Method and apparatus for beam management in a wireless communication system

Abstract

The disclosure relates to a 5G or 6G communication system for supporting a higher data transmission rate. Specifically, the present disclosure provides a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, a method comprising: receiving first configuration information and second configuration information, the first configuration information comprising information related to a reference signal resource set, the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the second configuration information comprising information related to a channel state information (CSI) report; receiving, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with a first beam and a second reference signal associated with a second beam; and, transmitting a CSI report related to the beam pair based on the second configuration information.

Description

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR BEAM MANAGEMENT IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

[0001] The present disclosure relates to the technical field of wireless communication, and in particular to a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, a method performed by a network node, a user equipment and a network node.

[0002] 5G mobile communication technologies define broad frequency bands such that high transmission rates and new services are possible, and can be implemented not only in “Sub 6GHz” bands such as 3.5GHz, but also in “Above 6GHz” bands referred to as mmWave including 28GHz and 39GHz. In addition, it has been considered to implement 6G mobile communication technologies (referred to as Beyond 5G systems) in terahertz (THz) bands (for example, 95GHz to 3THz 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.

[0003] At the beginning of the development of 5G mobile communication technologies, in order to support services and to satisfy performance requirements in connection with enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB), Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), and massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC), there has been ongoing standardization regarding beamforming and massive 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 BWP (BandWidth Part), new channel coding methods such as a LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) 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.

[0004] Currently, 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 V2X (Vehicle-to-everything) 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, NR-U (New Radio Unlicensed) aimed at system operations conforming to various regulation-related requirements in unlicensed bands, NR UE Power Saving, Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) which is UE-satellite direct communication for providing coverage in an area in which communication with terrestrial networks is unavailable, and positioning.

[0005] Moreover, 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, IAB (Integrated Access and Backhaul) 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 DAPS (Dual Active Protocol Stack) handover, and two-step random access for simplifying random access procedures (2-step 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 UE positions.

[0006] As 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 is scheduled in connection with eXtended Reality (XR) for efficiently supporting AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), MR (Mixed Reality) 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.

[0007] Furthermore, 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 OAM (Orbital Angular Momentum), and RIS (Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface), 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 AI (Artificial Intelligence) 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 UE operation capability by utilizing ultra-high-performance communication and computing resources.

[0008] This disclosure relates to wireless communication networks, and more particularly to a terminal and a communication method thereof in a wireless communication system.

[0009] In accordance with an aspect of the disclosure, a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, including: receiving first configuration information and second configuration information, the first configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, the second configuration information including information related to a channel state information report; receiving, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam from a network node; and

[0010] transmitting a channel state information (CSI) report based on the second configuration information, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.

[0011] 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. Accordingly, an aspect of the disclosure is to provide efficient communication methods in a wireless communication system.

[0012] To describe the technical schemes in the embodiments of the present disclosure more clearly, the drawings to be used in the description of the embodiments of the present disclosure will be briefly introduced below.

[0013] FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic structure diagram of a wireless network system to which an embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable;

[0014] FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic structure diagram of an exemplary base station according to the present disclosure;

[0015] FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic structure diagram of an exemplary user equipment according to the present disclosure;

[0016] FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic diagram of beam gains of a sum beam and a differential beam;

[0017] FIG. 5A illustrates a schematic diagram of the relationship between the received signal ratio of the differential beam to the sum beam and the beam pointing direction deviation;

[0018] FIG. 5B illustrates a schematic diagram of a narrow beam;

[0019] FIG. 5C illustrates a principle diagram of determining an optimal transmission direction based on the beam pointing direction deviation;

[0020] FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of a method performed by a user equipment according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0021] FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0022] FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0023] FIG. 9 illustrates a flowchart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0024] FIG. 10 illustrates a flowchart of a method performed by a user equipment according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0025] FIG. 11 illustrates a flowchart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0026] FIG. 12 is a schematic structure diagram of an electronic device applicable to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0027] FIG. 13, FIG. 14A, FIG. 14B, FIG. 15A, FIG. 15B and FIG. 16A are principle diagrams of several methods performed by a receiver according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0028] FIG. 16B illustrates a schematic flowchart of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0029] FIG. 17 is a schematic diagram of a signal direction;

[0030] FIG. 18 is a schematic diagram of implementing beam direction adjustment based on the sum beam and the differential beam according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0031] FIG. 19 is a principle diagram of a method performed by a receiver according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0032] FIG. 20 is a schematic diagram of a beam management mode according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0033] FIG. 21 to FIG. 24 are schematic diagrams of several optional communication schemes according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0034] FIG. 25 illustrates a structure of a base station according to an embodiment of the disclosure; and

[0035] FIG. 26 illustrates a structure of a UE according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

[0036] Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures.

[0037] 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. Accordingly, an aspect of the disclosure is to provide a terminal and a communication method thereof in a wireless communication system.

[0038] An objective of the embodiments of the present disclosure is to provide a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, a method performed by a network node, a user equipment and a network node, which can better satisfy the communication requirements. The embodiments of the present disclosure provide the following technical schemes.

[0039] In one aspect, the present disclosure provides a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, including: receiving first configuration information and second configuration information, the first configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, the second configuration information including information related to a channel state information report; receiving, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam from a network node; and transmitting a channel state information (CSI) report based on the second configuration information, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.

[0040] In another aspect, the present disclosure provides a method performed by a network node in a wireless communication system, including: transmitting first configuration information and second configuration information to a user equipment, the first configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, the second configuration information including information related to a channel state information report; transmitting, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam; and receiving a CSI report transmitted based on the second configuration information by the user equipment, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.

[0041] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the first configuration information further includes first information, which is used to indicate that the network node adopts a beam pair transmission mode.

[0042] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the first beam is a sum beam, and the second beam is a differential beam based on the sum beam.

[0043] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the second beam includes a third beam and / or a fourth beam, wherein a beam pair including the first beam and the third beam is related to beam adjustment in an azimuth domain, and a beam pair including the first beam and the fourth beam is related to beam adjustment in an elevation domain.

[0044] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, a quasi co-location (QCL) source reference signal associated with the second reference signal is the first reference signal, and the QCL type is a type D; or, the QCL source reference signal associated with the second reference signal is the same as a QCL source reference signal associated with the first reference signal, and the QCL type is the type D.

[0045] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the CSI report includes at least one of the following: a first CSI report, the first CSI report being based on information related to the first beam in the second configuration information; a second CSI report, the second CSI report being based on information related to the second beam in the second configuration information; a third CSI report, the third CSI report being based on information related to the first beam and the second beam; a fourth CSI report, the fourth CSI report being based on information related to the first beam in the second configuration information and information related to the first beam and the second beam; and a fifth CSI report, the fifth CSI report being based on information related to the second beam in the second configuration information and information related to the first beam and the second beam.

[0046] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the second configuration information includes information related to at least one of the following: a reporting parameter related to the first beam; a reporting parameter related to the second beam; a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam; information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in a first beam set associated with the first beam; a mapping relationship, the mapping relationship includes a mapping relationship between a first value and a reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value is related to a received signal of a first reference signal and a received signal of a second reference signal; a calculation mode associated with the reported values of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam; and quantization accuracy for reporting parameters.

[0047] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam includes information related to at least one of the following: a first parameter, the first parameter being related to a received signal value of the first reference signal and a received signal value of the second reference signal; a second parameter, the second parameter being related to a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal; a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; and an angle index related to a signal transmission direction expected by the UE.

[0048] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the second parameter includes at least one of the following: a first ratio, the first ratio being based on a second value and a third value, wherein the second value is a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal, and the third value is a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to a position of the peak; a second ratio, the second ratio being based on a fourth value and a fifth value, wherein the fourth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal, and the fifth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal.

[0049] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the determination mode of the value on which the reported value of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam are based, includes at least one of the following: a determination mode of a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal and a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to the peak; a determination mode of a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal and a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal.

[0050] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the CSI report includes at least one of the following: a reported value of the reporting parameter related to the first beam;

[0051] a reported value of the reporting parameter related to the second beam; a reported value of the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam; an index of at least one sixth beam, the at least one sixth beam being at least one beam in the first beam set;

[0052] a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; and an angle index related to a signal transmission direction expected by the UE.

[0053] Optionally, the at least one sixth beam includes: at least one beam in the first beam set whose beam pointing direction satisfies a predetermined relationship with the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0054] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the predetermined relationship includes at least one of the following: the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is the smallest; and the absolute value of the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is less than or equal to a threshold.

[0055] Optionally, when the second configuration information includes information related to the quantization accuracy for reporting parameters, the information in the CSI report is information quantized based on the quantization accuracy.

[0056] Based on any one of the above embodiments, optionally, the method further includes: receiving second information, the second information being related to a type of the user equipment. In another aspect, the present disclosure provides a method performed by a network node in a wireless communication system, including: transmitting third configuration information, the third configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a seventh beam and an eighth beam associated with the seventh beam; and receiving reference signals transmitted by the user equipment based on the seventh beam and the eighth beam, respectively.

[0057] In yet another aspect, the present disclosure provides a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, including: receiving third configuration information, the third configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a seventh beam and an eighth beam associated with the seventh beam; and transmitting reference signals based on the third configuration information.

[0058] Optionally, the eighth beam includes a ninth beam and / or a tenth beam, wherein a beam pair including the seventh beam and the ninth beam is related to beam adjustment in an azimuth domain (also referred as a horizontal direction), and a beam pair including the seventh beam and the tenth beam is related to beam adjustment in an elevation domain (also referred as a vertical direction).

[0059] Optionally, the seventh beam is a sum beam, and the eighth beam is a differential beam based on the sum beam.

[0060] Optionally, the seventh beam and the eighth beam are associated with the same spatial relation information.

[0061] In yet another aspect, the present disclosure provides a user equipment in a wireless communication system, wherein the user equipment includes a transceiver and a processor coupled to the transceiver, and the processor is configured to execute the method performed by a user equipment provided in any one of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0062] In yet another aspect, the present disclosure provides a network node in a wireless communication system, wherein the network node includes a transceiver and a processor coupled to the transceiver, and the processor is configured to execute the method performed by a network node provided in any one of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0063] In yet another aspect, the present disclosure provides a computer-readable storage medium having computer programs stored thereon that, when performed by a processor, implement the method provided in any one of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0064] In yet another aspect, the present disclosure provides a computer program product, including computer programs that, when performed by a processor, implement the method provided in any one of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0065] The beneficial effects achieved by the technical schemes provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure will be described below by specific embodiments.

[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. Accordingly, 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] The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to their 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.

[0068] 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.

[0069] Before undertaking the DETAILED DESCRIPTION below, it can 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 or not 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, connect to, interconnect 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 can be implemented in hardware or a combination of hardware and software and / or firmware. The functionality associated with any particular controller can 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 can be used, and only one item in the list can be needed. For example, “at least one of: 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, B and C.

[0070] Moreover, various functions described below can be implemented or supported by one or more computer programs, each of which is formed from 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, sets of instructions, procedures, functions, objects, classes, instances, related data, or a portion thereof adapted for implementation in a suitable computer-readable program code. The phrase “computer-readable program code” includes any type of computer code, including source code, object code, and executable code. The phrase “computer-readable medium” includes any type of medium capable of being accessed by a computer, such as Read-Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), a hard disk drive, a Compact Disc (CD), a Digital Video Disc (DVD), or any other type of memory. A “non-transitory” computer-readable medium excludes wired, wireless, optical, or other communication links that transport transitory electrical or other signals. A non-transitory computer-readable medium includes media where data can be permanently stored and media where data can be stored and later overwritten, such as a rewritable optical disc or an erasable memory device.

[0071] Terms used herein to describe the embodiments of the disclosure are not intended to limit and / or define the scope of the disclosure. For example, unless otherwise defined, the technical terms or scientific terms used in the disclosure shall have the ordinary meaning understood by those with ordinary skills in the art to which the disclosure belongs.

[0072] It should be understood that “first”, “second” and similar words used in the disclosure do not express any order, quantity or importance, but are only used to distinguish different components.

[0073] As used herein, any reference to “an example” or “example”, “an implementation” or “implementation”, “an embodiment” or “embodiment” means that particular elements, features, structures or characteristics described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. The phrases “in one embodiment” or “in one example” appearing in different places in the specification do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment.

[0074] As used herein, “a portion of” something means “at least some of” the thing, and as such may mean less than all of, or all of, the thing. As such, “a portion of” a thing includes the entire thing as a special case, i.e., the entire thing is an example of a portion of the thing.

[0075] As used herein, the term “set” means one or more. Accordingly, a set of items can be a single item or a collection of two or more items.

[0076] In this disclosure, to determine whether a specific condition is satisfied or fulfilled, expressions, such as “greater than” or “less than” are used by way of example and expressions, such as “greater than or equal to” or “less than or equal to” are also applicable and not excluded. For example, a condition defined with “greater than or equal to” may be replaced by “greater than” (or vice-versa), a condition defined with “less than or equal to” may be replaced by “less than” (or vice-versa), etc.

[0077] It will be further understood that similar words such as the term “include” or “comprise” mean that elements or objects appearing before the word encompass the listed elements or objects appearing after the word and their equivalents, but other elements or objects are not excluded. Similar words such as “connect” or “connected” are not limited to physical or mechanical connection, but can include electrical connection, whether direct or indirect. “Upper”, “lower”, “left” and “right” are only used to express a relative positional relationship, and when an absolute position of the described object changes, the relative positional relationship may change accordingly.

[0078] Those skilled in the art will understand that the principles of the disclosure can be implemented in any suitably arranged wireless communication system. For example, although the following detailed description of the embodiments of the disclosure will be directed to LTE and / or 5G communication systems, those skilled in the art will 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 without departing from the scope of the disclosure. The technical schemes of the embodiments of the application can be applied to various communication systems, and for example, the communication systems may include global systems for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) systems, general packet radio service (GPRS) systems, long term evolution (LTE) systems, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) systems, LTE time division duplex (TDD) systems, universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) communication systems, 5th generation (5G) systems or new radio (NR) systems, etc. In addition, the technical schemes of the embodiments of the application can be applied to future-oriented communication technologies. In addition, the technical schemes of the embodiments of the application can be applied to future-oriented communication technologies.

[0079] In order to meet the increasing demand for wireless data communication services since the deployment of 4G communication systems, efforts have been made to develop improved 5G or pre-5G communication systems. Therefore, 5G or pre-5G communication systems are also called “Beyond 4G networks” or “Post-LTE systems”.

[0080] Moreover, in order to improve the spectral efficiency and the overall network performances, the following technologies have been developed for 6G communication systems: a full-duplex technology for enabling an uplink transmission and a downlink transmission to simultaneously use the same frequency resource at the same time; a network technology for utilizing satellites, high-altitude platform stations (HAPS), and the like in an integrated manner; an improved network structure for supporting mobile base stations and the like and enabling network operation optimization and automation and the like; a dynamic spectrum sharing technology via collision avoidance based on a prediction of spectrum usage; an use of artificial intelligence (AI) in wireless communication for improvement of overall network operation by utilizing AI from a designing phase for developing 6G and internalizing end-to-end AI support functions; and a next-generation distributed computing technology for overcoming the limit of user equipment (UE) computing ability through reachable super-high-performance communication and computing resources (such as mobile edge computing (MEC), clouds, and the like) over the network. In addition, through designing new protocols to be used in 6G communication systems, developing mechanisms for implementing a hardware-based security environment and safe use of data, and developing technologies for maintaining privacy, attempts to strengthen the connectivity between devices, optimize the network, promote softwarization of network entities, and increase the openness of wireless communications are continuing.

[0081] It is expected that research and development of 6G communication systems in hyper-connectivity, including person to machine (P2M) as well as machine to machine (M2M), will allow the next hyper-connected experience. Particularly, it is expected that services such as truly immersive extended reality (XR), high-fidelity mobile hologram, and digital replica could be provided through 6G communication systems. In addition, services such as remote surgery for security and reliability enhancement, industrial automation, and emergency response will be provided through the 6G communication system such that the technologies could be applied in various fields such as industry, medical care, automobiles, and home appliances.

[0082] FIGS. 1-3 below describe various embodiments of the present disclosure implemented in wireless communications systems. The descriptions of FIGS. 1-3 are not meant to imply physical or architectural limitations to the manner in which different embodiments may be implemented. Different embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented in any suitably-arranged communications system.

[0083] FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless network according to embodiments of the present disclosure. The embodiment of the wireless network shown in FIG. 1 is for illustration only. Other embodiments of the wireless network 100 could be used without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.

[0084] As shown in FIG. 1, the wireless network includes a base station (next generation nodeB, gNB or gNodeB) 101, a gNB 102, and a gNB 103. The gNB 101 communicates with the gNB 102 and the gNB 103. The gNB 101 also communicates with at least one network 130, such as the Internet, a proprietary Internet Protocol (IP) network, or other data network.

[0085] The gNB 102 provides wireless broadband access to the network 130 for a plurality of first user equipments (UEs) within a coverage area 120 of the gNB 102. The plurality of first UEs includes a UE 111, which may be located in a small business; 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 (R1); a UE 115, which may be located in a second residence (R2); and a UE 116, which may be a mobile device (M), such as a cell phone, a wireless laptop, a wireless personal digital assistant (PDA), or the like. The gNB 103 provides wireless broadband access to the network 130 for a plurality of second UEs within a coverage area 125 of the gNB 103. The plurality of second UEs include the UE 115 and the UE 116, as well as subscriber stations (SS, for example, UEs) 117, 118 and 119. In some embodiments, one or more of the gNBs 101-103 may communicate with each other and with the UEs 111-116 using existing wireless communication techniques, and one or more of the UE 111-119 may communicate directly with each other (e.g., UEs 117-119) using other existing or proposed wireless communication techniques.

[0086] Depending on the network type, the term “base station” or “BS” can refer to any component (or collection of components) configured to provide wireless access to a network, such as transmit point (TP), transmit-receive point (TRP), an enhanced (or “evolved”) base station (eNodeB or eNB), a 5G base station (gNB), a macrocell, a femtocell, a wireless fidelity (WiFi) access point (AP), or other wirelessly enabled devices. Base stations may provide wireless access in accordance with one or more wireless communication protocols, e.g., 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR), Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE Advanced (LTE-A), high speed packet access (HSPA), Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac, etc. For the sake of convenience, the various names for a base station-type apparatus and functionality are used interchangeably in this patent document to refer to network infrastructure components that provide wireless access to remote terminals. Also, depending on the network type, the term “user equipment” (UE) can refer to any component such as a mobile station (MS), subscriber station (SS), remote terminal, wireless terminal, receive point, or user device. For the sake of convenience, the various names for a user equipment-type device and functionality are used interchangeably in this patent document to refer to remote wireless equipment that wirelessly accesses a BS, whether the UE is a mobile device (such as a mobile telephone or smartphone) or is normally considered a stationary device (such as a desktop computer or vending machine).

[0087] Dotted lines show the approximate extents of the coverage areas 120 and 125, which are shown as approximately circular for the purposes of illustration and explanation only. It should be clearly understood that the coverage areas associated with gNBs, such as the coverage areas 120 and 125, may have other shapes, including irregular shapes, depending upon the configuration of the gNBs and variations in the radio environment associated with natural and man-made obstructions.

[0088] As described in more detail below, one or more of the UEs 111-119 include circuitry, programing, or a combination thereof. In certain embodiments, and one or more of the gNBs 101-103 includes circuitry, programing, or a combination thereof.

[0089] Although FIG. 1 illustrates one example of a wireless network, various changes may be made to FIG. 1. For example, the wireless network 100 could include any number of gNBs and any number of UEs in any suitable arrangement. Also, the gNB 101 could communicate directly with any number of UEs and provide those UEs with wireless broadband access to the network 130. Similarly, each gNB 102-103 could communicate directly with the network 130 and provide UEs with direct wireless broadband access to the network 130. Further, the gNBs 101, 102, and / or 103 could provide access to other or additional external networks, such as external telephone networks or other types of data networks.

[0090] FIG. 2 illustrates an example base station according to embodiments of the present disclosure. The embodiment of the gNB 102 illustrated in FIG. 2 is for illustration only, and the gNBs 101 and 103 of FIG. 1 could have the same or similar configuration. However, gNBs come in a wide variety of configurations, and FIG. 2 does not limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular implementation of a gNB.

[0091] As shown in FIG 2, the gNB 102 includes multiple antennas 200a-200n, multiple radio frequency (RF) transceivers 201a-201n, transmit (TX) processing circuitry 203, and receive (RX) processing circuitry 204. The gNB 102 also includes a controller / processor 205, a memory 206, and a backhaul or network interface (IF) 207.

[0092] The RF transceivers 201a-201n receive, from the antennas 200a-200n, incoming RF signals, such as signals transmitted by UEs in the network 100. The RF transceivers 201a-201n down-convert the incoming RF signals to generate intermediate frequency (IF) or baseband signals. The IF or baseband signals are sent to the RX processing circuitry 204, which generates processed baseband signals by filtering, decoding, and / or digitizing the baseband or IF signals. The RX processing circuitry 204 transmits the processed baseband signals to the controller / processor 205 for further processing.

[0093] The TX processing circuitry 203 receives analog or digital data (such as voice data, web data, electronic mail, or interactive video game data) from the controller / processor 205. The TX processing circuitry 203 encodes, multiplexes, and / or digitizes the outgoing baseband data to generate processed baseband or IF signals. The RF transceivers 201a-201n receive the outgoing processed baseband or IF signals from the TX processing circuitry 203 and up-converts the baseband or IF signals to RF signals that are transmitted via the antennas 201a-201n.

[0094] The controller / processor 205 can include one or more processors or other processing devices that control the overall operation of the gNB 102. For example, the controller / processor 205 could control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of reverse channel signals by the RF transceivers 201a-201n, the RX processing circuitry 204, and the TX processing circuitry 203 in accordance with well-known principles. The controller / processor 205 could support additional functions as well, such as more advanced wireless communication functions.

[0095] For instance, the controller / processor 205 could support beam forming or directional routing operations in which outgoing signals from multiple antennas 200a-200n are weighted differently to effectively steer the outgoing signals in a desired direction. Any of a wide variety of other functions could be supported in the gNB 102 by the controller / processor 205.

[0096] The controller / processor 205 is also capable of executing programs and other processes resident in the memory 206, such as an operating system (OS). The controller / processor 205 can move data into or out of the memory 206 as required by an executing process.

[0097] The controller / processor 205 is also coupled to the backhaul or network interface 207. The backhaul or network interface 207 allows the gNB 102 to communicate with other devices or systems over a backhaul connection or over a network. The interface 207 could support communications over any suitable wired or wireless connection(s). For example, when the gNB 102 is implemented as part of a cellular communication system (such as one supporting 5G, LTE, or LTE-A), the interface 207 could allow the gNB 102 to communicate with other gNBs over a wired or wireless backhaul connection. When the gNB 102 is implemented as an access point, the interface 207 could allow the gNB 102 to communicate over a wired or wireless local area network or over a wired or wireless connection to a larger network (such as the Internet). The interface 207 includes any suitable structure supporting communications over a wired or wireless connection, such as an Ethernet or RF transceiver.

[0098] The memory 206 is coupled to the controller / processor 205. Part of the memory 206 could include a random access memory (RAM), and another part of the memory 206 could include a Flash memory or other read only memory (ROM).

