Communication method and apparatus

Abstract

A communication method and apparatus, relating to the field of communications and capable of solving the problem caused by aggregating carriers from different operators by means of carrier aggregation. The communication method comprises: receiving first configuration information from a network device; and communicating with the network device on the basis of the first configuration information. The first configuration information is used for indicating a virtual carrier comprising a plurality of sub-blocks; the virtual carrier corresponds to a segment of consecutive frequency domain resources; the first configuration information comprises frequency domain physical resource position information of each sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier; and said frequency domain physical resource position information indicates a frequency domain physical resource position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block.

Description

Communication method and apparatus

[0001] The present application claims priority to the Chinese patent application No. 202410454460.5, filed on April 15, 2024, entitled “Communication method and apparatus”, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] The present application relates to the field of communication, in particular to a communication method and apparatus. BACKGROUND

[0003] In order to reduce network deployment costs, different operators will jointly build networks through network sharing during network construction. In the scenario of main device sharing, i.e., radio access network (RAN) sharing, different operator networks share the same RAN device, and according to whether the spectrum resources are shared, it can be further divided into split carrier sharing and co-carrier sharing. For the co-carrier sharing scenario, in order to improve the maximum rate of a single user, the carrier aggregation (CA) mode can be used for communication.

[0004] Among them, the split carrier sharing is that different operators are allocated with different carrier spectrum resources, and the terminal device of different operators uses the carrier of the corresponding operator, the spectrum utilization is low, and in the network low load scenario, the carrier corresponding to different operators needs to be kept in the active state, which makes the RAN device need to keep a wider radio frequency bandwidth, thereby consuming more network energy. The co-carrier sharing is that different operators share the carrier spectrum resources, and the terminal device of a certain operator can use multiple operator corresponding spectrum resources through the CA mode, that is, the terminal device must support CA capability, and the network needs to provide the configuration information of each carrier, the signaling overhead is large, in addition, in the intra-band scenario, there is a guard band in each carrier, and no data can be transmitted in the guard band, which will cause resource waste. Therefore, how to solve the carrier configuration problem in the above co-carrier sharing scenario is urgent to be solved. SUMMARY

[0005] The present application provides a communication method and apparatus, which can solve the carrier configuration problem in the above co-carrier sharing scenario.

[0006] To achieve the above purpose, the present application adopts the following technical scheme:

[0007] In a first aspect, a communication method is provided. The method can be applied to a terminal side, such as a terminal device, or a component or module of the terminal device, or a circuit or processor or chip (such as a Modem chip, also known as a baseband chip, or a system on chip (SoC) chip or system in package (SIP) chip containing a modem core) responsible for communication functions in the terminal device, and can also be implemented by a logical module or software capable of implementing all or part of the terminal device. The present application does not limit this, and the following will be described by taking the method applied to the terminal device as an example. The method comprises: receiving first configuration information from a network device. The first configuration information is used to indicate a virtual carrier containing a plurality of sub-blocks, the virtual carrier corresponds to a continuous frequency domain resource, and the first configuration information comprises frequency domain physical resource location information of each sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier. The frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier indicates a frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block. The terminal device communicates with the network device according to the first configuration information.

[0008] Based on the communication method, the terminal device receives the first configuration information sent by the network device and used to indicate a virtual carrier containing a plurality of sub-blocks. One sub-block corresponds to one physical carrier. According to the information indicating the frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block in the first configuration information, the virtual carrier can be mapped to a plurality of physical carriers. Compared with CA, the terminal device can be mapped to a plurality of physical carriers for data transmission by configuring one virtual carrier, which can not only avoid frequent activation or deactivation of the carriers, but also save signaling overhead.

[0009] In a possible design, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be continuous carriers, that is, the plurality of physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks are continuous in the frequency domain, which can be regarded as one large-bandwidth physical carrier. Therefore, the guard band of adjacent physical carriers can be used for data transmission, which can improve the utilization rate of spectrum resources. In the embodiments of the present application, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can also be non-continuous carriers, or part of the physical carriers are non-continuous. That is, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be intra-band or inter-band, which is not limited.

[0010] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource position information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier can include a bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start position of the sub-block in the physical carrier. The bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier can be a bandwidth for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block, and can also be referred to as a frequency domain physical resource size of the sub-block in the physical carrier or a frequency domain physical resource size for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block. The frequency domain physical resource start position of the sub-block in the physical carrier can be a start position of a frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block, or a frequency domain physical start position of the bandwidth for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block. In this way, the terminal device can determine the physical frequency domain position of the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block.

[0011] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block can include a guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block. In this way, the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block can be used for data transmission, thereby improving resource utilization.

[0012] In a possible design, the method in the first aspect can further include: receiving first indication information from the network device, the first indication information being used to indicate that the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission. It should be understood that the first indication information can be used to indicate whether the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission. In this way, the terminal device can determine whether the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission.

[0013] In a possible design, the first indication information can include a frequency domain physical resource end position of a first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start position of a second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the frequency domain physical resource end position of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier is the same as the frequency domain physical resource start position of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier. In this way, whether the guard band is used for data transmission can be indicated by the frequency domain start position of one of the two adjacent sub-blocks in the corresponding physical carrier and the frequency domain end position of the other in the corresponding physical carrier.

[0014] In a possible design, the first indication information is specifically used to indicate that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in a physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier. In this way, whether the guard band is used for data transmission can also be indicated by indicating whether the resource of the guard band adjacent to the two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks is available.

[0015] In a possible design, the virtual carrier can include first type resource blocks (RBs), and the first type RBs are mapped to two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks. In embodiments of this application, the resources respectively mapped by the two adjacent sub-blocks in the first type RBs can be used to indicate the resource of the guard band used for data transmission.

[0016] In a possible design, the method in the first aspect can further include: receiving second indication information from the network device, where the second indication information is used to indicate the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by the first type RBs in one of the sub-blocks. In this way, the size of the frequency domain resource in the first type RBs included in each sub-block can be determined according to the second indication information.

[0017] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further be used to indicate a bandwidth part (BWP) in the virtual carrier for communication of the terminal device, and the BWP includes frequency domain resources corresponding to a plurality of sub-blocks in the virtual carrier. In this way, the BWP can be configured across the sub-blocks (equivalently, across the physical carriers) in the virtual carrier, so that the network can flexibly switch the BWP or adjust the width of the BWP according to the load condition.

[0018] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further include frequency domain location information of the BWP in the virtual carrier, and the frequency domain location information includes a frequency domain starting position of the BWP in the virtual carrier and a bandwidth of the BWP. In this way, the frequency domain location of the BWP in the virtual carrier can be determined.

[0019] In a possible design, at least two transport blocks (TBs) in the BWP can be supported to be transmitted in a frequency division manner, and one TB is mapped to one sub-block occupied by the BWP. In this way, by supporting the mapping of the TBs in the BWP based on frequency division, the radio frequency capability of the terminal device can be taken into account, facilitating implementation of the terminal device.

[0020] In a possible design, the BWP can support hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission based on sub-blocks. In this way, the HARQ retransmission and the HARQ feedback across the sub-blocks can be supported in the BWP with the granularity of the sub-blocks, improving transmission efficiency.

[0021] In a possible design, the first configuration information can be carried in a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) message.

[0022] In a possible design, the method in the first aspect can further include: receiving, from the network device, a virtual cell identifier corresponding to the virtual carrier, the virtual cell identifier being used by the terminal device for scrambling processing of transmitted data and / or reference signal generation.

[0023] In a possible design, the virtual cell identifier can be carried in a synchronization signal or an RRC message.

[0024] In a second aspect, a communication method is provided. The method can be applied to a network side, for example, a network device, or a component (for example, a processor, a circuit, a chip, or a chip system of the network device) in the network device, and can also be implemented by a logic module or software capable of implementing all or part of the network device. The method includes: sending first configuration information. The first configuration information is used to indicate a virtual carrier including a plurality of sub-blocks, the virtual carrier corresponds to a continuous frequency domain resource, and the first configuration information includes frequency domain physical resource location information of each sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier. The frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier indicates a frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block. The method further includes: communicating with a terminal device on the virtual carrier.

[0025] In a possible design, the plurality of sub-blocks correspond to continuous carriers respectively.

[0026] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier can include a bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start location of the sub-block in the physical carrier.

[0027] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block can include a guard band in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block.

[0028] In a possible design, the method in the first aspect can further include: sending, to the terminal device, first indication information, the first indication information being used to indicate that a guard band in a physical carrier corresponding to a sub-block is used for data transmission.

[0029] In a possible design, the first indication information can include an end location of a frequency domain physical resource of a first sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier and a start location of a frequency domain physical resource of a second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the end location of the frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier is the same as the start location of the frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0030] In a possible design, the first indication information is specifically used for indicating that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in a physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0031] In a possible design, the virtual carrier can include first type resource blocks (RBs), and the first type RBs are mapped to two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks.

[0032] In a possible design, the method in the second aspect can further include: receiving second indication information from the network device, where the second indication information is used for indicating a frequency domain resource size occupied by the first type RBs in one of the sub-blocks.

[0033] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further be used for indicating a bandwidth part (BWP) in the virtual carrier for communication of the terminal device, and the BWP includes frequency domain resources corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0034] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further include frequency domain location information of the BWP in the virtual carrier, and the frequency domain location information includes a frequency domain start location of the BWP in the virtual carrier and a bandwidth of the BWP.

[0035] In a possible design, at least two transport blocks (TBs) in the BWP can be supported to be transmitted in a frequency division manner, and one TB is mapped to one sub-block occupied by the BWP.

[0036] In a possible design, sub-block-based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission can be supported in the BWP.

[0037] In a possible design, the first configuration information can be carried in a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) message and sent.

[0038] In a possible design, the method in the second aspect can further include: sending, to the terminal device, a virtual cell identifier corresponding to the virtual carrier, where the virtual cell identifier is used for the terminal device to perform scrambling processing on transmitted data and / or to generate a reference signal.

[0039] In a possible design, the virtual cell identifier can be carried in a synchronization signal or an RRC message and sent.

[0040] The technical effects of the method in the second aspect can refer to the related descriptions of the technical effects of the method in the first aspect, and details are not repeated here.

