disclosure should have common meanings as understood by common skilled in the art to which the present application belongs.

[0073] It should be understood that "first", "second" and similar words used in the disclosure do not indicate any order, quantity or importance, but are only used to distinguish different components. Unless clearly indicated otherwise in the context, similar words such as "a", "an", "the" and the like in the singular form do not indicate a quantitative limitation, but indicate the existence of at least one.

[0074] As used herein, any reference to "one example" or "an example", "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular element, feature, structure or characteristic described in conjunction with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. The appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment" or "in one example" in different places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

[0075] As used herein, "a part of" a certain thing means "at least some of" this thing, so it may mean being less than the entirety thereof or being the entirety thereof. Therefore, "a part of" the thing includes the whole thing as a special case, that is, an example in which the whole thing is a part of the thing.

[0076] It will be further understood that words such as "include", "contain" or the like means that the elements or objects appearing preceding the word encompass the elements or objects listed behind the word as well as their equivalents, without excluding other elements or objects. Words such as "connect", "interconnect" or the like are not limited to physical or mechanical connections, but may include electrical connection, whether direct or indirect. "Up", "Down", "Left" and "Right" are only used to indicate relative positional relationships. When the absolute position of the described object changes, accordingly, the relative positional relationship may change as well.

[0077] The various embodiments discussed below for describing the principle of the disclosure in this patent document are for illustration only, and should not be construed as limiting the scope of the disclosure in any way. Those skilled in the art will understand that the principle of the disclosure may be implemented in any suitably arranged wireless communication system. For example, although the following detailed description of the embodiments of the disclosure will focus on LTE and 5G communication systems, those skilled in the art can understand that the main points of the disclosure can also be applied to other communication systems with similar technical backgrounds and channel formats, with slight modifications and basically without departing from the scope of the disclosure. The schemes of the embodiments of the present application may be applied to various communication systems.

[0078] For example, the communication systems may include a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) system, a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) system, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, LTE Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) system, LTE Time Division Duplex (TDD), Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) communication system, fifth generation (5th generation, 5G) system or New Radio (NR), etc. In addition, the schemes of the embodiments of the present application may be applied to future-oriented communication technologies. In addition, the schemes of the embodiments of the present application may be applied to future-oriented communication technologies.

[0079] For example, the base station may be at least one of a gNode B, an eNode B (eNB), a Node B, a radio access unit, a base station controller, and a node on a network. The terminal may include a user equipment (UE), a mobile station (MS), a mobile phone, a smart phone, a computer or multimedia system capable of performing communication functions. In some embodiments of the disclosure, the downlink (DL) is a wireless transmission path through which signals are transmitted from a base station to a terminal, and the uplink (UL) is a wireless transmission path through which signals are transmitted from a terminal to a base station.

[0080] Accordingly, the various embodiments discussed below for describing the principles of the disclosure herein are for illustration purposes only and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the disclosure in any way. Those skilled in the art will understand that the principles of the disclosure may be implemented in any suitably arranged wireless communication system. Although the following detailed description of the embodiments of the disclosure will be directed to 5G, those skilled in the art can understand that the main points of the disclosure may also be applied to other communication systems (for example, beyond 5G (B5G) or 6G) with similar technical backgrounds and channel formats with slight modifications without departing from the scope of the disclosure.

[0081] Hereinafter, the embodiments of the disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the same reference numerals in different drawings will be used to refer to the same elements already described.

[0082] The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of various embodiments of the disclosure as defined by the claims and their equivalents. The description includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but should be regarded as exemplary only. Accordingly, the common skilled in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications to the various embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and structures may be omitted for clarity and conciseness.

[0083] The terms and wordings used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of various embodiments of the disclosure is provided for illustration purpose only, but not for the purpose of limiting the disclosure as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

[0084] It should be understood that the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" include plural referents, unless clearly indicated otherwise in the context. Thus, for example, reference to "a component surface" includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.

[0085] The term "include" or "may include" refers to the existence of a corresponding disclosed function, operation or component which can be used in various embodiments of the disclosure, and does not limit the existence of one or more additional functions, operations, or components. The terms "include" and / or "have" may be construed to represent certain characteristics, numbers, steps, operations, constituent elements, components or combinations thereof, but may not be construed to exclude the possibility of existence of one or more other characteristics, numbers, steps, operations, constituent elements, components or combinations thereof.

[0086] The term "or" used in various embodiments of the disclosure includes any of the listed terms or all combinations thereof. For example, "A or B" may include A, may include B, or may include both A and B.

[0087] Unless defined differently, all terms used in the disclosure, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meanings as those understood by the skilled in the art as described in the disclosure. Common terms as defined in a dictionary are to be interpreted to have meanings consistent with the context in the relevant technical field o, and are not to be interpreted ideally or excessively, unless clearly defined as such in the disclosure.

[0088] The figures discussed below and various embodiments for describing the principle of the disclosure in this patent document are only for illustration, and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the disclosure in any way. Those skilled in the art will understand that the principle of the disclosure may be implemented in any suitably arranged system or device.

[0089]

[0090] Figure 1 illustrates an example wireless network 100 according to various embodiments of the disclosure.

[0091] The embodiment of the wireless network 100 shown in Figure 1 is for illustration only. Other embodiments of the wireless network 100 can be used without departing from the scope of the disclosure.

[0092] The wireless network 100 includes a gNodeB (gNB) 101, a gNB 102, and a gNB 103. gNB 101 communicates with gNB 102 and gNB 103. gNB 101 also communicates with at least one Internet Protocol (IP) network 130, such as the Internet, a private IP network, or other data networks.

[0093] Depending on a type of the network, other well-known terms such as "base station" or "access point" can be used instead of "gNodeB" or "gNB". For convenience, the terms "gNodeB" and "gNB" are used in this patent document to refer to network infrastructure components that provide wireless access for remote terminals. And, depending on the type of the network, other well-known terms such as "mobile station", "user station", "remote terminal", "wireless terminal" or "user apparatus" can be used instead of "user equipment" or "UE". For convenience, the terms "user equipment" and "UE" are used in this patent document to refer to remote wireless devices that wirelessly access the gNB, no matter whether the UE is a mobile device (such as a mobile phone or a smart phone) or a fixed device (such as a desktop computer or a vending machine).

[0094] gNB 102 provides wireless broadband access to the network 130 for a first plurality of User Equipments (UEs) within a coverage area 120 of gNB 102. The first plurality of UEs include a UE 111, which may be located in a Small Business (SB); a UE 112, which may be located in an enterprise (E); a UE 113, which may be located in a WiFi Hotspot (HS); a UE 114, which may be located in a first residence (R); a UE 115, which may be located in a second residence (R); a UE 116, which may be a mobile device (M), such as a cellular phone, a wireless laptop computer, a wireless PDA, etc. GNB 103 provides wireless broadband access to network 130 for a second plurality of UEs within a coverage area 125 of gNB 103. The second plurality of UEs include a UE 115 and a UE 116. In some embodiments, one or more of gNBs 101-103 can communicate with each other and with UEs 111-116 using 5G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-A, WiMAX or other advanced wireless communication technologies.

[0095] The dashed lines show approximate ranges of the coverage areas 120 and 125, and the ranges are shown as approximate circles merely for illustration and explanation purposes. It should be clearly understood that the coverage areas associated with the gNBs, such as the coverage areas 120 and 125, may have other shapes, including irregular shapes, depending on configurations of the gNBs and changes in the radio environment associated with natural obstacles and man-made obstacles.

[0096] As will be described in more detail below, one or more of gNB 101, gNB 102, and gNB 103 include a 2D antenna array as described in embodiments of the disclosure. In some embodiments, one or more of gNB 101, gNB 102, and gNB 103 support codebook designs and structures for systems with 2D antenna arrays.

[0097] Although Figure 1 illustrates an example of the wireless network 100, various changes can be made to Figure 1. The wireless network 100 can include any number of gNBs and any number of UEs in any suitable arrangement, for example. Furthermore, gNB 101 can directly communicate with any number of UEs and provide wireless broadband access to the network 130 for those UEs. Similarly, each gNB 102-103 can directly communicate with the network 130 and provide direct wireless broadband access to the network 130 for the UEs. In addition, gNB 101, 102 and / or 103 can provide access to other or additional external networks, such as external telephone networks or other types of data networks.

[0098]

[0099] Figures 2a and 2b illustrate example wireless transmission and reception paths according to the disclosure.

[0100] In the following description, the transmission path 200 can be described as being implemented in a gNB, such as gNB 102, and the reception path 250 can be described as being implemented in a UE, such as UE 116. However, it should be understood that the reception path 250 can be implemented in a gNB and the transmission path 200 can be implemented in a UE. In some embodiments, the reception path 250 is configured to support codebook designs and structures for systems with 2D antenna arrays as described in embodiments of the disclosure.

[0101] The transmission path 200 includes a channel coding and modulation block 205, a Serial-to-Parallel (S-to-P) block 210, a size N Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) block 215, a Parallel-to-Serial (P-to-S) block 220, a cyclic prefix addition block 225, and an up-converter (UC) 230. The reception path 250 includes a down-converter (DC) 255, a cyclic prefix removal block 260, a Serial-to-Parallel (S-to-P) block 265, a size N Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) block 270, a Parallel-to-Serial (P-to-S) block 275, and a channel decoding and demodulation block 280.

[0102] In the transmission path 200, the channel coding and modulation block 205 receives a set of information bits, applies coding (such as Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) coding), and modulates the input bits (such as using Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM)) to generate a sequence of frequency-domain modulated symbols. The Serial-to-Parallel (S-to-P) block 210 converts (such as demultiplexes) serial modulated symbols into parallel data to generate N parallel symbol streams, where N is a size of the IFFT / FFT used in gNB 102 and UE 116. The size N IFFT block 215 performs IFFT operations on the N parallel symbol streams to generate a time-domain output signal. The Parallel-to-Serial block 220 converts (such as multiplexes) parallel time-domain output symbols from the Size N IFFT block 215 to generate a serial time-domain signal. The cyclic prefix addition block 225 inserts a cyclic prefix into the time-domain signal. The up-converter 230 modulates (such as up-converts) the output of the cyclic prefix addition block 225 to an RF frequency for transmission via a wireless channel. The signal can also be filtered at a baseband before switching to the RF frequency.

[0103] The RF signal transmitted from gNB 102 arrives at UE 116 after passing through the wireless channel, and operations in reverse to those at gNB 102 are performed at UE 116. The down-converter 255 down-converts the received signal to a baseband frequency, and the cyclic prefix removal block 260 removes the cyclic prefix to generate a serial time-domain baseband signal. The Serial-to-Parallel block 265 converts the time-domain baseband signal into a parallel time-domain signal. The Size N FFT block 270 performs an FFT algorithm to generate N parallel frequency-domain signals. The Parallel-to-Serial block 275 converts the parallel frequency-domain signal into a sequence of modulated data symbols. The channel decoding and demodulation block 280 demodulates and decodes the modulated symbols to recover the original input data stream.