[0099] Although FIG. 2 illustrates one example of gNB 102, various changes may be made to FIG. 2. For example, the gNB 102 could include any number of each component shown in FIG. 2. As a particular example, an access point could include a number of interfaces 207, and the controller / processor 205 could support routing functions to route data between different network addresses. As another particular example, while shown as including a single instance of TX processing circuitry 203 and a single instance of RX processing circuitry 204, the gNB 102 could include multiple instances of each (such as one per RF transceiver). Also, various components in FIG. 2 could be combined, further subdivided, or omitted and additional components could be added according to particular needs.

[0100] FIG. 3 illustrates an example user equipment according to embodiments of the present disclosure. The embodiment of the UE 116 illustrated in FIG. 3 is for illustration only, and the UEs 111-115 and 117-119 of FIG. 1 could have the same or similar configuration. However, UEs come in a wide variety of configurations, and FIG. 3 does not limit the scope of the present disclosure to any particular implementation of a UE.

[0101] As shown in FIG. 3, the UE 116 includes an antenna 301, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 302, TX processing circuitry 303, a microphone 304, and receive (RX) processing circuitry 305. The UE 116 also includes a speaker 306, a controller or processor 307, an input / output (I / O) interface (IF) 308, an input device 309, a touchscreen display 310, and a memory 311. The memory 311 includes an OS 312 and one or more applications 313.

[0102] The RF transceiver 302 receives, from the antenna 301, an incoming RF signal transmitted by an gNB of the network 100. The RF transceiver 302 down-converts the incoming RF signal to generate an IF or baseband signal. The IF or baseband signal is sent to the RX processing circuitry 305, which generates a processed baseband signal by filtering, decoding, and / or digitizing the baseband or IF signal. The RX processing circuitry 305 transmits the processed baseband signal to the speaker 306 (such as for voice data) or to the processor 307 for further processing (such as for web browsing data).

[0103] The TX processing circuitry 303 receives analog or digital voice data from the microphone 304 or other outgoing baseband data (such as web data, e-mail, or interactive video game data) from the processor 307. The TX processing circuitry 303 encodes, multiplexes, and / or digitizes the outgoing baseband data to generate a processed baseband or IF signal. The RF transceiver 302 receives the outgoing processed baseband or IF signal from the TX processing circuitry 303 and up-converts the baseband or IF signal to an RF signal that is transmitted via the antenna 301.

[0104] The processor 307 can include one or more processors or other processing devices and execute the OS 312 stored in the memory 311 in order to control the overall operation of the UE 116. For example, the processor 307 could control the reception of forward channel signals and the transmission of reverse channel signals by the RF transceiver 302, the RX processing circuitry 305, and the TX processing circuitry 303 in accordance with well-known principles. In some embodiments, the processor 307 includes at least one microprocessor or microcontroller.

[0105] The processor 307 is also capable of executing other processes and programs resident in the memory 311, such as processes for CSI (Channel State Information) reporting on uplink channel. The processor 307 can move data into or out of the memory 311 as required by an executing process. In some embodiments, the processor 307 is configured to execute the applications 313 based on the OS 312 or in response to signals received from gNBs or an operator. The processor 307 is also coupled to the I / O interface 308, which provides the UE 116 with the ability to connect to other devices, such as laptop computers and handheld computers. The I / O interface 308 is the communication path between these accessories and the processor 307.

[0106] The processor 307 is also coupled to the touchscreen display 310. The user of the UE 116 can use the touchscreen display 310 to enter data into the UE 116. The touchscreen display 310 may be a liquid crystal display, light emitting diode display, or other display capable of rendering text and / or at least limited graphics, such as from web sites.

[0107] The memory 311 is coupled to the processor 307. Part of the memory 311 could include RAM, and another part of the memory 311 could include a Flash memory or other ROM.

[0108] Although FIG. 3 illustrates one example of UE 116, various changes may be made to FIG. 3. For example, various components in FIG. 3 could be combined, further subdivided, or omitted and additional components could be added according to particular needs. As a particular example, the processor 307 could be divided into multiple processors, such as one or more central processing units (CPUs) and one or more graphics processing units (GPUs). Also, while FIG. 3 illustrates the UE 116 configured as a mobile telephone or smartphone, UEs could be configured to operate as other types of mobile or stationary devices.

[0109] In future wireless communication systems, the high frequency band (e.g., millimeter wave, mmWave) is widely used to improve the network bandwidth and capacity of the system. Meanwhile, beams carrying data transmission are designed to be narrower to improve the signal to noise ratio, thus realizing wider coverage. The mmWave communication brings many advantages by using a high beamforming gain, but is also affected by high overhead and large delay caused by the complex beam management process. When beams are designed to be narrower, the number of beams in the beam set will be increased. However, the increase of the number of beams in the beam set will bring about many problems. For example, in order to realize correct beam management, each beam in the beam set corresponds to one reference signal (RS), so the increase of the number of beams in the beam set will inevitably lead to the increase of the signaling overhead. For another example, the increase of the number of beams will inevitably lead to the increase of the beam sweeping delay. In addition, since both beam sweeping and beam measurement require energy, the increase of the number of beams in the beam set will also lead to the increase of the energy consumption.

[0110] In order to solve the high-speed broadband connection problem in the medium-low-density market including most households, the fixed wireless access (FWA) technology has attracted more and more attention. As an alternative of the optical fiber access, the FWA technology becomes the most effective solution to satisfy users' broadband access requirements due to its characteristics of low deployment complexity, low cost per user and short deployment time. FWA is a technology combining fixed-line communication with wireless communication, which specially provides users with broadband access services. Its principle and architecture are very simple. That is, a mobile communication base station provides signal coverage, and then in the user's residence or business place, a customer premise equipment (CPE) or other devices receive a signal and convert the received signal into a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) or wired signal, so as to provide the network access capability.

[0111] With the improvement of communication requirements, for example, in order to realize the higher-speed broadband connection in the current FWA product design, the number of beams in the beam set will be further increased to improve the beam gain. For example, more than a hundred of beams (associated with the corresponding number of reference signal resources) in the beam set in a cell used for mobile communication are increased to several hundreds of beams in the FWA system. Thus, it is necessary to enhance beam management, so as to solve, for example, the problems on signaling overhead, delay, energy consumption or the like in the beam management.

[0112] In view of the above problems, upon further research and analysis, the inventor(s) of the embodiments of the present disclosure has(have) found that at least one of the above problems can be improved by more effective methods by utilizing the fixed-line communication characteristic of the FWA. For example, the deployment position of the FWA is relatively fixed, and the beam direction between the base station and the CPE usually remains unchanged in a certain period of time. Therefore, there is a stable channel environment between the base station and the CPE. For another example, in order to overcome the serious path loss caused by high-frequency band communication, the FWA operating in the millimeter wave frequency band is often deployed outdoors and located within the line of sight (LOS) communication range of the base station, so the quality of communication channels is generally good enough and the signal to noise ratio is high. Based on the two characteristics of the FWA, the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a new beam management method. By using the beam management method provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the signaling overhead can be reduced and / or the delay problem can be improved.

[0113] The method provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure may be performed by a user equipment (terminal). It should be understood that some steps involving information interaction may be described from the terminal side, or may be described from the base station side. For example, the terminal receives configuration information, while the base station correspondingly transmits the configuration information. For another example, the terminal reports a CSI report, and the corresponding network node receives the CSI report.

[0114] In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the network node may include, but not limited to, a base station (BS) or a transmission reception point (TRP). For the convenience of description, in the following description, the network node will be described by taking a base station as an example.

[0115] It is to be noted that, the names or appellations of various information involved in the embodiments of the present disclosure are not unique, and the names or appellations of these information can be altered as long as the functions of these information, the contents contained in these information or the explanations or descriptions of these information can be corresponding or associated. For example, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, there is a correspondence between beams and reference signal resources / reference signals associated with the beams. In some embodiments, the information corresponding to (or associated with, or related to, or correlated to) a beam may also be replaced with the information corresponding to the reference signal resource / reference signal. For example, the beam index may be a beam indicator of a beam, or may be an indicator of a reference signal resource corresponding to this beam.

[0116] Some term names involved in the embodiments of the present disclosure may adopt the term names that already exist in the communication standards, for example, reference signal or reference signal resource; while some term names may be newly added or defined term names. These newly added or defined term names may also adopt other names in future communication standards, or may be described in other ways (e.g., a paragraph of text description).

[0117] The beam management method provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure may include at least one or at least two of beam configuration, beam sweeping, beam measurement, beam determination (beam selection), beam reporting and beam adjustment (beam handover).

[0118] In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the type of the reference signal will not be limited, and the reference signal is a reference signal used for beam management. Optionally, the reference signal may be at least one of the following:

[0119] a synchronization signal and PBCH block (SSB or SS / PBCH block), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), a positioning reference signal (PRS) and other reference signals.

[0120] In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the reference signal may also be described as a reference signal resource (a resource that transmits the reference signal). For example, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the CSI-RS may also be replaced with the CSI-RS resource, and the SSB may also be replaced with the SSB resource. In some embodiments, the beam may be replaced with the reference signal or reference signal resource associated with the beam.

[0121] The beam management method provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure is a beam management method based on a beam pair. This method uses the associated beam pair as the transmitting beam and / or receiving beam. One beam pair includes a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam. The second beam may be interpreted as a beam based on the first beam. For example, the second beam is obtained by transforming the first beam to a certain extent. The first beam may be referred to as the original beam, and the second beam is a beam generated based on the original beam by transformation and may be referred to as the transformed beam. The present disclosure provides a beam management method, which can use the original beam and the transformed beam corresponding to the original beam to transmit and / or receive beams.

[0122] Optionally, the second beam has a complementary peak with the first beam.

[0123] In the beam management method provided by the present disclosure, the first beam and the second beam can be used in combination to reduce the number of sweeping beams and eventually reduce the use of reference signal resources, thereby reducing the signaling overhead and the sweeping duration. In addition, the energy consumption can also be reduced by decreasing the number of beam sweeps. The energy consumption can be the energy consumption of the transmitting end when generating beams by using an RF link and / or the energy consumption of the receiving end when performing beam measurement.

[0124] Optionally, the method can also calculate a beam pointing direction deviation by using the beam received value (received signal value) corresponding to the original beam and the beam received value corresponding to the transformed beam, and adjust the beam direction according to the beam pointing direction deviation (also referred to as the beam angle deviation or beam direction deviation).

[0125] The specific generation mode (beamforming mode) for the first beam and the second beam will not be limited in the embodiments of the present disclosure. Theoretically, it is only required that the first beam and the second beam are correlated. Here, the correlation can be interpreted as that the beam features (or beam attribute information) of the first beam and the second beam are correlated. For example, the beam feature (or beam attribute information) of the first beam and the beam feature (or beam attribute information) of the second beam satisfy a certain relationship. In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the beam pointing direction deviation and the beam features of the beam pair satisfy a certain relationship. For example, the beam pointing direction deviation and the beam gain / energy of the beam pair satisfy a particular relationship. On this basis, the beam pointing direction deviation can be determined according to the receiving situation (e.g., received signal value) corresponding to the first beam and the receiving situation corresponding to the second beam as well as the particular relationship.

[0126] In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the beam pointing direction deviation is the beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam, which may also be referred to as the angle deviation of the beam direction of the first beam. It can be interpreted as the angle deviation relative to the beam center direction of the first beam or the angle adjustment amount relative to the boresight direction (normal direction / visual axis direction) of the first beam. It can be interpreted as the beam pointing direction deviation of the first beam relative to the ideal situation (for example, the first beam of the network node is completely aligned with the receiving beam of the UE).

[0127] Optionally, the beam pointing direction deviation is an angle deviation of the calculated optimal transmission direction (theoretical optimal transmission direction) with respect to the boresight direction of the first beam. Optionally, in some implementations, the beam pointing direction deviation may be replaced by an angle value of the optimal transmission direction (which may be referred to as the optimal transmission angle). Here, the optimal transmission direction may be understood as the transmission direction expected by the UE.

[0128] Optionally, the beam pointing direction deviation may be defined as:

[0129] an angle value of the optimal transmission direction-angle value of the detection direction

[0130] Where the detection direction is the boresight direction of the first beam, which is the direction with the maximum gain, and the detection direction may also be referred to as the reference direction.

[0131] As an optional scheme, the first beam and the second beam may be a sum beam and a differential beam, respectively. The beam management method based on the sum beam and the differential beam may be referred to as a differential beam method, a differential beamforming (DBF) method for beam management or a beam management method based on DBF. This method uses the beam pair consisting of the sum beam and the differential beam as the transmitting beam and / or receiving beam. Optionally, the sum beam may be the original beam generated by the existing method, for example, the beam generated using the conventional beamforming coefficient; and, the second beam may be generated based on the sum beam. The generation method may be a differential operation, so the second beam may be referred to as a differential beam.

[0132] The specific generation mode for the sum beam and the differential beam will not be uniquely limited in the embodiments of the present disclosure. As an alternative, the first beam may be generated by a conventional beam generation method, and the second beam may be generated in such a way that the first half of the generation coefficient (beamforming coefficient) of the second beam may be the same as the first half of the generation coefficient of the first beam and the second half of the generation coefficient of the second beam is the negative number (opposite number) of the second half of the generation coefficient of the first beam. This differential mode may be referred to as a differential beam.

[0133] As an alternative, the beam gains (or received signal energy) of the first beam and the second beam may satisfy the relationship shown in FIG. 4, wherein the horizontal coordinate represents the angle value of the beam pointing direction deviation, and in the example of FIG. 4, the angle is expressed in radians, as shown in FIG. 4. When the beam pointing direction deviation is 0, the beam gain of the sum beam (first beam) reaches the maximum value. At this time, the beam gain of the differential beam (second beam) reaches the minimum value, e.g., 0.

[0134] It can be known from FIG. 4 that, compared with the sum beam, the differential beam has a complementary peak. Meanwhile, since the differential beam is generated based on the sum beam, the differential beam is highly related to the equivalent channel of the sum beam. Such correlation can be used to obtain direction estimation. In order to obtain this estimation, it is generally necessary to calculate the ratio of the differential beam to the equivalent channel of the sum beam and establish the mapping relationship between the equivalent channel ratio and the direction difference. This will be described hereinafter in combination with optional embodiments.

[0135] FIG. 5A illustrates an example diagram of the relationship between the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam and the beam pointing direction deviation. In FIG. 5A, the blue solid line indicates that the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam is a real number, and the blue dashed line indicate that the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam is an imaginary number. It can be seen from FIG. 5A that the beam pointing direction deviation is in one-to-one correspondence to the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam in a certain adjustment range. Thus, the beam pointing direction deviation value can be obtained from the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam. Optionally, the adjustment range may depend on the angle range of the first beam, e.g., [-15°,15°]. In a case where the channel is stable, when the beam pointing direction deviation is 0, the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam (i.e., the ratio of the signal received value of the second reference signal based on the second beam and the signal received value of the first reference signal based on the first beam) is 0, or the received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam is infinite.

[0136] Optionally, for the differential beam method, the receiving end (e.g., UE) may calculate the beam direction deviation (or the angle value of the optimal transmission direction or the angle index which can represent the optimal transmission direction) according to the received differential beam signal and the sum beam signal. For example, the beam direction deviation may be calculated according to the ratio of the differential beam signal to the sum beam signal. The beam direction deviation may be reported to the transmitting end (e.g., BS), and the transmitting end adjusts the beam direction according to the beam direction deviation. Or, the receiving end selects a more suitable beam according to the beam direction deviation and feeds the selection result (e.g., the selected beam index or the selected reference signal resource indicator) back to the transmitting end, and the transmitting end may adjust the transmitting beam according to the information fed back by the receiving end.

[0137] The beam management method (e.g., the differential beam method) provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure can effectively reduce the number of beams to be swept, reduce the energy consumption for beam sweeping and beam measurement, reduce the signaling overhead, and improve the communication efficiency. This method can be well applied to communication scenarios (including but not limited to FWA communication scenarios) with stable enough channels and high enough signal to noise ratio, and can provide accurate beam direction estimation.

[0138] It is to be noted that the sum beam and the differential beam are an optional implementation of the beam pair in the scheme provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure, but it is not limited thereto. Theoretically, any beam pair is possible as long as the beam pointing direction deviation of the first beam can be known based on the relationship (e.g., the above ratio) between the features of the beam pair. For the convenience of description, in some of the following embodiments, the beam pair will be described by taking a sum beam and a differential beam as an example. The first beam is a sum beam, and the second beam is a differential beam corresponding to the sum beam.

[0139] In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the second beam may include at least one beam associated with the first beam. Optionally, the second beam may include a third beam and / or a fourth beam, wherein the first beam and the third beam may be referred to as a first beam pair, the first beam and the fourth beam may be referred to as a second beam pair, and the first beam pair and the second beam pair may be used for beam adjustment in different dimensions (wherein, the dimension may also be referred as domain or direction). Optionally, the first beam pair is related to beam adjustment in a horizontal direction, and the second beam pair is related to beam adjustment in a vertical direction.

[0140] It should be noted that the horizontal direction in embodiments of the present disclosure may be replaced by an azimuth domain or an azimuth dimension, and the vertical direction may be replaced by an elevation domain or an elevation dimension.

[0141] As an optional scheme, the first beam may be a sum beam, the second beam includes a third beam and a fourth beam, the third beam is a differential beam corresponding to the first beam in the horizontal direction, and the fourth beam is a differential beam corresponding to the first beam in the vertical direction. For example, the antenna array of the antenna panel of the transmitting end may be divided into two sub-arrays in the horizontal direction and two sub-arrays in the vertical direction, and the differential beam in the horizontal direction and / or the differential beam in the vertical direction may be formed by adjusting the phase corresponding to one or more of these sub-arrays. Optionally, relative to the first beam, the third beam may be realized by rotating the phase corresponding to one sub-array in the horizontal direction by 180 degrees, and the fourth beam may be realized by rotating the phase corresponding to one sub-array in the vertical direction by 180 degrees.

[0142] As an optional embodiment provided by embodiments of the present disclosure, the UE may measure a received signal ratio based on two beams (e.g., a sum beam and a differential beam having an association relationship (as shown in FIG. 4)), find a beam pointing direction angle deviation (an angle difference between the optimal transmission direction and the detection direction) based on the received signal ratio and a mapping relationship (as shown in the example in FIG. 18 below), and further obtain the optimal transmission angle based on the beam pointing direction deviation and the detection direction, thus finding the optimal narrow beam, and the UE can obtain the maximum receiving power of the transmit signal on the optimal narrow beam. Wherein, the above mapping relationship may be obtained based on the association relationship between the sum beam and the differential beam, and the detection direction is the boresight direction of the sum beam. As shown schematically in FIGS. 5B and 5C, each narrow beam corresponds to a transmission direction (which can be represented by a transmission angle). After determining the beam pointing direction angle deviation, the optimal transmission direction can be found according to the beam pointing direction angle deviation and the detection direction of the sum beam, and finding the optimal transmission direction also finds the optimal narrow beam.

[0143] The technical schemes provided by the present disclosure and the technical effects achieved by the technical schemes will be described below by various optional implementations. It should be pointed out that the following implementations can refer to or learn from each other or be combined with each other if not conflicted or contradicted, and the same terms, similar features and similar implementation steps in different implementations will not be described repeatedly.

[0144] For the convenience of description, in the following embodiments, the beam pair will be described by taking a sum beam and a differential beam as an example.

[0145] FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of an optional scheme of the present disclosure. This scheme may be performed by a user equipment. As shown in FIG. 6, the method may include the following steps.

[0146] In step S610, first configuration information and second configuration information are received, the first configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set (or described as the first configuration information including the information used for reference signal resources or a resource set), reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, the second configuration information including information related to a channel state information report (or described as the second configuration information including a configuration used for CSI report).

[0147] Optionally, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with the beam pair may also be described as that: the reference signal resource set include associated reference signal resources, or the reference signal resource set includes reference signal resources based on the differential beam management. For example, the associated reference signal resources may include a first reference signal resource related to the first beam and a second reference signal resource related to the second beam. The second beam is a beam based on the first beam.

[0148] Optionally, the two reference signals being associated may be interpreted as the two reference signal resources (or the two reference signals) having a QCL relationship, and the QCL type may be type D. Alternatively, it may be interpreted as the signal transmission directions associated with the two reference signal resources being related (e.g., satisfying a predetermined relationship) or the channel gains associated with the two reference signal resources satisfy a predetermined relationship. For example, the transmission direction associated with the first reference signal resource is a first direction and the transmission direction associated with the second reference signal is a second direction based on the first direction. For another example, when the first reference signal has a maximum channel gain, the second reference signal has a minimum channel gain.

[0149] It is to be noted that in the description of optional embodiments of the present disclosure, the first beam may be replaced with a first reference signal resource, and the second beam may be replaced with a second reference signal, and the description provided in the optional embodiments with respect to the association relationship of the first beam and the second beam is applicable to the description of the association relationship of the first reference signal resource and the second reference signal resource.

[0150] In step S620, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam are received from a network node based on the first configuration information.

[0151] Optionally, the step S620 may also be described as: receiving associated first reference signal (or first reference signal resource) and second reference signal (or second reference signal resource) based on the first configuration information.

[0152] In step S630, a CSI report is transmitted based on the second configuration information, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.

[0153] The CSI report being related to the beam pair may be interpreted as that the CSI report includes the content related to the first beam (or the first reference signal or the first reference signal resource) and the content related to the second beam (or the first reference signal or the first reference signal resource). The CSI report being related to the beam pair may also be described as: the CSI report related to an associated reference signal resource or the CSI report for beam management based on differential beamforming.

[0154] As an alternative, the above steps S610 to S630 may also be replaced using the following description:

[0155] Step S610: first configuration information and second configuration information are received, the first configuration information including information used for the associated reference signal resource (or the first configuration information including information related to the associated reference signal resource), and the second configuration information including information related to a CSI report, the CSI report is related to the associated reference signal resource, or the CSI report is a CSI report based on the associated reference signal resource;

[0156] Step S620: a first reference signal and a second reference signal are received based on the first configuration information;

[0157] Step S630: a CSI report is transmitted based on the second configuration information.

[0158] In the embodiments of the present disclosure, the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information is associated with measurement based on the differential beam management. Optionally, the first configuration information and / or the second configuration information is associated with the angle and / or direction management (or direction adjustment) for differential beam management.

[0159] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the first configuration information and the second configuration information are configuration information used for beam management, which is configured for the UE by the BS, wherein the first configuration information and the second configuration information may be transmitted to the UE simultaneously or separately. The first configuration information is a configuration related to the reference signal resource, the second configuration information is a configuration related to the CSI report, and the second configuration information is also associated with the first configuration information. The UE may receive a reference signal based on the first configuration information, and may optionally perform beam measurement and beam determination. For example, the UE may determine, according to the configured content to be reported in the second configuration information, whether to perform beam measurement and beam determination, and transmit a CSI report to the BS according to the second configuration information, i.e., reporting a CSI report.

[0160] The specific names of the first configuration information and the second configuration information and the specific method of configuring the first configuration information and the second configuration information for the UE by the BS will not be limited in the embodiments of the present disclosure. Optionally, the first configuration information and the second configuration information may be collectively referred to as configuration information used for beam management. Optionally, the first configuration information may be referred to as a resource configuration, e.g., a resource configuration for CSI; and, the second configuration information may be referred to as a report configuration, for example, a report configuration for CSI.

[0161] The BS realizes beam configuration by transmitting the first configuration information and the second configuration information to the UE. Optionally, the beam configuration may be realized by receiving a radio resource control (RRC) signaling by the UE, and the BS may configure for the base station the first configuration information and the second configuration information used for beam management through an RRC signaling. As an alternative, the UE receives the RRC configuration transmitted by the BS. The RRC configuration includes the first configuration information and the second configuration information.