[0041] In a third aspect, a communication apparatus is provided for implementing the methods described above. The communication apparatus can be a terminal device in the first aspect, or a device including the terminal device, or a chip included in the terminal device. The communication apparatus includes corresponding modules, units, or means for implementing the methods of the first aspect, which can be implemented by hardware, software, or by executing corresponding software by hardware. The hardware or software includes one or more modules or units corresponding to the functions described above.

[0042] In some possible designs, the communication apparatus includes a processing module and a communication module. The communication module is configured to receive first configuration information from a network device. The first configuration information is used to indicate a virtual carrier including a plurality of sub-blocks, the virtual carrier corresponds to a continuous frequency domain resource, and the first configuration information includes frequency domain physical resource location information of each sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier, where the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier indicates a frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block. The processing module is configured to communicate with the network device according to the first configuration information.

[0043] In a possible design, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be contiguous carriers.

[0044] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier can include a bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start location of the sub-block in the physical carrier.

[0045] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block can include a guard band in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block.

[0046] In a possible design, the communication module is further configured to receive first indication information from the network device, where the first indication information is used to indicate that a guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission.

[0047] In a possible design, the first indication information can include a frequency domain physical resource end location of a first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start location of a second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the frequency domain physical resource end location of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier is the same as the frequency domain physical resource start location of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0048] In a possible design, the first indication information is specifically used for indicating that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in a physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0049] In a possible design, the virtual carrier can include first type resource blocks (RBs), and the first type RBs are mapped to two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks.

[0050] In a possible design, the method in the first aspect can further include: receiving second indication information from the network device, where the second indication information is used for indicating a frequency domain resource size occupied by the first type RBs in one of the sub-blocks.

[0051] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further be used for indicating a bandwidth part (BWP) in the virtual carrier for communication of the terminal device, and the BWP includes frequency domain resources corresponding to a plurality of sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0052] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further include frequency domain location information of the BWP in the virtual carrier, and the frequency domain location information includes a frequency domain starting position of the BWP in the virtual carrier and a bandwidth of the BWP.

[0053] In a possible design, at least two transport blocks (TBs) in the BWP can be supported to be transmitted in a frequency division manner, and one TB is mapped to one sub-block occupied by the BWP.

[0054] In a possible design, hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission based on a sub-block can be supported in the BWP.

[0055] In a possible design, the first configuration information can be carried in a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) message and transmitted.

[0056] In a possible design, the communication module is configured to receive a virtual cell identifier corresponding to the virtual carrier from the network device, and the virtual cell identifier is used for scrambling processing of transmitted data and / or reference signal generation by the terminal device.

[0057] In a possible design, the virtual cell identifier can be carried in a synchronization signal or an RRC message and transmitted.

[0058] In a possible design, the communication module can include a receiving module and a sending module. The sending module is configured to implement the sending function of the communication apparatus in the third aspect, and the receiving module is configured to implement the receiving function of the communication apparatus in the third aspect.

[0059] In a possible design, the communication apparatus in the third aspect can further include a storage module, which stores programs or instructions. When the processing module executes the programs or instructions, the communication apparatus in the third aspect can execute the method in the first aspect.

[0060] In a fourth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided for implementing the methods described above. The communication apparatus can be a network device in the second aspect, or a device including the network device, or a device included in the network device, such as a chip. The communication apparatus includes corresponding modules, units, or means for implementing the methods in the second aspect, which can be implemented by hardware, software, or by hardware executing corresponding software. The hardware or software includes one or more modules or units corresponding to the functions described above.

[0061] In some possible designs, the communication apparatus includes a processing module and a communication module. The processing module is configured to generate first configuration information. The first configuration information is used to indicate a virtual carrier including a plurality of sub-blocks, the virtual carrier corresponds to a continuous frequency domain resource, and the first configuration information includes frequency domain physical resource location information of each sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier. The frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier indicates a frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-block. The communication module is configured to send the first configuration information, and communicate with a terminal device on the virtual carrier.

[0062] In a possible design, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be continuous carriers.

[0063] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier can include a bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start location of the sub-block in the physical carrier.

[0064] In a possible design, the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block can include a guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block.

[0065] In a possible design, the communication module is further configured to send, to the terminal device, first indication information, where the first indication information is used to indicate that the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission.

[0066] In a possible design, the first indication information can include an ending position of a frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier and a starting position of a frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the ending position of the frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier is the same as the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0067] In a possible design, the first indication information is specifically used to indicate that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in a physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, and the first sub-block and the second sub-block are two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0068] In a possible design, the virtual carrier can include first type resource blocks (RBs), and the first type RBs are mapped to two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks.

[0069] In a possible design, the method in the first aspect can further include: receiving second indication information from the network device, the second indication information being used to indicate a size of a frequency domain resource occupied by the first type RBs in one of the sub-blocks.

[0070] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further be used to indicate a bandwidth part (BWP) in the virtual carrier for communication of the terminal device, and the BWP includes frequency domain resources corresponding to a plurality of sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0071] In a possible design, the first configuration information can further include frequency domain location information of the BWP in the virtual carrier, and the frequency domain location information includes a frequency domain starting position of the BWP in the virtual carrier and a bandwidth of the BWP.

[0072] In a possible design, at least two transport blocks (TBs) in the BWP can be supported to be transmitted in a frequency division manner, and one TB is mapped to one sub-block occupied by the BWP.

[0073] In a possible design, the BWP can support hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission based on a sub-block.

[0074] In a possible design, the first configuration information can be carried in a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) message and sent.

[0075] In a possible design, the communication module is further configured to send, to the terminal device, a virtual cell identifier corresponding to the virtual carrier, and the virtual cell identifier is used for the terminal device to perform scrambling processing on transmitted data and / or to generate a reference signal.

[0076] In a possible design, the virtual cell identifier can be carried in a synchronization signal or an RRC message.

[0077] In a possible design, the communication module can include a receiving module and a sending module. The sending module is configured to implement the sending function of the communication apparatus in the fourth aspect, and the receiving module is configured to implement the receiving function of the communication apparatus in the fourth aspect.

[0078] In a possible design, the communication apparatus in the fourth aspect can further include a storage module, which stores programs or instructions. When the processing module executes the programs or instructions, the communication apparatus in the fourth aspect can execute the method in the second aspect.

[0079] In the fifth aspect, a communication apparatus (for example, the communication apparatus can be a chip or a chip system) is provided. The communication apparatus includes a processor configured to implement the functions involved in the first aspect.

[0080] In a possible design, the communication apparatus can further include a memory configured to store necessary programs, instructions and data. The processor is coupled to the memory, and is configured to execute the computer programs or instructions stored in the memory, so that the communication apparatus executes the method in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0081] In a possible design, the communication apparatus in the fifth aspect can further include a transceiver. The transceiver can be a transceiver circuit or an interface circuit. The transceiver can be configured to enable the communication apparatus in the fifth aspect to communicate with other communication apparatuses.

[0082] In a possible design, the processor can be integrated with the memory.

[0083] In some possible designs, when the apparatus is a chip system, the apparatus can be composed of a chip, or can include a chip and other discrete devices.

[0084] In the sixth aspect, a communication apparatus is provided. The communication apparatus includes a processor and an interface circuit. The interface circuit is configured to receive a signal from another communication apparatus outside the communication apparatus and transmit the signal to the processor, or transmit a signal from the processor to another communication apparatus outside the communication apparatus. The processor is configured to implement the method in the first aspect or the second aspect by means of a logic circuit or by executing code instructions.

[0085] In a seventh aspect, a communication apparatus is provided. The communication apparatus can be a terminal device, or a module or unit (e.g., a chip, or a chip system, or a circuit) in a terminal device, or a terminal device matching device. Alternatively, the communication apparatus can be a network device, or a module or unit (e.g., a chip, or a chip system, or a circuit) in a network device, or a network device matching device.

[0086] It can be understood that, when the communication apparatus in any one of the fifth aspect to the seventh aspect is a chip, the sending action / function described above can be understood as output, and the receiving action / function described above can be understood as input.

[0087] In an eighth aspect, a communication chip is provided. The communication chip has instructions stored therein, which, when the chip is running on a communication device, cause the method described in the first aspect or the second aspect to be implemented.

[0088] In a ninth aspect, a computer readable storage medium is provided. The computer readable storage medium has a computer program or instructions stored therein, which, when running on a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0089] In a tenth aspect, a computer program product is provided. The computer program product has instructions stored therein, which, when running on a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method described in the first aspect or the second aspect.

[0090] In an eleventh aspect, a communication system is provided. The communication system includes a terminal device for implementing the method described in the first aspect, and a network device for implementing the method described in the second aspect. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0091] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network sharing architecture;

[0092] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a load frequency sharing and a co-load frequency sharing in a master device sharing scenario;

[0093] FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a resource structure of a co-load frequency sharing;

[0094] FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an architecture of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0095] FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture suitable for a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0096] FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of another network architecture applicable to a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0097] FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of yet another network architecture applicable to a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0098] FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of still another network architecture applicable to a communication system according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0099] FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0100] FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of a resource structure of a virtual carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0101] FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram of another resource structure of a virtual carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0102] FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram of a structure of a contiguous carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0103] FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram of a structure of a non-contiguous carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0104] FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram of a structure of a partially non-contiguous carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0105] FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram of a BWP configuration in a virtual carrier according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0106] FIG. 16 is a schematic diagram of TB transmission in a BWP according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0107] FIG. 17 is a schematic diagram of a communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application;

[0108] FIG. 18 is a schematic diagram of another communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0109] In order to better understand the embodiments of the present application, the following points are explained before the embodiments of the present application are introduced.

[0110] First, in the embodiments of the present application, “for indicating” can include for directly indicating and for indirectly indicating. When it is described that certain “indication information” is for indicating A, it can include that the indication information directly indicates A or indirectly indicates A, and does not mean that A must be carried in the indication information.

[0111] The information indicated by the indication information is referred to as to-be-indicated information. In a specific implementation process, there are many ways to indicate the to-be-indicated information, for example, but not limited to, the to-be-indicated information can be directly indicated, such as the to-be-indicated information itself or an index of the to-be-indicated information. The to-be-indicated information can also be indirectly indicated by indicating other information, where the other information and the to-be-indicated information have an association relationship. The to-be-indicated information can also be only indicated in part, and the other part of the to-be-indicated information is known or agreed in advance. For example, the indication of specific information can also be achieved by means of the arrangement order of each information agreed in advance (for example, specified by a protocol), thereby reducing the indication overhead to a certain extent. At the same time, the common part of each information can be identified and uniformly indicated, so as to reduce the indication overhead caused by separately indicating the same information.