[0104] Each of gNBs 101-103 may implement a transmission path 200 similar to that for transmitting to UEs 111-116 in the downlink, and may implement a reception path 250 similar to that for receiving from UEs 111-116 in the uplink. Similarly, each of UEs 111-116 may implement a transmission path 200 for transmitting to gNBs 101-103 in the uplink, and may implement a reception path 250 for receiving from gNBs 101-103 in the downlink.

[0105] Each of the components in Figures 2a and 2b can be implemented using only hardware, or using a combination of hardware and software / firmware. As a specific example, at least some of the components in Figures 2a and 2b may be implemented in software, while other components may be implemented in configurable hardware or a combination of software and configurable hardware. For example, the FFT block 270 and IFFT block 215 may be implemented as configurable software algorithms, in which the value of the size N may be modified according to the implementation.

[0106] Furthermore, although described as using FFT and IFFT, this is only illustrative and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the disclosure. Other types of transforms can be used, such as Discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) functions. It should be understood that for DFT and IDFT functions, the value of variable N may be any integer (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), while for FFT and IFFT functions, the value of variable N may be any integer which is a power of 2 (such as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.).

[0107] Although Figures 2a and 2b illustrate examples of wireless transmission and reception paths, various changes may be made to Figures 2a and 2b. For example, various components in Figures 2a and 2b can be combined, further subdivided or omitted, and additional components can be added according to specific requirements. Furthermore, Figures 2a and 2b are intended to illustrate examples of types of transmission and reception paths that can be used in a wireless network. Any other suitable architecture can be used to support wireless communication in a wireless network.

[0108]

[0109] Figure 3a illustrates an example UE 116 according to the disclosure.

[0110] The embodiment of UE 116 shown in Figure 3a is for illustration only, and UEs 111-115 of Figure 1 can have the same or similar configuration. However, a UE has various configurations, and Figure 3a does not limit the scope of the disclosure to any specific implementation of the UE.

[0111] UE 116 includes an antenna 305, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 310, a transmission (TX) processing circuit 315, a microphone 320, and a reception (RX) processing circuit 325. UE 116 also includes a speaker 330, a processor / controller 340, an input / output (I / O) interface 345, an input device(s) 350, a display 355, and a memory 360. The memory 360 includes an operating system (OS) 361 and one or more applications 362.

[0112] The RF transceiver 310 receives an incoming RF signal transmitted by a gNB of the wireless network 100 from the antenna 305. The RF transceiver 310 down-converts the incoming RF signal to generate an intermediate frequency (IF) or baseband signal. The IF or baseband signal is transmitted to the RX processing circuit 325, where the RX processing circuit 325 generates a processed baseband signal by filtering, decoding and / or digitizing the baseband or IF signal. The RX processing circuit 325 transmits the processed baseband signal to speaker 330 (such as for voice data) or to processor / controller 340 for further processing (such as for web browsing data).

[0113] The TX processing circuit 315 receives analog or digital voice data from microphone 320 or other outgoing baseband data (such as network data, email or interactive video game data) from processor / controller 340. The TX processing circuit 315 encodes, multiplexes, and / or digitizes the outgoing baseband data to generate a processed baseband or IF signal. The RF transceiver 310 receives the outgoing processed baseband or IF signal from the TX processing circuit 315 and up-converts the baseband or IF signal into an RF signal transmitted via the antenna 305.

[0114] The processor / controller 340 can include one or more processors or other processing devices and execute an OS 361 stored in the memory 360 in order to control the overall operation of UE 116. For example, the processor / controller 340 can control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of backward channel signals through the RF transceiver 310, the RX processing circuit 325 and the TX processing circuit 315 according to well-known principles. In some embodiments, the processor / controller 340 includes at least one microprocessor or microcontroller.

[0115] The processor / controller 340 is also capable of executing other processes and programs residing in the memory 360, such as operations for channel quality measurement and reporting for systems with 2D antenna arrays as described in embodiments of the disclosure. The processor / controller 340 can move data into or out of the memory 360 as required by an execution process. In some embodiments, the processor / controller 340 is configured to execute the application 362 based on the OS 361 or in response to signals received from the gNB or the operator. The processor / controller 340 is also coupled to an I / O interface 345, where the I / O interface 345 provides UE 116 with the ability to connect to other devices such as laptop computers and handheld computers. I / O interface 345 is a communication path between these accessories and the processor / controller 340.

[0116] The processor / controller 340 is also coupled to the input device(s) 350 and the display 355. An operator of UE 116 can input data into UE 116 using the input device(s) 350. The display 355 may be a liquid crystal display or other display capable of presenting text and / or at least limited graphics (such as from a website). The memory 360 is coupled to the processor / controller 340. A part of the memory 360 can include a random access memory (RAM), while another part of the memory 360 can include a flash memory or other read-only memory (ROM).

[0117] Although Figure 3a illustrates an example of UE 116, various changes can be made to Figure 3a. For example, various components in Figure 3a can be combined, further subdivided or omitted, and additional components can be added according to specific requirements. As a specific example, the processor / controller 340 can be divided into a plurality of processors, such as one or more central processing units (CPUs) and one or more graphics processing units (GPUs). Furthermore, although Figure 3a illustrates that the UE 116 is configured as a mobile phone or a smart phone, UEs can be configured to operate as other types of mobile or fixed devices.

[0118]

[0119] Figure 3b illustrates an example gNB 102 according to the disclosure.

[0120] The embodiment of gNB 102 shown in Figure 3b is for illustration only, and other gNBs of Figure 1 can have the same or similar configuration. However, a gNB has various configurations, and Figure 3b does not limit the scope of the disclosure to any specific implementation of a gNB. It should be noted that gNB 101 and gNB 103 can include the same or similar structures as gNB 102.

[0121] As shown in Figure 3b, gNB 102 includes a plurality of antennas 370a-370n, a plurality of RF transceivers 372a-372n, a transmission (TX) processing circuit 374, and a reception (RX) processing circuit 376. In certain embodiments, one or more of the plurality of antennas 370a-370n include a 2D antenna array. gNB 102 also includes a controller / processor 378, a memory 380, and a backhaul or network interface 382.

[0122] RF transceivers 372a-372n receive an incoming RF signal from antennas 370a-370n, such as a signal transmitted by UEs or other gNBs. RF transceivers 372a-372n down-convert the incoming RF signal to generate an IF or baseband signal. The IF or baseband signal is transmitted to the RX processing circuit 376, where the RX processing circuit 376 generates a processed baseband signal by filtering, decoding and / or digitizing the baseband or IF signal. RX processing circuit 376 transmits the processed baseband signal to controller / processor 378 for further processing.

[0123] The TX processing circuit 374 receives analog or digital data (such as voice data, network data, email or interactive video game data) from the controller / processor 378. TX processing circuit 374 encodes, multiplexes and / or digitizes outgoing baseband data to generate a processed baseband or IF signal. RF transceivers 372a-372n receive the outgoing processed baseband or IF signal from TX processing circuit 374 and up-convert the baseband or IF signal into an RF signal transmitted via antennas 370a-370n.

[0124] The controller / processor 378 can include one or more processors or other processing devices that control the overall operation of gNB 102. For example, the controller / processor 378 can control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of backward channel signals through the RF transceivers 372a-372n, the RX processing circuit 376 and the TX processing circuit 374 according to well-known principles. The controller / processor 378 can also support additional functions, such as higher-level wireless communication functions. For example, the controller / processor 378 can perform a Blind Interference Sensing (BIS) process such as that performed through a BIS algorithm, and decode a received signal from which an interference signal is subtracted. A controller / processor 378 may support any of a variety of other functions in gNB 102. In some embodiments, the controller / processor 378 includes at least one microprocessor or microcontroller.

[0125] The controller / processor 378 is also capable of executing programs and other processes residing in the memory 380, such as a basic OS. The controller / processor 378 can also support channel quality measurement and reporting for systems with 2D antenna arrays as described in embodiments of the disclosure. In some embodiments, the controller / processor 378 supports communication between entities such as web RTCs. The controller / processor 378 can move data into or out of the memory 380 as required by an execution process.

[0126] The controller / processor 378 is also coupled to the backhaul or network interface 382. The backhaul or network interface 382 allows gNB 102 to communicate with other devices or systems through a backhaul connection or through a network. The backhaul or network interface 382 can support communication over any suitable wired or wireless connection(s). For example, when gNB 102 is implemented as a part of a cellular communication system, such as a cellular communication system supporting 5G or new radio access technology or NR, LTE or LTE-A, the backhaul or network interface 382 can allow gNB 102 to communicate with other gNBs through wired or wireless backhaul connections. When gNB 102 is implemented as an access point, the backhaul or network interface 382 can allow gNB 102 to communicate with a larger network, such as the Internet, through a wired or wireless local area network or through a wired or wireless connection. The backhaul or network interface 382 includes any suitable structure that supports communication through a wired or wireless connection, such as an Ethernet or an RF transceiver.

[0127] The memory 380 is coupled to the controller / processor 378. A part of the memory 380 can include an RAM, while another part of the memory 380 can include a flash memory or other ROMs. In certain embodiments, a plurality of instructions, such as the BIS algorithm, are stored in the memory. The plurality of instructions are configured to cause the controller / processor 378 to execute the BIS process and decode the received signal after subtracting at least one interference signal determined by the BIS algorithm.

[0128] As will be described in more detail below, the transmission and reception paths of gNB 102 (implemented using RF transceivers 372a-372n, TX processing circuit 374 and / or RX processing circuit 376) support aggregated communication with FDD cells and TDD cells.

[0129]

[0130] Although Figure 3b illustrates an example of gNB 102, various changes may be made to Figure 3b. For example, gNB 102 can include any number of each component shown in Figure 3a. As a specific example, the access point can include many backhaul or network interfaces 382, and the controller / processor 378 can support routing functions to route data between different network addresses. As another specific example, although shown as including a single instance of the TX processing circuit 374 and a single instance of the RX processing circuit 376, gNB 102 can include multiple instances of each (such as one for each RF transceiver).

[0131] The time domain unit (also called time unit) in this application can be: an OFDM symbol, an OFDM symbol group (composed of multiple OFDM symbols), a time slot, a time slot group (composed of multiple time slots), a subframe, a subframe group (composed of multiple subframes), a system frame and a system frame group (composed of multiple system frames). It can also be an absolute time unit, such as 1 millisecond, 1 second, etc. A time unit can also be a combination of various granularities, such as N1 time slots plus N2 OFDM symbols.