[0162] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the first configuration information and the second configuration information are configuration related to the beam pair, that is, the configuration information corresponds to the beam pair. One beam pair includes at least two beams, and the at least two beams include a first beam and a second beam. The second beam includes at least one beam, and the second beam is a beam based on the first beam. Optionally, in the beam pair, the first beam is a sum beam, and the second beam is a differential beam, which may be referred to as a differential beam based on the first beam or a differential beam corresponding to the sum beam.

[0163] Optionally, the second beam may include a third beam and / or a fourth beam, wherein a beam pair including the first beam and the third beam is related to beam adjustment in the horizontal direction, and a beam pair including the first beam and the fourth beam is related to beam adjustment in the vertical direction. For example, the first beam is a sum beam, the third beam is a differential beam in the horizontal direction, and the fourth beam is a differential beam in the vertical direction. The first reference signal resource is associated with the sum beam, the second reference signal resource is associated with the differential beam, and the differential beam has a differential beamforming relationship with the sum beam, e.g., a beam gain of 0 for the differential beam when the sum beam has a maximum beam gain.

[0164] The first configuration information is a configuration related to reference signal resources used for beam management. Optionally, this configuration information includes information related to the reference signal resource set, the reference signal resource set includes one or more reference signal resources, and the reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set are associated with the beam pair. For example, there is a correspondence between the beam pair and the reference signal resources. Optionally, the reference signal resource set includes at least one of CSI-RS resources or SSB resources, and the reference signal resource set may include one or more reference signal resources, e.g., a plurality of CSI-RS resources. Optionally, each pair of reference signal resources may be associated with one beam pair.

[0165] Optionally, in a case where the second beam includes a third beam and / or a fourth beam, the reference signal resource set may include a reference signal resource pair related to the first beam and the third beam and / or a reference signal resource pair associated with the first beam and the fourth beam. For example, the reference signal resource set includes a first reference signal resource and a second reference signal resource, the first reference signal resource is associated with the first beam, and the second reference signal resource includes a third reference signal resource associated with the third beam and / or a fourth reference signal resource associated with the fourth beam. The first resource set pair (the first reference signal resource and the third reference signal resource) is used for beam management in the horizontal direction (azimuth domain), and the second resource set pair (the first reference signal resource and the fourth reference signal resource) is used for beam management in the vertical direction (elevation domain).

[0166] For example, a first reference signal resource is associated with the sum beam, the third reference signal resource is associated with the differential beam of the azimuth domain, and the fourth reference signal resource is associated with the differential beam of the elevation domain. Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a scheme that may support the beam management for both the azimuth domain and the elevation domain.

[0167] It is to be noted that the first configuration information and the second configuration information include a resource configuration and a report configuration associated with at least one beam pair, and each beam pair may have the respective reference signal resource configuration and report configuration or different beam pairs may share some or all of the configuration information. For example, the first configuration information and the second configuration information include information related to two beam pairs, the first beams in the two beam pairs are different, and the two beam pairs are beam pairs corresponding to two different wide beams. The two beam pairs may correspond to respective resource configurations and reporting configurations, or the two beam pairs may also have the same report configuration. In some of the following embodiments, the description will be given by taking one beam pair as an example. When the first configuration information and the second configuration information include configurations related to a plurality of beam pairs, the UE may perform a corresponding operation based on the reference signal resource and the report configuration associated with each beam pair.

[0168] Specifically, upon obtaining the first configuration information, the UE may receive a first reference signal corresponding to the first beam and a second reference signal corresponding to the second beam, and perform subsequent operations (e.g., beam measurement, beam determination and beam reporting) based on the information of the received signals. Optionally, the first reference signal and the second reference signal may also be referred to as beam pair reference signals, or referred to as reference signal pairs or reference signal groups for beam management based on DBF.

[0169] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the first beam and the second beam in the beam pair are wide beams (the angle range of spatial coverage is relatively large), and one wide beam may correspond to a plurality of narrow beams (the angle range of spatial coverage is relatively small). For example, one wide beam may be associated with 40 narrow beams (for example, one wide beam may be divided into a plurality of narrow beams according to the spatial coverage overlap of the wide beam). The first reference signal associated with the first beam and the second reference signal associated with the second beam may be of the same type or different types. The resource type of the reference signal resources corresponding to the beam pair will also not be limited in the embodiment of the present disclosure.

[0170] As an optional scheme, the first reference signal associated with the first beam (or referred to as the first reference signal corresponding to the first beam) is an SSB, and the first beam is a wide beam (e.g., sum beam) corresponding to the SSB, which may be referred to as an SSB wide beam. The second reference signal associated with the second beam may be a CSI-RS, and the second beam is a beam (e.g., differential beam) based on the SSB wide beam. The reference signal resources associated with the beam pair may include an SSB resource associated with the first beam and an CSI-RS resource associated with the second beam, and the CSI-RS resource may be a non-zero power CSI-RS (NZP CSI-RS) resource.

[0171] As an optional scheme, the first reference signal corresponding to the first beam is a CSI-RS, and the first beam is an SSB wide beam corresponding to the CSI-RS narrow beam, wherein the correspondence between the CSI-RS narrow beam and the SSB wide beam may be that the CSI-RS narrow beam is located within the SSB wide beam. The second reference signal is a CSI-RS, and the second beam corresponding to the second reference signal is a beam based on the SSB wide beam. For example, the SSB wide beam is a sum beam, and the second beam is a differential beam generated based on the sum beam.

[0172] For the second configuration information, e.g., the report configuration for CSI, the configuration information is also the report configuration associated with the beam pair. Optionally, the configuration information should include the report configuration related to the beam pair. The report configuration related to the beam pair may be a configuration, which is configured by the BS, to allow the UE report a certain parameter corresponding to the first beam and a certain parameter corresponding to the second beam, or may a configuration which allows the UE to report a certain parameter calculated based on the received signal of the first beam and the received signal of the second beam. For example, the report configuration configures that the UE needs to report the first received signal value corresponding to the first beam and the second received signal value corresponding to the second beam, i.e., the received signal value of the first reference signal and the received signal value of the second reference signal, or that the UE needs to report the ratio of the first received signal value to the second received signal value, or that the UE needs to report the beam pointing direction deviation according to the configuration or the angle value of the optimal transmission direction or the angle index.

[0173] In the above scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, since the configuration information is the configuration related to the beam pair and the first beam and the second beam in the beam pair are associated beams, the beam pointing direction deviation used for the first beam may be determined based on the signal reception situation of the reference signal pair (the first reference signal and the second reference signal) corresponding to the associated beam pair, so that the adjustment of the transmitting beam of the BS can be realized based on the beam pointing direction deviation. Optionally, the operation of determining the beam pointing direction deviation may be determined by the UE according to the received reference signal pair, or may be determined by the BS according to the reported information after the UE reports the signal reception situation to the BS. Optionally, it is also possible that the UE performs beam determination according to the determined beam pointing direction deviation and reports the result of determination to the BS. Of course, it is also possible that the BS performs beam determination according to the beam pointing direction deviation reported by the UE or the information capable of determining the beam pointing direction deviation (for example, a ratio of the received signal value of the first reference signal and the received signal value of the second reference signal, or a ratio of the channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and the channel estimation value based on the second reference signal). Based on the scheme provided in the present disclosure, the beam management based on the beam pair can be realized. Since the beam determination may be performed based on the beam pointing direction deviation of the first beam, the BS may select, from a plurality of narrow beams within the angle coverage of the first beam, a suitable narrow beam (optimal narrow beam) as the transmitting beam, and it is unnecessary to measure all narrow beams within the angle coverage of the first beam. Thus, the number of beams to be swept in the beam management process can be effectively reduced, and the utilization and energy consumption of resources can be reduced.

[0174] The beam management method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure is a new method. For example, the DBF-based method may be implemented based on a reference signal resource pair having an association relationship associated with the DBF, and optionally, may be reported based on a signal reception result (e.g., a ratio of received signal values or a ratio of channel estimation values based on received signals) of the reference signal resource pair, e.g., by reporting the signal reception result or by reporting an reported value determined based on the signal reception result (e.g., the beam pointing direction deviation or angle index).

[0175] Optionally, for the method, the above first configuration information may further include first information for indicating that the network node adopts the beam pair transmission mode, or indicating that the UE adopts the DBF-based beam management mode.

[0176] In other words, the first information indicates that the reference signal resource set configured by the network node through the first configuration information includes the associated reference signal resource pair, and the reference signal resource set is a reference signal resource set associated with the beam pair.

[0177] The specific name and configuration form of the first information will not be limited in the embodiment of the present disclosure. For example, the first information may also be referred to as indication information or indicator, etc. Based on the first information, the UE may know that the BS will transmit a beam pair, that is, the BS will adopt a signal transmission mode based on a beam pair, i.e., transmitting beam pair reference signals. The reference signal resources configured in the first configuration information are resources corresponding to the reference signal pair. Correspondingly, based on the first information, the UE will adopt a beam pair reception mode. That is, based on the configuration related to reference signal resources, the first reference signal transmitted through the first beam is received, and the second reference signal transmitted through the second beam is received.

[0178] Optionally, the first beam and the second beam may adopt a sum beam and a differential beam, and the first information may also be referred to as a first differential beam indication / indicator (the following description will be given by taking the differential beam indication as an example). The differential beam indication is used to indicate that the BS will transmit a differential beam pair or the associated reference signal resource pair, and the differential beam pair includes the first beam and the second beam. As an alternative, the first differential beam indication may be represented by 1 bit. When the first differential beam indication is 0, it indicates that the BS does not transmit the first differential beam pair; and, when the first differential beam indication is 1, it indicates that the BS transmits the first differential beam pair. Or, when the first differential beam indication is 1, it indicates that the BS does not transmit the first differential beam pair; and, when the first differential beam indication is 0, it indicates that the BS transmits the first differential beam pair. Based on the first differential beam indication, the UE may know the beam transmission situation of the BS, and the UE adopts the corresponding beam reception strategy according to the beam transmission situation of the BS.

[0179] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, in order to calibrate the transmitting beam of the base station, the UE should use the same receiving beam to receive the first reference signal and the second reference signal. On this basis, in an optional embodiment of the present disclosure, a quasi co-location (QCL) source reference signal associated with the second reference signal is the first reference signal, and the QCL type is a type D; or, the QCL source reference signal associated with the second reference signal is the same as a QCL source reference signal associated with the first reference signal, and the QCL type is the type D.

[0180] The base station may allow the first reference signal and the second reference signal to satisfy the above requirements through the configuration in the first configuration information. Thus, the UE can use the same spatial reception parameter to receive the first reference signal and the second reference signal. This optional scheme can also be used as implicit indication information or indicator indicating that the reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set are associated with the beam pair. If the base station has configured the above content through the first configuration information, the UE may consider that the base station will adopt the beam pair transmission mode, and the reference signal resource set includes the associated reference signal resource pair.

[0181] As an optional implementation, in the resource configuration of beam pair reference signals, the relationship that the second beam and the second beam need to satisfy may be that: the QCL source reference signal indicated by the transmission configuration indicator state (TCI-state) in the resource configuration of the second reference signal corresponding to the second beam is at least set as the first reference signal corresponding to the first beam, and the corresponding QCL type is 'typeD'. The first reference signal and the second reference signal form the QCL type of 'typeD', indicating that the UE may use the same spatial reception parameter when receiving the first reference signal and the second reference signal, and the UE may use the same receiving beam to receive the first reference signal and the second reference signal.

[0182] As another optional implementation, in the resource configuration (first configuration information) of beam pair reference signals, the relationship that the first beam and the second beam need to satisfy may also be that: the QCL source reference signal indicated by the TCI in the resource configuration of the first reference signal corresponding to the first beam and the QCL source reference signal indicated by the TCI in the resource configuration of the second reference signal corresponding to the second beam are the same reference signal, and the corresponding QCL type is 'typeD'. Optionally, the beam corresponding to the same reference signal is a wide beam. Optionally, the same reference signal may be an SSB, so that the UE can use the wide beam corresponding to the SSB to receive the first reference signal and the second reference signal.

[0183] In practical applications, the transmission occasions of the first reference signal and the second reference signal are configured in the first configuration information by the base station, and the UE may receive the first reference signal or the second reference signal first. In the embodiment of the present disclosure, when the UE reports to the BS, the related information of the first reference signal and the second reference signal may be reported separately based on the reception order of signals, or may be reported to the BS by the UE after receiving the first reference signal and the second reference signal.

[0184] Optionally, in the step S630, the CSI report transmitted based on the second configuration information may include at least one of the following:

[0185] Mode a1: a first CSI report, the first CSI report being based on information related to the first beam (the first reference signal resource) in the second configuration information;

[0186] Mode a2: a second CSI report, the second CSI report being based on information related to the second beam (the second reference signal resource) in the second configuration information;

[0187] Mode b: a third CSI report, the third CSI report being based on information related to the first beam and the second beam;

[0188] Mode c: a fourth CSI report, the fourth CSI report being based on information related to the first beam in the second configuration information and information related to the first beam and the second beam; and

[0189] Mode d: a fifth CSI report, the fifth CSI report being based on information related to the second beam in the second configuration information and information related to the first beam and the second beam.

[0190] As an optional reporting scheme for the CSI report, the UE may report a CSI report corresponding to the first beam (a CSI report related to the first reference signal resource) and a CSI report corresponding to the second beam (a CSI report related to the second reference signal resource), respectively. Optionally, according to the resource configuration, the UE may perform CSI reporting on the beam received first and then perform CSI reporting on the beam received later, wherein the beam received first may be the first beam or the second beam.

[0191] Optionally, the UE may perform CSI reporting on the beam received first, and then perform reporting after receiving the beam transmitted later. The content reported later may be the content related to the beam received later, or the content related to both the first beam and the second beam (for example, the measurement value calculated based on the received signal of the first reference signal and the received signal of the second reference signal), or both.

[0192] Optionally, the UE may perform reporting once based on the second configuration information after receiving the first reference signal and the second reference signal.

[0193] It should be understood that, in practical applications, the specific reporting mode adopted by the UE is related to the second configuration information. For example, if the second configuration information configures that the content to be reported by the UE is the content calculated according to the received signals of the first reference signal and the second reference signal, the UE can perform CSI reporting only after receiving the first reference signal transmitted through the first beam and the second reference signal transmitted through the second beam, as shown in the above Mode b. If the BS configures through the second configuration information that the UE needs to report the value (received signal value) of the reporting parameter a (e.g., received signal) corresponding to the first beam and the value of the reporting parameter a corresponding to the second beam, the UE performs reporting in the above Modes a1 and a2; and, if the BS configures that the UE needs to report the parameter related to a certain beam (i.e., a certain reference signal resource in the reference signal resource pair related to the beam pair) itself and also needs to report the parameter related to two beams (i.e., the reference signal resource pair), the UE may perform reporting in the above Mode c or d. Optionally, how the UE performs reporting is also related to the reporting occasion configured by the BS. If the BS configures only one reporting occasion, the UE needs to perform reporting in the above mode d.

[0194] Optionally, the use of what kind of reporting mode may also be predetermined, or configured in the second configuration information. The specific content included in the CSI report reported to the BS by the UE is based on the second configuration information. Optionally, the second configuration information may include information related to at least one of the following:

[0195] a reporting parameter related to the first beam; a reporting parameter related to the second beam; a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam; information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in the first beam set associated with the first beam; a mapping relationship, the mapping relationship includes a mapping relationship between a first value and a reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value is related to a received signal of a first reference signal and a received signal of a second reference signal; a determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam are based; and, quantization accuracy for reporting parameters.

[0196] Optionally, the reporting parameter related to a certain beam includes one or more parameters whose corresponding parameter values can be obtained based on the received signal of the reference signal corresponding to this beam. Optionally, the reporting parameter related to the first beam / the second beam may include one or more CSI parameters associated with the first beam / the second beam.

[0197] Optionally, the reporting parameter related to the first beam may include at least one of the following:

[0198] the reference signal receiving power (RSRP) of the first reference signal;

[0199] the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of the first reference signal;

[0200] the received signal value corresponding to the first beam (the received signal value of the first reference signal); and, the channel estimation value corresponding to the first beam.

[0201] Optionally, the reporting parameter related to the second beam may include at least one of the following:

[0202] the RSRP of the second reference signal; the SINR of the second reference signal; the received signal corresponding to the second beam (the received signal value of the second reference signal); and, the channel estimation value corresponding to the second beam.

[0203] The received signal value corresponding to one beam may be a time-domain signal value or a frequency-domain signal value. The channel estimation value corresponding to one beam may be a time-domain channel estimation value or a frequency-domain channel estimation value. Optionally, for a multi-carrier communication system, the channel estimation value corresponding to the beam may also be the fused estimation value of the frequency-domain channel estimation values corresponding to a plurality of sub-carriers of the UE, for example, the sum of the frequency-domain channel estimation values (also referred to as the frequency-domain channel estimation sum) corresponding to a plurality of sub-carriers, or the average value, or the like.

[0204] The reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam may be interpreted as the reporting parameter whose corresponding parameter value needs to be obtained based on the received signal of the first reference signal and the received signal of the second reference signal. Optionally, the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam may include at least one of the following:

[0205] a first parameter, the first parameter being related to the received signal value of the first reference signal and the received signal value of the second reference signal (for example, the first parameter may include: the ratio of the received signal value of the first reference signal to the received signal value of the second reference signal, or the ratio of the received signal value of the second reference signal to the received signal value of the first reference signal); a second parameter, the second parameter being related to the channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and the channel estimation value based on the second reference signal (for example, the second parameter may include the ratio of the channel estimation value based on the first reference signal to the channel estimation value based on the second reference signal, or the ratio of the channel estimation value based on the second reference signal to the signal estimation value based on the first reference signal, or the relationship between the channel estimation sum based on the second reference signal and the channel estimation sum based on the first reference signal); a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; and an angle index related to the signal transmission direction (optimal transmission direction) expected by the UE.

[0206] Wherein, the received signal of one beam refers to the received signal corresponding to this beam received by the UE, if the base station transmits the first reference signal through the first beam, the received signal of the first beam is the received signal of the first reference signal.

[0207] Optionally, the first parameter and the second parameter may be used for determining the beam pointing direction deviation. For example, the beam pointing direction deviation is based on the first parameter and / or the second parameter. When the UE needs to report the beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam, the UE may calculate the first parameter and / or the second parameter based on the signal received value of the received first reference signal and the signal received value of the second reference signal, so as to determine the beam pointing direction deviation. Optionally, if the beam determination is performed by the UE, the UE may determine the index of the narrow beam to be reported (e.g., the index of the reference signal resource associated with the narrow beam) according to the beam pointing direction deviation. Optionally, if beam indexing is performed by the base station, the UE may report the beam pointing direction deviation or the angle value or angle index of the optimal transmission direction (the signal transmission direction expected by the UE) to the base station.

[0208] For the convenience of description, in some of the following embodiments, the first parameter and the second parameter will be described by taking a ratio as an example.

[0209] It is to be noted that, in actual implementations, the ratio corresponding to the first beam and the second beam (i.e., the first reference signal and the second reference signal) may be calculated based on all values of the related parameter corresponding to the first beam and all values of the related parameter corresponding to the second beam, or may be calculated based on the values satisfying a certain condition in the all values. For example, the ratio of the channel estimation value based on the first reference signal (hereinafter referred to as the channel estimation value of the first beam) to the channel estimation value based on the second reference signal (hereinafter referred to as the channel estimation value of the second beam) may include the ratio of the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to the time-domain estimation value of the second beam. This ratio may be the ratio of the estimation value (referred to as the first estimation value) satisfying the first condition in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to the second estimation value at the corresponding position (the position corresponding to the position of the first estimation value in the first time-domain channel estimation value) in the second time-domain channel estimation value.

[0210] As an alternative, the second parameter may include at least one of the following:

[0211] a first ratio, the first ratio being based on a second value and a third value, wherein the second value is a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal, and the third value is a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to a position of the peak;

[0212] a second ratio, the second ratio being based on a fourth value and a fifth value, wherein the fourth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal, and the fifth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal.

[0213] Wherein the first ratio is a value calculated based on the second value and the third value. Optionally, the first ratio is a ratio of the second value and the third value, or the first ratio is a product of a coefficient and the ratio or otherwise calculated. The second ratio is a value calculated based on the fourth value and the fifth value, such as a ratio of the fourth value and the fifth value or a value obtained by multiplying the ratio by a coefficient.

[0214] In a single-path channel, signals are transmitted through a single path, the estimated optimal transmission direction is a single-path direction, and an optimal narrow beam can be correctly selected based on the received signal value of the two reference signals or the channel estimation value. However, in multipath channels (the most common channels in NR systems), the optimal transmission direction is likely to be incorrectly estimated because there are multiple path directions and the received signal is a weighted sum from multiple paths, and in multipath channels, the optimal transmission direction should be along the channel path with the highest power. In order to solve the problem that the optimal transmission direction is likely to be incorrectly estimated, in the above optional scheme provided by embodiments of the present disclosure, a correct optimal transmission direction may be determined based on the ratio corresponding to the transmission path with the highest power, to achieve the correct selection of the optimal narrow beam.

[0215] Wherein the first ratio value is obtained in a mode that may be referred to as Equivalent channel ratio measurement based on the peak selection on time-domain channel estimation (TDCE). The first ratio may be referred to as a peak-based equivalent channel ratio. The second ratio is obtained in a mode that may be referred to as Equivalent channel ratio measurement based on frequency-domain channel estimation (FDCE). The second ratio may be referred to as a accumulation-based equivalent channel ratio.

[0216] Optionally, the base station may configure the UE to report the measurement result of the first ratio or the measurement result of the second ratio (e.g., the quantized first ratio or the second ratio), or the base station may configure the UE to report the mapping result based on the first ratio or to report the mapping result based on the second ratio, e.g., the base station configures the UE with a mapping relationship of the equivalent channel ratio and the angle index (or the beam pointing direction deviation), and the UE determines and reports a corresponding angle index (or beam pointing direction deviation) according to the mapping relationship after obtaining the first ratio and the second ratio. Optionally, the base station may explicitly or implicitly notify the UE whether the equivalent channel ratio is the first ratio or the second ratio, i.e., which calculation mode the reported value of the reporting parameter is based on.

[0217] The detailed description of the above TDCE scheme, FDCE scheme, will be further developed later in connection with specific embodiments.

[0218] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, both the first beam and the second beam are wide beams, wherein the fifth beam is the beam in the narrow beam set (the first beam set, where the first beam may be divided into a plurality of narrow beams) associated with the first beam, the fifth beam is a narrow beam, and one wide beam may correspond to a plurality of narrow beams. The second configuration information may include the information relate to the narrow beam associated with the first beam (the information related to at least one fifth beam). Based on this information, the UE may know the beam index of each narrow beam in the narrow beam set corresponding to the first beam, the beam direction information, and the number of narrow beams corresponding to the first beam. The specific content included in the information related to the beam information of the at least one fifth beam included in the second configuration information will not be limited in the embodiment of the present disclosure as long as the UE can theoretically know, based on this information, the index of each narrow beam associated with the first beam and the direction information of the beam.

[0219] Optionally, the information related to the at least one fifth beam may also be at least one angle index value, wherein each angle index value associates an angle range correspondingly, an angle range associates a beam (a narrow beam) correspondingly, and the angle range is understood to be the angle range covered by the narrow beam. Optionally, the information related to the at least one fifth beam may also be described as: at least one angle index value associated with the first reference signal resource, and / or, an angle range corresponding to each angle index value. Optionally, after the UE determines the beam pointing direction deviation or the angle value of the optimal transmission direction according to the received signal of the first reference signal and the received signal of the second reference signal, the UE may determine the angle index value corresponding to the beam pointing direction deviation or the angle value of the optimal transmission direction according to the above information in the second configuration information and report it.