[0112] In addition, the specific indication manner can also be various existing indication manners, for example, but not limited to, the above indication manners and various combinations thereof. The specific details of various indication manners can be referred to the prior art, which will not be described herein. As can be known from the above, for example, when multiple information of the same type needs to be indicated, the indication manners of different information can be different. In a specific implementation process, the required indication manner can be selected according to specific needs, and the selected indication manner is not limited by the embodiments of the present application. In this way, the indication manner involved in the embodiments of the present application should be understood as covering various methods that can enable the to-be-indicated party to know the to-be-indicated information.

[0113] The to-be-indicated information can be sent as a whole, or can be divided into multiple sub-information and sent separately, and the sending period and / or sending time of the sub-information can be the same or different. The specific sending method is not limited by the present application. The sending period and / or sending time of the sub-information can be predefined, for example, predefined according to a protocol, or configured by the transmitting end device by sending configuration information to the receiving end device.

[0114] Secondly, in the embodiments of the present application, the first, second and various numerical numbers are only for differentiation for convenience of description, and do not limit the scope of the embodiments of the present application. For example, different indication information is differentiated. For another example, the first network area and the second network area are only used to differentiate different areas, and the sequence thereof is not limited. Those skilled in the art can understand that the words "first", "second" and the like do not limit the number and execution sequence, and the words "first", "second" and the like do not necessarily mean different.

[0115] Third, in the embodiments of the present application, "when", "in the case of", "if" and the like all refer to the device (such as a terminal device or a network device) making corresponding processing under certain objective circumstances, and are not limited to time, nor do they require the device (such as a terminal device or a network device) to have a judgment action when implemented, nor do they mean that there are other limitations.

[0116] Fourth, in the embodiments of the present application, "exemplary" or "for example" and the like are used to indicate an example, illustration or description. Any embodiment or design scheme described as "exemplary" or "for example" in the embodiments of the present application should not be interpreted as being more preferred or more advantageous than other embodiments or design schemes. Rather, the use of "exemplary" or "for example" and the like is intended to present the relevant concept in a specific manner for ease of understanding.

[0117] Fifth, in the embodiments of the present application, "at least one" means one or more, and "multiple" means two or more. "And / or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, which means that there can be three relationships, for example, A and / or B, which can represent the following three cases: A exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone, where A and B can be singular or plural. The character " / " generally represents an "or" relationship between the associated objects before and after it. "At least one of the following" or the like means any combination of multiple items, including any combination of single item or multiple items. For example, at least one of a, b, or c can represent a, b, c, a-b, a-c, b-c, or a-b-c, where a, b, and c can be single or multiple.

[0118] Finally, the network architecture and service scenarios described in the embodiments of the present application are used to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, and do not constitute a limitation on the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present application. Those skilled in the art can know that, as network architectures evolve and new service scenarios appear, the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present application are also applicable to similar technical problems.

[0119] The following introduces a communication system and applicable network elements, related technologies and terms related to the embodiments of the present application.

[0120] The embodiments of the present application will present various aspects, embodiments or features around a system that can include multiple devices, components, modules, etc. It should be understood and appreciated that each system can include additional devices, components, modules, etc., and / or can not include all the devices, components, modules, etc. discussed in conjunction with the drawings. In addition, combinations of these solutions can also be used.

[0121] The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, for example, a 4th generation (4G) mobile communication system such as a long term evolution (LTE) system, a 5th generation (5G) mobile communication system such as a new radio (NR) system, a 5G-advanced (5.5G) mobile communication system, and a future communication system such as a 6th generation (6G) mobile communication system, and the like. The applicable scenarios of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application include, but are not limited to, ground cellular communication, non-terrestrial network (NTN) communication such as satellite communication, high altitude platform station (HAPS) communication, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, integrated access and backhaul (IAB), and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) communication, and the like.

[0122] 1. Carrier

[0123] A carrier is a radio signal with a specific frequency, bandwidth, and standard emitted by a radio frequency device of a network device or a terminal device, that is, an electromagnetic wave, which is the main body for carrying information in wireless mobile communication. The carrier used for transmission by the network device is called a downlink carrier, and the carrier used for transmission by the terminal device is called an uplink carrier.

[0124] 2. CA

[0125] CA refers to a technology for improving data rate and capacity by combining multiple independent carrier channels to improve bandwidth.

[0126] Each carrier in CA is also called a member carrier or a component carrier or a component carrier (CC). Among all component carriers, the component carrier that carries signaling transmission and manages other component carriers is called a primary carrier, also called a primary cell (PCell), and a secondary carrier is also called a secondary cell (SCell), which is used to expand bandwidth and improve rate, and the primary carrier determines when to increase or delete.

[0127] According to the frequency band where CA is located, CA can be divided into intra-band CA and inter-band CA, wherein intra-band CA is carrier aggregation of the same frequency band, which is divided into intra-band contiguous and intra-band non-contiguous, and inter-band CA, also known as inter-band non-contiguous CA, is carrier aggregation of different frequency bands, and the implementation complexity of the three modes of intra-band contiguous, intra-band non-contiguous and inter-band non-contiguous increases in turn.

[0128] Considering the implementation capabilities of terminal devices and network sides, in 5G, the maximum bandwidth that a terminal device can support is 100 megahertz (MHz) for below 6 gigahertz (GHz), and the maximum bandwidth that a terminal device can support is 400 MHz for above 6 GHz, that is, the maximum bandwidth of a carrier is 100 MHz or 400 MHz. In order to improve the maximum rate of a single user, CA can be used.

[0129] 3、Bandwidth Part (BWP)

[0130] NR introduces the concept of BWP. A BWP is a continuous frequency resource on a carrier. There can be one or more BWPs in a carrier, and the bandwidth of the BWP in a carrier is less than or equal to the bandwidth of the carrier. When a BWP is configured and activated, the BWP is referred to as an active BWP. In the current version of the protocol, a terminal can only have one active downlink BWP (active downlink BWP) on a downlink carrier and one active uplink BWP (active uplink BWP) on an uplink carrier. Generally, a terminal transmits uplink data and control information in the active uplink BWP and receives downlink data and control information in the active downlink BWP.

[0131] It should be understood that a BWP corresponds to a subcarrier spacing, and the size of the BWP is represented by the number of RBs corresponding to the subcarrier spacing.

[0132] 4、Network Sharing

[0133] In order to reduce network deployment costs, different operators will consider building together through network sharing during network construction. According to different shared devices, it can be divided into the following three scenarios:

[0134] A, Infrastructure Sharing: Different operators share towers, rooftops or equipment rooms, and share site resources, but the networks of different operators are independent of each other, for example, operator A and operator B site sharing, tower sharing.

[0135] B, master device sharing: also known as radio access network (RAN) sharing, the master device includes a base station, an active antenna unit (AAU), etc. can be shared, the RAN side network is shared by both parties, there is coupling, and operators need to negotiate in terms of deployment, operation and maintenance, etc. As shown in (a) of FIG. 1, operator A and operator B share the same RAN device.

[0136] C, network roaming: the networks of different operators are independent, and each operator independently operates its own network, but different operators share the network through a roaming agreement. As shown in (b) of FIG. 1, the networks of operator A and operator B are independent, and network sharing can be achieved through a roaming agreement.

[0137] It can be seen that, compared with the network roaming mode of independent operation of the network by the operator and the infrastructure sharing mode of sharing only the site, the master device sharing can achieve deeper sharing, which helps to further reduce the network construction cost, and therefore becomes the commonly selected co-construction and sharing mode by the operators at present.

[0138] For the above master device sharing scenario, whether different operators share spectrum resources can be divided into co-loading frequency sharing and separate loading frequency sharing. Taking operator A and operator B as an example, the RAN device is shared, and the core networks of different operators are independent of each other. As shown in FIG. 2, (a) of FIG. 2 is a separate loading frequency sharing scenario, the spectrum between operator A and operator B is not shared, and the cell is still distinguished according to the operator. Each operator independently operates its own network, so the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) protocol has not been defined.

[0139] (b) in FIG. 2 is a co-carrier frequency sharing scenario, in which operator A and operator B share spectrum resources, that is, users of operator A can use spectrum resources allocated to operator B, or users of operator B can use spectrum resources allocated to operator A, but since spectrum resources currently allocated to different operators correspond to different carriers, when users of operator A simultaneously use spectrum resources allocated to operator A and operator B or users of operator B simultaneously use spectrum resources allocated to operator A and operator B, it needs to be implemented through a carrier aggregation manner. For the co-carrier frequency sharing scenario, 3GPP defines it in a technical specification (TS) 23.501, and from the wireless side, the protocol is also enhanced accordingly, specifically including: each cell broadcasts multiple public land mobile network (PLMN) information through a system information block (SIB) 1; a terminal device selects a PLMN and reports it to a base station; and a shared base station routes the terminal device to a corresponding core network according to the PLMN selected by the terminal device.

[0140] As shown in FIG. 3, taking the co-construction and sharing of spectrum sharing of operator A (corresponding to carrier 1) and operator B (corresponding to carrier 2) on the C-Band as an example, the system messages of carrier 1 and carrier 2 will broadcast the PLMNs of operator A and operator B, and the two ends of carrier 1 and carrier 2 are provided with a guard band, and the bandwidth resources for data transmission are between the guard bands, and a terminal device can use the spectrum resources of carrier 1 or / and carrier 2, as described before, since this corresponds to two carriers, the terminal device needs to use the spectrum resources of carrier 1 and carrier 2 simultaneously through a CA manner.