[0132] The frequency domain unit (also called frequency unit) in this application can be: a subcarrier, a subcarrier group (composed of multiple subcarriers), a resource block (RB), which can also be called a physical resource block (PRB), a resource block group (composed of multiple RBs), a bandwidth part (BWP), a bandwidth part group (composed of multiple BWPs), a bandwidth / carrier, and a bandwidth group / carrier group. It can also be an absolute frequency domain unit, such as 1 Hz, 1 kHz, etc. The frequency domain unit can also be a combination of multiple granularities, such as M1 PRBs plus M2 subcarriers.

[0133] Exemplary embodiments of the disclosure are further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0134] Text and drawings are provided as examples only to help readers understand the disclosure. They are not intended and should not be construed to limit the scope of the disclosure in any way. Although certain embodiments and examples have been provided, based on the disclosure herein, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that changes can be made to the illustrated embodiments and examples without departing from the scope of this disclosure.

[0135] It can be understood by those skilled in the art that the singular forms "a", "an", "the" and "the" used herein can also include plural forms unless specifically stated. It should be further understood that the word "comprising" used in the specification of this application refers to the presence of said features, integers, steps, operations, elements and / or components, but does not exclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components and / or groups thereof. It should be understood that when we say that an element is "connected" or "coupled" to another element, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element, or intervening elements may also exist. Furthermore, "connected" or "coupled" as used herein may include wireless connection or wireless coupling. As used herein, the phrase "and / or" includes all or any unit and all combinations of one or more associated listed items.

[0136] It can be understood by those skilled in the art that unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical terms and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by those skilled in the art to which this application belongs. It should also be understood that terms, such as those defined in general dictionaries, should be understood to have meanings consistent with those in the context of the prior art, and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless they are specifically defined as here.

[0137] It can be understood by those skilled in the technical field that the "terminal" and "terminal equipment" used here include both the equipment of wireless signal receiver, which only has the equipment of wireless signal receiver without transmission capability, and the equipment of receiving and transmitting hardware, which has the equipment of receiving and transmitting hardware capable of bidirectional communication on the bidirectional communication link. Such devices may include a cellular or other communication device having a single-line display or a multi-line display or a cellular or other communication device without a multi-line display. PC (Personal Communications Service), which can combine voice, data processing, fax and / or data communication capabilities. PDA(Personal Digital Assistant), which may include RF receiver, pager, Internet / Intranet access, web browser, notepad, calendar and / or GPS(Global Positioning System) receiver; a conventional laptop and / or palmtop computer or other device having and / or including a conventional laptop and / or palmtop computer or other device of a radio frequency receiver. As used herein, "terminal" and "terminal equipment" can be portable, transportable, installed in vehicles (air, sea and / or land), or suitable and / or configured to operate locally, and / or operate in any other location on the earth and / or space in a distributed form. The "terminal" and "terminal equipment" used here can also be communication terminals, internet terminals and music / video playing terminals, such as PDA, mobile internet device (Mobile Internet Device) and / or mobile phone with music / video playing function, as well as smart TV, set-top box and other devices.

[0138] Without departing from the scope of the present invention, the term "send" in the present invention can be used interchangeably with "transmission", "report" and "notification".

[0139] Text and drawings are provided as examples only to help readers understand the disclosure. They are not intended and should not be construed to limit the scope of the disclosure in any way. Although certain embodiments and examples have been provided, based on the disclosure herein, it is obvious to those skilled in the art that changes can be made to the illustrated embodiments and examples without departing from the scope of this disclosure.

[0140] The transmission link of wireless communication system mainly includes: a downlink communication link from 5G gNB to User Equipment, UE) and an uplink communication link from UE to network.

[0141] Nodes used for positioning measurement in wireless communication systems, such as current wireless communication systems, include: UE that initiates positioning request message; Location Management Function (LMF) that is used for UE positioning and transmitting positioning auxiliary data; gNB or transmission-reception point (TRP) that broadcasts positioning auxiliary data and performs uplink positioning measurement, and UE that is used for downlink positioning measurement. In addition, the method of the present invention can also be extended to other communication systems, such as automobile communication (V2X), for example, sidelink communication, in which the transmitting and receiving point or UE can be any device in V2X.

[0142] Transmission in a wireless communication system includes: a transmission from a base station (gNB) to User Equipment (UE) (called a downlink transmission), corresponding time slots are called downlink time slots; a transmission from UE to the base station (called an uplink transmission), and corresponding time slots are called uplink time slots.

[0143] In wireless communication systems, such as LTE or NR systems, 2-step or 4-step random access procedure is used to establish the link between the device and the base station. The base station periodically sends synchronization signals and broadcast channels to users through synchronization signal block (SSB, synchronization signal / PBCH block, or referred to as the first downlink reference signal). The period is called SSB periodicity, or SSB burst periodicity. At the same time, the base station will configure a physical random access channel configuration period (PRACH configuration period), during which a certain number of random access transmission occasions (also called random access occasions, RO) will be configured.

[0144] In the New Radio (NR) communication system, before the establishment of radio resource control, such as in random access procedure, the performance of random access directly affects the user's experience. In traditional wireless communication systems, such as LTE and LTE-Advanced, or in 5G or NR systems, the random access procedure is used in many scenarios, such as establishing an initial connection, the cell handover, reestablishing uplink connection, RRC connection reestablishment, etc., and is divided into Contention-based Random Access and Contention-free Random Access according to whether users monopolize the preamble resources.

[0145]

[0146] Figure 3c illustrates a schematic diagram of a 4-step random access procedure according to some example embodiments of the disclosure.

[0147] For example, the Contention-based Random Access (CBRA) procedure is divided into four steps, as shown in Figure 3c.

[0148] In the first step, UE randomly selects a preamble sequence from a preamble sequence (also interchangeably referred to as "preamble" herein) resource pool and sends it to the base station. The base station performs the correlation detection on the received signal, thus identifying the preamble sequence sent by the UE.

[0149] In the second step, the base station sends a Random Access Response, RAR) to the UE. The RAR may include a random access preamble sequence identifier, a timing advance command determined according to the time delay estimation between the UE and the base station, a cell-radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI), and / or time-frequency resources allocated for the next uplink transmission of the UE (time-frequency resources may refer to time-domain resources and / or frequency-domain resources). The UE should search for the PDCCH carrying the feedback based on the RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion on which the random access preamble sequence is transmitted. The RA-RNTI associated with the PRACH occasion (e.g., RO) on which the random access preamble sequence is transmitted may be based on the index of the first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion, the index of the first slot of the PRACH occasion in the system frame, the index of the PRACH occasion in the frequency domain, and the UL carrier used for random access preamble transmission. For example, RA-RNTI can be calculated according to the following formula:

[0150] RA-RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id

[0151] Herein, s_id is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the PRACH occasion (0 ≤ s_id < 14), and t_id is the index of the first slot of the PRACH occasion in the system frame （0 ≤ t_id < 80), where μ = {0, 1, 2, 3} is used to determine the value of the subcarrier spacing of t_id based on μ. t_id is the index of 120 kHz time slot containing PRACH occasion in the system frame (0 ≤ t_id < 80), f_id is the index of PRACH occasion in the frequency domain (0 ≤ f_id < 8), and ul_carrier_id is the UL carrier used for random access preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier and 1 for SUL carrier).

[0152] In the third step, the user sends a third message (message 3, Msg3) to the base station according to the information in the RAR. Msg3 contains information such as user terminal identification and RRC link request, where the user terminal identification is unique to the user and is used for conflict resolution.

[0153] In the fourth step, the base station sends a conflict resolution identification to the user, including the identification of the user terminal that won the conflict resolution. After detecting its own identification, the user upgrades the temporary C-RNTI to C-RNTI, sends an ACK signal to the base station to complete the random access procedure, and waits for the scheduling of the base station. Otherwise, the user will start a new random access procedure after a delay.

[0154]

[0155] For the Contention-free Random Access (CFRA) procedure, because the base station knows the user identification, it can assign a preamble sequence to the user. Therefore, when the user sends the preamble sequence, the random selection of the sequence is not needed, but the allocated preamble sequence is used. After detecting the allocated preamble sequence, the base station will send the corresponding random access response, including information such as timing advance and uplink resource allocation. After receiving the random access response, the user thinks that the uplink synchronization has been completed and waits for the further scheduling of the base station. Therefore, the Contention-free Random Access only includes two steps: step 1 is to send a preamble sequence; step 2 is to the random access response.

[0156]

[0157] For example, the random access procedure is suitable for the following scenarios:

[0158] 1. an initial access under RRC_idle;

[0159] 2. re-establish the RRC connection;

[0160] 3. cell handover;

[0161] 4. in RRC connection state, the downlink data arrives and requests the random access procedure (when the uplink is asynchronous);

[0162] 5. in RRC connection state, the uplink data arrives and requests the random access procedure (when the uplink is asynchronous or no resources in PUCCH resources are allocated to the scheduling request);

[0163] 6. positioning.

[0164]

[0165] When receiving a non-broadcast SIB, the UE needs to receive the non-broadcast SIB needed by the UE in PDCCH based on the scheduling information in the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) containing SI-RNTI (System Information Radio Network Temporary Identity), which will lead to high delay. Therefore, how to provide an enhanced method to support non-broadcast SIB is a problem that needs to be solved at present.

[0166] The disclosure provides a method performed by user equipment (UE) in a communication system, comprising: receiving first information, wherein the first information includes at least one of first preamble related information and / or first random access occasion (RO) related information associated with activating first system information block (SIB) transmission, wherein the first SIB is a non-broadcast SIB; receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) scheduled based on a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), wherein the first RNTI is determined based on first information and / or a sixth indication; receiving a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) including the first SIB, wherein the first SIB includes first configuration information and / or second configuration information, wherein the first configuration information includes information related to a first downlink signal and the second configuration information includes information related to a second downlink signal.

[0167] The embodiment of the disclosure provides a scheme to support non-broadcast SIB reception, so that the UE can quickly obtain the required SIB, reduce the delay, and achieve the effect of energy saving for the UE.

[0168]

[0169] It can be understood that the above technical problems and technical solutions are only an example of this disclosure, and the problems that can be solved by this disclosure are not limited to those mentioned in the above and the following description, but can also solve all problems that can be actually solved according to the essence of the technology of this disclosure. For example, the disclosure can also improve or solve the problem about the adaptation of downlink signal transmission mode, such as but not limited to the adaptation of SSB (System Synchronization Block) burst transmission mode.

[0170] The SSB burst transmission mode (SSB burst) sent by the base station is always-on and sent periodically, and the periodicity of the SSB burst sent in the burst and the actual SSB block (i.e. SSB periodicityServingCell and SSB PositionsInBurst) is indicated in the SIB1 / RRC configuration. SSB is mainly used for cell search and synchronization. By obtaining SSB, UE can synchronize the time and frequency with the cell, and detect the physical layer cell ID of the cell, that is, the Physical Cell Identifier (PCI). The UE can perform cell measurement based on SSB. Specifically, by measuring SSB, the UE can report L1_RSRP and SSBRI (SS / PBCH Block Resource Indicator). The former is used for mobility management processes such as cell selection, reselection and handover, and the latter is used for initial beam management.