[0220] Optionally, the second configuration information may include the information of the angle range covered by the first beam and the number of narrow beams corresponding to the first beam. As a schematic illustration, it is assumed that the angle range covered by the first beam is 30 degrees and the number of narrow beams corresponding to the first beam is 3. Based on this configuration, the UE may determine that the indexes of three narrow beams corresponding to the first beam are index 0, index 1, and index 2, respectively, and the angle ranges of the three narrow beams are -15 degrees to -5 degrees, -5 degrees to 5 degrees, and 5 degrees and 15 degrees, respectively. If the beam determination is performed by the UE, the UE determines according to the received signal ratio of the first reference signal to the second reference signal that the beam pointing direction deviation corresponding to the first beam is 8 degrees, and the angle range closest the angle deviation is 5 degrees to 15 degrees. Thus, the UE may report the index 2 to the base station.

[0221] Optionally, the base station may also configure the coverage angle range of the first beam and the angle range of one narrow beam to the UE, and the UE may know the index, angle range or the like of each narrow beam according to this configuration.

[0222] Optionally, the beam index of the narrow beam may be an in-beam index. The specific rule for index numbering may be predetermined. For example, all narrow beams in the narrow beam set corresponding to one wide beam may be numbered from 0 in an incremental manner.

[0223] Optionally, the second configuration information may include a mapping relationship between the first value and the reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value being related to the received signal of the first reference signal and the received signal of the second reference signal. In this optional scheme, the UE may calculate the first value based on the received signals of the two reference signals, and determine the reported value of the reporting parameter corresponding to the first value according to the mapping relationship configured by the base station. Wherein the first value is related to a signal relationship of the two reference signals. Optionally, the reporting parameter configured by the base station may be a beam pointing direction deviation or an angle index of the optimal transmission direction, and the first value may be a value of the first parameter described above or a value of the second parameter. For example, the first value may be a ratio of the received signal values of the two reference signals or a ratio of a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal, and the mapping relationship described above may include a mapping relationship between at least one ratio (or a ratio range) and a beam pointing direction deviation or an angle index corresponding to each ratio. After the UE calculates the ratio according to the received signals of the two reference signals, the beam pointing direction deviation or the angle index corresponding to the ratio may be determined according to the mapping relationship.

[0224] Optionally, the second configuration information may contain a one-to-one mapping relationship between the first parameter and the angle index (the value of the reporting parameter), and / or may contain a one-to-one mapping relationship between the second parameter and the angle index (the value of the reporting parameter). The angle index is associated with a beam index, in particular, one angle index corresponds to one beam. At this point, the first parameter and / or the second parameter are measurement quantities and the angle index may be a reporting parameter. After the UE obtains the first parameter and / or the second parameter, the UE may find the corresponding angle index value for reporting according to the one-to-one mapping relationship configured by the base station, and the base station may adjust the beam according to (or with reference to) the angle index value. Optionally, the one-to-one mapping relationship between the first parameter and / or the second parameter and the angle index may be obtained through a common channel, such as a broadcast channel, without occupying UE specific signaling overhead. At the same time, the UE requires the least amount of feedback to carry out the reporting of the angle index value, which may reduce the transmission overhead. The described mode is applicable to situations where the number of UEs supporting differential beam management in a cell is high.

[0225] Optionally, the second configuration information may contain a first parameter and / or a second parameter, and the UE carries out a corresponding measurement about the first parameter and / or the second parameter after obtaining the corresponding configuration and feeds back to the base station the values of the first parameter and / or the second parameter. Optionally, the second configuration information may further include quantization accuracy for the first parameter and / or the second parameter, and the UE, after obtaining the values of the first parameter and / or the second parameter according to the configuration, may feed back to the base station the quantized values of the first parameter and / or the second parameter according to the quantization accuracy. Based on the feedback value, the base station then obtains a beam pointing direction deviation or an optimal transmission angle according to a one-to-one mapping relationship between the feedback value and the direction (angle) information, thereby completing the adjustment of the beam direction or angle. The one-to-one mapping relationship between the feedback value and the direction (angle) information may be a one-to-one mapping relationship between the feedback value and the beam pointing direction deviation, a one-to-one mapping relationship between the feedback value and the optimal transmission angle, or a one-to-one mapping relationship between the feedback value and the angle index (a direction index, a beam index). The approach does not require the UE to learn the one-to-one mapping relationship of the first parameter and / or the second parameter and the direction (angle), which saves signaling overhead for the second configuration information. Optionally, the mode is applicable to the situation where the number of legacy UEs in a cell is large, the base station does not require a large signaling overhead for the second configuration information, the UEs feed back their own measurement result, and the base station carries out the subsequent processing.

[0226] Optionally, the second configuration information may contain a one-to-one mapping relationship between the first parameter and / or the second parameter and the beam pointing direction deviation (the value of the reporting parameter), and the UE, after obtaining the values of the first parameter and / or the second parameter, may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation according to the one-to-one mapping relationship and report it. Optionally, the second configuration information may further include quantization accuracy for the beam pointing direction deviation, and the UE may report the beam pointing direction deviation after quantization processing according to the quantization accuracy. The optional scheme may have a lower requirement for the quantization bits of the reported beam pointing direction deviation compared to the requirement for the quantization bits of the first parameter and / or the second parameter, and the scheme may provide more beam pointing direction deviation information compared to the direct reporting of the angle (direction) index, so as to facilitate the base station to make a judgement from a global perspective to make the optimal direction adjustment / angle adjustment / beam adjustment.

[0227] Optionally, the one-to-one mapping relationship between the first parameter and / or the second parameter and the angle index may be a one-to-one mapping relationship based on the first parameter and / or the second parameter and the beam pointing direction deviation, and / or a one-to-one mapping relationship based on the first parameter and / or the second parameter and the optimal transmission angle. The UE may obtain values of the first parameter and / or the second parameter according to the measurement results, determine the beam pointing direction deviation or the optimal transmission angle based on the value and the mapping relationship, and then determines the angle index corresponding to the beam pointing direction deviation or the optimal transmission angle according to the angle range of each narrow beam in the current cell. Each angle index corresponds to the angle range of one narrow beam.

[0228] In addition, it is to be noted that, in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the index of the beam may be the indicator of the beam or the serial number of the beam, or may be the index or indicator or indication of the reference signal resource associated with the beam, the index of the beam may be an angle range or an angle index. For example, one beam corresponds to three narrow beams, the three narrow beams correspond to the respective reference signal resource indicators, respectively, and the information related to the beam information of the fifth beam configured in the second configuration information may be the information used for determining the reference signal resource indicator corresponding to each narrow beam. The UE may determine the three reference signal resource indicators and the beam direction information corresponding to each indicator according to this information, and the UE may select, according to the beam pointing direction deviation and from the three reference signal resource indicators, the reference signal resource indicator corresponding to the narrow beam closest to the deviation and then report it to the base station.

[0229] For example, the reference signal resource configured by the BS through the first configuration information is a CSI resource, and this is resource is a resource corresponding to the wide beam. If it is assumed that the first beam corresponds to three narrow beams, the UE may determine three CSI-RS resource indicators (CRIs) associated with the three narrow beams based on the second configuration information, and the UE may select the CRI to be reported according to the beam direction information corresponding to the CRI.

[0230] In embodiments of the present disclosure, the second configuration information may further include a determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters associated with the first beam and the second beam are based. Wherein, the determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters are based may also be referred to as a calculation mode on which the reporting parameters are based.

[0231] Optionally, the determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters associated with the first beam and the second beam are based, includes at least one of:

[0232] 1) a determination mode of a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal and a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to the peak;

[0233] 2) a determination mode of a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal and a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal.

[0234] Wherein, item 1) may be a mode based on a first ratio, such as TDCE, and item 2) may be a mode based on a second ratio, such as FDCE. The reporting parameter may be a ratio (such as an equivalent channel ratio), and the determination mode may refer to a calculation mode for the ratio, e.g., the base station may configure whether the determining mode on which the reporting parameter is based is TDCE or FDCE in the second configuration information. Embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited as to the specific manner in which the determination mode is configured, which may be an explicit indication or an implicit indication. For example, the second configuration information includes 1 bit for indicating the determination mode, and a bit value of 1 indicates that the TDCE is adopted, and a bit value of 0 indicates that the FDCE is adopted. Of course, it may also be that either one of the mode is adopted by agreement, for example, the calculation mode of TDCE is adopted. At this point, the base station may not need to configure the information related to the determination mode.

[0235] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the second configuration information may further include information related to the quantization accuracy for reporting parameters. Based on this information, the UE may know the quantization accuracy for reported parameter values or measurement quantities. The specific indication mode of this information will not be limited in the embodiment of the present disclosure. Optionally, the information related to the quantization accuracy may be the quantization bit value, and different numbers of quantization bits correspond to different quantization accuracy. For example, if the quantization bit value is 2 bits, each parameter value to be reported by the UE needs to be quantized into 2-bit information; and, if the quantization bit value is 4 bits, the reported parameter value may be represented by 4 bits.

[0236] The UE may determine the reporting mode, the content to be reported and the like according to the received second configuration information. Optionally, the CSI report may include at least one of the following:

[0237] a parameter value of the reporting parameter related to the first beam;

[0238] a parameter value of the reporting parameter related to the second beam;

[0239] a parameter value of the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam;

[0240] an index of at least one sixth beam, the at least one sixth beam being at least one beam in the first beam set; and

[0241] a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam.

[0242] an angle index related to the signal transmission direction expected by the UE (e.g. the optimal transmission direction, or referred as the optimal transmission angle, which can be an angle range).

[0243] Optionally, the reporting parameter may also be referred to as the measurement parameter or CSI parameter, and the parameter value (reported value) of the reporting parameter is the specific result. For example, if the second configuration information configures that the reporting parameter to be reported includes the RSRP of the first beam, the CSI report includes the parameter value of the RSRP, i.e., the measurement value obtained by beam measurement by the UE.

[0244] The at least one sixth beam is one or beams in the narrow beam set corresponding to the first beam. Optionally, the at least one sixth beam includes: at least one beam in the first beam set whose beam pointing direction satisfies a predetermined relationship with the beam pointing direction deviation. For example, the sixth beam may be determined based on the beam pointing direction deviation (or the optimal transmission angle), e.g., a narrow beam having a coverage angle range closest to the beam pointing direction deviation (or the optimal transmission angle), or one or more narrow beams satisfying a certain condition. For example, the sixth beam may be a narrow beam in which the deviation between its beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction of the first beam and the above beam pointing direction deviation are less than a threshold.

[0245] Optionally, the predetermined relationship includes at least one of the following:

[0246] the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is the smallest; and

[0247] the absolute value of the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is less than or equal to a threshold.

[0248] Based on this optional scheme, the at least one sixth beam may include: a beam in the first beam set in which the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is the smallest, and / or a beam in the first beam set in which the absolute value of the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is less than or equal to the threshold.

[0249] Optionally, the index of the at least one sixth beam may be the beam index, or may be the index of the reference signal resource corresponding to the six beam, e.g., CRI.

[0250] Optionally, the index of the at least one sixth beam described above may also be an index corresponding to the sixth beam related to the angle range or related to the direction adjustment, such as the angle index.

[0251] Optionally, when the second configuration information includes information related to the quantization accuracy for reporting parameters, the information included in the CSI report is information quantized based on the quantization accuracy. For example, the reporting parameter may be an equivalent channel ratio (e.g. a peak-based equivalent channel ratio or an accumulation-based equivalent channel ratio), and the UE may quantize the equivalent channel ratio obtained through the measurement according to the quantization accuracy used for the equivalent channel ratio, and report the quantized equivalent channel ratio.

[0252] Of course, the quantization accuracy and the reporting of the quantized information by the UE may also be predetermined. At this time, no matter whether there is the information related to the quantization accuracy in the configuration, the UE may report the quantized information. If there is the information related to the quantization accuracy in the configuration information, the UE may perform corresponding quantization according to the configuration; and, if there is no information related to the quantization accuracy in the configuration information, the UE may perform quantization in the predetermined way and then perform reporting.

[0253] In the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the base station may configure the reference signal resources associated with the beam pair (wide beam pair) and the corresponding report configuration information for the UE. On this basis, the beam calibration of the narrow beam set associated with the wide beam can be realized based on the reception result of one beam pair, so that the number of beams to be swept can be greatly reduced, and the resources required for beam management, the consumed energy, the required signaling overhead or the like can be effectively reduced.

[0254] Optionally, in order to ensure the accuracy of beam direction estimation, the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure can be used in some fixed scenarios, for example, scenarios with stable channels and high channel signal to noise ratio. Thus, this scheme can be applied to UEs in these scenarios. For example, the user equipment may be a first type of equipment. Optionally, the first type of equipment may include a customer premise equipment. On this basis, optionally, before receiving the first configuration information, the user equipment may also transmit second information to the network node, wherein the second configuration information is related to the type of the user equipment. Optionally, the type of one user equipment is a first type or a second type (non-first type).

[0255] By using this scheme, the user equipment may report its equipment type to the base station, and the base station may consider the type of the user equipment when configuring the UE. Optionally, when the UE is the first type of equipment, the base station may configure the resource configuration and report configuration related to the beam pair for the UE; and, when the UE is not the first type of equipment, the base station will not configure the reference signal resource and report configuration related to the beam pair for the UE. Of course, the base station may also configure the conventional resource configuration and report configuration used for beam management for the UE.

[0256] Optionally, the user equipment may also report to the base station information related to the UE capability, which may at least include information related to whether the UE supports the first capability, which explicitly or implicitly indicates whether it supports the capability of the beam management method provided by embodiments of the present disclosure. Based on the capability, the base station decides whether to perform reference signal resource configuration and report the configuration associated with the beam pair. For example, when the user equipment has the described capability, the base station may perform the related configuration to the UE to support the beam management method provided by embodiments of the present disclosure. When the user equipment does not have the described capabilities, a conventional beam management method may be performed.

[0257] The beam management method based on the beam pair provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure will be described below by some optional implementations. In the following implementations, it takes a sum beam and a differential beam for the beam pair as an example, the first configuration information is referred to as a resource configuration for CSI, and the second configuration information is called a report configuration for CSI.

[0258] Optionally, the UE may acquire a beam configuration by receiving an RRC signaling. The beam configuration may be realized through the resource configuration for CSI and / or the report configuration for CSI. Optionally, the UE may be a CPE. Optionally, the resource configuration for CSI includes at least one of the following:

[0259] a resource configuration for beam pair reference signals, and a configuration (first information) for the first differential beam indication.

[0260] Optionally, the report configuration for CSI may be to configure a first reporting parameter in a high-layer parameter reportQuantity in a CSI report configuration information element (CSI-ReportConfig IE), and the UE may perform corresponding measurement and report a CSI report based on this report configuration. The first reporting parameter is related to the measurement parameter. Optionally, the first reporting parameter includes at least one of the following or information related to at least one of the following:

[0261] angle index, mapping relationship, the beam index, the RSRP of the first reference signal, the SINR of the first reference signal, the RSRP of the second reference signal, the SINR of the second reference signal, the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication, the quantization bit value of the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication, and the number of narrow beams when the wide beam corresponding to the first beam is divided into narrow beams.

[0262] The beam index in the first reporting parameter may include the index value of one or more narrow beams (the above fifth beam), for example, the narrow beam index or the reference signal resource indication associated with the narrow beam. The narrow beam is obtained by subdividing the wide beam of the first beam. Specifically, the wide beam corresponding to the first beam is divided into a number of narrow beams, and each narrow beam corresponds to one beam index / reference signal resource indication. The beam index (the beam index of the sixth beam) in the CSI report reported based on the configured first reporting parameter by the UE may be the narrow beam index selected by the UE after calculating the beam pointing direction deviation by using the received signal value of the first differential beam pair (the first beam and the second beam). The BS may adjust the transmitting beam according to the beam index reported by the UE. For example, the BS uses the narrow beam corresponding to the beam index reported by the UE to perform signal reception. This mode is applicable to a situation where the beam index has one value. If there are a plurality of beam index values reported by the UE, the BS may select the beam corresponding to one of the index values for transmission. This mode is applicable to a situation where more than one narrow beam index satisfies the reporting condition after the UE calculates the beam pointing direction deviation. At this time, the BS needs to select a suitable narrow beam index. In addition, the BS may only refer to the beam index value reported by the UE, but does not necessarily select the beam corresponding to the beam index value reported by the UE to perform signal transmission. For example, the base station may select other beams as transmitting beams, instead of the beam reported by the UE. At this time, the beam index mode selected by the BS depends on the specific application scenario.

[0263] Wherein the angle index in the first reporting parameter may include one or more angle index values, each angle index value corresponding to an angle range, and associates a beam correspondingly. The use of the angle index values is similar to the use of the above beam index values described in the previous section, which can be found in the previous section and will not be repeated here. The above mapping relationship may include a mapping relationship between a first value (e.g., a value of a first parameter, or a value of a second parameter) and an angle index value.

[0264] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, if the RSRP and / or SINR (measurement parameter) of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal is configured in the first reporting parameter, the UE may report the measurement value of the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal to the base station. The measurement value of the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal may be used by the base station to determine the accuracy of the beam index reported based on the first reporting parameter by the UE and the measurement value of the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication, so that the BS determines whether to adjust beams or perform further measurement according to the beam index and / or the parameter value of the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication reported by the UE. The further measurement may be to fall back to the conventional beam management method when the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal become worse (does not satisfy a certain condition). For example, the base station transmits the reference signal resource set and the report configuration related to narrow beams to the UE, and the UE sweeps and measures the narrow beams and performs reporting or the like.

[0265] Optionally, the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication includes at least one of the following:

[0266] a first measurement parameter, a second measurement parameter, a third measurement parameter and a fourth measurement parameter.

[0267] The base station may indicate the content to be reported by the UE through the one or more measurement parameters in the report configuration for CSI. In the following description of measurement parameters, the received signal value of the beam is the time-domain signal value corresponding to the beam. The received signal value of the beam is the received signal value of the reference signal transmitted through the beam.

[0268] Optionally, the first measurement parameter includes at least one of the following or information related to at least one of the following:

[0269] the received signal value of the first beam (the received signal value of the first reference signal), the received signal value of the second beam (the received signal value of the first reference signal), the received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam, the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam, the beam pointing direction deviation, the optimal transmission angle and the angle index.

[0270] Optionally, the fourth measurement parameter includes at least one of the following or information related to at least one of the following:

[0271] the received signal value of the first beam, the received signal value of the second beam, the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam, the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam, the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam (the frequency-domain channel estimation value based on the first reference signal), the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam (the frequency-domain channel estimation value based on the second reference signal), the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam, the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, and the beam pointing direction deviation, the optimal transmission angle and the angle index.

[0272] Optionally, the second measurement parameter includes at least one of the following or information related to at least one of the following:

[0273] the received signal value of the first beam, the received signal value of the second beam, the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam, the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam, the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second value, the frequency-domain channel estimation sum (hereinafter referred to as the first sum) of the first beam, the frequency-domain channel estimation sum (hereinafter referred to as the second sum) of the second beam, the ratio of the first sum to the second sum (e.g., the reciprocal of the second ratio), the ratio of the second sum to the first sum (e.g., the second ratio), the beam pointing direction deviation, the optimal transmission angle and the angle index.

[0274] Optionally, the third measurement parameter includes at least one of the following or information related to at least one of the following:

[0275] the received signal value of the first beam, the received signal value of the second beam, the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam, the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam, the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam, the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam, the value satisfying the first condition in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam (this value is called the first time-domain signal for short), the position index (referred to as the first position index) of the first time-domain signal in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, the value of the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam at the first position index (this value is called the second time-domain signal for short), the ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain signal (e.g., the reciprocal of the first ratio), the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal (e.g., the first ratio), the beam pointing direction deviation, the optimal transmission angle and the angle index.

[0276] Optionally, the first measurement parameter and / or the fourth measurement parameter can be applicable to a single-carrier communication system. The second measurement parameter and / or the third measurement parameter can be applicable to a multi-carrier communication system. Optionally, the fourth measurement parameter can be applicable to a situation where the first reference signal of the first beam and the second reference signal of the second beam are not the same.

[0277] The information included in the first measurement parameter, the second measurement parameter, the third measurement parameter and the fourth measurement parameter will be described below, respectively.

[0278] The received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam are the original time-domain signal values obtained by the UE, and the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam are the signal value of the received signal of the first reference signal and the signal value of the received signal of the second reference signal, respectively, and can be used to generate other calculation parameters. For example, they can be used to generate the received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam and / or the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam.

[0279] The received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam and / or the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam can be used to obtain the beam pointing direction deviation. Optionally, the way of the beam pointing direction deviation can be determined by the relationship between the received signal ratio and the beam pointing direction deviation (e.g., a mapping relationship, the base station can configure it to the UE through the second configuration information). The beam pointing direction deviation can be used to adjust the beam pointing direction. For example, the UE may select the reported narrow beam index or the angle index according to the beam pointing direction deviation, or the BS may adjust the transmitting beam according to the beam pointing direction deviation or the angle index reported by the UE.

[0280] The frequency-domain signal value of the first beam may be generated by performing Fourier transform on the received signal value of the first beam by the UE, and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam may be generated by performing Fourier transform on the received signal value of the second beam by the UE.

[0281] The frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam may be generated according to the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam by a channel estimation algorithm. The frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam may be generated according to the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam by a channel estimation algorithm. Optionally, in the use of the channel estimation algorithm, the UE may combine the frequency-domain reference signals of the beams, i.e., the transmitted signals corresponding to the signals received by the UE. By taking the first beam as an example, the UE may calculate the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam by the channel estimation algorithm in combination with the received frequency-domain signal and the frequency-domain reference signal transmitted on the base station side (the UE may generate the original reference signal transmitted on the base station side according to the related configuration of the first reference signal).

[0282] The frequency-domain channel estimation sum, i.e., the first sum, of the first beam refers to the sum of the frequency-domain channel estimation values of the first beam corresponding to a plurality of sub-carriers. The frequency-domain channel estimation sum, i.e., the second sum, of the second beam refers to the sum of the frequency-domain channel estimation values of the second beam corresponding to a plurality of sub-carriers.

[0283] The first sum and the second sum are used to generate the ratio of the first sum to the second sum and / or the ratio of the second sum to the first sum. The beam pointing direction deviation may be further determined based on this ratio. For example, the beam pointing direction deviation is determined based on the ration and the mapping relationship configured by the base station.

[0284] The time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam are generated by performing inverse Fourier transform on the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam, respectively.

[0285] The value satisfying the first condition in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam may be a value greater than a certain threshold in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, or may be a number of largest values in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam. In a specific implementation, the first condition may be the maximum value. At this time, the value satisfying the first condition in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam is the peak value of the channel estimation value of the first beam. Optionally, the condition of taking the value greater than a certain threshold and / or the condition of taking a number of largest values can be applicable to multipath channels and the energy of a plurality of main paths is not much different. The first condition of taking the peak value is applicable to a situation there is the strongest path. The first position index is to find the second time-domain signal, so that the first time-domain signal and the second time-domain signal has the same time-domain position. The ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain signal and / or the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal is used to determine the beam pointing direction deviation or the angle index.