[0141] However, the sharing manner through the master device helps to reduce the network construction cost, but still has certain limitations and is not flexible enough. For the above split carrier sharing, on the one hand, the spectrum is not shared among different operators, which cannot maximize the spectrum utilization; on the other hand, when the network is in a low load scenario, the carriers of different operators all need to be kept in an active state, from the perspective of the base station side, a wider radio frequency bandwidth needs to be kept (for example, in FIG. 3, the base station needs to keep a radio frequency bandwidth of 200 MHz while supporting carrier 1 and carrier 2), which will consume more network energy. For the above co-carrier sharing, compared with the split carrier sharing, although the carrier sharing manner helps to improve the spectrum utilization, when the resources of two carriers are used at the same time, the carrier aggregation manner needs to be used, however, the carrier aggregation manner still has the following problems: large signaling overhead, the network side needs to provide configuration information on each carrier; after the network side configures the secondary carrier, the secondary carrier needs to be activated / deactivated through the media access control (MAC) control element (CE), the activation / deactivation delay is long; even in the intra-band scenario, there is a guard band for each carrier, and the guard band cannot be used for data transmission, which causes the resources to be not fully utilized; the terminal device must support the CA capability.

[0142] To solve the above problems, an embodiment of the present application provides a communication method, in a master device sharing scenario, so that the terminal device can communicate with the network device on the carriers of different operators or multiple carriers of the same operator, which can reduce the signaling overhead and improve the resource utilization.

[0143] Please refer to FIG. 4, which is a schematic diagram of an architecture of a communication system to which an embodiment of the present application is applied. As an example, as shown in FIG. 4, the communication system includes a network device and a terminal device. The network device and the terminal device can directly communicate with each other, or can forward the communication through other devices. It should be noted that FIG. 4 exemplarily shows one network device and one terminal device, and the number of the network device and the terminal device is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

[0144] In the embodiment of the present application, the network device can configure a virtual carrier containing multiple sub-blocks for the terminal device, the virtual carrier corresponds to a continuous frequency domain resource, and one sub-block corresponds to one physical carrier, so that the terminal device can perform data transmission based on the multiple physical carriers mapped by the virtual carrier.

[0145] The network device can also be referred to as a RAN node, an access network device, a RAN entity, or an access node, etc., located at the network side of the communication system, used to help the terminal device to realize wireless access, and a device with wireless transceiving function or a chip or chip system that can be arranged in the device. The network device includes but is not limited to: a base station, an evolved NodeB (eNodeB), an access point (AP), a transmission reception point (TRP), a next generation NodeB (gNB), a next generation base station in a 6G mobile communication system, a base station in a future mobile communication system, or an access node in a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) system, etc. The network device can be a macro base station, a micro base station, or an indoor station, a relay node or a donor node, an open radio access network (ORAN), or a wireless controller in a centralized radio access network (CRAN) scenario. Optionally, the RAN node can also be a server, a wearable device, a vehicle or a vehicle-mounted device, etc. For example, the access network device in the V2X technology can be a road side unit (RSU). All or part of the functions of the network device in the present application can also be implemented by software functions running on hardware, or by virtualized functions instantiated on a platform (such as a cloud platform). The network device in the present application can also be a logical node, a logical module, or software that can realize all or part of the functions of the network device.

[0146] In another possible scenario, multiple RAN nodes cooperate to assist terminal devices to implement wireless access, and different RAN nodes respectively implement part of the functions of the base station. For example, the RAN node can be a central unit (CU), a distributed unit (DU), a CU-control plane (CP), a CU-user plane (UP), or a radio unit (RU), etc. The CU and the DU can be separately arranged, or can be included in the same network element, such as a baseband unit (BBU). The RU can be included in a radio frequency device or a radio frequency unit, such as a radio frequency remote unit (RRU), an active AAU, or a remote radio head (RRH).

[0147] In different systems, the CU (or CU-CP and CU-UP), DU or RU can also have different names, but those skilled in the art can understand their meanings. For example, in the ORAN system, the CU can also be referred to as O-CU (open CU), the DU can also be referred to as O-DU, the CU-CP can also be referred to as O-CU-CP, the CU-UP can also be referred to as O-CU-UP, and the RU can also be referred to as O-RU. For the convenience of description, the CU, CU-CP, CU-UP, DU and RU are taken as examples for description in this application. Any one of the CU (or CU-CP, CU-UP), DU and RU in this application can be implemented by a software module, a hardware module, or a combination of a software module and a hardware module.

[0148] The form of the network device is not limited in the embodiments of the present application. The device for implementing the function of the network device can be the network device; or can be a device capable of supporting the network device to implement the function, such as a chip system. The device can be installed in the network device or used in matching with the network device.

[0149] In the embodiments of the present application, the terminal device is a terminal with wireless transceiving function or a chip or chip system that can be provided in the terminal, which accesses the above communication system. The terminal device can also be referred to as a user equipment (UE), a user apparatus, an access terminal, a user unit, a user station, a mobile station, a mobile station, a remote station, a remote terminal, a mobile device, a user terminal, a terminal, a wireless communication device, a user agent or a user apparatus. The terminal device in the embodiments of the present application can be a mobile phone, a tablet computer (Pad), a computer with wireless transceiving function, a virtual reality (VR) terminal device, an augmented reality (AR) terminal device, a wireless terminal in industrial control, a wireless terminal in self-driving, a wireless terminal in remote medical treatment, a wireless terminal in smart grid, a wireless terminal in transportation safety, a wireless terminal in smart city, a wireless terminal in smart home, a vehicle-mounted terminal, a RSU with terminal function, etc. The terminal device in the present application can also be a vehicle-mounted module, a vehicle-mounted component, a vehicle-mounted chip or a vehicle-mounted unit built in a vehicle as one or more components or units, and the vehicle can implement the method provided in the present application by the built-in vehicle-mounted module, vehicle-mounted component, vehicle-mounted chip or vehicle-mounted unit.

[0150] Embodiments of the present application do not limit the device form of the terminal device, and the device for implementing the function of the terminal device can be a terminal device, or can be a device capable of supporting the terminal device to implement the function, such as a chip system. The device can be installed in the terminal device or used with the terminal device. In embodiments of the present application, the chip system can be composed of a chip, or can include a chip and other discrete devices.

[0151] It should be pointed out that the scheme in the embodiments of the present application can also be applied to other communication systems, and the corresponding names can also be replaced by the names of corresponding functions in other communication systems.

[0152] The following exemplary describes several network architectures applicable to the communication system shown in FIG. 4.

[0153] In a standalone (SA) scenario, as shown in FIG. 5, under a non-shared co-construction architecture, the terminal device is connected to a single network device, and the network device connected by the terminal device and the core network (Core) connected by the network device are of the same standard, such as the core network being a 5G Core, the network device corresponding to a 5G base station, and the 5G base station directly connecting the 5G Core; or the core network being a 6G Core, the network device corresponding to a 6G base station, and the 6G base station directly connecting the 6G Core. In this scenario, multiple physical carriers of the same operator network can be configured as virtual carriers by the network device.

[0154] As shown in FIG. 6, under a shared co-construction architecture, different operator networks adopt a master device sharing manner, the core network corresponding to operator A and the core network corresponding to operator B are connected to the same network device, and the terminal device can access the core networks corresponding to different operators through the same network device, and the network device connected by the terminal device and the different core networks corresponding to different operators connected by the network device are of the same standard, such as the core network corresponding to operator A and the core network corresponding to operator B being a 5G Core, and the network device corresponding to a 5G base station; or the core network corresponding to operator A and the core network corresponding to operator B being a 6G Core, and the network device corresponding to a 6G base station. In this scenario, multiple physical carriers of different operator networks can be configured as virtual carriers by the network device.

[0155] In a dual connectivity (DC) scenario, as shown in FIG. 7, under a non-shared co-construction architecture, a terminal device can simultaneously connect with different / same standard network devices, the different / same standard network devices are connected with a same core network, and the terminal device is applicable to a terminal device in a connected state. For example, the core network is a 5G Core, the network device 1 is a 5G base station, the network device 2 is a 6G base station, and the terminal device simultaneously connects with the 5G base station and the 6G base station, wherein the 5G base station serves as a master station and the 6G base station serves as a secondary station; for another example, the core network is a 6G Core, the network device 1 is a 5G base station, the network device 2 is a 6G base station, and the terminal device simultaneously connects with the 6G base station and the 5G base station, wherein the 6G base station serves as a master station and the 5G base station serves as a secondary station; for another example, the core network is a 6G Core, the network device 1 and the network device 2 are both 6G base stations, and the terminal device simultaneously connects with the two 6G base stations, i.e., the master station and the secondary station are both 6G base stations. In this scenario, multiple physical carriers of a same operator network can also be configured as virtual carriers by the network device.

[0156] As shown in FIG. 8, under a shared co-construction architecture, a terminal device can simultaneously connect with two different / same standard network devices, each network device is shared by an operator A and an operator B, each network device simultaneously connects with a core network of the operator A and a core network of the operator B, and the core network of the operator A and the core network of the operator B support multiple standard core networks. For example, the network device 1 and the network device 2 are both 5G base stations, and the core network of the operator A and the core network of the operator B are both 5G Core; for another example, the network device 1 and the network device 2 are both 6G base stations, and the core network of the operator A and the core network of the operator B are both 6G Core; for another example, the network device 1 is a 5G base station and the network device 2 is a 6G base station, and the core network of the operator A and the core network of the operator B are both 5G / 6G Core; for another example, the network device 1 is a 6G base station and the network device 2 is a 5G base station, and the core network of the operator A and the core network of the operator B are both 5G / 6G Core. In this scenario, multiple physical carriers of different operator networks can also be configured as virtual carriers by the network device.

[0157] The communication method provided by the embodiments of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. 9-16.

[0158] Exemplarily, FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of a communication method provided by the embodiments of the present application. The communication is exemplified by the communication between the network device and the terminal device shown in FIG. 4. Of course, the subject performing the action of the terminal device in the method can also be a device / module in the terminal device, such as a chip, processor, processing unit, etc. in the terminal device, which is not limited herein; and the subject performing the action of the network device in the method can also be a device / module in the network device, such as a chip, processor, processing unit, etc. in the network device, which is not limited herein.

[0159] As shown in FIG. 9, the communication method comprises:

[0160] S901, the network device sends first configuration information to the terminal device. Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the first configuration information from the network device.

[0161] S902, the terminal device communicates with the network device according to the first configuration information.