[0171] For the initial access, UE assumes that SSB bursts are sent at least once every 20 ms. When the UE cannot find SSB in this frequency, the UE can move to the next frequency in the synchronization grating. When the UE finds SSB in the next frequency, the UE continues to decode SSB. UE can obtain SSB periodicity by reading SSB PeriodicityServingCell in SIB1. The typical SSB period in NR is 20ms, but a shorter or longer SSB interval can be configured by the network. Generally, a shorter SSB period can be used for faster cell search, and a longer SSB period can be used to gain network energy-saving gains, but it increases the delay of cell search. However, once the UE in RRC_IDLE / INACTIVE state is out of synchronization with the network, it usually needs to perform AGC (automatic gain control) and channel tracking based on several SSBs to meet the frequency stability requirement of 0.1ppm before decoding the paging PDCCH and paging PDSCH. Assuming that the period of SSB burst is increased to 160ms, the corresponding preparation time before paging reception is extended to hundreds of milliseconds, which will reduce the power saving time of UE.

[0172] Therefore, how to realize the adaptation of SSB burst transmission mode without affecting legacy UE and realize the trade-off between network energy saving and UE energy saving is an urgent problem to be solved.

[0173] The disclosure also provides a time-domain adaptive SSB burst transmission mode, and a new variable SSB mode is configured, and the variable SSB mode can be dynamically disabled / enabled according to the NES (Network energy saving) requirements of the unit. The variable SSB mode is to add a new SSB burst under the traditional SSB burst transmission period, which is used to alleviate the problem of long random access delay caused by the long-period traditional SSB burst, and the time domain position of the new SSB burst can be adaptively configured according to the energy-saving requirements, which can ensure that the base station has a long idle time of not transmitting SSB bursts, and help the base station to save energy consumption caused by that it needs to send SSB bursts frequently to help UE perform downlink synchronous measurement or random access.

[0174] In addition, the disclosure also provides a method for supporting non-uniform SSB transmission, which avoids the time overlap between the new variable SSB mode and the always-on SSB mode, and supports the signaling notification of flexible SSB period adjustment.

[0175] In addition, the disclosure can also deal with issues related to SSB or SSB burst transmission period aiming at other features (e.g., Network energy saving, NES)), such as two sets of different SSB burst transmission period configurations, determination of SSB burst transmission position in time domain based on the two sets of configurations, signaling notification of SSB burst configuration information, UE on-demand activation of the configuration information of the base station, and the like.

[0176] For the convenience of description, SSB or SSB burst associated with a specific feature can be called "second downlink signal", the configuration for the second downlink signal is called "configuration related to the second downlink signal". The traditional SSB or SSB burst is called "first downlink signal", and its corresponding configuration is called "configuration related to the first downlink signal".

[0177] In this disclosure, SSB is described as a downlink reference signal related to random access, but this is only an example, and SSB can also be replaced by other reference signals, such as CSI-RS (channel state information reference signal), PRS (positioning reference signal), etc.

[0178] In the embodiment of the disclosure, unless otherwise specified, the configuration information includes at least one of the following: information configured by the base station, information indicated in the received signaling, information configured by the higher layer, and preconfigured information. Further, it can be a set of configuration information obtained by the above method. It can also be multiple sets of configuration information obtained by the above method, and the UE or node can select a set of configuration information to use according to predefined conditions. It can also be a set of configuration information obtained by the above method, and the set of configuration information contains a plurality of subsets, and the UE or node can select a subset to use according to predefined conditions.

[0179] In the embodiment of the disclosure, the first / second downlink signals may be SSB burst signals, or other signals used for downlink synchronization and / or broadcast information. Among them, the first / second downlink signal contains one or more sub-signals, for example, when the first / second downlink signal can be the SSB burst signal, each burst signal can contain one or more SSB signals.

[0180] Embodiments of the disclosure will be described in detail with reference to Figures 4 to 15.

[0181]

[0182] Figure 4 is a flowchart of a method performed by a UE (user equipment) in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in Figure 4, the method may include steps S401 to S403:

[0183] Step S401: receive first information, wherein the first information includes at least one of the following: information related to a first preamble associated with the activation of a first system information block (SIB) transmission and / or first random access occasion (RO) related information, wherein the first SIB is a non-broadcast SIB.

[0184] Herein, the first information can also be called the first request configuration information or other information names, and the disclosure is not limited to this, and the first information can also include other information.

[0185] The content related to step S401 will be explained in detail in the following content.

[0186] Step S402: receive a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) scheduled based on a first RNTI, wherein the first RNTI is determined based on first information and / or a sixth indication.

[0187] Herein, the sixth indication can be determined by the received first downlink signal or the second downlink signal.

[0188] Herein, the specific way that the first RNTI determines based on the first information and / or the sixth indication will be described in detail in the following contents.

[0189] Step S403: receive a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) including the first SIB, wherein the first SIB includes first configuration information and / or second configuration information, wherein the first configuration information includes information related to a first downlink signal and the second configuration information includes information related to a second downlink signal.

[0190] Herein, the related contents about the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information will be described in detail in the following contents.

[0191] As an embodiment, the method may further include:

[0192] Step S404: receive a first downlink signal or a second downlink signal, wherein the downlink signal includes the sixth indication, wherein the sixth indication is used to indicate whether a received downlink signal is the first downlink signal or the second downlink signal.

[0193] As an embodiment, the method may further include:

[0194] Step S405: determine a number and / or a time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information and / or the sixth indication.

[0195] In addition, the method can also include:

[0196] Step S406: determine whether the second downlink signal is transmitted at the time domain candidate position based on the third indication in the second configuration information or based on a measurement result at the time domain candidate position of the second downlink signal.

[0197] In addition, the method can also include:

[0198] Step S407: receive the first and / or second downlink signals, and perform downlink synchronization and / or beam management.

[0199] Herein, the contents related to steps S404 to S407 will be described in detail in the following contents.

[0200] Through the method provided by the embodiment of the disclosure, the UE can quickly obtain the required SIB, the delay is reduced, and the UE can save energy. Moreover, it can realize the adaptation of SSB burst transmission mode without affecting the legacy UE, and realize the trade-off between network energy saving and UE energy saving.

[0201]

[0202] The contents related to the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information are described below.

[0203] As an embodiment, the first configuration information includes configuration information related to a first downlink signal, and the second configuration information includes configuration information related to a second downlink signal.Herein, the first and / or second downlink signals include one or more downlink common signals, such as SSB signals, and the first and / or second downlink signals may be SSB burst signals.

[0204]

[0205] As an embodiment, the configuration information related to the first downlink signal may include at least one of the following:

[0206] ●a period of the firstdownlinksignal(also called the first period, T1), through which the UE can determine the transmission period of the first downlink signal. For example, the range of values can be {5 ms, 10 ms, 20 ms, 40 ms, 80 ms, 160 ms}, and / or the range of values can be longer {320 ms, 640 ms, 1280 ms}. For example, the period of the first downlink signal can be configured to be greater than or equal to 80ms, for example, 160ms, which is beneficial to reduce the frequency of the base station transmitting the first downlink signal to save network energy consumption;

[0207] ●indication information(which can also be called the first indication) of the downlink common signal in the first downlink signal, through which the UE can determine the actually transmitted sub-signal in the first downlink signal. For example, when the first downlink signal is an SSB burst, the indication information can indicate the index of the SSB signal transmitted in the SSB burst signal;

[0208]

[0209] As an embodiment, the configuration information related to the second downlink signal may include at least one of the following:

[0210] ●a period of the seconddownlinksignal(also called the second period), through which the UE can determine the transmission period of the second downlink signal. For example, the range of values can be {5 ms, 10 ms, 20 ms, 40 ms, 80 ms, 160 ms, 320 ms, 640 ms, 1280 ms}. The period of the second downlink signal may be greater than or equal to that of the first downlink signal, for example, the period of the first downlink signal is 80ms and the period of the second downlink signal is 160ms.

[0211] ●an interval of the seconddownlinksignals(also called the first interval, T2), through which the UE can determine the interval between two second downlink signals, in the case that there are multiple second downlink signals in one first period. For example, At least one first downlink signal and at least one second downlink signal may be included in the first period.

[0212] ●indication information(also called second indication) of the downlink common signal in the second downlink signal, through which the UE can determine the actually transmitted sub-signal in the second downlink signal. For example, when the second downlink signal is an SSB burst, the indication information can indicate the index of the SSB signal transmitted in the SSB burst signal;

[0213] ●indication information of the seconddownlinksignal(also called the third indication), through which the UE can determine the actually transmitted second downlink signal. For example, the UE can determine a single or multiple candidate second downlink signals, and based on the third indication, the UE can determine the actually transmitted second downlink signal among the candidate second downlink signals;

[0214] ●an index of the seconddownlinksignal(which may also be called the fourth indication), which includes information related to determining the index of the received second downlink signal, and in one embodiment, includes information related to determining the index of the received second downlink signal corresponding to random access attempt or beam management. For example, there may be multiple second downlink signals in one first period, and the UE can determine which of the one or more second downlink signals the received second downlink signal is through this indication;

[0215] ●a detection window length of the seconddownlinksignal(also called a first window length), through which the UE can determine the possible time domain range of the second downlink signal. For example, when the detection window length of the second downlink signal is configured, the UE only detects the second downlink signal within the detection window (Tw), which has the advantages that the UE detects the second downlink signal based on the detection window, and the detection time can be limited within the detection window range, which is helpful for the UE to reduce the detection time and save energy compared with the detection. When the detection window length of the second downlink signal is not configured, the UE may default the detection window length to be the first period, or determine the actual length of the window to be detected according to other related configurations, such as the number of the second downlink signals and / or the first interval;

[0216] For example, Figure 5 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram of a detection window length of a second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure. According to the figure 5, the period of the first downlink signal is T1, the interval of the second downlink signal is T2, and the detection window length of the second downlink signal is Tw. Within one T1, there is one first downlink signal (#0) and seven candidate second downlink signals (#1~# 7) located in the detection window, wherein the UE can determine that # 1, #2 and #3 are the time domain positions of the actually transmitted second downlink signal, according to the third indication information.

[0217] ●a front time domain offset(also called a first offset), which is the offset of the position of the starting symbol of the first second downlink signal relative to the position of the starting symbol of the first downlink signal in one first period. Optionally, the first offset can also be the offset of the position of the starting symbol of the first second downlink signal relative to the position of the last symbol of the first downlink signal in one first period. Herein, the unit of offset can be at least one of the following: one time slot or multiple time slots, one or more radio subframes, one or more radio frames or multiple radio frames, and the absolute time length, for example, 1ms, 2ms, 5ms, 10ms, 20ms, etc.