[0286] Optionally, when there is more than one first time-domain signal satisfying the first condition (when there are a plurality of values satisfying the first condition), the corresponding number of the first position index, and / or the second time-domain signal, and / or the ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain signal, and / or the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal and / or the beam pointing direction deviation may be more than 1 at this time, and the corresponding number of the reported narrow beam index may also be more than 1 at this time. When the BS receives more than one narrow beam index reported by the UE, the BS may select a suitable narrow beam index, and may also select other narrow beam indexes to adjust beams with reference to the narrow beam indexes reported by the UE. The corresponding specific way has been described above and will not be repeated here.

[0287] Optionally, the third measurement parameter is applicable to a multi-carrier communication system, and can provide more accurate beam pointing direction deviation results.

[0288] The UE may transmit the corresponding report content to the base station according to the reporting parameter in the configuration for CSI configured by the base station. Optionally, by reporting the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication by the UE, the BS can select the content of the reporting parameter according to the computing capability of the UE. For example, the computing capability of the UE is tight or the power consumption is limited, the UE may report the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam to allow the base station to calculate other parameters; and, when the computing capability of the UE is sufficient, the UE may report the calculation result, for example, the beam pointing direction deviation in the first measurement parameter and / or the second measurement parameter and / or the third measurement parameter and / or the fourth measurement parameter.

[0289] The quantization bit number of the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication in the first reporting parameter is used to determine the quantization bit value (bit number) when the UE reports the measurement value of the measurement parameter (at least one of the first measurement parameter, the second measurement parameter, the third measurement parameter and the fourth measurement parameter). The quantization bit number determines the quantization accuracy for the measurement parameter to be reported. Optionally, the quantization accuracy is also used to distinguish different narrow beam index values. Corresponding to the different number of narrow beams, the required quantization accuracy or quantization bit number is different. For example, the quantization bit number may be used to indicate the quantization accuracy for reporting parameter, and may also implicitly indicate the number of narrow beams corresponding to the first beam.

[0290] The first beam in the first reporting parameter is divided into the number of narrow beams, so that it is convenient for the UE to obtain the granularity of narrow beams to be distinguished at the transmitting end and further determine the quantization bit number of the reporting parameter related to the first differential beam indication. That is, the number of narrow beams indicated by the base station can allow the UE to know how many narrow beams the first beam is divided into, and can also implicitly indicate the quantization accuracy.

[0291] Optionally, the beam configuration in the embodiment of the present disclosure may be a periodic configuration, a semi-persistent configuration or an aperiodic configuration, and the BS may trigger the beam configuration by using an RRC signaling and / or an MAC control element (MAC CE) and / or downlink control information (DCI) so as to applicable to different application scenarios. For example, for the semi-persistent configuration mode, the UE may be activated or deactivated by an MAC CE to perform reporting or not.

[0292] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam sweeping includes receiving, by the UE, the first beam and the second beam from the base station. Optionally, the UE receives, based on the first configuration information, the first reference signal and the second reference signal transmitted by the base station.

[0293] Upon receiving the first differential beam indication, the UE may store the received signal value of the received beam (e.g., the first beam) first, and then perform processing after the UE receives the received signal value of the other beam (e.g., the second beam) in the beam pair. Since the differential beam method requires that the UE can calculate the beam pointing direction deviation after combining the information of at least two beams (the sum beam and at least one differential beam), the UE needs to store the received signal value of the first beam first upon acquiring the received signal value of the first beam.

[0294] Optionally, upon receiving the first beam and / or the second beam from the base station, the UE may also directly report the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam to the base station; and, the base station performs subsequent operations. Optionally, the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam reported by the UE may be the quantized value.

[0295] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam measurement means that the UE performs a measurement operation by using the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam. Optionally, the first reporting parameter may include the content related to the first measurement parameter, and a specific implementation of the beam measurement may include at least one of the following:

[0296] the UE calculates the received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam; the UE calculates the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam; the UE obtains the beam pointing direction deviation according to the relationship between the received signal ratio and the beam pointing direction deviation; and the UE determines the angle index according to the received signal ratio.

[0297] Optionally, the first reporting parameter may include the content related to the second measurement parameter, and an optional way of the beam measurement may include obtaining, by the UE, at least one of the following measurement quantities based on the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam:

[0298] the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam; the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the frequency-domain channel estimation sum of the first beam (the UE may generate the first sum by accumulating the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam); the frequency-domain channel estimation sum of the second sum (the UE may generate the second sum by accumulating the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam); the ratio of the first sum to the second sum; the ratio of the second sum to the first sum; and, the beam pointing direction deviation; the angle index; the optimal transmission angle.

[0299] Optionally, there is a correspondence (the mapping relationship configured by the base station for the UE) between the ratio of the first sum to the second sum and / or the ratio of the second sum to the first sum and the beam pointing direction deviation. Based on the correspondence, the beam pointing direction deviation may be obtained.

[0300] Corresponding to the third measurement parameter, an optional way of the beam measurement may include: obtaining, by the UE, at least one of the following measurement quantities based on the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam:

[0301] the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam; the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam (which is obtained by performing inverse Fourier transform on the frequency-domain channel estimation of the first beam by the UE) and / or the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam (which is obtained by performing inverse Fourier transform on the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam by the UE); at least one first time-domain signal (the UE searches the value satisfying the first condition according to the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam); at least one first position index corresponding to the at least one first time-domain signal; at least one second time-domain signal; the ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain signal; the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal; and, the beam pointing direction deviation; the angle index; the optimal transmission angle.

[0302] Optionally, there is a correspondence between the ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain and / or the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal and the beam pointing direction deviation (or the angle index or the optimal transmission angle). Based on the correspondence, the beam pointing direction deviation (or the angle index or the optimal transmission angle) may be obtained.

[0303] Corresponding to the fourth measurement parameter, an optional way of the beam measurement may include: obtaining, by the UE, at least one of the following measurement quantities based on the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam:

[0304] the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam; the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam; the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam; the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam; and, the beam pointing direction deviation; the angle index; or the optimal transmission angle.

[0305] Optionally, there is a correspondence between the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam and / or the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the beam pointing direction deviation (or the angle index or the optimal transmission angle). Based on the correspondence, the beam pointing direction deviation (or the angle index or the optimal transmission angle) may be obtained.

[0306] Wherein the received signal values of the first beam / second beam are both time-domain signal values of the first reference signal / second reference signal corresponding to the first beam / second beam. The frequency-domain signal values of the first beam / second beam are frequency-domain signal values of the first reference signal / second reference signal corresponding to the first beam / second beam, which are obtained by Fourier transforming the time-domain signal values (the received signal value) of the first reference signal / second reference signal corresponding to the first beam / second beam. The frequency-domain channel estimation values of the first beam / second beam are obtained by performing channel estimation in the frequency domain for the frequency domain signal estimation values of the first reference signal / second reference signal corresponding to the first beam / second beam. The time-domain channel estimation values of the first beam / second beam are the time-domain channel estimation values corresponding to the first reference signal / second reference signal. In particular, the time-domain channel estimation values corresponding to the first reference signal / second reference signal may be obtained by Fourier inverse transformation of the frequency-domain channel estimation values corresponding to the first reference signal / second reference signal, or by other means, for example, it may be obtained by directly performing channel estimation in the time-domain for the time-domain signal values of the first reference signal / second reference signal.

[0307] Optionally, the UE may perform beam determination based on the result of beam measurement to select a suitable transmitting narrow beam, and report the index of the selected beam to the base station, so as to realize the adjustment of the transmitting beam of the base station.

[0308] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam determination includes selecting, by the UE, at least one narrow beam index value according to the result of beam measurement. Optionally, when the UE obtains the result of beam measurement, the UE may determine, according to the number of narrow beams in the first reporting parameter when the wide beam corresponding to the first beam is divided into narrow beams, the beam range of each narrow beam in the narrow beam set and the corresponding beam index number (or the reference signal resource indication / index), and select, in combination with the beam pointing direction deviation in the result of beam measurement and from the plurality of narrow beams corresponding to the first beam, the beam range of the narrow beam closest to the beam pointing direction deviation and the corresponding beam index number. There may be more than one beam range of the narrow beam closest to the beam pointing direction deviation. At this time, there may also be more than one corresponding beam index number. The narrow beam closest to the beam pointing direction deviation may include: the narrow beam in which the difference between the beam center direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is the smallest, and / or the narrow beam in which the absolute value of the difference between the beam center direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is less than the threshold.

[0309] Optionally, the beam decision may include the UE selecting at least one angle-related index value (the angle index) according to the beam measurement result, the index value may be an angle range index value, and / or a direction adjustment index value, corresponding to the narrow beam.

[0310] Optionally, the way of performing beam determination by the UE can be applicable to an application scenario where the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal is good enough (satisfying a certain condition, for example, determining whether the condition is satisfied by comparing with the threshold) and the UE can obtain accurate channel information to make a correct beam determination. Optionally, the beam range of each narrow beam in the narrow beam set and the corresponding beam index number can also be obtained in other ways, for example, being deduced according to the RRC signaling or other signaling. Optionally, after the UE obtains the value of the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal by beam measurement, if the value of the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal is not good enough, for example, if the predetermined condition is not satisfied, the UE may not measure these parameters even if the first reporting parameter configures that the UE needs to report parameters (e.g., the beam pointing direction deviation). Optionally, in this case, the UE may only report the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal, the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam, and the BS performs beam determination according to the content reported by the US. That is, in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam determination may be performed by the UE; or, the UE may report the result of beam measurement to the base station, and the base station performs beam determination.

[0311] Optionally, the way of performing beam determination by the base station is applicable to an application scenario where the base station can make a beam determination in combination with other information when the RSRP and / or SINR of the first reference signal and / or the second reference signal is not good enough and the UE cannot obtain accurate channel information to make a correct beam determination.

[0312] Optionally, when the UE reports the result of beam measurement, the UE may first perform quantization according to the quantization bit value of the measurement parameter (the information related to the quantization accuracy for reporting parameters) and / or the number of narrow beams when the first beam is divided into narrow beams.

[0313] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam reporting means that the UE reports the content of the first reporting parameter configured in the CSI report configuration to the base station. Optionally, the content (CSI report) of the beam reporting includes at least one of the following:

[0314] the beam index (the index of the sixth beam), the RSRP of the first reference signal, the SINR of the first reference signal, the RSRP of the second reference signal, the SINR of the second reference signal, the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication (the measurement quantity of the measurement parameter, i.e., the parameter value of the parameter to be reported), and the quantized measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication (e.g., an angle index, a beam pointing direction deviation, an optimal transmission angle, a ratio of received signal values associated with a first reference signal and a second reference signal, or a channel estimation value ratio).

[0315] The beam index in the CSI report may be at least one narrow beam index obtained according to the beam determination by the UE. After the UE reports the beam index, the BS may directly perform beam adjustment according to the beam index. Or, the base station performs calculation and beam determination according to the RSRP of the first reference signal and / or the SINR of the first reference signal and / or the RSRP of the second reference signal and / or the SINR of the second reference signal and / or the measurement parameter (or quantized measurement parameter) related to the first differential beam indication reported by the UE. Thus, on one hand, the computing power of the UE side can be saved; on the other hand, the base station can make a more accurate determination in some particular application scenarios according to the comprehensive consideration of the obtained information.

[0316] Optionally, the quantized measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication includes at least one of the following: the quantized first measurement parameter, the quantized second measurement parameter, the quantized third measurement parameter, and the quantized fourth measurement parameter. If the quantized information needs to be reported, the UE may perform beam measurement based on the measurement parameter configured in the first reporting parameter, and quantize the measurement result and report the measurement quantity of the quantized measurement parameter. At this time, the reported measurement parameter is the measurement result of the quantized measurement parameter.

[0317] By taking the first measurement parameter as an example, the quantized first measurement parameter may include at least one of the following:

[0318] the quantized received signal value of the first beam, the quantized received signal value of the second beam, the quantized received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam, the quantized received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam, and the quantized beam pointing direction deviation.

[0319] Similarly, with regard to the information related to at least one of the second measurement parameter, the third measurement parameter and the fourth measurement parameter configured in the first reporting parameter, when the quantized measurement result needs to be reported, the UE also needs to quantize and report the measurement result of the configured measurement parameter, for example, the quantized equivalent channel ratio.

[0320] Optionally, the beam management method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure can be applicable in different communication stages based on actual application requirements or scenarios. As an alternative, before the beam configuration, the BS may establish a connection with the UE. Optionally, the connection establishment mode may be that, before completing the initial access, the BS may establish a connection and then configure the beam management related information for the UE to realize beam management.

[0321] Optionally, before the beam configuration, the UE may report to the BS that it is a CPE-type UE of FWA. Since the communication system of the FWA has the characteristics of stable channel and / or high SNR, the communication scenario is beneficial to the use of the differential beam method.

[0322] Optionally, the beam reporting may be that the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the Xthbeam in the first reporting parameter, wherein the Xthbeam may include the first beam and / or the second beam. The measurement parameter only related to the Xthbeam in the first reporting parameter includes at least one of the following:

[0323] the RSRP of the Xthreference signal, the SINR of the Xthreference signal, the parameter only related to the Xthbeam in the measurement parameter (for example, a channel estimation value of the Xthbeam), and the quantization bit number only related to the Xthbeam.

[0324] Optionally, the UE reporting the measurement parameter only related to the Xthbeam in the first reporting parameter is only applicable to a scenario where the UE receives the first beam and / or the second beam, respectively, and then report the first beam and / or the second beam, respectively. This reporting mode does not require the UE to combine the measurement result of the first beam and the measurement result of the second beam for calculation, thereby saving the computing power of the UE. At this time, the base station needs to combine the received reporting result of the first beam and the reporting result of the second beam for calculation, to obtain the information of the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0325] Optionally, if the first reporting parameter configures that the UE needs to report the quantized measurement result corresponding to the Xthbeam, when reporting the measurement parameter only related to the Xthbeam in the first reporting parameter, the UE reports the measurement quantity of the quantized measurement parameter only related to the Xthbeam. For example, at least one of the quantized result of the measurement quantity of the value only related to the Xthbeam in the first measurement parameter, the quantized result of the measurement quantity of the value (e.g., the channel estimation value) only related to the Xthbeam in the second measurement parameter, the quantized result of the measurement quantity of the value (e.g., the channel estimation value) only related to the Xthbeam in the third measurement parameter, and the quantized result of the measurement quantity of the value (e.g., the channel estimation value) only related to the Xthbeam in the fourth measurement parameter. For example, the UE may only report the quantized received signal value, the quantized frequency-domain signal value, the quantized frequency-domain channel estimation value, the quantized frequency-domain channel estimation sum, the quantized time-domain channel estimation value or the like of the Xthbeam.

[0326] In a specific application scenario, if the Xthbeam is the second beam, the parameter only related to the Xthbeam in the third measurement parameter does not include the second time-domain signal and / or the first position index. Thus, at this time, it is necessary that the UE has obtained the information of the first beam first.

[0327] Optionally, the beam reporting may also be that, after the UE has received the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam, the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the X2thbeam in the first reporting parameter, and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam. The X1thbeam is the first beam, and the X2thbeam is the second beam; or, the X1thbeam is the second beam, and the X2thbeam is the first beam.

[0328] Optionally, the X1thbeam represents the beam received first (i.e., the reference signal received first) by the UE after receiving the beam configuration (the resource configuration for CSI and / or the report configuration for CSI) from the BS, and the X2thbeam represents the beam received later. Depending on different configurations, the UE may receive the first beam first and then the second beam, or the UE may receive the second beam first and then the first beam. Since the UE has the information of two beams only after receiving the first beam and the second beam, after receiving the first beam and the second beam, the UE may only reports the information of the beam received later and / or the information including the two beams.

[0329] The measurement parameter only related to the X2thbeam in the first reporting parameter and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam includes at least one of the following: the beam index, the RSRP of the X2threference signal, the SINR of the X2threference signal, the parameter only related to the X2thbeam in the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication (it may be configured whether to report the quantized parameter value; for example, the first report configuration may have the corresponding explicit indication or implicit indication, and the UE may determine whether to report the quantized information according to the configuration), and the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication.

[0330] Optionally, the UE reporting to the measurement parameter only related to the X2thbeam in the first reporting parameter and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam can be applicable to a scenario where the UE performs calculation and reports in combination with the beam information received first after completing the reception of the beam received later in the first beam and the second beam.

[0331] Optionally, the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the measurement parameter related to the first differential beam indication includes at least one of the following:

[0332] the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the first measurement parameter, the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the second measurement parameter, the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the third measurement parameter, and the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the fourth measurement parameter.

[0333] Optionally, the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the first measurement parameter includes at least one of the following:

[0334] the received signal ratio of the X1thbeam to the X2thbeam, the received signal ratio of the X2thbeam to the X1thbeam, and the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0335] Optionally, the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the second measurement parameter includes at least one of the following: the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation sum of the X1thbeam to the frequency-domain channel estimation sum of the X2thbeam, the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation sum of the X2thbeam to the frequency-domain channel estimation sum of the X1thbeam, and the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0336] Optionally, the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the third measurement parameter includes at least one of the following:

[0337] the X2thtime-domain signal, the ratio of the X1thtime-domain signal to the X2thtime-domain signal, the ratio of the X2thtime-domain signal to the X1thtime-domain signal, and the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0338] Optionally, the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the third measurement parameter including the X2thtime-domain signal is applicable to a scenario where the X2thbeam is the second beam and the X1thbeam is the first beam, and the second time-domain signal needs to obtain the information of both the first information and the second beam.

[0339] Optionally, the value related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam in the fourth measurement parameter includes at least one of the following:

[0340] the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the X1thbeam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the X2thbeam, the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the X2thbeam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the X1thbeam, and the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0341] Optionally, the beam adjustment means that the BS adjusts the transmitting beam according to the result of beam reporting. Specifically, if the result of beam reporting transmitted by the UE includes the beam index, the BS may adjust the beam direction according to the beam index. Optionally, if there is more than one beam index reported by the UE, the BS determine to use which beam index according to other information. The other information may be other CSI information reported by the UE. Optionally, the BS may directly select one of the beam indexes reported by the UE, or may select the beam index with reference with the first reporting parameter and the other information instead of selecting the beam index of the beam reporting. If the result of beam reporting from the UE does not include the beam index, the BS may perform beam measurement and / or beam determination according to the content in the first reporting parameter to obtain the beam index. By allowing the BS to perform beam measurement and / or beam determination, the computing power of the UE can be saved.

[0342] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, there may be at least one correspondence between the beam sweeping and the beam reporting. As an alternative, upon receiving the first beam (the first reference signal), the UE performs beam reporting for the first beam. The UE reports the measurement parameter (the measurement result of the measurement parameter) only related to the first beam in the first reporting parameter. Upon receiving the second beam, the UE performs beam reporting for the second beam. At this time, the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the second beam in the first reporting parameter. In this mode, the computing power of the UE can be saved. At this time, the BS needs to calculate and adjust the beam direction according to the received beam reporting information of the first beam and the beam reporting information of the second beam. This mode is applicable to a situation where the UE receives a beam and reports this beam after receiving the resource configuration for CSI and the report configuration for CSI.

[0343] Optionally, if the beam received first by the UE is the X1thbeam, when performing beam reporting for the X1thbeam, the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the X1thbeam; and, if the beam received later by the UE is the X2thbeam, the UE reports the measurement parameter related to the X2thbeam and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam. Specifically, if the content reported by the UE includes the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam, the UE needs to store the information of the X1thbeam upon receiving the X1thbeam.

[0344] Optionally, the correspondence between the beam sweeping and the beam reporting may also be that: upon receiving the first beam and the second beam, the UE performs beam reporting for the first beam and beam reporting for the second beam, respectively. At this time, the beam reporting for the first beam means that the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the first beam. The beam reporting for the second beam means that the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the second beam in the first reporting parameter. This correspondence is that the UE initiates reporting after receiving the two beams, and the BS does not need to wait too much time between receiving two beam reports. At this time, the BS also needs to calculate according to the received information of the two beams to obtain the information of the beam pointing direction deviation. Corresponding to this correspondence, if the beam received first by the UE is the X1thbeam and the beam received later is the X2thbeam, the beam reporting for the X1thbeam may mean that the UE reports the measurement parameter only related to the X1thbeam and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam; and, the beam reporting for the X2thbeam may mean that the UE reports the measurement parameter related to the X2thbeam and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam. The UE reports the two beams after receiving the two beams, and the BS needs to wait for a short time.

[0345] Optionally, the correspondence between the beam sweeping and the beam reporting may also be that: upon receiving the first beam and the second beam, the UE performs beam reporting for the first beam and / or beam reporting for the second beam. At this time, the beam reporting for the first beam and / or the beam reporting for the second beam may mean that the UE reports the measurement parameter related to the first beam and / or the measurement parameter related to the second beam and / or the parameter related to both the first beam and the second beam. The UE completes the reporting of the first beam and / or the second beam in one report, so that the BS can obtain the information of the two beams in one report and perform calculation according to the beam information and / or directly adjust the beam direction according to the beam index in the beam reporting.

[0346] The optional implementation process of the beam management method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure will be described below by several specific embodiments. It should be understood that one or more steps in the following implementation process are optional.

[0347] FIG. 7 illustrates an optional implementation process of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 7, this method may include one or more of the following steps.

[0348] In step 1, the UE establishes a connection with the BS.

[0349] In step 2, UE reports the type of the UE to the BS. For example, the UE is a CPE of FWA.

[0350] In step 3, the UE receives a resource configuration for CSI and a report configuration for CSI from the BS.

[0351] In step 4, the UE receives the information of the X1thbeam from the BS.

[0352] In step 5, the UE performs beam measurement on the X1thbeam.

[0353] In step 6 (optional), the UE stores the information of the X1thbeam.

[0354] In step 7, the UE performs beam reporting for the X1thbeam to the BS, wherein the reported content is the measurement parameter only related to the X1thbeam in the first reporting parameter.

[0355] In step 8, the UE receives the information of the X2thbeam from the BS.

[0356] In step 9, the UE performs beam measurement on the X2thbeam to the BS and / or beam measurement based on the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0357] In step 10 (optional), the UE performs beam determination to obtain the beam index.

[0358] In step 11, the UE performs beam reporting to the BS, wherein the content is the measurement parameter only related to the X2thbeam and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0359] Optionally, in the step 11, if the UE reports the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam, the step 6 needs to be performed. If the step 10 is performed, the UE may also report the beam index (the index of the narrow beam selected by the UE). This beam index is contained in the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam because this beam index can be obtained based on the related information of the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0360] Optionally, this method may further include the following step.

[0361] In step 12, the UE receives data transmission (downlink physical shared channel) or control information transmission (downlink control channel) subjected to beam adjustment from the BS.

[0362] The X1thbeam shown in FIG. 7 may be the first beam, and the X2thbeam is the second beam. Or, the X1thbeam may be the second beam, and the X2thbeam is the first beam.

[0363] FIG. 8 illustrates an optional implementation process of a beam management method according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 8, this method may include one or more of the following steps.

[0364] In step 1, the UE establishes a connection with the BS.

[0365] In step 2, UE reports the type of the UE to the BS. For example, the UE is a CPE of FWA.

[0366] In step 3, the UE receives a resource configuration for CSI and a report configuration for CSI from the BS.

[0367] In step 4, the UE receives the information of the X1thbeam from the BS.

[0368] In step 5, the UE performs beam measurement on the X1thbeam.

[0369] In step 6, the UE stores the information of the X1thbeam.

[0370] In step 7, the UE receives the information of the X2thbeam from the BS.

[0371] In step 8, the UE performs beam measurement on the X2thbeam and / or beam measurement based on the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0372] In step 9 (optional), the UE performs beam determination to obtain the beam index.