[0162] The S901 and S902 are described in detail as follows. For S901:

[0163] In the embodiments of the present application, the network device generates and sends the first configuration information, and the first configuration information is information for configuring a virtual carrier, for example, the first configuration information is used to indicate a virtual carrier containing a plurality of sub blocks. The virtual carrier corresponds to a continuous frequency domain resource, or the virtual carrier is composed of a continuous frequency domain resource, or the virtual carrier contains a continuous frequency domain resource, and the frequency domain resource corresponding to the virtual carrier is used to represent the physical frequency domain resource of a plurality of physical carriers, or the frequency domain resource corresponding to the virtual carrier contains the physical frequency domain resource of a plurality of physical carriers. That is, the virtual carrier corresponds to a plurality of physical carriers, and the plurality of physical carriers can be associated with the same PLMN, or associated with different PLMNs, or each physical carrier is associated with a plurality of PLMNs, which is not limited herein.

[0164] It should be understood that the frequency domain resource of the virtual carrier can be referred to as a virtual frequency domain resource or a frequency domain virtual resource, and the frequency domain resource of the actual transmission physical carrier can be referred to as a physical frequency domain resource or a frequency domain physical resource. The virtual frequency domain resource of the virtual carrier has a corresponding relationship with the physical frequency domain resource of the physical carrier. The frequency domain resource position of the sub block in the virtual carrier can be referred to as a frequency domain virtual resource position or a virtual frequency domain resource position, and the frequency domain resource position of the sub block in the physical carrier can be referred to as a frequency domain physical resource position or a physical frequency domain resource position, which is not limited herein.

[0165] The plurality of sub-blocks included in the virtual carrier are obtained by continuously dividing the frequency domain resources of the virtual carrier from the starting position, each sub-block occupies a continuous frequency domain resource in the virtual carrier, and the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by each sub-block in the virtual carrier can be the same, such as uniform division, or different, such as non-uniform division, which is not limited. For each sub-block in the virtual carrier, an index or number or identifier of the sub-block can be configured, for example, the index or number or identifier of the sub-block can be sequentially increased from left to right according to the position of the sub-block in the virtual carrier, and the continuous number, the starting number can be 0 or 1.

[0166] As shown in FIG. 10, the frequency domain resources of the virtual carrier are configured with 150 resource blocks (RBs), the index of the 150 RBs is 0-149, wherein the 0th-49th RBs are configured as a sub-block 1, the 50th-99th RBs are configured as a sub-block 2, and the 100th-149th RBs are configured as a sub-block 3. The RBs of the virtual carrier can also be referred to as virtual RBs (VRBs).

[0167] It should be understood that the bandwidth of the carrier can be determined according to the subcarrier spacing (SCS) and the number of frequency domain resources, for example, SCS=15KHz, one RB is composed of 12 subcarriers in the frequency domain, and the bandwidth of one RB is 180KHz, so the bandwidth of the virtual carrier shown in FIG. 10 is 27MHz, and the bandwidth of each sub-block is 9MHz.

[0168] In the virtual carrier, one sub-block corresponds to one physical carrier, or one sub-block is used to represent one physical carrier, and the frequency domain resource occupied by the sub-block in the virtual carrier is used to indicate the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block, or the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by the sub-block in the virtual carrier is equal to the size of the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block. As shown in FIG. 10, the sub-block 1-sub-block 3 are distributed and occupy 50 RBs in the virtual carrier, and the frequency domain physical resources for data transmission in the physical carriers corresponding to the sub-block 1-sub-block 3 are also 50 RBs.

[0169] In a possible design, the frequency domain resources of the virtual carrier can include first type RBs and second type RBs, or include only the second type RBs. The first type RBs are mapped to two adjacent subblocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent subblocks. The two adjacent subblocks refer to two subblocks with adjacent serial numbers in the virtual carrier or frequency domain resources adjacent to each other, and there is no other subblock between the two adjacent subblocks. The first type RBs mapped to the two adjacent subblocks in the virtual carrier can be understood as a part of frequency domain resources in a first type RB is occupied by one of the two adjacent subblocks, and another part of frequency domain resources is occupied by the other subblock. For example, the resources in a first type RB can be divided in the granularity of resource elements (REs), and accordingly, the part of frequency domain resources occupied by the first type RB by the two adjacent subblocks is also mapped to the frequency domain physical resources of the two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent subblocks, respectively.

[0170] Therefore, the first type RB can refer to an RB occupied by the two adjacent subblocks, and the frequency domain resources of each of the two adjacent subblocks include part of the frequency domain resources in the first type RB. It should be understood that, in the case that there is a second type RB in the virtual carrier, at most two part of the frequency domain resources in the second type RB are included in the frequency domain resources of each subblock. For example, the frequency domain starting position of a subblock in the virtual carrier is located in a first type RB, and / or the frequency domain ending position of a subblock in the virtual carrier is located in a first type RB.

[0171] It should be understood that the size of the frequency domain resources occupied by each of the two adjacent subblocks in the second type RB can be the same or different, and no limitation is made in this regard.

[0172] In the embodiments of the present application, the part of the frequency domain resources in the second type RB included in the frequency domain resources of a subblock can be used to represent the frequency domain physical resources of a guard band that can be used for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the subblock. That is, if the frequency domain resources of a subblock include part of the resources in the second type RB, the size of the part of the frequency domain resources in the second type RB is the size of the frequency domain physical resources of the guard band for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the subblock.

[0173] The second type RB is mapped to a subblock in the virtual carrier or a physical carrier corresponding to the subblock. The second type RB mapped to a subblock in the virtual carrier can be understood as a second type RB occupied by a subblock in the virtual carrier, or the frequency domain resources of a subblock include at least one second type RB, and accordingly, a second type RB of a subblock is mapped to a frequency domain physical resource of a physical carrier corresponding to the subblock.

[0174] The frequency domain resource of the sub-block shown in FIG. 10 is composed of the second type RBs and does not include the first type RBs. It can be considered that the sub-block shown in FIG. 10 is divided in RB granularity.

[0175] As shown in FIG. 11, the virtual carrier includes 150 RBs, the sub-block 1 and the sub-block 2 in the virtual carrier jointly occupy the 50th RB, the frequency domain resource of the sub-block 1 includes the first 49 RBs and the first part of REs in the 50th RB, the frequency domain resource of the sub-block 2 includes the second part of REs in the 50th RB and the 51st to 99th RBs, and the frequency domain resource of the sub-block 3 includes the 100th to 149th RBs. Then, the 50th RB is the first type RB, and the first 49 RBs, the 51st to 99th RBs and the 100th to 149th RBs are the second type RBs.

[0176] For the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by the two sub-blocks in the second type RBs respectively, the network device can send second indication information to the terminal device, and correspondingly, the terminal device receives the second indication information from the network device. The second indication information is used to indicate the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by the first type RB in one sub-block, or is used to indicate the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by one sub-block in the first type RB.

[0177] Continuing to refer to FIG. 11, for example, one RB includes 12 REs, if the frequency domain resource of the sub-block 1 includes the first 7 REs in the 50th RB, and the frequency domain resource of the sub-block 2 includes the remaining 5 REs in the 50th RB, the second indication information can indicate that the 50th RB occupies 7 REs in the sub-block 1, or the second indication information can indicate that the 50th RB occupies 5 REs in the sub-block 2, or the second indication information can indicate that the 50th RB occupies 7 REs in the sub-block 1 and 5 REs in the sub-block 2.

[0178] Optionally, the second indication information can be sent in the first configuration information or can be sent separately from the first configuration information, and no limitation is made in this regard.

[0179] In a possible implementation, the multiple sub-blocks correspond to continuous carriers respectively, as shown in FIG. 12, the multiple physical carriers are continuous in the frequency domain, and the guard band between the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 can be used for data transmission, and the guard band between the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 can also be used for data transmission, that is, there can be no guard band between the two adjacent continuous physical carriers. Since the multiple physical carriers are continuous, when there is no guard band between the two adjacent continuous physical carriers, the multiple physical carriers can be regarded as one large bandwidth physical carrier, and the large bandwidth physical carrier is still provided with guard bands at both ends, and the guard bands are connected by a continuous bandwidth or a continuous physical frequency domain resource for data transmission.

[0180] In this implementation, the frequency domain physical resources for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block can include the frequency domain physical resources of the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block. It can be understood that the frequency domain resources occupied by the sub-block in the virtual carrier can include the physical frequency domain resources used as the guard band in the physical carrier and the original physical frequency domain resources for data transmission in the physical carrier.

[0181] In another possible implementation, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can also be non-contiguous carriers. As shown in FIG. 13, the plurality of physical carriers are non-contiguous in the frequency domain, and there is a certain frequency domain resource or bandwidth interval between adjacent physical carriers. The physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 are non-contiguous in the frequency domain, and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 are non-contiguous in the frequency domain. In this implementation, the two ends of each physical carrier need to have a guard band. Therefore, the frequency domain physical resources for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block can not include the physical frequency domain resources of the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block. It can be understood that the frequency domain resources occupied by the sub-block in the virtual carrier are the original physical frequency domain resources for data transmission in the physical carrier.

[0182] In yet some possible implementation, some of the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be contiguous carriers, and some of the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be non-contiguous carriers. As shown in FIG. 14, the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 are non-contiguous in the frequency domain, and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 are contiguous in the frequency domain. At this time, the two contiguous physical carriers can be regarded as a large-bandwidth physical carrier, and the guard bands at the two ends of the large-bandwidth physical carrier still exist. The guard bands are connected by a continuous bandwidth or physical frequency domain resources for data transmission. That is, the guard bands adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 can be used for data transmission. Therefore, the frequency domain resources corresponding to the sub-block 2 can include the physical frequency domain resources of the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2, and the frequency domain resources corresponding to the sub-block 3 can include the physical frequency domain resources of the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3. Since the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 are non-contiguous, the guard bands at the two ends of the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 are used for data transmission. Therefore, the frequency domain resources of the sub-block 1 can not include the frequency domain resources of the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1.

[0183] That is, the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks can be intra-band or inter-band.

[0184] Thus, the first configuration information configured by the network device can include the frequency domain physical resource location information of each sub-block in the corresponding one physical carrier, and the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding one physical carrier indicates the frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding one physical carrier of the sub-block. In other words, the first configuration information includes the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block, and the frequency domain physical resource location of the sub-block can be considered as the frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding one physical carrier of the sub-block.