[0218] For example, Figure 6 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram about a front time domain offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure. According to the Figure 6, the period of the first downlink signal is T1, and the interval of the second downlink signal is T2. Within one T1, there is one first downlink signal (#0) and five candidate second downlink signals (#1~#5), in which the UE can determine #3 as the time domain position of the actually transmitted second downlink signal according to the third indication information. The first offset is Tg1, which indicates the time-domain offset of the starting symbol #1 of the second downlink signal and the starting symbol #0 of the first downlink signal, for example, 2 radio frames (20 ms);

[0219] ●a post-time domain offset(also called a second offset), which is the offset of the position of the starting symbol of the last second downlink signal relative to the position of the starting symbol of the following first downlink signal in one first period. Optionally, the second offset can also be the offset of the position of the last symbol of the last second downlink signal relative to the position of the starting symbol of the following first downlink signal in one first period. Herein, the unit of offset can be at least one of the following: one time slot or multiple time slots, one or more radio subframes, one or more radio frames or multiple radio frames, and the absolute time length, for example, 1ms, 2ms, 5ms, 10ms, 20ms, etc.

[0220] For example, Figure 7 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram about a post-time domain offset according to an embodiment of the disclosure. According to the Figure 7, the period of the first downlink signal is T1, and the interval of the second downlink signal is T2. Within one T1, there is one first downlink signal (#0) and five candidate second downlink signals (#1~#5), in which the UE can determine #3 as the time domain position of the actually transmitted second downlink signal according to the third indication information. The second offset is Tg2, which indicates the time domain offset of the starting symbol #5 of the second downlink signal and the starting symbol #6 of the first downlink signal, for example, 2 radio frames (20 ms);

[0221] ●silence indication information(also referred to as the fifth indication), through which the UE can determine the second downlink signal that is silenced among the second downlink signals, and the UE can consider that the second downlink signal is not transmitted on the time domain position of the silenced downlink signal. The silence indication information may indicate a silenced second downlink signal in a bitmap manner.

[0222] ●a period scaling factor.In some examples, the period scaling factor r can be used to indicate whether the second downlink signal is configured, for example, when the period scaling value is not configured or is configured to a specific value (such as 0 or 1), the UE can consider that the second downlink signal is not configured; Alternatively, when the period scaling factor r<1, the UE may consider that the second downlink signal is configured.

[0223] For example, Figure 8 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram about a periodic scale factor according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in the Figure 8, when r=1, there is no second downlink signal in one first period; in some examples, the UE can determine the first offset according to the first period and the period scaling factor. In one method, the first offset is equal to the first period multiplied by the period scaling factor r, the period scaling factor may be less than or equal to 1, and the period scaling factor can be a negative power of 2, such as 1 / 2,1 / 4,1 / 8,1 / 16, etc. For example, as shown in Figure 8, when the first period T1 = 80ms and the period scaling factor r = 1 / 2, the interval of the second downlink signal is 80 ms × 1 / 2 = 40 ms; when the first period T1 = 80 ms and the period scaling factor r = 1 / 4, the interval of the second downlink signal is 80 ms × 1 / 4 = 20 ms; in one method, the period of the second downlink signal is equal to the first period divided by the period scaling factor r, the period scaling factor may be greater than or equal to 1 and the period scaling factor can be a power of 2, such as 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. For example, when the first period is 80 ms and the period scaling factor r = 2, the interval of the second downlink signal is 80 ms / 2 = 40 ms;

[0224] ●a number of seconddownlinksignals(which can also be called the first number), through which the UE can determine the number of second downlink signals in one first period. For example, the number of second downlink signals can be greater than or equal to the number of first downlink signals.The advantage is that increasing the number of second downlink signals can increase the probability that the UE detects the second downlink signals and reduce the delay of random access.

[0225] For example, Figure 9 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram regarding the number of second downlink signals according to an embodiment of the disclosure. According to the Figure 9, the period of the first downlink signal is T1, the first interval is T2, and the first number is 2, that is, there is one first downlink signal (#0) and two second downlink signals (#1 and # 2) within one T1;

[0226]

[0227] Next, the contents related to step S401 and step S402 will be described.

[0228] In some examples, the UE can obtain the configuration information related to the first downlink signal (which can also be called the first configuration information) and / or the configuration information related to the second downlink signal (which can also be called the second configuration information) by receiving a system broadcast message block, such as SIB (system information block). The SIB may be SIB1, or a new SIB (which may also be called the first SIB).

[0229] In some examples, the first SIB may be an on-demand SIB according to the request of the UE, that is, the cell will not actively send the first SIB, and the UE needs to request or trigger the base station to send the first SIB to obtain the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information. For example, the cell is an NES cell, and the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal are NES-related signals. Optionally, the UE may determine that the first SIB is an on-demand SIB according to the information in SIB1 and / or higher layer signaling (RRC or MAC), such as the transmission mode (broadcast or non-broadcast transmission) of SI (system information) to which the first SIB is mapped.

[0230] In some examples, when the first SIB is on-demand, the UE will receive the configuration information (which can also be called the first information or the first request configuration information or other information names, and the disclosure is not limited to this) for requesting or activating the cell to send the first SIB, and the configuration information is obtained in at least one of the following: according to a broadcast message block sent by a legacy cell (non-NES cell), for example, SIB1; or, according to the higher layer signaling (RRC or MAC).

[0231] Herein, the first request configuration information includes at least one of the following: a preamble used for activating the first SIB transmission (which can also be called the first preamble, and a preamble not used for activating the first SIB transmission can be called a common preamble), and a RO (PRACH transmission occasion) used for activating the first SIB transmission (which can also be called the first RO, in addition, RO not used for activating the first SIB transmission can be called common RO), RNTI (also called first RNTI) used for receiving the first SIB, the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI, the mapping from the first SIB to SI (also called first SI (system information)), the first SI window length (in units of time slots or radio frames), the period of the first SI transmission (in units of time slots or radio frames), and the time domain position of the first SI window (for example, if the index of the first window is n, the time domain position of the first SI window can be x = (n-1) × the window length of the first SI).

[0232] In some examples, based on the first request configuration information, the UE can activate the base station to send the first SIB by transmitting the first preamble on the common RO or transmitting the common preamble on the first RO or transmitting the first preamble on the first RO, and receive the first SIB sent by the base station. The method for the UE to receive the first SIB includes at least one of the following:

[0233] In one method, according to the time domain position of a first SI window, the monitoring of the PDCCH occasion is started, and a PDCCH containing a scheduling RNTI (the first RNTI) is received (the PDCCH contains the scheduling information of a PDCCH for acquiring SI), and it continues until the end of the SI window whose absolute length in time is determined by the length of the first SI window, or until the first SI is received; if the first SI is not received at the end of the SI window, the first SI message is repeatedly received at the next SI window time point in the current modification period. One advantage of monitoring the PDCCH based on the first RNTI is that the UE can quickly obtain the required SIB, and the UE can save energy. For example, when the first SIB and other on-demand SIBs are mapped on the same SI, the UE can also monitor the PDCCH by using the first RNTI. When the UE detects that the first RNTI is carried in the PDCCH, it can be determined that the DCI in the PDCCH schedules the PDSCH where the SIB it needs is located. If the first RNTI is not included in the PDCCH, the UE does not need to perform subsequent operations, such as receiving PDSCH containing SIB.

[0234]

[0235] Herein, the method for determining the first RNTI may include at least one of the following:

[0236] As an embodiment, the first RNTI may be determined based on at least one of the following: the index of the first preamble, the type of the first preamble, the format of the first preamble, and the root sequence index of the first preamble.

[0237] In one method, the first RNTI is determined according to the index of the first preamble, for example, the first RNTI = 1 + p_id, where p_id is the index of the first preamble (0 ≤ p_id < 64);

[0238] Optionally, the first RNTI = 1 + p_id + 64 × r_id, where r_id is the root sequence index of the first preamble (0 ≤ r_id < the maximum number of the root sequence), where the root sequence index can be a logical root sequence index or a physical root sequence index, and the maximum number of the root sequence can depend on the length of the preamble. For example, when the used length of the preamble is 839, the maximum number of the root sequence is 838; when the used length of the preamble is 139, the maximum number of the root sequence is 138.

[0239] Optionally, the first RNTI = 1 + p_id + 64 × type_id, where the type_id can be configured by the base station and associated with the length of the preamble. For example, the base station can configure the long preamble (for example, length 839) with type_id = 0 and the short preamble (for example, length 139) with type_id = 1. Alternatively, the base station may configure a long preamble (for example, length 839) with type_id = 1, and a short preamble (for example, length 139) with type_id =0;

[0240] Optionally, the first RNTI = 1 + p_id + 64 × format_id, where the format_id can be configured by the base station and associated with one or more preamble format indexes. For example, the base station can configure formats 0, 1, 2 and 3 of a long preamble (for example, the length is 839) as format_id = 0, 1, 2, 3 respectively. Alternatively, the base station can configure formats A1, A2, A3 and B1 of a short preamble (for example, the length is 139) as format_id = 0, 1, 2, 3, respectively;

[0241] Optionally, the first RNTI = 1 + p_id + 64 × r_id + 64 × r_max × type_id, where the maximum number of the root sequence (r_max) may depend on the length of the preamble, for example, when the used length of the preamble is 839, the maximum number of the root sequence is 838; when the used length of the preamble is 139, the maximum number of the root sequence is 138;

[0242] Optionally, the first RNTI = 1 + p_id + 64 × r_id + 64 × r_max × format_id, where p_id is the index of the first preamble (0 ≤ p_id < 64) and r_id is the root sequence index of the first preamble (0 ≤ r_id < a maximum number of the root sequence (r_max)). Herein, the root sequence index can be a logical root sequence index or a physical root sequence index, and the maximum number of the root sequence (r_max) can depend on the length of the preamble. For example, when the used length of the preamble is 839, the maximum number of the root sequence is 838; when the used length of the preamble is 139, the maximum number of the root sequence is 138. The format_id can be configured by the base station and associated with one or more preamble format indexes. For example, the base station can configure long preamble (for example, the length is 839) with format_id = 0, 1, 2, 3, respectively; Alternatively, the base station can configure format A1, A2, A3 and B1 of the short preamble (for example, the length is 139) as format_id = 0, 1, 2, 3, respectively;

[0243]

[0244] As an embodiment, the first RNTI may be determined based on one or more of the first preamble related information, the first RO related information, the feature index or the feature group index, and the type of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal.