[0373] In step 10, the UE performs beam reporting for the X1thbeam to the BS, wherein the reported content is the measurement parameter only related to the X1thbeam in the first reporting parameter and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0374] In step 11, the UE performs beam reporting for the X2thbeam to the BS, wherein the reported content is the measurement parameter only related to the X2thbeam in the first reporting parameter and / or the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0375] In step 12, the UE receives data transmission subjected to beam adjustment from the BS.

[0376] Optionally, if the step 9 is performed, in the step 10 and / or step 11, the UE may report the beam index obtained in the step 9 when reporting the parameter related to both the X1thbeam and the X2thbeam.

[0377] FIG. 9 illustrates an optional implementation process of a beam management method according to another embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 9, this method may include one or more of the following steps.

[0378] In step 1, the UE establishes a connection with the BS.

[0379] In step 2, UE reports the type of the UE to the BS. For example, the UE is a CPE of FWA.

[0380] In step 3, the UE receives a resource configuration for CSI and a report configuration for CSI from the BS.

[0381] In step 4, the UE receives the information of the X1thbeam from the BS.

[0382] In step 5, the UE stores the information of the X1thbeam.

[0383] In step 6, the UE receives the information of the X2thbeam from the BS.

[0384] In step 7, the UE performs beam measurement based on the information of the X1thbeam and / or the information of the X2thbeam.

[0385] In step 8 (optional), the UE performs beam determination based on the result of beam measurement in the step 7 to obtain the beam index.

[0386] In step 9, the UE performs beam reporting to the BS based on the step 7 and / or step 8.

[0387] In step 10, the UE receives data transmission subjected to beam adjustment from the BS.

[0388] Optionally, the step 7 may be added between the step 4 and the step 5, that is, the UE performs beam measurement based on the information of the X1thbeam. At this time, the information of the X1thbeam stored by the UE may be original information of the X1thbeam and / or the measurement parameter of the X1thbeam. This mode is applicable to a situation where the UE complete the reception of one beam and then perform beam measurement for this beam.

[0389] Optionally, in the beam management mode shown in FIG. 9, the content reported by the UE may include at least one of the following:

[0390] the measurement quantity of the measurement parameter only related to the first beam in the first reporting parameter (the reporting parameter related to the first beam), the measurement quantity of the measurement parameter only related to the second beam in the first reporting parameter (the reporting parameter related to the second beam), and the measurement quantity of the parameter related to both the first beam and the second beam in the first reporting parameter (the reporting parameter related to both the first beam and the second beam).

[0391] As an alternative of the scheme provided by the present disclosure, the first reference signal may be an SSB, the first reference signal resource is an SSB resource, and the first beam corresponding to the first reference signal is a wide beam corresponding to the SSB. For example, the wide beam corresponding to the SSB is a sum beam. The second reference signal may be a CSI-RS, the second reference signal resource is a CSI-RS resource, and the second beam corresponding to the second reference signal is a differential beam generated based on the wide beam corresponding to the SSB. Optionally, the reference signal resource associated with the beam pair may be a CSI-RS resource, and the CSI-RS resource may be an NZP CSI-RS resource.

[0392] Optionally, in the resource configuration for CSI, the TCI-state associated with the NZP CSI-RS resource may be configured in such a way that the QCL source reference signal is the SSB (the first reference signal) and the corresponding QCL type is 'typeD'. This configuration mode indicates that the NZP CSI-RS and the SSB from the base station received by the UE may use the same spatial reception parameter, and the UE may use the same receiving beam to receive the NZP CSI-RS and the SSB. The beam management implementation can only require one CSI-RS resource, so that the most resources are saved.

[0393] Optionally, in the scheme provided by the present disclosure, the first reference signal may be a first CSI-RS, and the first beam corresponding to the first reference signal is an SSB wide beam corresponding to the CSI-RS narrow beam. For example, the SSB wide beam is a sum beam. The CSI-RS narrow beam is located within the SSB wide beam, that is, the CSI-RS narrow beam is the narrow beam corresponding to the SSB wide beam. The second reference signal may be a second CSI-RS. At this time, the second beam corresponding to the second reference signal is a differential beam generated based on the wide beam corresponding to the SSB.

[0394] Optionally, the reference signal resource associated with the reference signal pair may include the first CSI-RS resource associated with the first beam and the second CSI-RS resource associated with the second beam, and the first CSI-RS resource and / or the second CSI-RS resource may be NZP CSI-RS resources, which may be referred to as a first NZP CSI-RS resource and / or a second NZP CSI-RS resource, respectively. Optionally, in the resource configuration for CSI, the TCI-state associated with the first NZP CSI-RS resource and / or the second NZP CSI-RS resource indicates that the QCL source reference signal is the SSB and the QCL type is 'typeD'. This configuration mode indicates that the first NZP CSI-RS reference signal and / or the second NZP CSI-RS reference signal and the SS / PBCH block reference signal from the base station received by the UE may use the same spatial reception parameter, and the UE may use the same receiving beam to receive the first NZP CSI-RS reference signal and / or the second NZP CSI-RS reference signal and the SS / PBCH block reference signal. Although this beam management mode requires the reference signal resource pair (i.e., the above two CSI-RS resources) associated with the beam pair, the beam management only involves the processing of the CSI-RS reference signal.

[0395] It can be known from the above description that the second beam in the embodiment of the present disclosure may include one or more beams. The following description will be given in a case where the second beam includes two beams. Optionally, one beam pair may include a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, wherein the second beam includes a third beam and / or a fourth beam. The beam management in the horizontal direction may be realized based on the first beam and the third beam, and the beam management in the vertical direction may be realized based on the first beam and the fourth beam. The above-described scheme of beam management based on the first beam and the second beam is suitable for the beam management in the horizontal direction based on the first beam and third beam, and the beam management in the horizontal direction based on the first beam and the third beam. Thus, the number of sweeping beams can be reduced by combining the third beam and / or the fourth beam with the first beam, the utilization of reference resources can be finally reduced, and the signaling overhead and the sweeping duration can be reduced.

[0396] In a case where the second beam includes the third beam and / or the fourth beam, the beam pair reference signal (or the beam pair reference signal resource or the reference signal resource pair) corresponds to the first beam and the second beam (the third beam and / or the fourth beam). The first beam, the third beam and / or the fourth beam are all wide beams. Optionally, the receiving end may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation in the horizontal direction by using the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the third beam and obtain the beam pointing direction deviation in the vertical direction by using the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the fourth beam, thereby provide the basis for the calibration of the transmitting beam of the base station.

[0397] The optional scheme described based on the first beam and the second beam in the above embodiment of the present disclosure is also applied to the scheme of beam management based on the third beam and / or the fourth beam and the first beam as long as the second beam in the above embodiment is replaced with the third beam and / or the fourth beam.

[0398] By taking one implementation of the above relationship to be satisfied by the first beam and the second beam as an example, in a case where the second beam includes the third beam and / or the fourth beam, the corresponding optional implementation is as follows: in the resource configuration for beam pair reference signals, the relationship between the first beam and the third beam and / or the fourth beam satisfies at least one of the following: the QCL source reference signal indicated by the TCI in the resource configuration for the third reference signal corresponding to the third beam is at least set as the first reference signal corresponding to the first beam, and the corresponding QCL type is 'typeD'; and, the QCL source reference signal indicated by the TCI in the resource configuration for the fourth reference signal corresponding to the fourth beam is at least set as the first reference signal corresponding to the first beam, and the corresponding QCL type is 'typeD'. The first reference signal and the third reference signal form the QCL type of 'typeD', and / or the first reference signal and the fourth reference signal form the QCL type of 'typeD', indicating that the UE may use the same spatial reception parameter when receiving the first reference signal and the third reference signal and / or the fourth reference signal, that is, the UE may use the same receiving beam to receive the third reference signal and / or the fourth reference signal and the first reference signal.

[0399] For another example, in the above implementation of the report configuration for CSI, in a case where the second beam includes the third beam and / or the fourth beam, the content related to the second beam included in the first reporting parameter may be replaced with the content related to the third beam and / or the content related to the fourth beam; the content related to both first beam and the second beam may be replaced with the content related to the first beam and the third beam and / or the content related to the first beam and the fourth beam; and, the content related to the narrow beam corresponding to the first beam may be replaced with the content related to the narrow beam in the horizontal direction and / or the content related to the narrow beam in the vertical direction. For example, the beam index may include the beam index in the horizontal direction and / or the beam index in the vertical direction, and the number of beams may include the number of beams in the horizontal direction and / or the number of beams in the vertical direction. The measurement parameter (the first measurement parameter, the second measurement parameter, the third measurement parameter and the fourth measurement parameter) may be replaced as the measurement parameter in the horizontal direction and / or the quantization parameter in the vertical direction. The quantization bit number may include the quantization bit number corresponding to the horizontal direction and the quantization bit number corresponding to the vertical direction. That is, the first beam and the third beam are used as a beam pair in the beam pairs, and the first beam and the fourth beam are used as a beam pair in the beam pairs.

[0400] For example, in the above-described content related to the first time-domain signal and the second time-domain signal, for the third beam, the second time-domain signal is the value of the time-domain channel estimation value of the third beam at the first position index; while for the fourth beam, the second time-domain signal is the value of the time-domain channel estimation value of the fourth beam at the first position index. The time-domain channel estimation value of the third beam is calculated based on the received signal value corresponding to the third beam, and the time-domain signal estimation value of the fourth beam is calculated based on the received signal value corresponding to the fourth signal. The UE or BS may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation corresponding to the horizontal direction according to the received signal value of the first beam (or other measurement values calculated based on the received signal value, for example, the frequency-domain channel estimation value, the time-domain channel estimation value, or satisfying the first time-domain signal or the like) and the received signal value of the third beam (or other measurement values calculated based on the received signal value), and may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation corresponding to the vertical direction according to the received signal value of the first beam (or other measurement values calculated based on the received signal value) and the received signal value of the fourth beam (or other measurement values calculated based on the received signal value).

[0401] Optionally, when the second beam includes the third beam and the fourth beam, if the base station requires that the content in the horizontal direction reported by the UE is the same as the content in the vertical direction, the first reporting parameter may be a reporting parameter in the horizontal direction and a reporting parameter in the vertical direction which are configured separately, or it is also possible that the same reporting parameter is shared in the horizontal direction and the vertical direction.

[0402] The adjustment of the transmitting beam of the base station in the horizontal direction can be realized based on the first beam and the third beam (the beam pair in the horizontal direction, or referred to as the beam pair in the first direction), and the adjustment of the transmitting beam of the base station in the vertical direction can be realized based on the first beam and the fourth beam (the beam pair in the vertical direction, or referred to as the beam pair in the second direction).

[0403] Optionally, the UE or base station may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation corresponding to the horizontal direction based on the relationship related to the received signal value in the horizontal direction (e.g., the ratio of the received signal value of the first beam to the received signal value of the third beam) and the first correspondence, and may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation in the vertical direction based on the relationship related to the received signal value in the vertical direction and the second correspondence. The first correspondence and the second correspondence may be the same or different, wherein the first correspondence is the correspondence between the relationship related to the received signal value corresponding to the beam pair in the horizontal direction (e.g., the ratio of the received signal value of the beam pair, the ratio of the frequency-domain signal value, the channel estimation value or the like) and the beam pointing direction deviation, and the second correspondence is the correspondence between the relationship related to the received signal value corresponding to the beam pair in the vertical direction and the beam pointing direction deviation. The form of the correspondence will not be limited in the embodiment of the present disclosure. For example, the correspondence may be a table, which includes each of a plurality of ratios (e.g., the ratio of the received signal value of the beam pair) and the respective beam pointing direction deviation. The UE or BS may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation in the horizontal direction by looking up the table according to the ratio of the received signal values of the first beam and the third beam, and may obtain the beam pointing direction deviation in the vertical direction by looking up the table according to the ratio of the received signal values of the first beam and the fourth beam. Optionally, for the UE, the correspondence may be configured to the UE by the base station.

[0404] The beam pointing direction deviation in the horizontal direction may be used to adjust the beam pointing direction in the horizontal direction, and the beam pointing direction deviation in the vertical direction may be used to adjust the beam pointing direction in the vertical direction. For example, the UE selects the reported beam pointing direction deviation in the horizontal direction and / or the beam index in the vertical direction according to the beam pointing direction deviation in the horizontal direction and / or the beam pointing direction deviation in the vertical direction. After the UE reports the beam index, the BS may perform beam adjustment according to the beam index in the horizontal direction and / or vertical direction reported by the UE.

[0405] Based on the same principle as the method performed by a user equipment provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a method performed by a network node in a wireless communication system. This method may include:

[0406] transmitting first configuration information and second configuration information to a user equipment, the first configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair including a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, the second configuration information including information related to a channel state information report;

[0407] transmitting, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam; and

[0408] receiving a CSI report transmitted by the user equipment, the CSI report being related to the beam pair, the CSI report being transmitted based on the second configuration information.

[0409] Optionally, the network node may include, but not limited to, a base station or a TRP.

[0410] Optionally, the method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure further includes: transmitting, by the network node, a downlink physical channel by using a beam corresponding to the beam index included in the CSI report, wherein the downlink physical channel may include a downlink physical shared signal and / or a downlink physical control signal.

[0411] Optionally, the first configuration information further includes first information, which is used to indicate that the network node adopts a beam pair transmission mode.

[0412] Optionally, the second beam includes a third beam and / or a fourth beam, wherein a beam pair including the first beam and the third beam is related to beam adjustment in a horizontal direction, and a beam pair including the first beam and the fourth beam is related to beam adjustment in a vertical direction.

[0413] Optionally, a quasi co-location (QCL) source reference signal associated with the second reference signal is the first reference signal, and the QCL type is a type D; or, the QCL source reference signal associated with the second reference signal is the same as a QCL source reference signal associated with the first reference signal, and the QCL type is the type D.

[0414] Optionally, the CSI report includes at least one of the following:

[0415] a first CSI report, the first CSI report being based on information related to the first beam in the second configuration information;

[0416] a second CSI report, the second CSI report being based on information related to the second beam in the second configuration information;

[0417] a third CSI report, the third CSI report being based on information related to the first beam and the second beam;

[0418] a fourth CSI report, the fourth CSI report being based on the information related to the first beam in the second configuration information and the information related to the first beam and the second beam; and

[0419] a fifth CSI report, the fifth CSI report being based on the information related to the second beam in the second configuration information and the information related to the first beam and the second beam.

[0420] Optionally, the second configuration information includes information related to at least one of the following:

[0421] a reporting parameter related to the first beam; a reporting parameter related to the second beam; a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam; information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in the first beam set associated with the first beam; and, quantization accuracy for reporting parameters.

[0422] Optionally, the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam includes information related to at least one of the following:

[0423] a first parameter, the first parameter being related to a received signal value of the first reference signal and a received signal value of the second reference signal; a second parameter, the second parameter being related to a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal; and, a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam.

[0424] Optionally, the CSI report includes at least one of the following:

[0425] a reported value of the reporting parameter related to the first beam; a reported value of the reporting parameter related to the second beam; a reported value of the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam; an index of at least one sixth beam, the at least one sixth beam being at least one beam in the first beam set; and, the beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam.

[0426] Optionally, the at least one sixth beam includes: at least one beam in the first beam set whose beam pointing direction satisfies a predetermined relationship with the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0427] Optionally, the predetermined relationship includes at least one of the following:

[0428] the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is the smallest; and

[0429] the absolute value of the difference between the beam pointing direction and the beam pointing direction deviation is less than or equal to a threshold.

[0430] Optionally, when the second configuration information includes information related to the quantization accuracy for reporting parameters, the information in the CSI report is information quantized based on the quantization accuracy.

[0431] Optionally, the method further includes:

[0432] receiving second information, the second information being related to a type of the user equipment.

[0433] Various optionally embodiments of the method performed by a network node can refer to the embodiments described above by taking a UE as the executive body, and will not be repeated here.

[0434] Based on the methods provided in the above embodiments of the present disclosure, the adjustment of the transmitting beam of the base station can be realized. In addition, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a method which can manage the receiving beam of the base station. FIG. 10 illustrates a flowchart of this method. This method may be a method performed by a user equipment in a wireless communication system. This method includes the following.

[0435] In step S101, third configuration information is received, the third configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, the reference signal resource set including at least one reference signal resource, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being related to a beam pair.

[0436] In step S102, reference signals are transmitted based on the third configuration information.

[0437] The reference signal resource set configured by the third configuration information is an uplink reference signal resource set, e.g., a sounding reference signal (SRS) resource set. The reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set are used for beam management. The user equipment may transmit reference signals based on the reference signal resources configured by the network node. The UE may use the same transmitting beam to transmit reference signals based on the third configuration information. For example, based on the third configuration, the UE uses a transmitting beam to transmit SRS1 and uses this transmitting beam to transmit a reference signal SRS2, and the base station receives the reference signal SRS1 based on a seventh beam and receives the reference signal SRS2 based on an eighth beam.

[0438] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the reference signal resource set may also be referred to as a reference signal resource set associated with the beam pair. Optionally, the base station may configure for the UE reference signal resources associated with one beam pair, or reference signal resources associated with a plurality of beam pairs. One beam pair may include a seventh beam and an eighth beam related to the seventh beam. The seventh beam and the eighth beam are wide beams, and the seventh beam and the eighth beam are receiving beams of the base station.

[0439] Optionally, the eighth beam may include a ninth beam and / or a tenth beam, wherein a beam pair including the seventh beam and the ninth beam is related to beam adjustment in the horizontal direction, and a beam pair including the seventh beam and the ninth beam is related to beam adjustment in the vertical direction. For example, the seventh beam is a sum beam, and the ninth beam and the tenth beam are a differential beam in the horizontal direction and a differential beam in the vertical direction based on the seventh beam, respectively. The specific alternatives of the ninth beam and the tenth beam can refer to the above description of the third beam and the fourth beam.

[0440] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam pair associated with the reference signal resource set implicitly or explicitly indicated in the third configuration information corresponds to the same transmitting beam of the UE.

[0441] As an alternative, the third configuration information may include a second indicator, which is used to inform the UE that the beam pair associated with reference signal resources corresponds to the same spatial relation information, that is, it implies that the beam reception mode adopted by the base station is a beam pair reception mode. The form of the second indicator will not be limited in the embodiment of the present disclosure. The second indicator may be the existing parameter in the existing standard protocol or may be a newly added parameter.

[0442] Optionally, the seventh beam and the eighth beam are associated with the same spatial relation information. For example, the reference signals of the spatial relation information of the reference signal resources associated with the beam pair in the reference signal resource set may be set as the same reference signal to implicitly realize the second indicator.

[0443] For the management of the receiving beam of the base station, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a method performed by a network node in a wireless communication system. This method includes:

[0444] transmitting third configuration information, the third configuration information including information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair; and

[0445] receiving, based on a seventh beam and an eighth beam associated with the seventh beam in the beam pair, reference signals transmitted by a user equipment.

[0446] Based on the above scheme provided by the present disclosure, the base station can receive reference signals transmitted by the UE by using the beam pair, and thus can determine the optimal transmission direction or the beam pointing direction deviation for the seventh beam based on the received signal of the seventh beam and the received signal of the eighth beam. The base station can select a suitable narrow beam as the receiving beam from the narrow beam set associated with the seventh beam according to the optimal transmission direction or the beam pointing direction deviation. The way of selecting, by the base station, a more suitable receiving beam according to the received signal corresponding to the beam pair can refer to the above way of selecting a more suitable transmitting beam by the base station, but the beam measurement and beam determination in the management process of the receiving beam of the base station need to be performed by the base station.

[0447] The above scheme in the embodiment of the present disclosure is a beam management scheme in an uplink communication system. As a scheme, the BS can use a differential beam pair (the seventh beam and the eighth beam) to receive beams transmitted by the UE using an SRS (that is, the UE transmits an SRS based on the SRS resource configuration), calculate the beam pointing direction deviation or the optimal transmission direction and performs corresponding beam direction adjustment. In the uplink communication system, by using the beam management method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the SSB resources can be saved, so that the BS can realize fast adjustment of the receiving beam direction.

[0448] Optionally, the beam management method in the uplink communication system may include at least one of the following:

[0449] the BS performs SRS resource configuration; and, the BS configures for the UE an SRS resource set used for beam management.

[0450] The BS configures SRS resources as SRS resources used for beam training, and / or sets the reference signals of the spatial relation information of the SRS resources in one or more SRS resource sets as the same reference signal (for example, the reference signal associated with the seventh beam). Based on this configuration, by associating the SRS resources in the SRS resource set with the same spatial relation information, the BS can allow the UE to use the same transmitting beam to transmit reference signals to the BS, and the BS can use the beam pair to receive the reference signals transmitting using the same beam by the UE. Optionally, this configuration can also be used as an implementation of the second indicator, and the BS uses this configuration to implicitly indicate that the UE adopts a reception mode based on the beam pair.

[0451] The BS configures the beam associated with the seventh reference signal as a seventh beam, i.e., a sum beam, and the BS uses the seventh beam to receive a beam a transmitted using the configured SRS resource by the UE (i.e., an SRS transmitted based on the reference signal resource). The BS can generate an eighth beam (e.g., a differential beam) based on the seventh beam, and the BS uses the eighth beam to receive a beam b (SRS) transmitted using the configured SRS resource by the UE. The BS performs beam measurement by using the reception result of the seventh beam and the reception result of the eighth beam, and obtains the beam pointing direction deviation or the optimal transmission direction. The BS performs beam determination. The BS adjusts the beam receiving direction, and performs data or control information transmission by using the adjusted beam receiving direction, for example, receiving a physical shared channel and / or uplink physical control channel by using the adjusted beam.

[0452] Optionally, the way of setting, by the BS, the SRS as an SRS used for beam training may be as follows: setting a high-layer parameter usage as 'beamManagement' in the resource configuration for the SRS.

[0453] Optionally, the way of configuring, by the BS, the reference signals of the spatial relation information of SRS resources as the same reference signal (e.g., the seventh reference signal associated with the seventh beam) may be as follows: setting the SRS-SpatialRelationInfo in the SRS resource configuration as the same transmitting beam information. At this time, the beam for the UE transmits the SRS is unchanged.

[0454] In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beams a and b have the same transmitting beam information, and the beams a and b may be the same transmitting beam of the UE. Optionally, the UE may transmit the beams a and b on different symbols in the same slot, or may transmit the beams and b on symbols in different slots. Optionally, the UE may transmit the beams a and b at positions with the same symbol index in different slots. Optionally, different slots may be two adjacent slots, and this mode is applicable to a situation where the change in time-domain channel is gentle.

[0455] Optionally, the beam measurement methods related to the management of the transmitting beam of the base station in the embodiments of the present disclosure are all applicable to the embodiments related to the management of the receiving beam of the base station, and will not be repeated here. At this time, the subject that implements beam measurement is substituted into a BS from a UE.

[0456] Optionally, before the BS performs SRS resource configuration, the BS may has received the reporting information from the UE. The reporting information is used to inform the BS of the type of the UE, for example, the UE being a CPE of FWA.

[0457] Optionally, before the BS transmits the third configuration information, the BS has established a connection with the UE, e.g., being in an RRC connected state.

[0458] As an alternative, FIG. 11 illustrates an implementation process of a beam management method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 11, this beam management method may include some or all of the following steps.

[0459] In step 1, the BS establishes a connection with the UE.

[0460] In step 2, the BS receives a report from the UE. For example, through this report, the UE informs that the UE is a CPE of FWA.