[0185] The frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding one physical carrier can include the bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier and the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block in the physical carrier. The bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier can be the bandwidth for data transmission in the corresponding one physical carrier of the sub-block, and can also be referred to as the frequency domain physical resource size occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier or the frequency domain physical resource size for data transmission in the corresponding one physical carrier of the sub-block, which can be indicated by the bandwidth or the frequency domain resource size occupied by the sub-block in the virtual carrier. As shown in FIG. 10, the bandwidth occupied by the sub-block 1 in the physical carrier is indicated by the index 0-49 of the RB occupied in the virtual carrier. As shown in FIG. 11, the bandwidth occupied by the sub-block 1 in the physical carrier is indicated by the index 0-49 of the second type RB occupied in the virtual carrier and the index 0-6 of the RE in the first type RB.

[0186] The frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block in the physical carrier can be the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the corresponding one physical carrier of the sub-block, or the frequency domain physical starting position of the bandwidth for data transmission in the corresponding one physical carrier of the sub-block. For example, in the scenario where the three physical carriers corresponding to the three sub-blocks shown in FIG. 10 are continuous carriers as shown in FIG. 12, the bandwidth of one RB is 180 KHz, each sub-block occupies 50 RBs, the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block 1 in the physical carrier is 2100 MHz, the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block 2 in the physical carrier is 2109 MHz, and the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block 2 in the physical carrier is 2118 MHz. Thus, the terminal device can determine, according to the first configuration information, that the bandwidth position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 is 2100 MHz-2109 MHz, the bandwidth position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 is 2109 MHz-2118 MHz, and the bandwidth position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 is 2118 MHz-2127 MHz.

[0187] It should be understood that, in the case that the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks are continuous carriers, the frequency domain physical resource position information of the sub-block in the corresponding one physical carrier can not include the bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier, and only including the frequency domain physical resource start position of the sub-block in the physical carrier can indicate the bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier.

[0188] For example, in the case that the three physical carriers corresponding to the three sub-blocks shown in FIG. 10 are non-continuous carriers as shown in FIG. 13, the bandwidth of one RB is 180 KHz, each sub-block occupies 50 RBs, the frequency domain physical resource start position of sub-block 1 in the physical carrier is 2100 MHz, the frequency domain physical resource start position of sub-block 2 in the physical carrier is 2114 MHz, and the frequency domain physical resource start position of sub-block 3 in the physical carrier is 2128 MHz. Thus, the terminal device can determine, according to the first configuration information, that the bandwidth position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 1 is 2100 MHz-2109 MHz, the bandwidth position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 2 is 2114 MHz-2123 MHz, and the bandwidth position for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 3 is 2128 MHz-2137 MHz.

[0189] For whether the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission, the network device can send first indication information to the terminal device, the first indication information being used for indicating whether the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission, and correspondingly, the terminal device can receive the first indication information from the network device and determine whether there is a guard band used for data transmission according to the first indication information.

[0190] It should be understood that, in the embodiments of the present application, the guard band that can be generally used for data transmission is the guard band adjacent to any two continuous frequency domain physical resources in the frequency domain. For example, the guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 1, the guard band 1 and the guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 2, and the guard band 1 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 3 in FIG. 12; for example, the guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 2 and the guard band 1 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 3 in FIG. 14. In the case that the physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks are non-continuous carriers as shown in FIG. 13, the first indication information can not exist.

[0191] In a possible implementation, the first indication information can include an ending position of a frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in a corresponding physical carrier and a starting position of a frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the first sub-block and the second sub-block being two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier. The ending position of the frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier refers to an ending position of a frequency domain physical resource used for data transmission in a physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block, and the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier refers to a starting position of a frequency domain physical resource used for data transmission in a physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block. That is, whether a guard band at a position adjacent to two physical carriers corresponding to two adjacent sub-blocks is used for data transmission is indicated by indicating whether an ending position of a frequency domain physical resource in a physical carrier of one of the two adjacent sub-blocks is a starting position of a frequency domain physical resource in the physical carrier of the other sub-block.

[0192] In a case where the first indication information is used to indicate that the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is used for data transmission, the ending position of the frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier is the same as the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier. Conversely, in a case where the first indication information is used to indicate that the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block is not used for data transmission, the ending position of the frequency domain physical resource of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier is different from the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier.

[0193] For example, in the virtual carrier including three sub-blocks shown in FIG. 10, the sub-block 1 and the sub-block 2 are two adjacent sub-blocks, and the sub-block 2 and the sub-block 3 are two adjacent sub-blocks. If the ending position of the frequency domain physical resource of the sub-block 1 in the corresponding physical carrier and the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource of the sub-block 2 in the corresponding physical carrier are both 2109 MHz, and the ending position of the frequency domain physical resource of the sub-block 2 in the corresponding physical carrier and the starting position of the frequency domain physical resource of the sub-block 3 in the corresponding physical carrier are both 2118 MHz, the first indication information can indicate that the physical carriers corresponding to the three sub-blocks are contiguous carriers as shown in FIG. 12, and indicate that the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 is used for data transmission, and the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 and the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 is used for data transmission. At this time, the first indication information can indicate which part of the guard band in the physical carriers corresponding to two adjacent sub-blocks is used for data transmission.

[0194] If the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block 1 in the physical carrier is 2100MHz, the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block 2 in the physical carrier is 2114MHz, and the frequency domain physical resource starting position of the sub-block 3 in the physical carrier is 2128MHz, the first indication information indicates that the three sub-blocks correspond to the non-continuous carrier as shown in FIG. 13, and indicates that the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1, the sub-block 2 or the sub-block 3 is not used for data transmission or exists.

[0195] In another possible implementation, the first indication information can be specifically used to indicate whether the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in the physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission. That is, the first indication information is used to indicate whether the guard band adjacent to the two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks is used for data transmission.

[0196] For example, in the virtual carrier containing three sub-blocks shown in FIG. 10, the guard band on the left side of each physical carrier is referred to as guard band 1, and the guard band on the right side is referred to as guard band 2. Each sub-block can correspond to a first indication information. The first indication information corresponding to the sub-block 1 is used to indicate whether the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1 (including the guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 1) is used for data transmission. The first indication information corresponding to the sub-block 2 is used to indicate whether the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 (including the guard band 1 and the guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2) is used for data transmission. The first indication information corresponding to the sub-block 3 is used to indicate whether the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 2 in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3 (including the guard band 1 of the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block 3) is used for data transmission.

[0197] If the first indication information corresponding to the sub-block 1, the sub-block 2 and the sub-block 3 respectively indicates that it is used for data transmission, the physical carriers corresponding to the three sub-blocks can be the continuous carrier as shown in FIG. 12. If the first indication information corresponding to the sub-block 1, the sub-block 2 and the sub-block 3 respectively indicates that it is not used for data transmission, the physical carriers corresponding to the three sub-blocks can be the non-continuous carrier as shown in FIG. 13. If the first indication information corresponding to the sub-block 1, the sub-block 2 and the sub-block 3 respectively indicates that it is partially used for data transmission and partially not used for data transmission, the physical carriers corresponding to the three sub-blocks can be the partially non-continuous carrier as shown in FIG. 14.

[0198] In this implementation, the first indication information can be indicated by at least 1 bit, and the bit value of 1 is used to indicate that the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in the physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, the bit value of 0 is used to indicate that the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in the physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is not used for data transmission, or the bit value of 0 is used to indicate that the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in the physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, and the bit value of 1 is used to indicate that the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in the physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is not used for data transmission, and no limitation is made thereto.

[0199] In another possible implementation, the first indication information can be specifically used to indicate whether the two guard bands in the physical carrier corresponding to one sub-block are used for data transmission. In this implementation, the first indication information can be indicated by at least 2 bits, for example, the bit value of 00 indicates that the two guard bands in the physical carrier corresponding to one sub-block are not used for data transmission, the bit value of 01 indicates that the guard band 1 of the two guard bands in the physical carrier corresponding to one sub-block is not used for data transmission and the guard band 2 is used for data transmission, the bit value of 10 indicates that the guard band 1 of the two guard bands in the physical carrier corresponding to one sub-block is used for data transmission and the guard band 2 is not used for data transmission, and the bit value of 11 indicates that the two guard bands in the physical carrier corresponding to one sub-block are used for data transmission, and no limitation is made thereto.

[0200] Optionally, the first indication information can be included in the frequency domain physical resource location information of each sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, or the first indication information can be included in the first configuration information or can be sent separately from the first configuration information, and no limitation is made thereto.

[0201] Optionally, one sub-block can correspond to one first indication information, or a plurality of sub-blocks can correspond to one first indication information, that is, one indication information can be used to indicate whether the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to all sub-blocks is used for data transmission, and no limitation is made thereto.

[0202] In the case of indicating whether the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to all sub-blocks is used for data transmission by one first indication information, in a possible implementation, the first indication information can be indicated by a bitmap.

[0203] In this implementation, in one possible design, each bit in the bitmap is used to indicate whether a guard band of a physical carrier corresponding to a sub-block is used for data transmission, two bits are used to indicate a sub-block, and the indication order of the bits in the bitmap can be arranged according to the order of the sub-blocks in the virtual carrier. For example, if a bit value of 0 indicates that a guard band of a physical carrier corresponding to a sub-block is not used for data transmission, and a bit value of 1 indicates that a guard band of a physical carrier corresponding to a sub-block is used for data transmission. In the scenario shown in FIG. 12, the first indication information can be indicated by 011110, and in the scenario shown in FIG. 14, the first indication information can be indicated by 000110, according to the order from left to right, two bits indicate that two guard bands in a physical carrier corresponding to a sub-block are used for data transmission.

[0204] In another possible design, each bit in the bitmap is used to indicate whether a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to another sub-block is used for data transmission, in this case, the number of bits in the first indication information (bitmap) can be determined according to the number of physical carriers corresponding to the sub-blocks that are continuous in the frequency domain, and the indication order of the bits in the bitmap can be arranged according to the order of the sub-blocks corresponding to the physical carriers that are continuous in the frequency domain in the virtual carrier. For example, if a bit value of 0 indicates that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to another sub-block is not used for data transmission, and a bit value of 1 indicates that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to another sub-block is used for data transmission. In the scenario shown in FIG. 12, the first indication information can be indicated by 1111, and in the scenario shown in FIG. 14, the first indication information can be indicated by 11, each bit indicates that a guard band adjacent to a physical carrier corresponding to another sub-block is used for data transmission. In this design, it can be assumed that an unindicated guard band is not used for data transmission, that is, a guard band in a physical carrier that is not adjacent to another physical carrier is not used for data transmission, such as guard band 1 and guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 1, guard band 1 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 2, and guard band 2 of the physical carrier corresponding to sub-block 3 shown in FIG. 14.