[0245] In one method, the first RNTI is determined according to a transmitted preamble and an RO used for transmitting the preamble, wherein the preamble can be a first preamble or a common preamble, and the RO can be a common RO or a first RO, for example, the first RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id + 14 × 80 × k × 2 × p_id, where s_id is the index of the first OFDM symbol of the RO（0 ≤ s_id < 14），t_id is the index of the first slot of the RO in the system frame (0 ≤ t_id < 80), where for μ = {0, 1, 2, 3}, the subcarrier interval used to determine t_id is based on μ, and for μ = {5, 6}, t_id is the index of the 120 kHz slot containing the RO in the system frame (0 ≤ t_id < 80). f_id is the index of the RO in frequency domain (0 ≤ f_id < 8), ul_carrier_id is the UL carrier used for random access preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier and 1 for SUL carrier), and k is the maximum value of f_id, for example, k = 8; p_id is the index of the first preamble (0 ≤ p_id < 64).

[0246] Optionally, the first RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id, where the ul_carrier_id is the UL carrier used for the first preamble transmission (0 for NUL carrier and 1 for SUL carrier).

[0247] Optionally, the first RNTI can also be determined according to the transmitted preamble, the RO used for transmitting the preamble, and a feature index or a feature group index, wherein the used RO determines the first RNTI, wherein the preamble can be the first preamble or a common preamble, and the RO can be a common RO or a first RO. For example, the first RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id + 14 × 80 × k × 2 × feature_id, where, the feature_id is obtained by the one or more features or feature group logical indexes configured by the base station for random access. For example, the base station can configure two features NES and message 3 repetition to configure the feature_id as NES feature_id = 0, and configure the message 3 repetition as feature_id = 1;

[0248] Optionally, the first RNTI can be determined according to the transmitted preamble, the RO used for transmitting the preamble and the received first and / or second downlink signals, wherein the used RO determines the first RNTI, wherein the preamble can be a first preamble or a common preamble, and the RO can be a common RO or a first RO. For example, the first RNTI = 1 + s_id + 14 × t_id + 14 × 80 × f_id + 14 × 80 × 8 × ul_carrier_id + 14 × 80 × k × 2 × ssb_burst_id, where ssb_burst_id is determined according to the downlink signal received by the UE. For example, when the downlink signal received by UE is the first downlink signal, ssb_burst_id = 0; When the downlink signal received by UE is the second downlink signal, ssb_burst_id = 1. Optionally, when the downlink signal received by the UE is the first downlink signal, ssb_burst_id = 1; when the downlink signal received by UE is the second downlink signal, ssb_burst_id = 0. The method has the advantages that the UE can decode the CRC of the PDCCH with the first RNTI when monitoring and receiving the PDCCH to determine whether the current PDCCH contains scheduling information of the new SIB. For example, when the CRC of the PDCCH cannot be decoded with the first RNTI, the UE can think that the searched PDCCH does not contain scheduling information of the new SIB.

[0249] As an embodiment, the first RNTI is determined based on the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI, wherein the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI includes one-to-one mapping or many-to-one mapping.

[0250] In one method, the first RNTI is determined according to the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI. Optionally, the relationship between one or more preambles (first preamble) reserved by a cell and the first RNTI can be a one-to-one mapping relationship. Specifically, the UE can determine the value of the first RNTI according to the index of the first preamble and the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI. For example, as shown in Table 1, the cell reserves p first preambles (indexes #0, #1, ..., #P) and p first RNTIs (RNTI 0, RNTI 1, ..., RNTI P), where the first RNTI corresponding to the first preamble with index 0 is RNTI 0, ..., and the first RNTI corresponding to the first preamble with index P is RNTI P. Table 1 shows one-to-one mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI.

[0251]

[0252] Optionally, the relationship between one or more preambles (first preambles) reserved by the cell and the first RNTI can be a many-to-one mapping relationship. Specifically, the UE can determine the value of the first RNTI according to the index of the first preamble and the mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI (as shown in Table 2). For example, as shown in Table 2, four first preambles (indexes #0, #1, #2, #3) and two first RNTIs (RNTI 0, RNTI1) are reserved in the cell, and the first RNTI corresponding to the first preambles with cell indexes 0 and 1 is RNTI 0, and the first RNTI corresponding to the first preambles with indexes 2 and 3 is RNTI 1. Table 2 shows many-to-one mapping relationship between the first preamble and the first RNTI.

[0253]

[0254] In one embodiment, the first RNTI is the first RNTI included in the first information.

[0255] In one method, the first RNTI may be TC-RNTI (temporary cell radio network temporary identity) or C-RNTI (temporary cell radio network identity) configured by the base station.

[0256] In one method, the base station can configure a dedicated RNTI for the UE as the first RNTI, for example, the base station configures the UE with the first RNTI to receive a new SIB. Optionally, the value range of the dedicated RNTI can be FFF3-FFFD (65523 ~ 65533).

[0257] In some examples, the UE may obtain configuration information related to the first downlink signal and / or configuration information related to the second downlink signal (first configuration information) through DCI (downlink control information).

[0258] In one method, the UE may utilize a first RNTI or a SI-RNTI (system information radio network temporary identity) to monitor DCI format 1_0 (P-RNTI (paging radio network temporary identity) scrambling), and the short message field in DCI format 1_0 can be used to indicate the existence of configuration information related to the second downlink signal;

[0259] Optionally, the UE may use reserved bits (5-8 bits) in DCI format 1_0 to obtain the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information.

[0260] In one method, a UE can monitor a new DCI format (first DCI) by using a first RNTI or a SI-RNTI, wherein the first DCI contains first configuration information and / or second configuration information.

[0261] Optionally, the UE may obtain the first DCI-related PDCCH configuration from the first SIB, and the information includes at least one of the following: CORESET (Control Resource Set) configuration, search space configuration, RNTI configuration for decoding the PDCCH, and configuration of the located BWP (Bandwidth Part).

[0262]

[0263] Next, the contents related to steps S404 to S407 will be described.

[0264] There are many ways to determine a number and / or a time domain candidate position of the first downlink signal and / or the second downlink signal based on the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information and / or the sixth indication, for example, it may include at least one of the following, but it can be understood that any variation and modification of the concept of the embodiment of this disclosure belongs to the scope of protection of this disclosure.

[0265] As one way, the UE can determine the number of first and / or second downlink signals transmitted and the time domain position of the first and / or candidate second downlink signals in one first period according to at least one of the following: the time domain position of the received first or second downlink signal, the sixth indication and the number of second downlink signals.

[0266] As one way, the UE can determine the number of the first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of the first and / or candidate second downlink signals in one first period according to at least one of the following: the time domain position of the received first or second downlink signal, the first period, the sixth indication, the first interval and the fourth indication.

[0267] In some examples, when the UE receives the first or second downlink signal, it determines the time domain position of the received first or second downlink signal according to the time domain position of the received first or second downlink signal, such as the system frame number (SFN) where the starting symbol of the signal is located, wherein the UE can determine whether the received signal is the first downlink signal or the second downlink signal according to the identification information (i.e. the sixth indication) of the second downlink signal.

[0268] For example, when the UE receives a first downlink signal (it can also be a second downlink signal, and the first downlink signal is taken as an example below), the UE can determine the starting symbol position of the first downlink signal according to the first downlink signal. For example, according to the configuration information related to the first downlink signal contained in a reference signal (such as PSS, SSS and DMRS) and the broadcast signal channel (PBCH) (for example, SSB transmitted in SSB burst) in one sub-signal (such as one SSB) in the first downlink signal received by the UE, synchronization of time slot and symbol level is realized and the starting symbol position of the first downlink signal is determined, such as the system frame number (SFN) and / or symbol index where the starting symbol of the first downlink signal is located. Similarly, when the UE receives the second downlink signal, the UE can determine the system frame number (SFN) and / or symbol index where the starting symbol of the second downlink signal is located according to the above method, which will not be repeated here.

[0269] In one method, the UE can determine the number of candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period, according to the time domain position of the received first downlink signal and the ratio of the first period to the first interval. For example, if the first period T1 is 80ms and the first interval T2 is 20ms, the number of the first downlink signal and the candidate second downlink signals in one first period is T1 / T2 = 4. That is, one first period T1 contains one first downlink signal and three candidate second downlink signals, and the UE can determine the time domain reference position according to the received first downlink signal. For example, the time of the time slot in which the starting symbol of the first downlink signal is located is 0ms (or #0 SFN), and the real-time domain reference position is 0 ms, it is determined that in one first period T1, the deviations between the candidate time domain positions of the candidate second downlink signals and the time slot in which the first downlink signal is located are an integer multiple of the first interval, 20, 40 and 60 ms (as shown in Table 3). Table 3 shows time deviation (ms) between candidate time domain positions of the second downlink signals and the first downlink signal.

[0270]

[0271] In one method, the UE can determine the time domain position of the first downlink signal in one first period, and the number of (remaining) candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions according to the time domain position of the received second downlink signal, the fourth indication, and the ratio of the first period to the first interval. For example, if the first period T1 is 80ms and the first interval T2 is 20ms, the number of the first downlink signal and the candidate second downlink signals in one first period is T1 / T2 = 4. That is, one first period T1 contains one first downlink signal and three candidate second downlink signals, and the UE can determine the index of the received second downlink signal according to the fourth indication (for example, #1, it means that the received second downlink signal is the first second downlink signal in the current first period, that is, the time-domain deviation between the second downlink signal and the first downlink signal is T2), and the received second downlink signal determines the time-domain reference position, for example, the time of the time slot where the starting symbol of the second downlink signal is located is 20ms (or #2 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position is 20ms, it is determined that the time domain reference position of the first downlink signal is 20ms (or #0 SFN), and the other candidate time domain positions of the second downlink signals are 40, 60ms and 60 ms respectively (as shown in Table 3).

[0272] In some examples, the methods of indexing the first and second downlink signals in the first period may include at least one of the following: a common indexing method and a separate indexing method.

[0273] Among them, the common indexing method can be as follows: in the first period, the indexes of all the first downlink signals and the second downlink signals are indexed sequentially from 0 according to the order of time domain transmission. For example, if one first downlink signal and three second downlink signals are transmitted in one first period, the indexes of four signals including the first downlink signal and the second downlink signals can be #0, #1, #2 and #3, wherein, the index of the first downlink signal is #0, and the indexes of the other three second downlink signals are #1, #2 and #3 in turn.

[0274] Alternatively, the method of separate indexing can be as follows: in the first period, the indexes of the second downlink signals are indexed sequentially from 0 according to the order sent in the time domain. For example, if three second downlink signals are sent in one first period, the indexes of the three second downlink signals can be #0, #1 and #2.

[0275] As an embodiment, the UE can determine the number of the first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of the first and / or candidate second downlink signals in one first period according to at least one of the following: the time domain position of the received first or second downlink signal, the first period, the sixth indication, the first interval, the first offset and / or the second offset, and the fourth indication.

[0276] In one method, the UE can determine the number of candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period according to the time domain position of the received first downlink signal, the difference between the first period and the first offset (also called the first difference), and the ratio of the first difference to the first interval.