[0461] In step 3, the BS performs SRS resource configuration.

[0462] In step 4, the BS performs beam reception by using a seventh beam, i.e., receiving an SRS transmitted by the UE.

[0463] In step 5 (optional), the BS performs beam measurement on the seventh beam.

[0464] In step 6, the BS stores the information of the seventh beam.

[0465] In step 7, the BS performs beam reception by using an eighth beam, i.e., receiving an SRS transmitted by the UE.

[0466] In step 8, the BS performs beam measurement on the eighth beam and / or beam measurement based on the seventh beam and the eighth beam.

[0467] In step 9, the BS performs beam determination to obtain the beam index (the narrow beam index in the narrow beam set corresponding to the seventh beam).

[0468] In step 10, the BS adjusts the receiving direction of the beam, and uses the adjusted receiving beam to perform data or control information transmission.

[0469] As described above, in the beam management method of the uplink communication system provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the eighth beam may include a ninth beam and / or a tenth beam. For example, the ninth beam is a differential beam associated with the seventh beam in the horizontal direction, and the tenth beam is a differential beam associated with the seventh beam in the vertical direction. Based on the seventh beam and the ninth beam (the differential beam pair in the horizontal direction), the beam management in the horizontal direction can be realized; and, based on the seventh beam and the tenth beam (the differential beam pair in the vertical direction), the beam management in the vertical direction can be realized. Similarly, when the seventh beam includes a ninth beam and / or a tenth beam, the above content related to the eighth beam is replaced with the content related to the ninth beam and / or the tenth beam, and will not be repeated here.

[0470] In the beam management method based on a beam pair provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the beam pair may also include at least one of the following: a first beam, an Athbeam associated with the first beam, and a Bthbeam associated with the first beam. In this mode, the Athbeam and / or the Bthbeam can be interpreted as an optional implementation of the second beam. The Athbeam and the Bthbeam may be located on both sides of the first beam, respectively, and satisfy the following conditions: the Athbeam has a complementary peak with the first beam, and the Bthbeam has a complementary peak with the first beam. Optionally, the second beam (e.g., the differential beam shown in FIG. 4) may have two peaks. When an implementation involving the Athbeam and / or the Bthbeam is adopted, the Athbeam may be a beam with a peak at the same position as one peak of the second beam, and the Bthbeam may be a beam with a beam with a peak at the same position as the other peak of the second beam. Optionally, the Athbeam and / or the Bthbeam have the same channel gain as the first beam.

[0471] By using the beam management method, the number of sweeping beams can be reduced by combining the first beam with the Athbeam and / or the Bthbeam, the utilization of reference signal resources can be finally reduced, and the signaling overhead and sweeping duration can be reduced.

[0472] The principle of the beam management method based on the first beam and the second beam provided in the above embodiments of the present disclosure is still applicable as long as the content related to the second beam can be replaced with the Athbeam and / or the Bthbeam. Optionally, the Athbeam and / or the Bthbeam may also include one or more beams. For example, the Athbeam includes a beam A1 in the horizontal direction and a beam A2 in the vertical direction, and the Bthbeam includes a beam B1 in the horizontal direction and a beam B2 in the vertical direction.

[0473] An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a receiver structure. One implementation of the receiver structure may be that: the receiver may execute at least one of the following:

[0474] receiving the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam; performing metric calculation; and, adjusting the beam direction.

[0475] The metric calculation may be at least one of the following: the receiver calculates the received signal ratio of the first beam to the second beam and / or the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam; the receiver obtains the beam pointing direction deviation according to the mapping relationship between the received signal ratio and the beam pointing direction deviation; and, the receiver obtains the angle index according to the mapping relationship of the received signal ratio and the angle index.

[0476] FIG. 12 shows a schematic structure diagram of an electronic device 4000 to which the solution of the embodiment of the present disclosure is applicable. As shown in FIG. 12, the electronic device 4000 shown in FIG. 12 may include a processor 4001 and a memory 4003. The processor 4001 is connected to the memory 4003, for example, through a bus 4002. Optionally, the electronic device 4000 may further include a transceiver 4004. It should be noted that, in practical applications, the transceiver 4004 is not limited to one, and the structure of the electronic device 4000 does not constitute any limitations to the embodiments of the present disclosure. Optionally, the electronic device may be a first network node, a second network node or a third network node.

[0477] The processor 4001 may be a central processing unit (CPU), a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or a field programmable gate array (FPGA), or other programmable logic devices, transistor logic devices, hardware components, or any combination thereof. It may implement or execute various exemplary logical blocks, modules and circuits described in connection with the present disclosure. The processor 4001 may also be a combination for realizing computing functions, for example, a combination of one or more microprocessors, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, etc.

[0478] The bus 4002 may include a path to transfer information between the components described above. The bus 4002 may be a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus, or an extended industry standard architecture (EISA) bus, etc. The bus 4002 may be an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, etc. For ease of presentation, the bus is represented by only one thick line in FIG. 12. However, it does not mean that there is only one bus or one type of buses.

[0479] The memory 4003 may be, but not limited to, read only memories (ROMs) or other types of static storage devices that can store static information and instructions, random access memories (RAMs) or other types of dynamic storage devices that can store information and instructions, may be electrically erasable programmable read only memories (EEPROMs), compact disc read only memories (CD-ROMs) or other optical disk storages, optical disc storages (including compact discs, laser discs, discs, digital versatile discs, blue-ray discs, etc.), magnetic storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or any other media that can carry or store desired program codes in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by computers.

[0480] The memory 4003 is used to store computer program for executing the solutions of the present disclosure, and is controlled by the processor 4001. The processor 4001 is used to execute the computer program stored in the memory 4003 to implement the solution provided in any method embodiment described above.

[0481] One specific implementation of the operating principle of the receiver structure may be as shown in FIG. 13. Wherein, the mode may include: the receiver receives the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam, respectively; metric calculation is performed; and the beam direction is adjusted based on the result of metric calculation.

[0482] In the optional mode, the receiver structure is applicable to a single-carrier communication system. Optionally, for downlink transmission, the UE, as a receiver, may perform signal reception and metric calculation, and may report the ratio of the received signal values obtained based on the results of the metric calculation, the beam pointing direction deviation, or the angle index to the base station, and the base station adjusts the beam direction according to the content reported by the UE.

[0483] Another implementation of the receiver structure provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure may be that: the receiver executes at least one of the following:

[0484] the receiver receiving the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam; the receiver performing Fourier transform on the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam to obtain the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam; the receiver performing frequency-domain channel estimation based on the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam to obtain the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the receiver accumulates the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to generate the first sum and / or the second sum; performing metric calculation; and, adjusting the beam direction.

[0485] The metric calculation may be at least one of the following: the receiver calculates the ratio of the first sum to the second sum and / or the ratio of the second sum to the first sum; the receiver obtains the beam pointing direction deviation according to the mapping relationship between the ratio of the first sum to the second sum and / or the ratio of the second sum to the first sum and the beam pointing direction deviation; and, the receiver obtains the angle index according to the mapping relationship of the above ratio and the angle index.

[0486] One specific implementation of the operating principle of the receiver structure may be as shown in FIG. 14A. Wherein:

[0487] the receiver receives the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam, respectively;

[0488] Fourier transform is performed on the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam to generate the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam;

[0489] the receiver performs channel estimation based on the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam to generate the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam;

[0490] the frequency-domain channel estimation values of the first beam are accumulated to obtain the first sum, and the frequency-domain channel estimation values of the second beam are accumulated to obtain the second sum, respectively;

[0491] metric calculation is performed; and

[0492] the beam direction is adjusted based on the result of metric calculation.

[0493] In the optional mode, the receiver structure is applicable to a multi-carrier communication system and can be used for antagonizing multi-path channels.

[0494] Wherein the optional scheme is particularly applicable to multipath channel scenarios where the first path is the strongest path, such as CDL-D channel and CDL-E channel, where the first path is the line-of-sight path. Here the property of the Fourier transform is used, i.e., the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation corresponds to the value at the first position of the time-domain channel estimation, i.e., the value on the first path. When the first path is the strongest path (the channel path with the strongest power), the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation corresponds to the value on the strongest path. As in the example shown in FIG. 14B, the first value of the time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal is the value on the strongest path, and the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation corresponds to this value, and the ratio of the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation based on the first reference signal and the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation based on the second reference signal (or the ratio of the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation based on the second reference signal and the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation based on the first reference signal) is the equivalent channel ratio of the strongest path.

[0495] A beneficial effect of this scheme also includes that the first reference signal and the second reference signal may be different due to the channel estimation. The corresponding measurement quantity in this scheme may be defined as the ratio of the cumulative value of the frequency-domain channel estimation of the second reference signal and the frequency-domain channel estimation of the first reference signal, which may be referred to as the accumulation-based equivalent channel estimation ratio.

[0496] Another implementation of the receiver structure provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure may be that: the receiver executes at least one of the following:

[0497] receiving the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam; the receiver performing Fourier transform on the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam to obtain the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam; the receiver performing frequency-domain channel estimation based on the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam to obtain the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the receiver performing inverse Fourier transform on the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to generate the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; the receiver searching a value satisfying the first condition from the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to obtain the first time-domain signal; the receiver obtaining the first position index according to the position of the first time-domain signal in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam; the receiver obtaining the second time-domain signal according to the value of the first position index in the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; performing metric calculation; and, adjusting the beam direction.

[0498] The metric calculation may be at least one of the following: the receiver calculates the ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain signal and / or the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal; the receiver obtains the beam pointing direction deviation according to the mapping relationship between the ratio of the first time-domain signal to the second time-domain signal and / or the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal and the beam pointing direction deviation; and, the receiver obtains the angle index according to the mapping relationship of the above ratio and the angle index.

[0499] One specific implementation of the operating principle of the receiver structure may be as shown in FIG. 15A. Wherein:

[0500] the receiver receives the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam, respectively;

[0501] Fourier transform is performed on the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam to generate the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam;

[0502] the receiver performs channel estimation based on the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam to generate the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam;

[0503] the receiver performs inverse Fourier transform on the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to generate the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam;

[0504] the receiver searches a value satisfying the first condition from the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to obtain the first time-domain signal, wherein, optionally, the first condition may be peak selection, and the searching of the first time-domain signal is the peak selection of the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam (or referred to as the peak selection of the first beam);

[0505] the receiver obtains the first position index according to the position of the first time-domain signal in the time-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, wherein, optionally, when the first condition is peak selection, the first position index is the peak position index (or referred to as the peak position);

[0506] the receiver selects the second time-domain signal from the time-domain channel estimation value of the second beam according to the first position index, wherein it is to be noted that the second time-domain signal is selected in the equivalent channel of the second beam, and the second time-domain signal is the channel estimation value in the time-domain channel estimation values of the second beam at the same position as the first position index;

[0507] metric calculation is performed; and

[0508] the beam direction is adjusted based on the result of metric calculation.

[0509] In the optional mode, the receiver structure is applicable to a multi-carrier communication system, and can be used for antagonizing multi-path channels and providing a higher processing gain.

[0510] The corresponding measurement quantity in this optional scheme may be defined as the ratio of the time-domain channel estimation of the second reference signal to the time-domain channel estimation of the first reference signal at the position where the time-domain channel estimation of the first reference signal reaches a peak, which may be referred to as the peak-based equivalent channel estimation ratio.

[0511] Here the peak on the time-domain channel estimation is utilized to correspond to the strongest path. Wherein the strongest path is the path with the strongest energy in the multipath channel. The position index of the strongest path corresponds to the arrival time of the strongest path (the time when the receiver receives the signal of the strongest path). The time-domain channel estimation ratio on the strongest path is used as a measurement quantity based on which the beam adjustment can be implemented to optimize the accuracy of narrow beam selection. As in the example shown in FIG. 15B, the first position corresponds to the arrival time of the first reference signal on the strongest path (the time corresponding to the peak of the time-domain channel estimation), and the channel estimation value among the time-domain channel estimation values of the second reference signal at the same position as the first position is the arrival time of the second reference signal on the strongest path. Then, the ratio of the peak of the time-domain channel estimation based on the first reference signal and the peak of the time-domain channel estimation based on the second reference signal (or the ratio of the peak of the time-domain channel estimation based on the second reference signal and the peak of the time-domain channel estimation based on the first reference signal) is the equivalent channel ratio on the strongest path. Based on this ratio, the accuracy of the beam selection can be improved.

[0512] Notably, embodiments of the present disclosure do not limit the scheme in which the time-domain channel estimation is obtained. If another scheme of performing Fourier inverse transform on the non-frequency-domain channel estimation to generate time-domain channel estimation is used, as long as the time-domain channel estimation is acquired, performing peak selection and / or performing subsequent ratio operations on the time-domain channel estimation are all within the protection scope of the present embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0513] The equivalent channel estimation ratio based on peak estimation is used as measurement quantities, which can be applied to the multipath channel, while the first reference signal can be different from the second reference signal due to the channel estimation, and furthermore, the signal-to-noise ratio at the receiving end can be improved due to the in-phase cumulative effect due to the Fourier inverse transform.

[0514] In embodiments of the present disclosure, the definitions of different measurement quantities may be applicable to different application scenarios to facilitate the base station to make configuration selection. Optionally, the base station may configure the UE via the second configuration information whether to adopt the peak-based equivalent channel ratio calculation mode or the accumulation-based equivalent channel ratio calculation mode.

[0515] Another implementation of the receiver structure provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure may be that: the receiver executes at least one of the following:

[0516] receiving the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam; the receiver performing Fourier transform on the received signal value of the first beam and / or the received signal value of the second beam to obtain the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam; the receiver performing frequency-domain channel estimation based on the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam to obtain the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and / or the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam; performing metric calculation; and, adjusting the beam direction.

[0517] The metric calculation may be at least one of the following: the receiver calculates the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam and / or the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam; and, the receiver obtains the beam pointing direction deviation according to the relationship between the received signal ratio and the beam pointing direction deviation.

[0518] One specific implementation of the receiver structure may be as shown in FIG. 16A. Wherein:

[0519] the receiver receives the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam, respectively;

[0520] Fourier transform is performed on the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal value of the second beam to generate the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam;

[0521] the receiver performs channel estimation based on the frequency-domain signal value of the first beam and the frequency-domain signal value of the second beam to generate the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam and the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam;

[0522] metric calculation is performed; and

[0523] the beam direction is adjusted based on the result of metric calculation.

[0524] The receiver structure is applicable to a single-carrier communication system, and can be applied to a situation where the reference signals used by the first beam and the second beam are not consistent. It is to be noted that, in FIGS. 13-16A, the receiver does not receive the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal of the second beam simultaneously. When the receiver receives one of the received signal value of the first beam and the received signal of the second beam, optionally, the received signal value may be stored first, and metric calculation is then performed after the receiver obtains the received signal value of the other beam.

[0525] As an optional embodiment, FIG. 16B illustrates a schematic flowchart of a DBF-based beam management method provided by embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 16B, the method may include the following steps.

[0526] The BS establishes a connection with the UE.

[0527] The BS transmits a CSI resource configuration to the UE, and the BS transmits a CSI report configuration to the UE. Wherein the CSI resource configuration and the CSI report configuration are DBF-based resource configuration and report configuration, the CSI resource configuration includes information related to a reference signal resource pair, and the CSI report configuration set includes report configuration information related to the DBF.

[0528] The BS transmits a first reference signal to the UE, and the BS transmits a second reference signal to the UE.

[0529] The UE performs a DBF-based measurement based on the configuration of the base station.

[0530] The UE determines a parameter value of the reporting parameter according to the measurement result, e.g., if the base station configures the UE to report the angle index or the angle index to be reported by agreement, the UE may determine the angle index corresponding to the currently acquired measurement quantity according to the mapping relationship between the measurement quantities (e.g., the equivalent channel ratio, the beam pointing direction deviation) related to the angle index and the measurement quantities configured by the base station and the angle index.

[0531] The BS receives a report from the UE, makes an adjustment of the downlink transmission direction (transmission angle) according to the reported content, and transmits data using the adjusted transmission direction.

[0532] As an alternative, the CSI report configuration may include a one-to-one mapping relationship between the equivalent channel ratio and the angle index, and the CSI report reported by the UE may include the angle index. With this scheme, based on the measured value of the equivalent channel ratio, the UE may obtain and report an angle index corresponding to the measured value based on the mapping relationship, and the angle index corresponds to the optimal narrow beam. The scheme requires less feedback overhead.

[0533] As another alternative, the CSI report configuration may include an equivalent channel ratio and quantization accuracy for the equivalent channel ratio, and the CSI report may include the quantized equivalent channel ratio. In this optional scheme, the reporting parameter is the equivalent channel ratio, and the BS may determine the optimal transmission angle based on the quantized equivalent channel ratio reported by the UE, and the mapping relationship between the equivalent channel ratio and the angle index. Although reporting the equivalent channel ratio may require a relatively large feedback overhead, the UE may provide the most information to the BS.

[0534] In both of the above optional schemes, the equivalent channel ratio may be a peak-based equivalent channel ratio or an accumulation-based equivalent channel ratio, wherein the specific calculation mode to be used may be configured by the base station in the CSI report configuration.

[0535] As another optional scheme, the CSI report configuration may include a one-to-one mapping relationship between the equivalent channel ratio and the beam pointing direction deviation (or the optimal transmission angle), and quantization accuracy for the beam pointing direction deviation (or the optimal transmission angle), and the CSI report may include the quantized beam pointing direction deviation (or the quantized optimal transmission angle). In this scheme, the reporting parameter is the quantized beam pointing direction deviation (or the quantized optimal transmission angle), and the BS may obtain the optimal transmission angle and determine the optimal narrow beam according to the received beam pointing direction deviation, or determine the optimal narrow beam directly according to the quantized optimal transmission angle. The feedback overhead required for this scheme is between the two available schemes described above.

[0536] It has been tested and demonstrated that the DBF method provided by embodiments of the present disclosure has no performance loss compared to conventional methods, can use denser beam codebooks, can improve RSRP performance to increase coverage range, and does not increase the RS overhead, the power consumption, or the time consumption, which can effectively reduce the resource overhead of the system and better satisfy communication requirements.

[0537] The beam management scheme based on DBF essentially depends on the angular direction estimation based on the sum beam and the differential beam. The principle is to estimate the angle difference for adjustment between the probing (reference) direction and the actual direction using the transmission / reception based on the sum beam and the differential beam. For the sum beam, optionally, the conventional beamforming coefficient may be directly used.

[0538] An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a codebook design method in a wireless communication system so as to support a differential beam. The codebook design method includes at least one of the following beam codebooks: a sum beam codebook and a differential beam codebook.

[0539] Optionally, the beamforming coefficient of the sum beam may be expressed as following:

[0540] The beamforming coefficient of the differential beam may be expressed as following:

[0541] Wherein, N denotes the number of antennas used for beamforming, d is the spacing between the antenna elements, λ is the signal wavelength, and θprobis the detection direction of the beam (the direction with maximum beam gain), i.e., the boresight (normal) direction of the sum beam.

[0542] Optionally, as one specific implementation of the sum beam codebook, for an antenna panel with M×N antenna elements, the beam matrix (i.e., beamforming matrix) wsum（θ0,φ0） is:

[0543] where,

[0544] M is the number of antenna elements in the horizontal dimension;

[0545] N is the number of antenna elements in the vertical dimension;

[0546] θ0is the horizontal angle (also referred to as azimuth angle) of the probing direction during beam transmission and / or reception, that is, the azimuth angle;

[0547] φ0is the vertical angle (also referred to as elevation angle) of the probing direction during beam transmission and / or reception, that is the elevation angle;

[0548] wcm（θ0,φ0）∈CN×1,m=0,1,…,M-1 represents the column vector of the beam matrix; and

[0549] wrn（θ0,φ0）∈C1×M,n=0,1,…,N-1 represents the row vector of the beam matrix.

[0550] The adjustments in the horizontal dimension and the vertical dimension may be defined as and , respectively, θ is the horizontal angle of the actual direction during beam transmission and / or reception, and φ is the vertical angle of the actual direction during beam transmission and / or reception. As shown in FIG. 17, if it is assumed that a signal is transmitted along the red line in the figure, its direction may be defined as two angles θ and φ, and the combination of the two angles is used to represent the signal direction.

[0551] Optionally, as one specific implementation of the differential beam codebook, based on the beam matrix of the sum beam, the coefficient (generation coefficient, beamforming coefficient) of the beam matrix of half differential beam is consistent with the coefficient of the beam matrix of half sum beam, and the coefficient of the beam matrix of other half differential beam is the negative number (opposite number) of the coefficient of the beam matrix of other half sum beam or the coefficient of the beam matrix of other half differential beam is generated by rotating the phase direction of the coefficient of the beam matrix of other half sum beam by 180 degrees. The position where the coefficients of the beam matrix of the sum beam and the beam matrix of the differential beam are the same will not be limited, and may be the first half or the second half.

[0552] Optionally, in one specific implementation, for the selected sum beam, the beam matrix of the differential beam is a matrix based on the beam matrix of the sum beam, the first half of which remains unchanged and the second half of which is inverted in phase. That is, half of the beam matrix of the differential beam is the same as that of the sum beam, and the other half thereof is inverted in phase.

[0553] Optionally, one specific implementation of the coefficient wdif，az（θ0,φ0） of the beam matrix of the differential beam in the horizontal direction may be:

[0554] Optionally, one specific implementation of the coefficient wdif，el（θ0,φ0） of the beam matrix of the differential beam in the vertical direction may be:

[0555] Based on the probing direction （θ0,φ0） of the beam and the signal with the actual transmission or reception direction of （θ,φ）, the equivalent channel experienced by the signal may be expressed as:

[0556] where,

[0557] θ is the horizontal angle of the actual direction during beam transmission and / or reception;

[0558] φ is the vertical angle of the actual direction during beam transmission and / or reception; and

[0559] a(m,n)（θ,φ） is the steering vector.

[0560] The matrix represents a beamforming matrix, and the received signal y of the transmitted signal s from the UE received by the receiver side may be expressed as follows:

[0561] It can be known that the problem of finding or determining the best beam may be converted as finding suitable w to maximize the amplitude of the equivalent signal .

[0562] Optionally, for a uniformly distributed planar array (UPA), the element a(m,n)（θ,φ） in the row m and column n is as follows:

[0563] where dxand dyrepresent the antenna elements gaps in the horizontal dimension and the vertical dimension, respectively, and λ represents the wavelength.

[0564] Optionally, for the beamforming vector generated based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), the beam matrix wsum（θ0,φ0） of the sum beam satisfies the following: wsum（θ0,φ0）=a(m,n)（θ0,φ0）

[0565] At this time, based on the signal transmitted by the sum beam, the experienced equivalent channel may be expressed as:

[0566] where and represent the phase difference in the horizontal dimension and the phase difference in the vertical dimension, respectively.

[0567] Optionally, the equivalent channel experienced by the signal transmitted by the sum beam may be expressed as:

[0568]

[0569] The first item in the above formula is expressed as s1, and the equivalent channel experienced by the signal transmitted or received by the sum beam may be shortened as:

[0570] Based on the same logic, based on the signals transmitted or received by the differential beam in the horizontal dimension and the vertical dimension, the equivalent channels may be separately expressed as:

[0571] Further, the equivalent channel ratio of the sum beam to the differential beam may be expressed as:

[0572] Based on the Euler's formula, the equivalent channel ratio of the sum beam to the differential beam may be shortened as:

[0573] It should be understood that, if different codebooks (e.g., except for the DFT-based codebook) are applied, the above formula may be changed. Therefore, when in use of the actual codebook, such one-to-one mapping attribute may be calculated based on the formula or may be obtained by simulation.