[0205] In another possible design, each bit in the bitmap indicates whether two guard bands adjacent to two continuous physical carriers corresponding to two adjacent sub-blocks are used for data transmission, in which case, the number of bits in the first indication information (bitmap) can also be determined according to the number of physical carriers continuous in the frequency domain corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks, and the indication order of each bit in the bitmap can be arranged according to the order of the sub-blocks corresponding to the physical carriers continuous in the frequency domain in the virtual carrier. For example, a bit value of 0 indicates that two guard bands adjacent to two continuous physical carriers corresponding to two adjacent sub-blocks are not used for data transmission, and a bit value of 1 indicates that two guard bands adjacent to two continuous physical carriers corresponding to two adjacent sub-blocks are used for data transmission. In the scenario shown in FIG. 12, the first indication information can be indicated by 11, and in the scenario shown in FIG. 14, the first indication information can be indicated by 1, each bit indicating that two guard bands adjacent to two continuous physical carriers corresponding to two adjacent sub-blocks are used for data transmission. In this design, the unindicated guard bands can also be assumed to be not used for data transmission.

[0206] It should be understood that the above examples show several ways in which the first indication information indicates whether the guard bands are used for data transmission, and embodiments of the present application are not limited in this regard.

[0207] Optionally, the first configuration information can further include the bandwidth or the frequency domain resource size of the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block, so that the frequency domain resource size of the guard band not used for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-block can be determined according to the frequency domain resource size of the sub-block. Alternatively, the first configuration information can further include the frequency domain resource size or the bandwidth of the guard band not used for data transmission in the physical carrier corresponding to each sub-block.

[0208] Further, the network device can also configure a BWP for communication of the terminal device within the virtual carrier, and therefore the first configuration information is also used to indicate the BWP for communication of the terminal device within the virtual carrier, which includes the frequency domain resources corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks within the virtual carrier. That is, the BWP within the virtual carrier can occupy the frequency domain resources of at least two sub-blocks, and correspondingly, the BWP within the virtual carrier can be mapped to the plurality of physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks occupied by the BWP. Thus, the BWP across multiple carriers can be configured, so that the network can flexibly switch the BWP or adjust the BWP width according to the load condition.

[0209] As shown in FIG. 15, a BWP is configured in sub-block 1 and sub-block 2 in the virtual carrier, the BWP occupies one half of the frequency domain resources in sub-block 1, such as 25 RBs (i.e., 25th-49th RBs), and one half of the frequency domain resources in sub-block 2, such as 25 RBs (i.e., 50th-74th RBs), and the frequency domain resources of the BWP are 50 RBs.

[0210] Optionally, the bandwidth of the BWP can be larger than the bandwidth of the maximum sub-block or the maximum physical carrier. It should be understood that the bandwidth of the BWP cannot exceed the bandwidth of the virtual carrier.

[0211] At this time, the first configuration information can further include frequency domain location information of the BWP in the virtual carrier, the frequency domain location information including a frequency domain starting position of the BWP in the virtual carrier and a bandwidth of the BWP. The frequency domain starting position of the BWP in the virtual carrier can be indicated by a starting frequency domain resource sequence number of the BWP in the virtual carrier, for example, the frequency domain starting position of the BWP in the virtual carrier is the 20th RB, and the bandwidth of the BWP can be indicated by the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by the BWP in the virtual carrier, for example, the size of the frequency domain resource occupied by the BWP in the virtual carrier is 70 RBs. In this way, it can be determined that the BWP occupies the frequency domain resources of multiple sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

[0212] Since the BWP configured in the virtual carrier can occupy at least two sub-blocks, at least two transport blocks (TBs) are supported in the BWP for transmission in a frequency division manner, and one TB is mapped to one sub-block occupied by the BWP. For example, the BWP is configured in sub-block 1 and sub-block 2 in the virtual carrier, and the frequency domain resources of one sub-block 1 and the frequency domain resources of sub-block 2 occupied by the BWP can be used for transmission of one TB, as shown in FIG. 16. In this way, by supporting TB mapping based on frequency division in the BWP, the radio frequency (RF) capability of the terminal device is considered, and the terminal device is facilitated to implement.

[0213] It should be understood that under the sub-block structure shown in FIG. 11, there is a first type of RB, and when resource mapping is performed in a sub-block granularity, a case can occur that two different TBs transmit part of the content in one RB in a frequency division manner.

[0214] The BWP supports hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission based on sub-blocks. For example, the BWP is configured in sub-block 1 and sub-block 2 in the virtual carrier, and if TB transmission is performed in sub-block 1, HARQ feedback or HARQ retransmission can be performed in sub-block 1 or in sub-block 2.

[0215] In one possible design, the first configuration information can be carried in a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) message and transmitted.

[0216] In addition, in the embodiments of the present application, the virtual carrier configured by the network device can correspond to a virtual cell identifier (virtual Cell ID), and the virtual cell identifier is used for terminal device to perform scrambling processing on transmitted data and / or to generate reference signals.

[0217] In a user centric no cell (UCNC) scenario, the network device can send the virtual cell identifier corresponding to the virtual carrier to the terminal device. Correspondingly, the terminal device receives the virtual cell identifier corresponding to the virtual carrier from the network device.

[0218] In a possible design, the virtual cell identifier can be carried in a synchronization signal or an RRC message and sent. Optionally, the virtual cell identifier can be included in the first configuration information.

[0219] In the UCNC scenario, the network device can send a dedicated terminal device identifier or a terminal device specific identifier to the terminal device, such as a terminal device scrambling identifier (UE scrambling ID) configured by the network device for the terminal device, so that the terminal device can perform scrambling processing on transmitted data and / or generate reference signals according to the dedicated terminal device identifier.

[0220] For S902:

[0221] After receiving the first configuration information from the network device, the terminal device can determine the virtual carrier according to the first configuration information and communicate with the network device on the virtual carrier. For example, the terminal device learns the correspondence between each sub-block and the physical carrier according to the first configuration information, and thus maps the virtual carrier to a plurality of corresponding physical carriers to communicate with the network device. Correspondingly, the network device can also communicate with the terminal device on the virtual carrier.

[0222] It should be understood that the virtual carrier in the embodiments of the present application can be an uplink carrier, a downlink carrier, or a carrier for uplink and downlink, and no limitation is made in this regard.

[0223] Based on the communication method shown in FIG. 9, the network device configures a virtual carrier containing a plurality of sub-blocks, and maps a plurality of physical carriers to the sub-blocks in the virtual carrier. By configuring the frequency domain resources of the sub-blocks, the frequency domain physical resources for data transmission in the physical carriers can be flexibly adjusted. Compared with CA, by configuring a virtual carrier that can map a plurality of physical carriers, not only the signaling overhead can be saved, but also the carriers can be activated or deactivated frequently.

[0224] It can be understood that, in each of the above embodiments, the method and / or steps implemented by the network device can also be implemented by components (such as a processor, a chip, a chip system, a circuit, a logic module, or software) available to the network device; the method and / or steps implemented by the terminal device can also be implemented by components (such as a processor, a chip, a chip system, a circuit, a logic module, or software) available to the terminal device.

[0225] The above mainly introduces the schemes provided in the application. Accordingly, the application also provides a communication apparatus, which is used to implement various methods in the above method embodiments. The communication apparatus can be the network device in the above method embodiments, or an apparatus containing the network device, or a component available to the network device, such as a chip or a chip system. Alternatively, the communication apparatus can be the terminal device in the above method embodiments, or an apparatus containing the terminal device, or a component available to the terminal device, such as a chip or a chip system.

[0226] It can be understood that, in order to implement the above functions, the communication apparatus contains corresponding hardware structures and / or software modules for executing various functions. Those skilled in the art should easily realize that, in combination with the units and algorithm steps of the examples described in the embodiments disclosed herein, the application can be implemented in the form of hardware or a combination of hardware and computer software. Whether a certain function is implemented in hardware or computer software driving hardware depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Those skilled in the art can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered beyond the scope of the application.

[0227] The embodiments of the application can divide the communication apparatus into functional modules according to the above method embodiments, for example, each functional module can be divided according to each function, or two or more functions can be integrated into one processing module. The above integrated module can be implemented in the form of hardware or software functional module. It should be noted that the division of modules in the embodiments of the application is illustrative, and is only a logical function division. There can be another division manner when actually implemented.

[0228] Taking the communication apparatus as the network device or the terminal device in the above method embodiments, FIG. 17 is a structural schematic diagram of a communication apparatus provided in an embodiment of the application. As shown in FIG. 17, the communication apparatus 1700 includes a processing module 1701 and a communication module 1702. The processing module 1701 is used to execute the processing functions of the network device or the terminal device in the above method embodiments. The communication module 1702 is used to execute the communication functions of the network device or the terminal device in the above method embodiments.

[0229] All the related content of each step involved in the method embodiments can be cited to the function description of the corresponding function module, and will not be repeated here.

[0230] In a possible design, the communication module 1702 can include a receiving module and a sending module (not shown in FIG. 17). The sending module and the receiving module are respectively used for implementing the sending function and the receiving function of the communication apparatus 1700.

[0231] In a possible design, the communication apparatus 1700 can further include a storage module (not shown in FIG. 17), which stores programs or instructions. When the processing module 1701 executes the programs or instructions, the communication apparatus 1700 can perform the functions of the network device or the terminal device in the method shown in FIG. 9.

[0232] In some embodiments, the processing module 1701 involved in the communication apparatus 1700 can be implemented by a processor or a processor-related circuit component, and can be a processor or a processing unit; and the communication module 1702 can be implemented by a transceiver or a transceiver-related circuit component, and can be a transceiver or a receiving unit.