[0277] For example, Figure 10 illustrates an example of a schematic diagram for determining the number of first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of a candidate second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in Figure 10, when the first period T1 is 80ms, the first interval T2 is 10ms, and the first offset Tg1 is 35ms, the UE can determine that in one first period, the candidate second downlink signal starts at 35ms after the first downlink signal, and the number of candidate second downlink signals = ceil[(T1 - Tg1) / T2], that is, ceil[(80 - 35) / 10] = 5. The UE can consider that one first downlink signal and five candidate second downlink signals are included in one first period T1, and can determine the time domain reference position according to the received first downlink signal. For example, the time of the time slot where the starting symbol of the first downlink signal is located is 0ms (or #0 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position is 0ms, it is determined that in one first period T1, the time domain positions of the candidate second downlink signals, that is, the five candidate second downlink signals are 35, 45, 55, 65 and 75 ms respectively.

[0278] Optionally, the UE can determine the number of candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period according to the time domain position of the received first downlink signal, the difference between the first period and the second offset (also called the second difference), and the ratio of the second difference to the first interval.

[0279] For example, Figure 11 illustrates an example of another schematic diagram for determining the number of first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of a candidate second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in Figure 11, when the first period T1 is 80ms, the first interval T2 is 10ms, and the second offset Tg2 is 35ms, the UE can determine that in one first period, the last candidate second downlink signal starts at 35ms before the first downlink signal (#6) in the next period, and the number of candidate second downlink signals = ceil[(T1 - Tg2) / T2], that is, Ceil[(80 - 35) / 10] = 5. The UE can consider that there is one first downlink signal and five candidate second downlink signals in one first period T1. The UE can determine the time domain reference position according to the received first downlink signal. For example, the time of the time slot where the starting symbol of the first downlink signal is located is 0ms (or #0 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position in the is 0 ms, it is determined that in one first period T1, the time domain positions of the candidate second downlink signals, that is, the five candidate second downlink signals are 5, 15, 25, 35 and 45 ms respectively.

[0280] Optionally, the UE can determine the number of candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period according to the time domain position of the received first downlink signal, the difference between the first period and the first and second offsets (also called the third difference), and the ratio of the third difference to the first interval.

[0281] For example, Figure 12 illustrates an example of another schematic diagram for determining the number of first and / or second downlink signals and the time domain position of a candidate second downlink signal according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown in Figure 12, when the first period T1 is 80ms, the first interval T2 is 10ms, the first offset is 20ms and the second offset Tg2 is 25ms, the UE can determine that in one first period, the candidate second downlink signal starts at 20ms after the first downlink signal and the last candidate second downlink signal starts at 25ms before the first downlink signal (#5) in the next period, and the number of candidate second downlink signals = ceil[(T1 - Tg1 - Tg2) / T2], that is, ceil[(80 - 20 - 25) / 10] = 4. The UE can consider that there is one first downlink signal and four candidate second downlink signals in one first period T1. The UE can determine the time domain reference position according to the received first downlink signal. For example, the time of the time slot where the starting symbol of the first downlink signal is located is 0ms (or #0 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position is 0ms, and it is determined that in one first period T1, the time domain positions of the candidate second downlink signals, that is, the four candidate second downlink signals, are 20, 30, 40 and 50 ms respectively.

[0282] In one method, the UE can determine the time domain position of the first downlink signal, the number of (remaining) candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period according to the time domain position of the received second downlink signal, the fourth indication, the difference between the first period and the first offset (also called the first difference), and the ratio of the first difference to the first interval.

[0283] For example, as shown in Figure 10, when the first period T1 is 80ms, the first interval T2 is 10ms, and the first offset Tg1 is 35ms, the UE can determine that in one first period, the candidate second downlink signal starts at 35ms after the first downlink signal, and the number of candidate second downlink signals = ceil[(T1 - Tg1) / T2], that is, ceil[(80 - 35) / 10] = 5. The UE can consider that one first downlink signal and five candidate second downlink signals are included in a first period T1. The UE can determine the index of the received second downlink signal (for example, #1, which means that the received second downlink signal is the first second downlink signal in the current first period, that is, the time domain deviation from the first downlink signal is Tg1) according to the fourth indication and determine the time domain reference positions according to the received second downlink signals. For example, the time slot in which the starting symbol of the second downlink signal is located is 35 ms (or #3 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position is 35 ms, it is determined that in one first period T1, the time domain position of the first downlink signal is 35 - TG1 = 35 - 35 = 0 ms (or #0 SFN), and the remaining candidate time domain positions of the second downlink signal are 35, 45, 55, 65, 75ms respectively.

[0284] Optionally, the UE can determine the time domain position of the first downlink signal, and the number of candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period, according to the time domain position of the received second downlink signal, the fourth indication, the difference between the first period and the second offset (also called the second difference), and the ratio of the second difference to the first interval.

[0285] For example, as shown in Figure 11, when the first period T1 is 80ms, the first interval T2 is 10ms, and the second offset Tg2 is 35ms, the UE can determine that in one first period, the last candidate second downlink signal starts at 35ms before the first downlink signal (#6) in the next period, and the number of candidate second downlink signals N= ceil[(T1 - Tg2) / T2], that is, Ceil[(80 - 35) / 10] = 5. The UE can consider that one first downlink signal and five candidate second downlink signals are included in one first period T1. The UE can determine the index of the received second downlink signal (for example, #2, which means that the received second downlink signal is the second second downlink signal in the current first period) according to the fourth indication and determine the time domain reference positions according to the received second downlink signals. For example, if the time of the time slot in which the starting symbol of the second downlink signal is located is 15ms (or #1 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position is 15ms, then according to the first interval, it can be found that the time domain positions of the remaining candidate second downlink signals are 5ms(#1, second downlink signal), 25ms(#3, second downlink signal) and 35ms(#4, second downlink signal). For example, the time domain position calculation method of candidate second downlink signal (#5) is: T_5 = 15 + (N-2) × T1 = 15 + (5-2) × 10 = 45ms, where 2 is the fourth indication and 15(ms) is the time domain reference position; then the time domain position of the first downlink signal (#6) in the next first period is T_6 = T_5 + Tg2 = 45 + 35 = 80ms, and the time domain position of the first downlink signal (#0) in the current first period is t_0 = t_6 - t1 = 80 - 80 = 0ms (or #0 SFN).

[0286] Optionally, the UE can determine the time domain position of the first downlink signal, the number of (remaining) candidate second downlink signals and their time domain positions in one first period, according to the time domain position of the received second downlink signal, the fourth indication, the difference between the first period and the first and second offsets (also called the third difference), and the ratio of the third difference to the first interval.

[0287] For example, as shown in Figure 12, when the first period T1 is 80ms, the first interval T2 is 10ms, the first offset is 20ms and the second offset Tg2 is 25ms, the UE can determine that in one first period, the candidate second downlink signal starts at 20ms after the first downlink signal and the last candidate second downlink signal starts at 25ms before the first downlink signal (#5) in the next period, and the number of candidate second downlink signals N=ceil[(T1 - Tg1 - Tg2) / T2], that is, ceil[(80 - 20 - 25) / 10] = 4. The UE can consider that there is one first downlink signal and four candidate second downlink signals in one first period T1. The UE can determine the index of the received second downlink signal (for example, #2, which means that the received second downlink signal is the second second downlink signal in the current first period) according to the fourth indication and determine the time domain reference positions according to the received second downlink signals. For example, the time of the time slot where the starting symbol of the second downlink signal is located is 30ms (or #3 SFN), that is, the time domain reference position is 30ms, then according to the first interval T2, it can be found that the time domain positions of the remaining candidate second downlink signals are 20ms(#1, the second downlink signal), 40ms(#3, the second downlink signal) and 50ms(#4, the second downlink signal). For example, the time domain position of the candidate second downlink signal #4 is calculated as T_4 = 20 + (N-2) × T1 = 30 + (4-2) × 10 = 50ms, where 2 is the fourth indication and 30(ms) is the time domain reference position. Then the time domain position of the first downlink signal (#0) in the current first period is T_0 = T_4 - Tg1 - (N- 1) × T2 = 50 - 20 - (4 - 1) × 10 = 0ms (or #0 SFN).

[0288]

[0289] There are many ways to determine whether the second downlink signal is transmitted at the candidate location based on the third indication in the second configuration information or based on the measurement result of the measurement performed at the time domain candidate location of the second downlink signal, for example, it may include at least one of the following, but it can be understood that any variation and modification of the concept of the embodiment of the disclosure belongs to the scope of protection of the disclosure.

[0290] In some examples, the UE may perform a measurement on the determined candidate time domain position of the second downlink signal, and determine whether the second downlink signal is transmitted in the candidate position according to the measurement result.

[0291] In one method, the UE can measure the reference signal reception power and / or signal-to-interference-noise ratio of the received downlink signal, for example, it can measure the value of the RSRP (reference signal received power) of PSS (primary synchronization signal) and / or SSS (secondary synchronization signal) contained in the received downlink signal, such as the value of SS-RSRP (synchronization signal-reference signal received power) value, or the value of the SINR (signal interference noise ratio) value, such as a SS-SINR (synchronization signal-signal interference noise ratio) value. When the measured value exceeds a threshold value, the UE can consider that the second downlink signal is transmitted on the candidate location, wherein the threshold value can be a fixed threshold value or a threshold value configured by a cell. The advantage of this method is that there is no need to inform whether the second downlink signal is transmitted through additional signaling, and the resource overhead caused by additional signaling notification can be reduced.

[0292] In some examples, the UE may determine whether there is a second downlink signal at the candidate location according to the third indication in the second configuration information.

[0293] In one method, the third indication can indicate the UE in the form of bitmap, for example, {0,0,1}, corresponding to the second downlink signals with indexes #1, #2 and #3, respectively, where 0 indicates that the second downlink signal is not transmitted at the candidate time domain position of the second downlink signal; 1 indicates that the second downlink signal is transmitted at the candidate time domain position of the second downlink signal. Alternatively, the index value of the transmitted second downlink signal can be determined by combining the above methods of separate indexing, for example, {0,1,2}, then the leftmost bit (MSB, most significant bit) of the bitmap indicates the second downlink signal with the index value of 0 among the multiple second downlink signals, and the rightmost bit (LSB, least significant bit) of the bitmap indicates the second downlink signal with the largest index value among the multiple second downlink signals, for example, the index 2 in {0,1,2}. Therefore, the transmission indication information of {0,0,1} can be considered that the second downlink signals with index values of 0 and 1 are not transmitted, and the second downlink signal with index value of 2 is transmitted.