[0574] By substituting ψxand ψy, the vertical angle φ of the actual direction satisfies the following relational expression:

[0575] Based on the relational expression, the vertical angle φ of the actual direction may be obtained. Further, the vertical angle deviation (angle adjustment amount, beam pointing direction deviation) of the actual direction is obtained.

[0576] Further, the horizontal angle θ of the actual direction satisfies the following relational expression:

[0577] Based on the above relational expression, the horizontal angle θ of the actual direction may be obtained. Further, the horizontal angle deviation of the actual direction is obtained.

[0578] The angle adjustment amount and the equivalent channel ratio (relevation,razimuth) satisfies a one-to-one correspondence. Base on the one-to-one correspondence and the equivalent channel ratio (relevation,razimuth), the value of the angle adjustment amount may be obtained, so that the best angle adjustment information of the actually transmitted or received signal is determined, and the angle direction adjustment is realized. As shown in the schematic diagram of FIG. 18, the probing range represents the angle coverage of the sum beam, and the probing direction is the main direction of the sum beam. Once the proportion of equivalent channels for a signal is obtained, the corresponding estimated angle adjustment value can be found, and the actual / best angle information of this signal can be easily determined. For example, assuming that the equivalent channel ratio is 2, the corresponding beam pointing direction deviation is -10 degrees, the optimal transmission angle is the angle value of the detection direction plus 10 degrees.

[0579] In the specific calculation process, the equivalent channel ratio may be the received signal ratio of the second beam to the first beam, or the ratio of the second sum to the first sum, or the ratio of the second time-domain signal to the first time-domain signal, or the ratio of the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the second beam to the frequency-domain channel estimation value of the first beam, to be applicable to different communication systems.

[0580] Optionally, the equivalent channel ratio may be defined as following:

[0581] It has been demonstrated by simulation tests that, using the DFT-based beam codebooks provided by embodiments of the present disclosure, the angle difference between the optimal transmission angle obtained by using the DBF scheme provided in embodiments of the present disclosure and the ideal angle is very small in the CDL-A and CLD-D channels, and the angle estimation results have a high accuracy. In addition, the use of denser narrow beams improves the RSRP performance of the system without increasing the overhead of the system.

[0582] FIG. 19 illustrates a flowchart of a method performed by a receiver according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Referring to the operating principle of the receiver in FIG. 15A, after the peak position of the time-domain channel estimation value of the received signal of the sum beam is selected, the time-domain signal of the corresponding position may be selected from the time-domain channel estimation value of the received signal of the differential beam based on the position of this peak. Then, the equivalent channel ratio may be calculated based on the selected time-domain signals corresponding to two beams, and beam direction adjustment may be performed based on this ratio.

[0583] For the above situation of UPA, a two-dimensional table may be generated in the following way:

[0584] where the function represents the mapping function used for the probing direction （θ0,φ0）, and and represent the equivalent channel ratios in two dimensions. After the adjustment amount is obtained, the estimated direction will be close to the actual direction, i.e., the ideal beam direction. Subsequently, it is easy to map this ideal beam direction to the actual finite beam codebook, for example, to find the beam codebook that forms the beam direction closest to the ideal beam direction. In order to better utilize the DBF scheme, the transmitter and the receiver should be within the angle coverage of the sum beam. This will not be a problem, because wide beams can be applied to sum beams which usually have a large enough angle coverage (e.g., 30 degrees).

[0585] By using the above DBF characteristic, the derivation of the equivalent channel estimation has a great impact on the performance. For the existing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based system, the conventional measurement metric (i.e., the reference signal receiving power (RSRP)) is directly used, resulting in the loss of direction information and possibly suffering from the multipath effect. The embodiment of the present disclosure proposes an effective DBF receiver structure to derive the realizable equivalent composite channel measurement value and the subsequent channel ratio. As shown in FIG. 19, the receiver receives a sum beam. After the conventional frequency-domain channel estimation (CE), the estimation result is converted to the time domain, and the channel estimation with the largest amplitude (i.e., peak path) is selected as . For the received signal of the differential beam, after the frequency-domain CE result is converted to the time domain, the channel estimation in the same peak path is regarded as . By using the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the multipath effect is reduced, and an additional processing gain (for example, the energy is more concentrated on the determined path) can be obtained through additional inverse Fourier transform (e.g., Inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT)). Therefore, the DBF scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure is more robust.

[0586] The embodiment of the present disclosure proposes a differential beamforming mechanism, which can use a sum beam and a differential beam for one transmission / two receptions, respectively, and can quickly determine the angular estimation of the strongest transmission / reception direction based on the one-to-one mapping between the ratio of two equivalent composite channels received from the sum beam and the differential beam and the estimated difference (the difference between the actual direction and the reference direction).

[0587] FIG. 20 illustrates a principle diagram of DBF-based beam management according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, where only one transmission / reception at two occasions may be needed (if a three-dimensional beam management scheme is adopted, receptions at three occasions are possible). Unlike the conventional beam management mode, in the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the correlation between specially designed correlate beams is used. The correlated beams may be a sum beam and a differential beam. The sum beam may be a conventional beam (e.g., a wide beam). By constructing the differential beam based on the sum beam, the one-to-one mapping between the measurement output and the angle difference (the sum beam direction and the real direction) may be obtained. Then, the angular estimation of the real direction may be determined, so that a better narrow beam may be selected. Since the mapping relationship in a closed form may be obtained, the obtained estimation accuracy may be infinite in theory. In practice, the accuracy granularity may be in a reasonable quantization level. Through the evaluation of the theoretical beam codebook, the commercial beam codebook and the hardware test, it is proved that the estimated angle adjustment provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure is very accurate. Based on this scheme, the corresponding beam management procedure can be significantly simplified, the overhead can be greatly reduced, and the best beam can be quickly obtained.

[0588] The beam management scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure has at least the following beneficial effects:

[0589] The overhead, delay and power consumption are greatly reduced: compared with the existing schemes of sweeping all beams based on the reference signal, by using the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the number of transmissions required for beam management can be significantly reduced, resulting in lower overhead and lower delay. Since only the finite necessary measurement is needed, the power consumption can also be saved. Since the angular estimation is accurate enough, there is no performance degradation for a given beam codebook.

[0590] The performance is improved: the DBF-based scheme provided by the present disclosure can save the reference signal overhead, and the system can actually prepare a finer beam codebook (for example, increasing the density of the current beam codebook) and transmit the corresponding beam (reference signal) when necessary. Since narrow beam sweeping is avoided, the network can transmit a particular beam (reference signal) only when it is determined that the corresponding direction is beneficial to the user. By doing so, the angular granularity of the beam codebook can be refined, and the probability of finding a better beam for the user can be increased.

[0591] It is easy to implement: in the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, it may be unnecessary to change the antenna structure. For sum beams, it is the same as the existing beam codebook (e.g., the beam codebook corresponding to wide beams). For differential beams, it is only necessary to simply construct the sum beam codebook, for example, to invert the second half of the sum beam coefficient, without the special design of the beam codebook. In addition, the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure can be applied to the determination of the transmitting beam and the determination of the receiving beam.

[0592] When the method provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure is applied to a wireless communication system, by taking being applied to a receiver as an example, FIG. 21 illustrates a schematic diagram of an implementation of a communication method using a DBF mechanism. As shown in FIG. 21, the panel may be divided into a plurality of sub-panels, for example, four sub-panels in FIG. 21, and the sub-panels may support millimeter wave antenna arrays. By taking four sub-panels as an example, the receiving information of the sum beam and the differential beam may be constructed in the following way:

[0593]

[0594] where rsumrepresents the received signal of the sum beam and may be regard as the whole received signal used for data reception; rd, arepresents the received signal in the azimuth domain (horizontal dimension) of the differential beam; and rd, erepresents the received signal in the vertical dimension of the differential beam.

[0595] In the mode shown in FIG. 21, it may be only necessary to construct the antenna array based on sub-panels on the receiver side, to increase the receiving link for the sub-panels.

[0596] FIG. 22 illustrates a schematic diagram of another implementation of the communication method using the DBF mechanism according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 22, an SRS is applied in this mode. The base station may allocate a plurality of SRS occasions (e.g., a plurality of consecutive SRS occasions) to one UE. Optionally, the first SRS occasion is received via a sum beam, while other SRS occasions are received via a differential beam. An example of two SRS occasions is illustrated in FIG. 22. In addition, another SRS occasion may be further used for differential beam reception to facilitate the angular estimation in the horizontal dimension and the vertical dimension.

[0597] FIG. 23 illustrates a schematic diagram of another implementation of the communication method using the DBF mechanism. Optionally, this mode may be applied to a random access process, and the preamble format repeated for multiple times is applied. An example of using the preamble format repeated for four times is illustrated in FIG. 23. In this mode, the first preamble symbol may be received by the base station through a sum beam, and the subsequent preamble symbols may be received through differential beams in the horizontal dimension and the vertical dimension. On this basis, the angular estimation may be obtained by using the DBF mechanism. Optionally, the random access process may be performed in the initial access stage, meaning that narrow beam alignment can be obtained immediately after the UE accesses the network. For the connected UE, this DBF-enabled random access can also be used in the beam failure recovery stage.

[0598] In some practical application scenarios such as a multi-TRP scenario, the positions of the transmitting panel and the receiving panel may be separated. If the direction of the transmitting beam is determined by using receiving angular estimation, the performance will be reduced. In order to better utilize the advantages of DBF, FIG. 24 illustrates a schematic diagram of another implementation of the communication method using the DBF mechanism according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. In this mode, the base station may allocate a plurality of CSI-RSs adjacent in the time domain to one UE, wherein one CSI-RS is transmitted using a sum beam, while other CSI-RSs are transmitted using differential beams in the horizontal direction and the vertical direction. The scheme performed by a receiver (as shown in FIG. 19) provided in the above embodiments of the present disclosure can be applied to the UE side, and angular estimation can be performed by the UE. From the perspective of the UE, the UE may report a measurement report to the base station. Optionally, the measurement may include at least one of the measurement result, the measured ratio or the angular estimation result. The narrow beam used for downlink transmission may be determined based on the feedback from the UE. Unlike the existing CSI-RS based beam management mode, in the scheme provided in the embodiment of the present disclosure, the wide beam may be used as a sum beam, and the related differential beam may be generated based on the wide beam. Such DBF-based solution can provide similar performance with much less overhead. Meanwhile, since fewer candidate beams are needed, the delay caused by beam sweeping will also be reduced.

[0599] It can be known that the DBF scheme provided by the present disclosure has tremendous potential for improving the experience of millimeter wave communication systems and UEs, and thus is a novel realizable wireless communication technology.

[0600] An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a user equipment in a wireless communication system, wherein the user equipment includes a transceiver and a processor coupled to the transceiver, and the processor is configured to execute the method performed by a user equipment provided in any one of the optional embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0601] An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a network node in a wireless communication system, wherein the network node includes a transceiver and a processor coupled to the transceiver, and the processor is configured to execute the method performed by a network node provided in any one of the optional embodiments of the present disclosure. Optionally, the network node may be a base station or a TRP.

[0602] An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a computer-readable storage medium having computer programs stored thereon that, when performed by a processor, implement the method provided in any one of optional embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0603] An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a computer program product, including computer programs that, when performed by a processor, implement the method provided in any one of the optional embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0604] An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides an electronic device, including at least one transceiver and at least one processor coupled to the at least one transceiver. The at least one processor is configured to execute the method provided in any one of the optional embodiments of the present disclosure. This electronic device may be a UE or a network node.

[0605] FIG. 25 illustrates a structure of a base station according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

[0606] As shown in FIG. 25, the base station according to an embodiment may include a transceiver 2510, a memory 2520, and a processor 2530. The transceiver 2510, the memory 2520, and the processor 2530 of the base station may operate according to a communication method of the base station described above. However, the components of the base station are not limited thereto. For example, the base station may include more or fewer components than those described above. In addition, the processor 2530, the transceiver 2510, and the memory 2520 may be implemented as a single chip. Also, the processor 2530 may include at least one processor. Furthermore, the base station of FIG. 25 corresponds to the base station or the BS of the above description.

[0607] The transceiver 2510 collectively refers to a base station receiver and a base station transmitter, and may transmit / receive a signal to / from a terminal(UE) or a network entity. The signal transmitted or received to or from the terminal or a network entity may include control information and data. The transceiver 2510 may include a RF transmitter for up-converting and amplifying a frequency of a transmitted signal, and a RF receiver for amplifying low-noise and down-converting a frequency of a received signal. However, this is only an example of the transceiver 2510 and components of the transceiver 2510 are not limited to the RF transmitter and the RF receiver.

[0608] Also, the transceiver 2510 may receive and output, to the processor 2530, a signal through a wireless channel, and transmit a signal output from the processor 2530 through the wireless channel.

[0609] The memory 2520 may store a program and data required for operations of the base station. Also, the memory 2520 may store control information or data included in a signal obtained by the base station. The memory 2520 may be a storage medium, such as read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), a hard disk, a CD-ROM, and a DVD, or a combination of storage media.

[0610] The processor 2530 may control a series of processes such that the base station operates as described above. For example, the transceiver 2510 may receive a data signal including a control signal transmitted by the terminal, and the processor 2530 may determine a result of receiving the control signal and the data signal transmitted by the terminal.

[0611] FIG. 26 illustrates a structure of a UE according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

[0612] As shown in FIG. 26, the UE according to an embodiment may include a transceiver 2610, a memory 2620, and a processor 2630. The transceiver 2610, the memory 2620, and the processor 2630 of the UE may operate according to a communication method of the UE described above. However, the components of the UE are not limited thereto. For example, the UE may include more or fewer components than those described above. In addition, the processor 2630, the transceiver 2610, and the memory 2620 may be implemented as a single chip. Also, the processor 2630 may include at least one processor. Furthermore, the UE of FIG. 26 corresponds to the UE of the above description.

[0613] The transceiver 2610 collectively refers to a UE receiver and a UE transmitter, and may transmit / receive a signal to / from a base station or a network entity. The signal transmitted or received to or from the base station or a network entity may include control information and data. The transceiver 2610 may include a RF transmitter for up-converting and amplifying a frequency of a transmitted signal, and a RF receiver for amplifying low-noise and down-converting a frequency of a received signal. However, this is only an example of the transceiver 2610 and components of the transceiver 2610 are not limited to the RF transmitter and the RF receiver.

[0614] Also, the transceiver 2610 may receive and output, to the processor 2630, a signal through a wireless channel, and transmit a signal output from the processor 2630 through the wireless channel.

[0615] The memory 2620 may store a program and data required for operations of the UE. Also, the memory 2620 may store control information or data included in a signal obtained by the UE. The memory 2620 may be a storage medium, such as read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), a hard disk, a CD-ROM, and a DVD, or a combination of storage media.

[0616] The processor 2630 may control a series of processes such that the UE operates as described above. For example, the transceiver 2610 may receive a data signal including a control signal transmitted by the base station or the network entity, and the processor 2630 may determine a result of receiving the control signal and the data signal transmitted by the base station or the network entity.

[0617] The embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented through at least one software program running on at least one hardware device and performing network management functions to control the network elements. The network elements shown in FIG. 1 include blocks which can be at least one of a hardware device, or a combination of hardware device and software module.

[0618] The embodiment disclosed herein describes methods 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and systems 100 for providing an enhanced polling mechanism for XR in wireless communication networks. Therefore, it is understood that the scope of the protection is extended to such a program and in addition to a computer readable means having a message therein, such computer readable storage means contain program code means for implementation of one or more steps of the method, when the program runs on a server or mobile device or any suitable programmable device. The method is implemented in at least one embodiment through or together with a software program written in e.g., Very high speed integrated circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) another programming language, or implemented by one or more VHDL or several software modules being executed on at least one hardware device. The hardware device can be any kind of portable device that can be programmed. The device may also include means which could be e.g., hardware means like e.g., an ASIC, or a combination of hardware and software means, e.g., an ASIC and an FPGA, or at least one microprocessor and at least one memory with software modules located therein. The method embodiments described herein could be implemented partly in hardware and partly in software. Alternatively, the invention may be implemented on different hardware devices, e.g., using a plurality of CPUs.

[0619] Those skilled in the art will understand that the various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits, and steps described in this application may be implemented as hardware, software, or a combination of both. 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 functional sets. Whether such function sets are implemented as hardware or software depends on the specific application and the design constraints imposed on the overall system. Technicians may implement the described functional sets in different ways for each specific application, but such design decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of this application.

[0620] In the above-described embodiments of the disclosure, all operations and messages may be selectively performed or may be omitted. In addition, the operations in each embodiment do not need to be performed sequentially, and the order of operations may vary. Messages do not need to be transmitted in order, and the transmission order of messages may change. Each operation and transfer of each message can be performed independently.

[0621] Although the figures illustrate different examples of user equipment, various changes may be made to the figures. For example, the user equipment can include any number of each component in any suitable arrangement. In general, the figures do not limit the scope of this disclosure to any particular configuration(s). Moreover, while figures illustrate operational environments in which various user equipment features disclosed in this patent document can be used, these features can be used in any other suitable system.

[0622] The various illustrative logic blocks, modules, and circuits described in this application may be implemented or performed by 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 gates or transistor logics, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. The general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in an alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. The 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.

[0623] The steps of the method or algorithm described in this application may be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination thereof. The software module may reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, register, hard disk, removable disk, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. A storage medium is coupled to a processor to enable the processor to read and write information from / to the storage media. In an alternative, the storage medium may be integrated into the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC. The ASIC may reside in a user terminal. In an alternative, the processor and the storage medium may reside in the user terminal as discrete components.

[0624] In one or more designs, the functions may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, each function may be stored as one or more pieces of instructions or codes on a computer-readable medium or delivered through it. The computer-readable medium includes both a computer storage medium and a communication medium, the latter including any medium 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.

[0625] While the disclosure has been shown and described with reference to various embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

1.A method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:receiving, from a base station, first configuration information and second configuration information, the first configuration information comprising information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair comprising a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, and the second configuration information comprising information related to a channel state information (CSI) report;receiving, from the base station, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam; andtransmitting, to the base station, a CSI report based on the second configuration information, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.2.The method of claim 1, wherein the second configuration information comprises information related to at least one of the following:a reporting parameter related to the first beam;a reporting parameter related to the second beam;a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam;information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in a first beam set associated with the first beam;a mapping relationship, the mapping relationship includes a mapping relationship between a first value and a reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value is related to a received signal of a first reference signal and a received signal of a second reference signal;a determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam are based; andquantization accuracy for reporting parameters.3.The method of claim 2, wherein the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam comprises information related to at least one of the following:a first parameter, the first parameter being related to a received signal value of the first reference signal and a received signal value of the second reference signal;a second parameter, the second parameter being related to a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal;a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; andan angle index related to a signal transmission direction expected by the UE.4.The method of claim 3, wherein the second parameter comprises at least one of the following:a first ratio, the first ratio being based on a second value and a third value, wherein the second value is a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal, and the third value is a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to a position of the peak; anda second ratio, the second ratio being based on a fourth value and a fifth value, wherein the fourth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal, and the fifth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal.5.A method performed by a base station in a wireless communication system, comprising:transmitting, to a user equipment (UE), first configuration information and second configuration information to the UE, the first configuration information comprising information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair comprising a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, and the second configuration information comprising information related to a channel state information (CSI) report;transmitting, to the UE, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam; andreceiving, from the UE, a CSI report transmitted based on the second configuration information by the user equipment, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.6.The method of claim 5, wherein the second configuration information comprises information related to at least one of the following:a reporting parameter related to the first beam;a reporting parameter related to the second beam;a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam;information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in a first beam set associated with the first beam;a mapping relationship, the mapping relationship includes a mapping relationship between a first value and a reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value is related to a received signal of a first reference signal and a received signal of a second reference signal;a determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam are based; andquantization accuracy for reporting parameters.7.The method of claim 6, wherein the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam comprises information related to at least one of the following:a first parameter, the first parameter being related to a received signal value of the first reference signal and a received signal value of the second reference signal;a second parameter, the second parameter being related to a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal;a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; andan angle index related to a signal transmission direction expected by the UE.8.The method of claim 7, wherein the second parameter comprises at least one of the following:a first ratio, the first ratio being based on a second value and a third value, wherein the second value is a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal, and the third value is a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to a position of the peak; anda second ratio, the second ratio being based on a fourth value and a fifth value, wherein the fourth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal, and the fifth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal.9.A user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the UE comprising:a transceiver; anda controller coupled with the transceiver and configured to:receive, from a base station, first configuration information and second configuration information, the first configuration information comprising information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair comprising a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, and the second configuration information comprising information related to a channel state information (CSI) report,receive, from the base station, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam, andtransmit, to the base station, a CSI report based on the second configuration information, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.10.The UE of claim 9, wherein the second configuration information comprises information related to at least one of the following:a reporting parameter related to the first beam;a reporting parameter related to the second beam;a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam;information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in a first beam set associated with the first beam;a mapping relationship, the mapping relationship includes a mapping relationship between a first value and a reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value is related to a received signal of a first reference signal and a received signal of a second reference signal;a determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam are based; andquantization accuracy for reporting parameters.11.The UE of claim 10, wherein the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam comprises information related to at least one of the following:a first parameter, the first parameter being related to a received signal value of the first reference signal and a received signal value of the second reference signal;a second parameter, the second parameter being related to a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal;a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; andan angle index related to a signal transmission direction expected by the UE.12.The UE of claim 11, wherein the second parameter comprises at least one of the following:a first ratio, the first ratio being based on a second value and a third value, wherein the second value is a peak of time-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal, and the third value is a value of time-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal corresponding to a position of the peak; anda second ratio, the second ratio being based on a fourth value and a fifth value, wherein the fourth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the second reference signal, and the fifth value is a cumulative value of frequency-domain channel estimation values based on the first reference signal.13.A base station in a wireless communication system, the base station comprising:a transceiver; anda controller coupled with the transceiver and configured to:transmit, to a user equipment (UE), first configuration information and second configuration information to the UE, the first configuration information comprising information related to a reference signal resource set, reference signal resources in the reference signal resource set being associated with a beam pair, the beam pair comprising a first beam and a second beam associated with the first beam, and the second configuration information comprising information related to a channel state information (CSI) report,transmit, to the UE, based on the first configuration information, a first reference signal associated with the first beam and a second reference signal associated with the second beam, andreceive, from the UE, a CSI report transmitted based on the second configuration information by the user equipment, the CSI report being related to the beam pair.14.The base station of claim 13, wherein the second configuration information comprises information related to at least one of the following:a reporting parameter related to the first beam;a reporting parameter related to the second beam;a reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam;information related to at least one fifth beam, the at least one fifth beam being at least one beam in a first beam set associated with the first beam;a mapping relationship, the mapping relationship includes a mapping relationship between a first value and a reported value of the reporting parameter, the first value is related to a received signal of a first reference signal and a received signal of a second reference signal;a determination mode on which the reported values of the reporting parameters related to the first beam and the second beam are based; andquantization accuracy for reporting parameters.15.The base station of claim 14, wherein the reporting parameter related to the first beam and the second beam comprises information related to at least one of the following:a first parameter, the first parameter being related to a received signal value of the first reference signal and a received signal value of the second reference signal;a second parameter, the second parameter being related to a channel estimation value based on the first reference signal and a channel estimation value based on the second reference signal;a beam pointing direction deviation for the first beam; andan angle index related to a signal transmission direction expected by the UE.

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