[0233] Exemplarily, FIG. 18 is a structural schematic diagram of another communication apparatus provided by an embodiment of the present application. The communication apparatus can be a network device or a terminal device in the method embodiments, or can be a chip (system) or other components or elements that can be arranged in the network device or the terminal device. As shown in FIG. 18, the communication apparatus 1800 can include a processor 1801, a bus 1802, a communication interface 1803, and a memory 1804. The processor 1801, the memory 1804, and the communication interface 1803 communicate through the bus 1802. The communication apparatus 1800 can be the network device or the terminal device. It should be understood that the number of processors and memories in the communication apparatus 1800 is not limited in the present application.

[0234] The bus 1802 can be a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus or an extended industry standard architecture (EISA) bus, etc. The bus can be divided into an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, etc. For the convenience of representation, only one line is shown in FIG. 18, but it does not mean that there is only one bus or only one type of bus. The bus 1802 can include a path for transmitting information between various components (for example, the memory 1804, the processor 1801, and the communication interface 1803) of the communication apparatus 1800.

[0235] The processor 1801 can include any one or more of a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a microprocessor (MP), or a digital signal processor (DSP), among other processors.

[0236] The memory 1804 can include volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM), among other types of dynamic storage. The processor 1801 can also include non-volatile memory, such as read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, a hard disk drive (HDD), or a solid-state drive (SSD), among other types of non-volatile memory.

[0237] The communication interface 1803 uses a transceiver module, such as but not limited to a network interface card, a transceiver, and the like, to enable communication between the communication apparatus 1800 and other devices or communication networks.

[0238] The memory 1804 stores executable program code that, when executed by the processor 1801, implements the functionality of the network device or the terminal device in the aforementioned method embodiments, respectively. That is, the memory 1804 has instructions for performing the aforementioned communication method.

[0239] In yet another aspect, the embodiments of the present application further provide a computer program product containing instructions, which, when executed on a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any of the above embodiments.

[0240] In yet another aspect, the embodiments of the present application further provide a computer readable storage medium. The computer readable storage medium stores computer programs or instructions, which, when executed on a communication apparatus, cause the communication apparatus to perform the method of any of the above embodiments.

[0241] In the above embodiments, all or part of the embodiments can be implemented by software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof. When implemented by software, all or part of the embodiments can be implemented in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer program instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, all or part of the processes or functions according to the embodiments of the present application are generated. The computer can be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable apparatus. The computer instructions can be stored in a computer readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer readable storage medium to another computer readable storage medium, for example, the computer instructions can be transmitted from one website, computer, server or data center to another website, computer, server or data center through wired (for example, coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital subscriber line (DSL)) or wireless (for example, infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) mode. The computer readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or data storage device such as one or more servers, data centers, etc. integrated with one or more media. The available media can be magnetic media (for example, floppy disk, hard disk, magnetic tape), optical media (for example, DVD), or semiconductor media (for example, solid state disk (SSD)) and the like.

[0242] Those skilled in the art can appreciate that the units and algorithm steps of the examples described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether the functions are implemented in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Skilled professionals can use different methods to implement the described functions for each specific application, but such implementation should not be considered beyond the scope of the present application.

[0243] Those skilled in the art can clearly understand that, for the convenience and brevity of the description, the specific working processes of the above-described system, device and unit can refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, which will not be described here.

[0244] In several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, device and method can be implemented in other manners. For example, the described device embodiments are merely schematic. The division of the units is merely logical function division. There can be other division manners in actual implementation. For example, a plurality of units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. In addition, the displayed or discussed mutual couplings or direct couplings or communication connections between different units, can be indirect couplings or communication connections through some interfaces, devices or units, and can be in electrical, mechanical or other forms.

[0245] The units described as separate components can or can not be physically separate, and the components shown as units can or can not be physical units, i.e., can be located in one place, or can be distributed on a plurality of network units. Part or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the embodiment.

[0246] In addition, each functional unit in the various embodiments of the present application can be integrated into a processing unit, or each unit can exist physically, or two or more units can be integrated into one unit.

[0247] If the functions are implemented in the form of software function units and sold or used as independent products, they can be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solutions of the present application can be embodied in the form of a software product in essence or in the part that contributes to the prior art, or part of the technical solutions can be embodied in the form of a software product. The computer software product is stored in a storage medium, and includes a plurality of instructions for causing a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or an access network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the method described in the various embodiments of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes: a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a ROM, a random access memory RAM, a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and various media that can store program codes.

[0248] Although the present application is described herein in conjunction with various embodiments, other variations of the disclosed embodiments can be understood and implemented by those skilled in the art with reference to the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims. In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude other components or steps, and "a" or "one" does not exclude a plurality. A single processor or other unit can implement several functions listed in the claims. Some measures described in mutually different dependent claims can be combined and produce good results.

[0249] Although the present application has been described in connection with certain specific features and embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that it is intended to cover all modifications and variations of this application which are within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It is intended that all such modifications and variations be included within the scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A communication method characterized by comprising: The method comprises: receiving first configuration information from a network device, the first configuration information being used for indicating a virtual carrier containing a plurality of sub-blocks, the virtual carrier corresponding to a continuous frequency domain resource, the first configuration information comprising frequency domain physical resource position information of each of the sub-blocks in a corresponding physical carrier, the frequency domain physical resource position information of the sub-blocks in the corresponding physical carrier indicating frequency domain physical resource positions for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-blocks; communicating with the network device according to the first configuration information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, The physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks are continuous carriers.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that, The frequency domain physical resource position information of the sub-blocks in the corresponding physical carrier comprises a bandwidth occupied by the sub-blocks in the physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start position of the sub-blocks in the physical carrier.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that, The frequency domain physical resources for data transmission in the corresponding physical carrier of the sub-blocks comprise a guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-blocks.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1-4, characterized in that, The method further comprises: receiving first indication information from the network device, the first indication information being used for indicating that the guard band in the physical carrier corresponding to the sub-blocks is used for data transmission.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein, The first indication information comprises a frequency domain physical resource end position of a first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start position of a second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the frequency domain physical resource end position of the first sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier being the same as the frequency domain physical resource start position of the second sub-block in the corresponding physical carrier, the first sub-block and the second sub-block being two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein, The first indication information is specifically used for indicating that the guard band adjacent to the physical carrier corresponding to the second sub-block in the physical carrier corresponding to the first sub-block is used for data transmission, the first sub-block and the second sub-block being two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1-7, characterized in that, The virtual carrier comprises a first type of resource block (RB), and the first type of RB is mapped to two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein, The method further comprises: receiving second indication information from the network device, the second indication information being used for indicating a frequency domain resource size occupied by the first type of RB in one of the sub-blocks.

10. The method according to any one of claims 1-9, characterized in that, The first configuration information is further used for indicating a bandwidth part (BWP) in the virtual carrier for communication of a terminal device, the BWP comprising frequency domain resources corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein, At least two transport blocks (TBs) are supported in the BWP in a frequency division manner, and one of the TBs is mapped to one of the sub-blocks occupied by the BWP.

12. The method according to claim 10 or 11, characterized in that, Sub-block-based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission is supported in the BWP.

13. The method according to any one of claims 1-12, characterized in that, The first configuration information is carried in a system message or a radio resource control (RRC) message and transmitted.

14. A communication method, comprising: The method comprises: transmitting first configuration information, the first configuration information being used to indicate a virtual carrier containing a plurality of sub-blocks, the virtual carrier corresponding to a continuous frequency domain resource, the first configuration information comprising frequency domain physical resource location information of each of the sub-blocks in a corresponding one of physical carriers, the frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers indicating a frequency domain physical resource location for data transmission in the corresponding one of the physical carriers of the sub-block; communicating with a terminal device on the virtual carrier.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein, The physical carriers corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks are continuous carriers.

16. The method according to claim 14 or 15, characterized in that, The frequency domain physical resource location information of the sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers comprises a bandwidth occupied by the sub-block in the physical carrier and a frequency domain physical resource start location of the sub-block in the physical carrier.

17. The method according to any one of claims 14-16, characterized by, The frequency domain physical resource for data transmission in the corresponding one of the physical carriers of the sub-block comprises a guard band in the corresponding one of the physical carriers of the sub-block.

18. The method according to any one of claims 14-17, characterized by, The method further comprises: transmitting first indication information to the terminal device, the first indication information being used to indicate that the guard band in the corresponding one of the physical carriers of the sub-block is used for data transmission.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein, The first indication information comprises a frequency domain physical resource end location of a first sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers and a frequency domain physical resource start location of a second sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers, the frequency domain physical resource end location of the first sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers being the same as the frequency domain physical resource start location of the second sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers, the first sub-block and the second sub-block being two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein, The first indication information is specifically used to indicate that a guard band adjacent to the corresponding one of the physical carriers of the second sub-block in the corresponding one of the physical carriers of the first sub-block is used for data transmission, the first sub-block and the second sub-block being two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

21. The method according to any one of claims 14-20, characterized by, The virtual carrier comprises a first type of resource block (RB), the first type of RB being mapped to two adjacent sub-blocks in the virtual carrier or two physical carriers corresponding to the two adjacent sub-blocks.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein, The method further comprises: transmitting second indication information to the terminal device, the second indication information being used to indicate a frequency domain resource size occupied by the first type of RB in one of the sub-blocks.

23. The method of any one of claims 14-22, wherein, The first configuration information is further used to indicate a bandwidth part (BWP) in the virtual carrier for communication of the terminal device, the BWP comprising frequency domain resources corresponding to the plurality of sub-blocks in the virtual carrier.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein, At least two transport blocks (TBs) are supported in the BWP in a frequency division manner, one of the TBs being mapped to one of the sub-blocks occupied by the BWP.

25. The method of claim 23 or 24, wherein, Sub-block-based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback and / or HARQ retransmission is supported in the BWP.

26. The method of any one of claims 14-25, wherein, The first configuration information is carried in a system message or an RRC message and transmitted.

27. A communications device, characterized by A module for executing the method of any of claims 1-13 or any of claims 14-26.

28. A communications device, characterized by A module for executing the method of any of claims 1-13 or any of claims 14-26. A processor; The processor is configured to run a computer program or instructions to enable the method of any of claims 1-13 or any of claims 14-26 to be implemented.

29. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, The computer readable storage medium has stored therein computer programs or instructions which, when executed by a communication device, implement the method of any of claims 1-13 or claims 14-26.

30. A computer program product, characterised in that, A computer program product comprising computer program code to, when run on a communication device, implement the method of any of claims 1-13 or claims 14-26.

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