[0294] In one method, the third indication may indicate the number N of the second downlink signals transmitted in one first period. For example, Figure 13 illustrates an example of another method for determining whether the candidate position is based on the third indication according to the embodiment of the disclosure. According to the Figure 13, the period of the first downlink signal is T1, and the first interval is T2, where the interval between the starting symbol of the #0 first downlink signal and the starting symbol of the #1 second downlink signal is equal to T2. If the number of the second downlink signals is determined to be N=2 according to the third indication, there will be one first downlink signal (#0) and two second downlink signals (#1~#2) within one T1 and the interval between the first and second downlink signals is equal to T2.

[0295] In one method, the third indication can indicate the first and / or second downlink signals sent by the UE in the form of a parameter K. When the index meets mod (index, K) = B, the UE considers the first and / or second downlink signals corresponding to the index as actual transmission signals, wherein the value of k can be configured less than the number of the first and / or second downlink signals in the first period; the value of B can be configured or fixed, such as 0. For example, in one first period T1, there is one first downlink signal (#0) and five candidate second downlink signals (#1~#5), where K = 4 and B = 0; then the result of mod (index, 4) is shown in Table 4, where the results of index #0 and index #4 after the above calculation are 0, then the indexes indicated by the third indication are #0 and #4, where #0 is the first downlink signal and #4 is the second downlink signal. Table 4 shows results of the third indication mod (index, K) = B

[0296]

[0297] After determining the time domain positions of the first and / or second reference signals, the UE may receive the first and / or second downlink signals for downlink synchronization and / or beam management.

[0298] In some examples, the UE can receive and measure the corresponding first and / or second downlink signals at determined the time domain position of the received first and / or second reference signal, according to the first and second configuration information, and realize cell downlink synchronization according to the information contained in the broadcast signal (e.g., MIB) in the signals.

[0299] In some examples, the UE may receive and measure the reference signals in the corresponding first and / or second downlink signals at determined the time domain position of the received first and / or second reference signal, according to the first and second configuration information, and obtain a measurement value, such as L1 SS-RSRP. The UE may perform beam management (e.g., beam switching) or power control based on the measured values.

[0300]

[0301] Figure 14 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary structure of a user equipment 500 according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

[0302] Referring to Figure 14, a user equipment 500 includes a transceiver 501 and a controller 502. The transceiver 501 is configured to transmit and receive signals to and from the outside. The controller 502 is configured to perform the method performed by the user equipment described above. The user equipment 500 may be implemented in the form of hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software, so as to enable it to perform the method performed by the user equipment described in the disclosure.

[0303]

[0304] Figure 15 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary structure of a base station 600 according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

[0305] Referring to Figure 15, a base station 600 includes a transceiver 601 and a controller 602. The transceiver 601 is configured to transmit and receive signals to and from the outside. The controller 602 is configured to perform the method performed by the base station described above. The base station 600 may be implemented in the form of hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software, so that it can perform the method described by the base station in this disclosure.

[0306] In the present invention, the non-broadcast SIB can be used interchangeably with the on-demand SIB.

[0307]

[0308] Those skilled in the art will understand that the illustrative embodiments described above are described herein and are not intended to be limiting. It should be understood that any two or more of the embodiments disclosed herein can be combined in any combination. In addition, other embodiments can be utilized and other changes can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the subject matter presented herein. It will be readily understood that aspects of the present invention of the disclosure, as generally described herein and shown in the accompanying drawings, can be arranged, substituted, combined, separated and designed in various different configurations, all of which are contemplated herein.

[0309] Those skilled in the art will understand that the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits, and steps described in the present application can be implemented as hardware, software, or a combination of both. In order to clearly illustrate this interchangeability between hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps are generally described above in the form of their function set. Whether such a function set is implemented as hardware or software depends on the specific application and the design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled people can implement the described function set in different ways for each specific application, but such design decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

[0310] The various illustrative logic blocks, modules, and circuits described in the present application can be implemented in 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, discrete hardware component, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, such as a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors cooperating with a DSP core, or any other such configuration.

[0311] The steps of the method or technique described in the present application can be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination of both. Software modules may reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, register, hard disk, removable disk, or any other form of storage media known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to a processor to enable the processor to read and write information from / to the storage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integrated into the processor. The processor and storage medium may reside in an ASIC. The ASIC may reside in the UE. In the alternative, the processor and the storage medium may reside in the UE as discrete components.

[0312] In one or more exemplary designs, the described functions can be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, each function can be stored on or transferred by a computer-readable medium as one or more instructions or codes. Computer-readable media include both computer storage media and communication media, which includes any media that facilitates the transfer of computer programs from one place to another. The storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a general-purpose or special-purpose computer.

[0313] In addition, the functions or operations described in the disclosure may be processed by a single processor or a combination of processors. The single processor or the combination of processors may include a circuit that performs processing, such as an application processor (AP, e.g., a central processing unit (CPU)), a communication processor (CP, e.g., a modem), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a neural network processing unit (NPU) (e.g., an artificial intelligence (AI) chip), a Wi-Fi chip, a Bluetooth® chip, a global positioning system (GPS) chip, a near-field communication (NFC) chip, a connectivity chip, a sensor controller, a touch controller, a fingerprint sensor controller, a display driver integrated circuit (IC), an audio codec (CODEC) chip, a universal serial bus (USB) controller, a camera controller, an image processing IC, a microprocessor unit (MPU), a system on a chip (SoC), an IC, or a similar circuit.

[0314] In addition, it should be noted that various embodiments in the claims and description of the disclosure may be implemented in the form of hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. Such software may be stored in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium stores one or more computer programs (software modules), wherein the one or more computer programs, when executed alone or collectively by one or more processors of the electronic device, include computer-executable instructions that cause the electronic device to perform a method according to the disclosure. The software may be stored in a temporary or non-transitory storage device, and may be stored in, for example, a read-only memory (ROM) (whether erasable or rewritable), a random access memory (RAM), a memory chip, a device, or an integrated circuit (IC). In addition, the software may be stored in an optically or magnetically readable medium, such as a compact disc (CD), a digital versatile disc (DVD), a magnetic disk, or a magnetic tape. It should be understood that the storage device and the storage medium are examples of non-transitory machine-readable storage media suitable for storing programs for implementing various embodiments of the disclosure. Accordingly, various embodiments provide a program comprising code for implementing a device or method according to any one of the claims of the present specification and a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing such program.

[0315] What has been described above is only an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, and is not used to limit the protection scope of the disclosure, which is determined by the appended claims.

Claims

1.A method performed by a terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:receiving, from a base station, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period;transmitting, to the base station, the preamble; andreceiving, from the base station, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received, based on the RNTI.2.The method of claim 1, further comprising:monitoring, based on the RNTI, a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in a system information (SI) window associated with the SIB, wherein information on a time-domain position of the SI window is included in the first configuration information; anddetecting, on the PDCCH, downlink control information (DCI) including scheduling information for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH),wherein the SIB is received on the PDSCH, based on the scheduling information, andwherein the RNTI is determined based on at least one of information associated with the preamble, information associated with a random access occasion (RO), information associated with a feature, and a type of a downlink signal.3.The method of claim 1, further comprising:determining a time-domain candidate position of the second SSB based on the second configuration information, the time-domain candidate position is located within the transmission period of the first SSB;receiving, from the base station, a downlink signal including information indicating the type;identifying whether the second SSB is received in the time-domain candidate position; andperforming a downlink synchronization and a beam management, based on an identification that whether the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position.4.The method of claim 3,wherein the second configuration information further includes an indication indicating where the second SSB is transmitted at the time-domain candidate position, andwherein whether the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position is identified based on the indication.5.The method of claim 3,wherein whether the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position is identified based on a measurement result at the time-domain candidate position, andwherein in case that the measurement result for the received downlink signal is greater than a preset threshold, the terminal determines that the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position.6.A method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:transmitting, to a terminal, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period;receiving, from the terminal, the preamble; andtransmitting, to the terminal, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received by the terminal, based on the RNTI.7.The method of claim 6, further comprising:generating, based on the RNTI, downlink control information including scheduling information for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) where the SIB is transmitted; andtransmitting, the DCI on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in a system information (SI) window associated with the SIB, wherein information on a time-domain position of the SI window is included in the first configuration information,wherein the RNTI is determined based on at least one of information associated with the preamble, information associated with a random access occasion (RO), information associated with a feature, and a type of a downlink signal.8.The method of claim 6, further comprising:transmitting, to the terminal, a downlink signal including information indicating the type.9.A terminal in a wireless communication system, the terminal comprising:a transceiver; andat least one processor configured to:receive, from a base station, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period,transmit, to the base station, the preamble, andreceive, from the base station, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received, based on the RNTI.10.The terminal of claim 9,wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:monitor, based on the RNTI, a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in a system information (SI) window associated with the SIB, wherein information on a time-domain position of the SI window is included in the first configuration information, anddetect, on the PDCCH, downlink control information (DCI) including scheduling information for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH),wherein the SIB is received on the PDSCH, based on the scheduling information, andwherein the RNTI is determined based on at least one of information associated with the preamble, information associated with a random access occasion (RO), information associated with a feature, and a type of a downlink signal.11.The terminal of claim 9, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:determine a time-domain candidate position of the second SSB based on the second configuration information, the time-domain candidate position is located within the transmission period of the first SSB,receive, from the base station, a downlink signal including information indicating the type,identify whether the second SSB is received in the time-domain candidate position, andperform a downlink synchronization and a beam management, based on an identification that whether the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position.12.The terminal of claim 11,wherein the second configuration information further includes an indication indicating where the second SSB is transmitted at the time-domain candidate position, andwherein whether the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position is identified based on the indication.13.The terminal of claim 11,wherein whether the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position is identified based on a measurement result at the time-domain candidate position, andwherein in case that the measurement result for the received downlink signal is greater than a preset threshold, the terminal determines that the second SSB is received at the time-domain candidate position.14.A base station in a wireless communication system, the base station comprising:a transceiver; andat least one processor configured to:transmit, to a terminal, first configuration information including information on a preamble associated with a request for a system information block (SIB) and information on a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) used for receiving the SIB, wherein the RNTI associated with a type of a synchronization signal block (SSB), the type including a first SSB transmitted periodically with a predetermined period and a second SSB transmitted at least twice within the predetermined period,receive, from the terminal, the preamble, andtransmit, to the terminal, the SIB including second configuration information associated with a time-domain position where the second SSB is received by the terminal, based on the RNTI.15.The base station of claim 14,wherein the at least one processor further comprising:generate, based on the RNTI, downlink control information including scheduling information for a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) where the SIB is transmitted,transmit, the DCI on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in a system information (SI) window associated with the SIB, wherein information on a time-domain position of the SI window is included in the first configuration information, andtransmit, to the terminal, a downlink signal including information indicating the type, andwherein the RNTI is determined based on at least one of information associated with the preamble, information associated with a random access occasion (RO), information associated with a feature, and a type of a downlink signal.

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